After this George got a letter from a bishop, telling him, that he was coming to visit him, and take dinner with him in his lodging; George sent an answer, that he would wait upon his lordship at the day appointed; but well did George know, it was not for any love he had unto him, he was coming to visit him, but to spy fairlies; therefore he thought he should give him something to talk about. So George sent his servant to a bookseller’s shop to buy a dozen of small pamphlets, about a halfpenny a piece; such as a groat’s worth of wit for a penny, the history of the king and the cobler, and such pieces as these; taking all his own books away, and putting the pamphlets in their place, which he presented to the bishop, when he asked for a sight of his library. What, says the bishop, have you no more books but these? No more, says George, but my bible; just no more. O! says the bishop, I wonder how you can either speak plain, or write a perfect sentence, when you have no other books than these. O! says George, do you think that I am a clergyman, to borrow other men’s sermons to beautify my works: no, no, not I: all that I write I dite, I meditate out of my own brain. This check concerning borrowing put the bishop in a cold sweat, yet he concealed his passion. Then George called to his servant, if dinner was ready yet? to which he answered, Come, master, come, the pot is on the boil, get out the meal pock: then George came into the room where his servant was, and set the bishop at the one side of the fire, and sat down on the other himself, while his servant made a great bowl full of milk brose, and set them between the bishop and George; then George desired his lordship to ask a blessing to what they were to receive, the bishop did not know what he meaned by a blessing, it not being usual for the English to do so, asked at George what it was? But George took up a great ram horn spoon, and put it in the bishop’s hand, saying, There it is, my lord. What, says the bishop, call you that a blessing? we call that a spoon. O my lord, says George, it is the best blessing you can ask, if you do not come empty. Well, says the bishop, and how do you call that scalded meal? says George, we call it Scots brose. O! said the bishop, I cannot eat it. O! says he, the thing we cannot eat we sup, my lord, since you are in a Scotsman’s house, you must partake of a Scotsman’s victuals. Then says the bishop, I always thought the Scots lived well till now; I would not be a Scotsman for the world. O said George, if a Scotsman live but twenty years, and get but nineteen years meat, he cannot be badly off. What, not badly off, and want a year’s victuals? said the bishop; upon my word of honour, if I wanted one days victuals, I’d be sure to die the next. O, says George, we drink water when we cannot do better, and that puts us in remembrance of wealth; for a dish of contentment is good cheer. Then, said the bishop, I’ll drink water too if it be good for the memory. Ay do; said George, and you’ll remember me when you do so. Now, after dinner, the bishop took his leave of George, and desired him next day to come and dine with him.
PART V.
Next day, George, according to his promise, went to the bishop’s lodging; but no sooner did the bishop see George, than he saluted him with these words:
Your servant, master wise man,
And yet you have no books:
How can one have knowledge,
That no man instructs?
George answered,