These selections from the English correspondence have made it clear that Erasmus in England was precisely what he had always been, a keen-sighted observer of men and things, a hater of all shams but his own, a sturdy beggar, a jovial companion and correspondent when he was in the mood, above all an independent liver and thinker, dreading any routine that was not self-imposed, but capable of steady and persistent work when he could put his time on congenial tasks. Of these labours, to which he devoted himself in England, the new edition of the Greek New Testament, or, as he preferred to call it, the "New Instrument," held the first place in his interest. It was not to be published until 1516, a year or more after he had left England, and Erasmus says that he consulted manuscripts in Brabant and Basel before printing; but it seems tolerably clear that a considerable part of the preparatory work was done at Cambridge. He writes to Colet,[93] as early as 1511: "I have finished the collation of the New Testament," by which he must mean that he had done all that he intended to do at it in England. In speaking of the work at Basel he refers to the great haste with which it was pushed, the object being, probably, on Froben's part, to get ahead of a similar undertaking reported to be under way in Spain. This latter work, to be known as the "Complutensian Polyglot," was going on under the direction of Cardinal Ximenes at Alcalá (Complutum). It was to include the whole Bible, and though the New Testament was completed in 1514 it was held back to appear with the rest in 1520. When Erasmus says[94] that he used "very many manuscripts in both languages, and those not the readiest to hand, but the most ancient and most correct," he is speaking after the standards of his day. In fact, recent scholarship has shown that he not only used very defective manuscripts of no great antiquity, but that he failed to make adequate use of the best one at his disposal.[95] [93] iii., 107-E. It really seems a little too much to place this begging letter, as Mr. Drummond does, in 1512, after Erasmus had received his pension from Warham. [94] vi., _ad init._ [95] C. R. Gregory, _Prolegomena_ to Tischendorf's New Testament, i., 207-210.