he was soon promoted to a much richer living, he wished to exchange it for a benefice without cure of souls. To meet his wishes in this respect a canonicate was offered him; but it is uncertain whether this arrangement was perfected.[122] However this may be, he was weary of his residence in England, and impatiently longed to return to his native land. At this juncture, he received from Italy two proposals, the one on the part of Alamano Adimaro, Archbishop of Pisa and Cardinal of St. Eusebius, who invited him to accept the office of Secretary to the Roman pontiff; the other from Piero Lamberteschi, who offered him a situation, the nature of which is not precisely known, but which was probably that of public professor in one of the Italian universities. Poggio seems to have received the proposal of Lamberteschi with considerable satisfaction. On this subject he thus expresses himself in a letter to Niccolo Niccoli. “The day before yesterday, I received two letters from you, and one from Piero Lamberteschi. These letters I have read with great attention. I am pleased with Piero’s plan, and I think I shall follow your advice. He says, that he will do his endeavour to procure me five hundred gold florins for three years’ services. Make them six hundred, and I will agree to the proposal. He lays before me flattering hopes of future profitable contingencies, and I am inclined to believe, that these hopes may probably be realized: yet I think it more prudent to covenant for something, than to depend upon hope alone. I like the employment to which he invites me, and I hope I shall produce something worth reading; but for this purpose, as I have informed him, I must be indulged with leisure and retirement.” The invitation of the cardinal of St. Eusebius was not so satisfactory to the wishes of Poggio. In the letter from which the foregoing extracts have been made, he thus expresses himself. “I observe what the cardinal writes on the subject of the secretaryship. If I had valued that office as highly as some do, I should long ago have returned to Rome. I have less esteem for the pontificate and its members, than they imagine; for I wish to be a free man, and not a public slave. Ratify the offers of Piero, and you shall see that I shall avoid the Roman court with more diligence than many people would be apt to believe. I must earnestly request that you will not communicate my plans to any one, since we are ignorant of what may happen—for man proposes, but God directs the issues of things.”[123]