This letter to Frederic of Saxony,[135] wanting in our collection, emphasises as strongly as possible the excellence of Luther as a man, and, while disclaiming all interest in his doctrine, urges the Elector to defend him against his persecution. [135] Karl Hartfelder, "Friedrich der Weise von Sachsen und D. Erasmus," in _Zeitschrift für vergleichende Literaturgeschichte_, etc., N. F., iv., 1891. Doubtless he was no less favourable to Luther than he was in the following year, when the Elector Frederic, finding himself at Cologne on imperial business, had an interview with Erasmus, of which his intimate counsellor and biographer Spalatin gives an account[136]: [136] _Friedrichs des Weisen Leben und Zeitgeschichte_, von G. Spalatin, Jena, 1851, p. 164. "There at Cologne the most learned Erasmus of Rotterdam was with the Elector, who talked with him on all kinds of subjects and asked him if he believed that Doctor Martin Luther had erred in his writing and preaching. Thereto he answered in Latin: 'Yes, on two points, namely, that he has attacked the crown of the pope and the bellies of the monks.'" Thereat the Elector laughed and he recalled the saying a year or so before his death (1525). Luther contributes to our impression of this interview in his Table-talk: "Doctor Martin said that the Elector Frederic of Saxony had an interview with Erasmus at Cologne in 1519 and had given him a cloak and said afterward to Spalatin: 'What kind of a man is Erasmus? one cannot tell where one stands with him.' And Duke George said, after his fashion: 'Plague take him! One never knows what he is at. I like better the way of the Wittenbergers; they say yes and no.'"[137] [137] Walch, Luther's _Werke_, xxii., 1623-4. The letter to Hoogstraaten, who had been the chief enemy of Reuchlin, was the boldest venture of Erasmus in this early stage of the Lutheran contest. It is a monument to the writer's skill in defending two sides of a question at once. It is dated in August, 1519, and begins[138]: [138] iii.¹, 484. "When I was reading, some time ago, the books in which your quarrel with Reuchlin is contained, I was often impelled to write to you, first by Christian love, then by the profession of our common studies and further by the special affection with which from a boy I have ever regarded your Order [!], and lastly by an uncommon attraction towards you, whom I understand to be a man of agreeable and courteous manners. That you are most eagerly devoted to our new studies, your writings clearly proclaim, which affect throughout refinement and elegance of diction and leave no doubt what your opinion is as to sound learning."