You ask me to lend you the copy of Homer that was on sale at Padua, if, as you suppose, I havepurchased it (since, you say, I have for a long time possessed another copy) so that our friend Leomay translate it from Greek into Latin for your benefit and for the benefit of our otherstudious compatriots. I saw this book, but neglected the opportunity of acquiring it, because itseemed inferior to my own. It can easily be had with the aid of the person to whom I owe myfriendship with Leo; a letter from that source would be all-powerful in the matter, and I will myselfwrite him. If by chance the book escape us, which seems to be very unlikely, I will let you havemine. I have been always fond of this particular translation and of Greek literature in general, andif fortune had not frowned upon my beginnings, in the sad death of my excellent master, I shouldbe perhaps to-day something more than a Greek still at his alphabet. I approve with all my heartand strength your enterprise, for I regret and am indignant that an ancient translation, presumablythe work of Cicero, the commencement of which Horace inserted in his Ars Poetica, should havebeen lost to the Latin world, together with many other works. It angers me to see so much solicitudefor the bad and so much neglect of the good. But what is to be done? We must be resigned