"As for you," retorted father, "you are at your olde trick of arguing on ye wrong side, as you did ye firste time we mett. Nay, don't we know you can declaime backward and forwarde on the same argument, as you did on ye Venetian war?"
Erasmus smiled quietlie, and sayd, "What coulde I do? The pope changed his holy mind." Whereat father smiled too.
"What nonsense you learned men sometimes talk!" pursues father. "I—wanted at court, quotha! Fancy a dozen starving men with one roasted pig betweene them;—do you think they would be really glad to see a thirteenth come up, with an eye to a small piece of ye crackling? No; believe me, there is none that courtiers are more sincerelie respectfull to than the man who avows he hath no intention of attempting to go shares; and e'en him they care mighty little about, for they love none with true tendernesse save themselves."
"We shall see you at court yet," says Erasmus.
Sayth father, "Then I will tell you in what guise. With a fool-cap and bells. Pish! I won't aggravate you, churchman as you are, by alluding to the blessings I have which you have not; and I trow there is as much danger in taking you for serious when you are onlie playful and ironicall as if you were Plato himself."
Sayth Erasmus, after some minutes' silence, "I know full well that you holde Plato, in manie instances, to be sporting when I accept him in very deed and truth. Speculating he often was; as a brighte, pure flame must needs be struggling up, and, if it findeth no direct vent, come forthe of ye oven's mouth. He was like a man shut into a vault, running hither and thither, with his poor, flickering taper, agonizing to get forthe, and holding himself in readinesse to make a spring forward the moment a door sd open. But it never did. 'Not manie wise are called.' He had clomb a hill in ye darke, and stoode calling to his companions below, 'Come on, come on! this way lies ye east; I am advised we shall see the sun rise anon.' But they never did. What a Christian he woulde have made! Ah! he is one now. He and Socrates—the veil long removed from their eyes—are sitting at Jesus' feet. Sancte Socrates, ora pro nobis!"
Bessie and I exchanged glances at this so strange ejaculation; but ye subjeckt was of such interest, that we listened with deep attention to what followed.
Sayth father, "Whether Socrates were what Plato painted him in his dialogues, is with me a great matter of doubte; but it is not of moment. When so many contemporaries coulde distinguishe ye fancifulle from ye fictitious, Plato's object coulde never have beene to deceive. There is something higher in art than gross imitation. He who attempteth it is always the leaste successfull; and his failure hath the odium of a discovered lie; whereas, to give an avowedlie fabulous narrative a consistence within itselfe which permitts ye reader to be, for ye time, voluntarilie deceived, is as artfulle as it is allowable. Were I to construct a tale, I woulde, as you sayd to Cecy, lie with a circumstance, but shoulde consider it noe compliment to have my unicorns and hippogriffs taken for live animals. Amicus Plato, amicus Socrates, magis tamen amica veritas. Now, Plato had a much higher aim than to give a very pattern of Socrates his snub nose. He wanted a peg to hang his thoughts upon—"
"A peg? A statue of Phidias," interrupts Erasmus.
"A statue by Phidias, to clothe in ye most beautiful drapery," sayth father; "no matter that ye drapery was his own, he wanted to show it to the best advantage, and to ye honour rather than prejudice of the statue. And, having clothed ye same, he got a spark of Prometheus his fire, and made the aforesayd statue walk and talk to the glory of gods and men, and sate himself quietlie down in a corner. By the way, Desiderius, why shouldst thou not submitt thy subtletie to the rules of a colloquy? Set Eckius and Martin Luther by the ears! Ha! man, what sport! Heavens! if I were to compound a tale or a dialogue, what crotches and quips of mine own woulde I not putt into my puppets' mouths! and then have out my laugh behind my vizard, as when we used to act burlesques before Cardinall Morton. What rare sporte we had, one Christmas, with a mummery we called the 'Triall of Feasting!' Dinner and Supper were broughte up before my Lord Chief Justice, charged with murder. Theire accomplices were Plum-pudding, Mince-pye, Surfeit, Drunkenness, and suchlike. Being condemned to hang by ye neck, I, who was Supper, stuft out with I cannot tell you how manie pillows, began to call lustilie for a confessor; and, on his stepping forthe, commenct a list of all ye fitts, convulsions, spasms, payns in ye head, and so forthe, I had inflicted on this one and t'other. 'Alas! good father,' says I, 'King John layd his death at my door; indeede, there's scarce a royall or noble house that hath not a charge agaynst me; and I'm sorelie afrayd' (giving a poke at a fat priest that sate at my lord cardinall's elbow) 'I shall have the death of that holy man to answer for.'"