"There appeared first quite a number of propositions about papal indulgences; then one and another pamphlet about confession and penance. When I heard that certain persons were eager to publish these I seriously advised against it, lest they should be adding to the enmity against learning. There will be witnesses of this, even men who wish well to Luther. Finally there came a swarm of pamphlets; no one saw me reading them; no one heard me praising them or not praising them. For I am not so rash as to approve what I have not read, nor such a trickster as to condemn what I know nothing about,--though this is nowadays a regular practice of those who ought to know better. Germany has some young men who give great promise of learning and eloquence, through whose work I predict that she may some day have cause to boast as England is now boasting with the best of reasons. Of these no one is personally known to me except Eobanus, Hutten, and Beatus. These men are fighting with every form of weapon against the enemies of the languages and of sound learning, which all good men are favouring. I should admit myself that their freedom of speech was intolerable, did I not know in what shameful fashion they are annoyed both in public and in private. Their opponents allow themselves in public preaching, in schools, in banquets, to declaim anything they please in the most hateful, nay, in the most treasonable manner, before the ignorant multitude, yet think it an unbearable thing if one of these scholars dares to comment. Why! the very bees have stings to strike with when they are hurt and flies have teeth to defend themselves if they are attacked. Whence comes this new race of gods? They make 'heretics' of whom they will, but move heaven and earth if anyone calls them slanderers.... "I am in favour of these scholars in this sense: that I look rather to their virtues than to their vices. And when one considers how soaked in vice were those men who in Italy and France gave the first impulse to the revival of ancient learning, one cannot help favouring these men of ours whose characters are such that their theological censors would do well to imitate them rather than abuse them.