I could never bring it to pass that he should give me nothing; but that I made a most moderate use of his kindness, all his household will bear me witness. Whatever work I did for him I did for love of learning. Since he seemed born to honour, to promote, and to embellish learning, and spared no labour or care, thinking it reward enough if a good author were put into the hands of the public in worthy form, how could I prey upon a man like this? "Sometimes when he showed to me and other friends the first pages of some great author, how he was transported with joy! how his face glowed! what triumphant words! You would say that he had already taken in the profits of the whole work in fullest measure and was expecting no other return. I am not exalting Froben by decrying others; but it is notorious what incorrect and inelegant editions some publishers have sent us even from Venice and from Rome. From his office, within a few years what volumes have gone forth, and in what noble form! And he has always kept his house free from books of controversy, by which others have gained great profit, lest the cause of good literature and learning should be defiled by any personal hostilities.... Surely it will be an act of gratitude for us all to pray for the welfare of the departed, to celebrate his memory by due praises, and to lend our favour to the house of Froben, which is not to be closed by the death of its master, but will ever strive to its utmost to carry forward what he has begun to still greater and better things." This charming companion picture to the account of the Aldine establishment in Venice is probably in the main correct. It suggests the relation between publisher and author, which we have already tried without entire success to make clear. Apparently, on his own statement, Erasmus was in a way an employee of Froben. The anxiety which he betrays not to seem to take pay from the publisher, was plainly the same feeling which made him reject with such scorn the charge of Scaliger, that he had been in Aldus's employ. He was not ashamed of his work, any more than a European physician of a generation ago was ashamed of his; but he desired to have this work viewed as a labour of love, and any reward--which, of course, he could not entirely do without--was to be considered as a gift freely offered, and to be accepted only under a kind of protest. Besides Froben himself, we find Erasmus making friends with the brothers Amerbach, sons of Froben's predecessor in the business. Writing to Pope Leo X.,[106] to ask his acceptance of the dedication to the works of Jerome, Erasmus enumerates his co-labourers in the great undertaking: [106] iii.¹, 154-C.