then put it through boldly; now the same thing has got to be done, but too late. I hope to die, but I believe you might have carried it through as I wish, if you had only taken hold of it with more spirit. You can be a little more pushing in your friend's cause without offending my modesty.... Good-bye, my dear Battus, and take in good part what I have written, not in temper nor in a panic, but as to the man who is the very dearest of all men to me." Another letter,[36] written from Orleans after his return from England, begins with similar references to some misunderstanding and goes on to the most barefaced of all Erasmus' begging efforts. Here occurs his first appeal for a church living, and this plainly not as a makeshift, but as the beginning of a regular speculation in livings: [36] iii.¹, 86. "Then persuade her to look out for some church living for me so that when I come back I may have a quiet place to devote myself to my books. And not this only; give her some reason, the best you can make up for yourself, why she should promise me the first of the many livings she has. A pretty good one if not the best, and one that I can change for a better whenever it turns up. Of course I know there are many seeking for livings, but say that I am a man apart, one whom, if she compare him with all others, etc., etc.--you know your good old way of pouring out lies for your Erasmus. See to it that your Adolphus writes the same things, most seductive petitions namely, at your dictation. Keep it up until the promise of a hundred francs be fulfilled and if possible let it be handed over to your Adolphus, so that if,--which Heaven forbid!--any accident should take away the mother, I may get it from the son. Put in at the end that I have complained in my letters that I am suffering as Jerome often complains he suffered, from loss of eyesight and that I look forward to beginning to study as Jerome did with ears and tongue alone. Persuade her, with what elegant words you can, that she send me some sapphire or other gem that is good for strengthening the eyes. I would have written her myself what gems have this power, only I haven't my Pliny by me; do you find out for yourself from your medical man."