Note 626 — Chapter IV · (continued 2)

The following are specimens of anachronism, which seem fatal to the genuineness of these epistles, and are only selected from others. In the year 1489 he writes to a friend: In peculiarem te nostræ tempestatis morbum, qui appellatione Hispanâ Bubarum dicitur, ab Italis morbus Gallicus, medicorum Elephantiam alii, alii aliter appellant, incidisse præcipitem, libero ad me scribis pede. Epist. 68. Now if we should even believe that this disease was known some years before the discovery of America and the siege of Naples, is it probable that it could have obtained the name of morbus Gallicus before the latter æra? In February 1511, he communicates the absolution of the Venetians by Julius II., which took place in February 1510. Epist. 451. In a letter dated at Brussels, 31st Aug. 1520, (Epist. 689) he mentions the burning of the canon law at Wittenberg by Luther, which is well known to have happened in the ensuing November.