194
REIGN OF HENRY THE EIGHTH.
[ch. 23.
natural, but it was unnecessary. The King's object was rather to preserve and to restore than to destroy,
short time previously, containing an account of the character and education of the prince, may be added in this place. The MS. is much injured, and the name of the person to whom the letter was addressed is wanting.
'As concerning my lord and dear scholar, it is kindly done of you to desire so gently to hear from him and of his proceedings in his valiant conquests. We can now read, and God be thanked sufficiently; [and as] He hath prospered the King's Majesty in his travels at Boulogne, surely [in] like [manner thanks be] unto God, my lord is not much behind on his part. He hath expunged and utterly conquered a great number of the captains of ignorance. The eight parts of speech he hath made them his subjects and servants, and can decline any manner Latin nown, and conjugate a verb perfectly, unless it be anomalum. These parts thus beaten down and conquered, he beginneth to build them up again, and frame them after his purpose with due order of construction, like as the King's Majesty framed up Boulogne after he had beaten it down. He understandeth and can frame well his three concords of grammar, and hath made already forty or fifty pretty Latin verses, and can answer well favouredly to the parts, and is now ready to enter into Cato, to some proper and profitable fables of Æsop, and other wholesome and godly lessons that shall be devised for him. Every day in the mass time he readeth a portion of Solomon's Proverbs for the exercise of his reading, wherein he delighteth much; and learneth there how good it is to give ear unto discipline, to fear God, to keep God's commandments, to beware of strange and wanton women, to be obedient to father and mother, to be thankful to him that telleth him of his faults. Captain 'Will' was an ungracious fellow, whom to conquer I was almost in despair. I went upon him with fair means, with foul means, that is, with menacing from time to time, so long that he took such courage that he thought utterly my meaning to be nothing but dalliance. Quid multa? Before we came from Sutton, upon a day I took my morice pike, and at 'Will' I went, and gave him such a wound that he wist not what to do, but picked him privately out of the place that I never saw him since. Methought it the luckiest day that ever I had in battle. I think that only wound shall be enough for me to daunt both 'Will' and all his fellows. Howbeit, there is another cumbrous captain that appeareth out of his pavilion, called 'Oblivion,' who by labour and continuance of exercise shall be easily chased away. He is a vessel most apt to receive all goodness and learn-
