"We reached the princess Anna of Veere but just alive. What shall I say of the gentleness, the kindness, the liberality of this woman! I am aware that the exaggerations of fine writers are wont to be suspected, especially by those who have some skill at such things; but I beg you to believe that I exaggerate nothing;--nay rather that the truth goes beyond my skill. Nature never brought forth a being more modest, more clever, more spotless, more kindly. To put it all in one word:--her kindness to me was as far beyond my merits as the malice of that old scamp was contrary to my deserts. She, without any effort of mine, loaded me with as many kindnesses as he, after my endless kindness to him, heaped insults upon me. And Battus, dear fellow,--what shall I say of him, the simplest and most affectionate soul in the world! Now at last I really begin to hate those ingrates. To think that I should have been the slave of those monsters so long!" We seem to have here a reference to his _bête noire_, the Paris persecutor, with whom Mountjoy was in some way associated. The same tone of extreme laudation is kept up in a short and hurried letter[34] sent back to Battus from Antwerp on his way home. He has evidently been well treated, but is not yet at his ease about future favours from the lady. "I will fly back," he writes, "as soon as ever I can, if the gods permit." The remaining letters of this correspondence may belong to a later period, but will serve here to show how Erasmus continued his suit. While he is exhausting the language of flattery about his fair patron, he makes mysterious allusions to possible checks upon her liberality. She is in trouble; there are demands made upon her by unworthy persons. Finally it appears that she married someone quite below her station. The burden of Erasmus' song is that Battus ought to get ahead of these other claimants on the lady's bounty and make sure of his case before it is too late. One letter[35] shows downright ill-temper towards his dear friend, which he partly excuses on the ground of continued ill-health. Battus, it seems, had been urging him to write something, probably as an equivalent for favours to come. He replies: [34] iii.¹, 6. [35] iii.¹, 46.