The transmission of his letters was one of his last acts of friendship which Poggio requested from Niccolo Niccoli. Soon after the publication of his epistles, he received the melancholy intelligence of the death of this his earliest and steadiest friend. He was acutely sensible of the serious loss which he had sustained by this event, which took place on the 23rd of January, 1437; and in the ardour of his affection, he waited with patience for the publication of some tribute of respect to the memory of the deceased, which he thought might justly be demanded from the multitude of learned men, on whom the numerous favours which they had received from the hands of Niccolo imposed an imperious obligation to celebrate his virtues.[277] In this expectation he was disappointed. The scholars of Florence were, perhaps, of opinion, that panegyrics on the living were more productive of profit than encomiums on the dead. Offended by their tardiness, Poggio resolved, notwithstanding the urgency and variety of his occupations, to rescue the name of his friend from oblivion. He accordingly composed and published a funeral eulogium on Niccolo Niccoli; being determined, as he said in a letter to Feltrino Boiardo, to merit, at least, the praise which is due to the faithful discharge of the offices of friendship.[278] In his funeral oration on Niccolo, Poggio, adopting the character of the orator appointed to address the public on the occasion of his obsequies, introduced the eulogy of his deceased friend by the following exordium.