Page:Luther's correspondence and other contemporary letters 1521-1530.djvu/142

 to men of whom the learned have a poor opinion.

I have never doubted that the book of the Serene King of England, which you praise with good reason, was the work of him whose name it bears/ For that prince possesses a wonderfully happy and versatile genius and can do incredible things in any field to which he devotes himself. Even as a boy he was diligent in the cultivation of style, even writing letters to me, and a few years ago he wrote a theological dis- putation on the question whether a layman is bound to say his prayers aloud. He delights to read the books of the scholastic theologians, and at banquets it is his custom to dis- cuss theological subjects. The learned argument is sometimes continued far into the night. Even if he had some help in the preparation of that book, there was no need for my assistance, since his court is full of the most learned and eloquent men. If there is something about his style not unlike my own, that would not be anything either strange or new, for when he was a boy he carefully studied my writings, at the suggestion of William of Mountjoy,* a former pupil of mine, whom he made his intimate friend.

The two books of Luther, which your Highness sent me, were sent in vain, for I am ignorant of the language in which they are written. I am told that they were circulated here for a long while before you sent them to me. I think it foolish to challenge those whom you cannot conquer, though to ad- monish the princes and bishops of their duty whenever the op- portunity oflFers is not useless and is in accordance with the example of the most approved writers. Jerome does it re- peatedly, Chrysostom does it, and Bernard. There always have been bishops and there always will be, and perchance

^ Erasmus't desire to flatter a powerful patron was greater than his veracity. Mr. P. S. Allen has shown that Erasmus once helped Lord Mountjoy to pass off •s his own, a work which he (Erasmus) really believed (probably correctly) to be the work of Mountjoy's secretary. Allen, i. 436, 449. As to the authorship of the Assertio Septem Sacrani'entoruin, it is practically (*^rtain that at the least Henry received much help from an "assembly of divines'* brought together by Wolsey, and also from More and Fisher. It is printed in an old edition of Fisher's works. More admits having helped Henry; Life of More by Roper in Bohn's edition of the Utopia, 1910, p. 247. The subject is discussed at great length by O'Donovan in hii edition of the Assertio, 1908, pp. 53-93*

of Henry VIII, in his youth a pupil, and in later life the patron of Erasmoa. C/. DNB and P. S. Allen, i, aoy.
 * William Blount, fourth Lord Mountjoy (died i534)t counsellor and intimate

�� �