62. SCRIBEBAM] The epistolary imperfect, representing the time of the action when the words would be read by the recipient of the letter. PATRIAM] Holland. 64. CONVICTU] Evidently it had been proposed that Erasmus should come and live with Lord Mountjoy in Paris as his tutor. IV [An extract from a letter to an Italian friend domiciled in France. Erasmus was probably writing from Bedwell in Hertfordshire, where Sir William Say, Lord Mountjoy's father-in-law, had a country-house. For the practice which Erasmus playfully describes in the second paragraph, see an additional note on p. 157.[*]] [* See ADDITIONAL NOTES, first note, at the end of this text. Transcriptor.] 4. INVITA MINERVA] 'refragante ingenio, repugnante natura, non favente coelo.' Erasmus, _Adagia_. Minerva was the goddess of wisdom. 6. MERDAS] It has been well pointed out that the use of so coarse a word is foreign to Erasmus, whose writings, though often free, are marked by a delicacy unusual in his age; and that he is therefore probably alluding to the compositions of his correspondent, who knew no such restrictions, e.g. in his _Querela Parrhisiensis pavimenti_. 7. UT ... PEREAT] A wish. 9. ALATIS] Like Mercury, the messenger of the gods, who for his journeys attached winged sandals to his feet. 10. Daedalus was a mythical artificer who constructed the labyrinth for Minos, king of Crete; but being detained there against his will, he made wings for himself and his son Icarus and flew away to Sicily. 21. Solon (c. 638-558), the Athenian lawgiver, is said to have bound the people with an oath to observe his laws until he returned; and then to have absented himself from Athens for ten years. 23. PROPEDIEM] Erasmus was expecting to return to Paris in the summer of 1499. His visit to Oxford was only undertaken to fill an interval during which he was detained in England. V [This incident occurred in the autumn of 1499. Erasmus was staying on an estate belonging to Lord Mountjoy at Greenwich, and was visited one day by Thomas More with a friend Arnold from London. In the course of a walk they came to Eltham Palace ('a castle situated between two parks,' as it is described by two ambassadors in 1514), the splendid banqueting hall of which is still standing, and there paid their respects to the royal children with their tutor, John Skelton, the poet. Arthur, Prince of Wales, was then absent with his father: but the young Prince Henry, afterwards Henry VIII, received the friends gracefully. They stayed to dine in the hall, but apparently not at the 'high table'. The narrative is found in a Catalogue of Erasmus' writings composed in 1523.] 7. ANIMI CAUSA] Relaxation to the mind rather than exercise for the body was the object of the walk.