od Learning with so great a facilitie and passion as he doth,
having tasted already a little drope of ye Libertinage of ye Court, but
I find him soe disciplinable, and soe desirous to repare ye time Lost,
yt I make no question but your Lordship shall receive a great
ioye."[341] He had not had much of an education at Eton, as his governor
takes pleasure in pointing out: "For Mr Francis I doe assure your
Lordship he had need to aplay himselfe to other things till now, for
except reeding and writting Inglish he was grounded in nothing of ye
wordle (world); and beleeve me, for before God I spake true, when I say
that never any gentleman hath donne lesse profit of his time then he had
done when he went out of England: and besides yt if he had been Longer
at Eatton he had Learned there to drinke with other deboice scholers, as
I have beene in formed by Mr Robert."[342]

Won over by the study of "Fortifications," a branch of mathematics very
pleasing to the seventeenth century boy, the future Viscount Shannon
applied himself to work with energy;[343] and for a time peace reigned
over the process of education. "Every morning," writes their tutor, "I
teach them ye Rhetoricke in Latin, and I expound unto them Justin from
Latin into french, and presently after dinner I doe reade unto them two
chapters of ye old Testament with a brief exposition of those points
that I think that they doe not understand; and before supper I teach
them ye history of ye Romans in french out of florus and of Titus
Livius, and two sections of ye Cateshisme of Caluin with ye most
orthodox exposition of the points that they doe not understand; and
after supper I doe reade unto them two chapters of ye new Testament, and
both morning and evening we say our prayers together, and twice a weeke
we goe to Church."[344]

The boys spoke French always, and had some dancing lessons, but no
riding lessons, for "their lyms are not knitt and strong enough, nor
their bodys hable to endure rough exercises; and besides, although wee
have here as good and skillfull teachers as in many other places, yet
when they shall come to paris or some other place, their teachers will
make them beleeve that they have Lost their time and shall make them
beginn againe: for it is their custome so to doe to all."[345] At
tennis, however, Francis enjoyed himself, and grew apace. "I may assure
your Lordship that both his Leggs and armes are by a third part bigger
now then they were in Engl