ion of princes in preferring of parasites & fooles, that
he decreed with himselfe to swim with the streame, and write a booke
forthwith in commendation of folly. Quick witted sir _Thomas
Moore_ traueld in a cleane contrarie prouince, for hee seeing most
commonwealths corrupted by ill custome, & that principalities were
nothing but great piracies, which gotten by violence and murther, were
maintained by priuate vndermining and bloudshed, that in the chiefest
flourishing kingdomes there was no equal or wel diuided weale one with
another, but a manifest conspiracie of rich men against poore men,
procuring their owne vnlawfull commodities vnder the name and interest
of the commonwealth: he concluded with himselfe to lay downe a perfect
plot of a commonwealth or gouernment, which he would intitle his
_Vtopia_. So lefte wee them to prosecute their discontented studies, &
made our next iourney to Wittenberg.

At the verie point of our enterance into Wittenberg, wee were spectators
of a verie solemne scolasticall entertainment of the Duke of Saxonie
thether. Whome because he was the chiefe patrone of their vniuersitie,
and had tooke _Luthers_ parte in banishing the masse and all lyke papall
Jurisdiction out of their towne, they croucht vnto extreamly. The chiefe
ceremonies of their entertainment were these: first, the heads of their
vniuersitie, (they were great heads of certaintie) met him in their
hooded hypocrisie and doctorly accoustrement, _secundum formam statuti_,
where by the Orator of the vniuersitie, whose pickerdeuant was very
plentifully besprinkled with rose water, a verie learned or rather
ruthfull Oration was deliuered (for it raind all the while) signifieng
thus much, that it was al by patch and by peecemeale stolne out of
_Tully_, & he must pardon them, though in emptying their phrase bookes,
the ayre emptied his intrailes, for they did it not in anie ostentation
of wit (which they had not) but to shewe the extraordinarie good will
they bare the Duke, (to haue him stand in the raine tyll he was thorough
wet) a thousand _quernadmodums_ and _quapropters_ he came ouer him with,
euery sentence he concluded with _Esse posse videatur_: through all the
nine worthies he ran with praising and comparing him, _Nestors_ yeares
hee assured him off vnder the broade seale of their supplications, and
with that crowe troden verse in Virgil, _Dum iuga montis aper_, hee
packt vp his pipes, and cride _dixi_.

That pageant ouerpas