"in which shall be taught publicly and without expense the three languages, Hebrew, Greek, and Latin, with the sufficiently splendid salary of about seventy ducats, which may be increased according to the value of the person. The Hebrew and Latin teachers are on hand. Many are competing for the Greek professorship, but it has always been my opinion that a native Greek should be procured, so that the hearers may get the correct pronunciation at once. All the trustees of this undertaking agree with me and have commissioned me to invite, in their behalf, whomever I should judge suitable for this position. I therefore beg you, both by your wonted kindness to me and your devotion to the cause of learning, if you know anyone who you think would do honour to yourself and to me, to send him hither as soon as you can. He will have money for the journey, his salary, and his lodgings. He will have to do with men of honour and refinement. He may have the same confidence in my letter as if the affair were sealed with a hundred contracts. Between good men a bargain may be as well made without bonds. You select the proper man, and I will see to it that he shall not regret coming." The Hebrew teacher referred to was a Jew named Adrian, chosen, it would appear, on the same principle of employing native teachers. It must have required a steady nerve to recommend the appointment of a Jew, even a converted one, at a time when the affair of Reuchlin, turning on just this question of respect for Hebrew learning, had barely ceased to agitate the world of scholars. Erasmus commends Adrian to Ægidius Busleiden in a letter[120] of sound practical sense. Fortune has just thrown him in their way; [120] iii., 353-A. "he is a Hebrew by birth but long since a Christian by religion, a physician by profession, and so skilled in the whole Hebrew literature that in my judgment there is no one at this day to be compared with him. But if my opinion has not sufficient weight with you, all whom I have known in Germany or in Italy who were versed in that language, have borne the same testimony. He not only knows the language perfectly, but is thoroughly acquainted with the mysteries of the authors and has them all at his fingers' ends.... Pray command me if there is anything in which you think I can assist you." The Latin professor mentioned was Conrad Goclenius, the man of all others whom Erasmus selected some few years later, when he thought he was going to die, as the confidant of his most intimate thoughts and wishes. CHAPTER VIII BEGINNINGS OF THE REFORMATION--CORRESPONDENCE OF 1518-1519