Greek text of the New Testament, something will be said farther on. In this "mill," as he calls it, Erasmus continued to grind incessantly for eight years. Besides his work as editor, he was always writing himself some book or pamphlet called for by the event of the day, some general fray in which he was compelled to mingle, or some personal assault which it was necessary to repel. But though painfully conscious how much his reputation as a writer was damaged by this extempore production, he was unable to resist the fatal facility of print. He was the object of those solicitations which always beset the author whose name upon the title page assures the sale of a book. He was besieged for dedications, and as every dedication meant a present proportioned to the circumstances of the dedicatee, there was a natural temptation to be lavish of them. Add to this a correspondence so extensive as to require him at times to write forty letters in one day. "I receive daily," he writes, "letters from remote parts, from kings, princes, prelates and men of learning, and even from persons of whose existence I was ignorant." His day was thus one of incessant mental activity; but hard work was so far from breeding a distaste for his occupation, that reading and writing grew ever more delightful to him (_literarum assiduitas non modo mihi fastidium non parit, sed voluptatem; crescit scribendo scribendi studium_). Shortly after Froben's death the disturbances at Basel, occasioned by the zealots for the religious revolution which was in progress throughout Switzerland, began to make Erasmus desirous of changing his residence. He selected Freiburg in the Breisgau, as a city which was still in the dominion of the emperor, and was free from religious dissension. Thither he removed in April 1529. He was received with public marks of respect by the authorities, who granted him the use of an unfinished residence which had been begun to be built for the late emperor Maximilian. Erasmus proposed only to remain at Freiburg for a few months, but found the place so suited to his habits that he bought a house of his own, and remained there six years. A desire for change of air--he fancied Freiburg was damp--rumours of a new war with France, and the necessity of seeing his _Ecclesiastes_ through the press, took him back to Basel in 1535. He lived now a very retired life, and saw only a small circle of intimate friends. A last attempt was made by the papal court to enlist him in some public way against the Reformation. On the election of Paul III. in 1534, he had, as usual, sent the new pope a congratulatory letter. After his arrival in Basel, he received a complimentary answer, together with the nomination to the deanery of Deventer, the income of which was reckoned at 600 ducats. This nomination was accompanied with an intimation that more was in store for him, and that steps would be taken to provide for him the income, viz.,