IT is convenient to make in this place such further reference as is pertinent to my subject to the literary undertakings of Erasmus, of whom I have before spoken as perhaps the most typical author of his time. In popularity, as far as popularity is to be gauged by extent of circulation, his books were excelled only by the writings of Luther, while the range of their distribution--that is, the extent of the territory reached and the variety of the circles of readers by whom they were welcomed--must have been much in advance of anything attained by the writings of Luther. The direct influence of these last was, for a long time at least, limited to Germany and to the Low Countries, while their principal sale was in the common tongue and among the masses of the people. The writings of Erasmus, in their original Latin form, found their way in the first place to the educated circles of the upper classes, and to the more liberal minded of the ecclesiastics, while the versions in the vernacular which speedily followed, in both authorised and unauthorised editions, were taken up with cordial appreciation by all classes of readers throughout Europe. It is undoubtedly the case that, while Erasmus always refused to take sides with the Protestants and held himself to be a dutiful son of the Catholic Church, the influence of his writings was a most important factor in bringing about the conditions that made the Reformation possible. Drummond speaks of the _Praise of Folly_ as “the first decisive trumpet-blast summoning the friends of right and learning to gird on their armour, and heralding the advance of that reforming spirit with which the Papal power was destined ere long to engage in deadly and terrible encounter.”[94] It would, however, be outside of the plan of this study to go into the question of the relations of Erasmus to the Reformation, a theme which has been treated with full knowledge and excellent critical judgment in the scholarly biography of Mr. Drummond, and more recently, with less thoroughness, but with no little force and suggestiveness, in the brilliant biographical study of Mr. Froude. The following are the dates of the more important events in the career of the man who is to be described, not only as a great scholar but as the most successful and influential author of his age. He was born in Rotterdam in 1467, seventeen years after Gutenberg had printed his first book. He was placed as a boy at the school carried on at Deventer by the Brothers of Common Life. The interest taken by this fraternity in the multiplication and circulation of literature, and the importance of its publishing undertakings both during the manuscript period and after the beginning of printing, have already been noted.