This letter to Archbishop Albert is the most important in the group we are now considering. It shows us practically every aspect of Erasmus' position in the year 1519, and suggests the numerous lines of comment thereon. The least convincing parts of it are those which refer to himself personally. These may be sufficiently explained by that joy in fancying himself persecuted which we have noted in him from the first. It needed but very slight foundations for him to build up a whole fabric of imaginary assaults, aimed at him because he was the one great source from which all intellectual energy might seem to flow. It was like his vanity to be vastly flattered if someone suggested that Luther could never have done what he had done without Erasmus' help, and he magnified that suggestion by saying it over and over to his numerous correspondents in every possible variation. The repeated declaration that he knew nothing about Luther or his books is too silly to deserve attention. He shows the most complete comprehension of what Luther was doing, and practically contradicts himself within the space of a few lines by stating that he has "taken a taste" of certain Lutheran books and been greatly attracted by them. Another curious point is his insistence upon grouping Luther and Reuchlin together and setting himself over against them. In fact the points of view of these two men were at least as different as was that of Erasmus from either of them. Reuchlin was above all things a Humanist, a man of "the languages," and the "tragedy" in which he was concerned, his quarrel with the Dominicans of Cologne, had reference to the use which might properly be made of Hebrew by a sound Christian scholarship. All this was certainly very closely allied with the work of Erasmus and had no direct connection with that of Luther; yet Erasmus, furiously anxious not to seem to have anything in common with either, has no scruple in joining them together in one common reproach.