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enemy P 1 have had as bad enemies as you, and yet I have stood in spite of them. 
What matters it if you are a poet? I have other poets who are my friends, and they 
are quite as good as you, ego bane merdnrem in -wjiram pmrinm! Do you think I am a 
fool, or that I was born under a tree like apples 2' Then he called me an ass, and 
said that I never saw a poet. And I said, 'You are an ass in your skin, I have 
seen many more poets than you." And I spoke of you.    Wherefore I ask you 
very earnestly to write me one piece of verse, and then I will show it to this poet 
and others, and I will boast that you are my friend, and you are a much better 
poet than he." 
The war againft the fecular poets, or advocates of the new learning, 
is kept up with fpirit through this ludicrous correfpondence. One corre- 
fpondent pretfes Ortuinus Gratius to " write to me whether it be neceifary 
for eternal falvation that fcholars learn grammar from the fecular poets, 
fuch as Virgil, Tullius, Pliny, and others; for," he adds, "it feems to 
me that this is not a good method of Itudying." " As I have often 
written to you," fays another, "I am grieved that this ribaldry (Ma 
ribaldria), namely, the faculty of poetry, becomes Common, and is fpread 
through all provinces and regions. In my time there was only one poet. 
who was called Samuel; and now, in this city alone, there are at leaft 
twenty, and they vex us all who hold with the ancients. Lately I 
thoroughly defeated one, who [aid that fcholaris does not fignify a perfon 
who goes to the fchool for the purpofe of learning; and Ifaid, 'Afs! 
will you correcit the holy doetor who expounded this word P  The new 
learning was, of courfe, identified with the fnpporters of Reuchlin. " It 
is faid here," continues the fame correfpondent, " that all the poets will 
flde with dotitor Reuchlin againtt the theologians. I with all the poets 
were in the place Where pepper grows, that they might let us go in 
peace!" 
Mailer William Lamp, "mailer of arts," fends to Mailer Ortuinus 
Gratius, a narrative of his adventures in a journey from Cologne to Rome. 
Firft he went to Mayence, where his indignation was moved by the open 
manner in which people fpoke in favour of Renchlin, and when he 
hazarded a contrary opinion, he was only laughed at, but he held his 
tongue, becaufe his opponents all carried arms and looked fierce. " One 
of them is a count, and is. a long man, and has white hair; and they fay 
that he takes a man in armour in his hand, and throws him to the ground, 
and