ERASMUS.
[T0 THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."]
your notice of the late Professor Fronde's "Life and Letters of Erasmus," there occurs the following sentence :— "We may here notice a small book of practical religion, the Enchiridion Militis Christiani,' which Mr. Drummond has carelessly translated The Christian Soldier's Dagger ; ' not ,considering that the Greek word iyxersMios means also a manual or handbook, an error from which Mr. Froude's scholarship has saved him" (!) Your reviewer here, after affirming that my translation was due to carelessness, in- sinuates that it was due to ignorance. To prove that it was .neither, will you allow me to refer to the footnote on p. 114 of the first volume of my " Erasmus " :—" Enchiridion Militis sOhristisni,' Er. Op. -V. I. Enchiridion means a handbook, ,nr a dagger. That the latter is the translation intended by Erasmus is evident from his own words :=Enchiridion, hoc 'eat, pugiuneulum modo, quemdara excadimua," &e. Of -course, the double meaning was in the author's mind, and for that reason perhaps "The Christian Soldier's Companion" might be a more suitable rendering than either " dagger" or
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