[Illustration: QUEEN'S COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE. FROM KNIGHT'S "LIFE OF ERASMUS."] At Cambridge, as elsewhere, Erasmus seems always to have been on the eve of flight, working away at what interested him, but neglecting everything else as far as possible. "I wrote to you once and again in camp," he says to Ammonius, "but meanwhile was in a no less serious warfare here with my emendations of Seneca and Jerome than you with the Frenchmen. Although I was not in camp, Durham has given me ten crowns from the French plunder;--but I'll tell you all about this when I see you, and meanwhile will be on the lookout for your military letters.--Good-bye, best of friends. I don't need to ask of you what you are always doing of your own accord, and yet I do ask that if any chance offers you will help me along with a word of recommendation. For these few months I have cast anchor securely. If things go well, I will fancy that here is my native land, which I have preferred to Rome and where old age is coming upon me; if not I will break away, it doesn't much matter whither, and will at all events die somewhere else. I will call upon all the gods to bear witness to the confidence by which _he whom you know_ has ruined me. If I had promised with three words what he has repeated so often and in such sounding phrases, I know that what I promised I would have performed. May I be damned if I wouldn't rather die than let a man who was dependent on me go destitute. I congratulate you, dear Ammonius, that Fortune, not always so unjust as she is to me, is now, as I hear, smiling upon you. Good-bye again." "For months now," he writes, "I have been living the life of a snail, shut up at home and brooding in silence over my studies. There is a great deal of solitude here; many are away through fear of the plague,--though even when everyone is here it is a solitude. The expense is intolerable and there is not a farthing of profit. Think of it! I swear by all that's sacred that in the five months since I came here I have spent sixty nobles and have only received one from some of my hearers and that with much reluctance on my part. It is certain that during this winter I shall leave no stone unturned and, as they say, shall weigh the anchor of my safety. If things go well, I shall make myself a nest somewhere; if not, I shall certainly fly away from here, I know not whither; if nothing else I will at least die elsewhere." Ammonius reports upon his progress in begging for Erasmus, and Erasmus, quite in the tone of the old correspondence with Battus, thanks him and urges him to further effort. These dolorous letters bear date 1511, but cannot all belong in that year, and month and day are often obviously incorrect. Dated early in 1512 we have a letter to the abbot of St. Bertin. After explaining why he had not reported himself earlier, Erasmus goes on to say: