many other sermons,—drone us to sleep. Give us a lively history of adventures; and, as for your colouring and rhetorical nourishes, keep them by you snug and warm till you are called upon to indite some high style, as when men address the presence of royalty. Upon the present occasion I would beseech you to be plain and simple in your matter, that the homely part of your audience may understand the whole of your discourse.'
Our worthy collegian courteously answered; 'Good host, I acknowledge your power and supremacy, and am prepared to obey you according to my ability. I will tell you a tale, which I learned at Padua, of a renowned and noble scholar and poet—the laureat Petrarch, (now, alas! in his grave) who, with his choice rhetoric and poetry, illumined all Italy; as the famous Linian[1] did with his philosophy. But Death, "the common end of all, who will come when he will come," has snatched them both away, as it were in the twinkling of an eye.
- ↑ An eminent lawyer and philosopher, who lived in the fourteenth century.
