He recounts the favours, actual and expected, of his English patrons, especially of Warham, to whom he here pays one of his usual glowing tributes: "So it came about that what I had abandoned at Rome from so many distinguished cardinals, and so many famous bishops and learned men, all this I seemed to have recovered in this one man." After all, the picture grows a little brighter as he goes on. Now he is ready for Rome again. True, things are looking up again in England,--he wishes it to be quite clear that he is not being turned out of the country, but he hears that under the patronage of the great Leo all talent is streaming towards Rome. He tells what he has done and what he proposes to do, puts in a good word for the persecuted Reuchlin, and promises to be in Rome the coming winter (1515). A letter of the same date to Raphael, the cardinal of St. George, repeats the same impressions of England--vast promises, of which we have no other documentary evidence, and disappointments, equally without witness. On his own evidence we know of a sufficient provision in England to supply all modest requirements of a scholar, and we have a right to take him at his word that he wanted nothing more. From Ham, Erasmus made his way pretty directly to Basel, taking the route by the Rhine valley. His travelling experiences are summed up in the very amusing Colloquy called _Diversoria_, "The Inns," which has been so effectively employed by Mr. Charles Reade in his "The Cloister and the Hearth." The especial point of this dialogue is the difference between the inns of France and of Germany. As to the former, Erasmus takes those of Lyons as typical. Bertulphus begins by saying that he cannot see why so many people want to stay two or three days at Lyons--for his part, he always wants to get to his journey's end as fast as he can. William replies: "Why, I wonder how anyone can ever tear himself away from there." BERT. "Why so?" WILL. "Because it is a place from which the companions of Ulysses could not be torn away; there are sirens there. One could not be better treated in his own house than there in an inn." BERT. "What do they do?" WILL. "At table there was always some woman present, who enlivened the meal with her humour and her charms. Then you find there the most agreeable manners. The first one to meet you is the lady of the house, who salutes you, bids you be merry and excuse the faults of what is set before you. Then follows the daughter, an elegant person, so gay in speech and manner that she would have cheered up Cato himself. They converse with you not as with strange guests, but as with familiar friends." BERT. "I recognise the refinement of the French."