All our ladies were
then his scholars; and that beauty in court who could not _parle
Euphuism_, was as little regarded, as she which now there speaks not
French."
[5] So that learned and sapient monarch was pleased to call his skill in
politics.
[6] Witness a sermon preached at St. Mary's before the university of
Oxford. It is true the preacher was a layman, and harangued in a gold
chain, and girt with a sword, as high sheriff of the county; but his
eloquence was highly applauded by the learned body whom he addressed,
although it would have startled a modern audience, at least as much as
the dress of the orator. "Arriving," said he, "at the Mount of St.
Mary's, in the stony stage where I now stand, I have brought you some
fine biscuits, baked in the oven of charity, carefully conserved for the
chickens of the church, the sparrows of the spirit, and the sweet
swallows of salvation." "Which way of preaching," says Anthony Wood, the
reporter of the homily, "was then mostly in fashion, and commended by
the generality of scholars."--_Athenae Oxon_. vol. i. p.183.
[7] Look at Ben Jonson's "Ode to the Memory of Sir Lucius Carey and Sir
H. Morison," and at most of his Pindarics. But Ben, when he pleased,
could assume the garb of classic simplicity; witness many of his lesser
poems.
[8] In Jonson's last illness, Charles is said to have sent him ten
pieces. "He sends me so miserable a donation," said the expiring
satirist, "because I am poor, and live in an alley; go back and tell
him, his soul lives in an alley.
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