Among the cardinals two are especially mentioned as friendly to our traveller, Raffaelle Riario, nephew of Julius II., and the Venetian Grimani. If we may trust Erasmus' allusions, he was in the way of frequently going in and out at the houses of great men, but his character as a man of letters, whom it was their pride and pleasure to favour, seems to have been strictly maintained. In the great throng of followers of a princely establishment, one wandering scholar more or less made no great matter, and it would not do, from the words "hospitality" and "familiarity" to argue any very close personal intimacy. What strikes one most forcibly is the almost total absence of anything like discussion on public affairs. The only topic on which Erasmus thinks it worth while to make any report is classical studies, and on this he gives us only brief detail. There is no indication that this visit to Rome had any decisive influence upon Erasmus' attitude towards the Church. That was already determined. Nothing could be more distinct than his declarations in the Enchiridion and now, quite recently, in the Adages. Rome could hardly fail to furnish him with new suggestions and illustrations, but it was as far from forcing him into any new attitude of opposition as it was from so influencing Luther on his visit a year later. Both saw many things which startled and shocked them, but Erasmus had already reached the limit of his critical development and Luther had hardly as yet begun to formulate his criticism of the Roman institution. The only exception to the rule of exclusion from public affairs is found in the invitation of Cardinal Riario to write a dissertation on the subject of the proposed war against Venice. It was a most ticklish commission, and Erasmus' solution of it was more than Erasmian. He wrote two treatises, one for the war and the other against it, that those who were to pay their money might have their choice. He put more heart into the second, he says, but the advice of the first was followed. Both these treatises were lost, he tells us, by the treachery of some person. There was an unfounded rumour that the grim old soldier-pope, finding Erasmus' sentiments against war very little to his taste, sent for the author and warned him in future to let politics alone; but it is highly improbable that if Erasmus had had an interview with the pope, even under so untoward circumstances, he would have failed to make some mention of it. Yet it would be far from true that Erasmus lived in Rome with his eyes shut. Numerous little allusions to Roman and Italian traits in his later writings show that he was here, as everywhere, very much of a human being, keenly alive to what was going on about him and mindful of its use on future occasions.