In the same volume of his correspondence, Erasmus speaks of himself as having surpassed Hercules, who was unable to grapple with two monsters at once, whereas he has not only brought out at the same time the great edition of _S. Jerome_ and the enlarged edition of the _Adagia_, but in so doing has overcome the greatest enemy of the works of man, Time, which is devouring its own offspring.[101] In its expanded and final form, the _Adagia_ fills one of the eleven folio volumes which constitute the set of the works of Erasmus. Drummond speaks of it as “a monument of vast learning ... and a rich repository of anecdotes, quotations, and historical and biographical sketches.... It formed an introduction to the Greek and Latin classics, and it furnished eloquent declamations against kings and monks, war and priestcraft. It served the purpose of a dictionary and a grammar, a common-place book, a journal, and a book of travels all in one.”[102] Froude says that “through the _Adagia_ can be traced the spirit of Lucian, so like was the Europe of the fifteenth century to the Europe of the second.”[103] The divines were outspoken in their indignation. They said (again to quote Froude) that the Proverbs of Solomon were enough, without adding the Proverbs of Erasmus. The revised edition of the _Adagia_ was reprinted by Froben in 1513, from the text of Aldus, in an edition rivalling that of Aldus in the beauty of its typography. The two publishers appear to have made a friendly arrangement with each other and with Erasmus to divide between them the market for the writings of their famous friend. The _Praise of Folly_ (_Encomium Moriæ_), the book which exceeded the _Adagia_ in its final popularity, and which is possibly the only work of Erasmus that continues to be read, three centuries after his death, was written in 1509. Erasmus was at the time again in England, living in the family of his friend, Sir Thomas More. He mentions in the preface that the plan of the work had taken shape in his mind as he was riding across the Alps on his way from Venice to London, and that it had then occurred to him how odd it was that the wisest and wittiest man he knew should have a name which in Greek signified a fool. In another letter, Erasmus gives a somewhat different account, saying that the first suggestion of the book came from More, and that it was, in part at least, based upon More’s conversations with him at Chelsea.[104] I find record of an edition of this book, which is probably the first, printed in Strasburg in 1511 (three years earlier than the issue in Basel) by a printer named Schürer. The text was revised and added to before the printing in Basel and in Paris. It does not appear what relations, if any, the author had with the printer Schürer, whose name was not again associated with his writings.