“Good Bonvisi, give me a little of that dish which has nothing in common with the brouet spartiate.”
“A good counsellor and a true friend,” said John Story—“that is what is always wanting to princes.”
“When they have them, they don’t know how to keep them,” said Ludovico. “See what has happened to More! Was not this a brilliant light which the king has concealed under a bushel?”
“Assuredly,” replied Boxol; “he is an admirable man, competent for, and useful in, any position.”
“He is a true Christian,” said Harpesfield; “amiable, moderate, wise, benevolent, disinterested. At the height of prosperity, as in a humble position, you find him always the same, considering only his duty and the welfare of others. He seems to regard himself as the born servant and the friend of justice.”
“Hold, sirs!” replied Clement, turning around on his chair. “There is one fact which cannot be denied; which is, that nothing but religion can render a man ductile. Otherwise he is like to iron mixed with brimstone. We rely upon him, we confide in his face and in the strength of his goodness; but suddenly
he falls and breaks in your hands as soon as you wish to make some use of him.”
“There must be a furious amount of sulphur in his majesty’s heart,” replied Harpesfield, “for he is going to burn, in Yorkshire, four miserable wretches accused of heresy. For what? I know not; for having wished, perhaps, to do as he has done—get rid of a wife of whom he was tired! There is a fifth, who, more adroit, has appealed to him as supreme head of the church; he has been immediately justified, and Master Cromwell set him at liberty. Thus the king burns heretics at the same time that he himself separates from the church. All these actions are horrible, and nothing can be imagined more absurd and at the same time more criminal.”
“As for me,” replied Clement, who had been watering his sugared fruits with particular care for a quarter of an hour, “I have been very much edified by the pastoral letter of my Lord Cranmer to his majesty. Have you seen it, Boxol?”
“No,” replied Boxol, who was not disposed to treat this matter so lightly as Master Clement, as good an eater as he was a scholar, and what they call a bon vivant; “these things make me very sick, and I don’t care to speak of them lightly or while dining.”