Excerpt from The Epistles of Erasmus: From His Earliest Letters to His Fifty-First Year Arranged in Order of Time The periods chosen for our Register and translations have not however been mainly determined by the changes which we have observed in the life of Erasmus. To deal with the entire series of Epistles upon the present plan would be a labour far surpassing the translator's powers; and, with regard to their chronological order, the analysis of every letter, which is required for the satisfactory arrangement of the earlier correspondence, has ceased to be necessary before the time when our Register terminates. The letters of this period and onward are more generally dated, and the year-dates, as well as the dates of day and month, are for the most part original, not as in the earlier letters, subsequently added and consequently untrustworthy. The difficulty in placing the Epistles arises therefore only in exceptional cases, occurring most frequently in letters dated between Christmas and Easter, owing to the various commencements of the Annns Domini. Some observations on the interpretation of these dates will be found in the Introduction, which also deals with the history of the collection and publication of the Epistles of Erasmus, both in his lifetime and since, and with the questions that have arisen respecting the authenticity of some of the letters attributed to him. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.