ght sometimes by those whom they themselves do (in a
manner) hire to flatter them. And they would not be content if a
man should do otherwise, but would be right angry--not only if a
man told them truth when they do evil indeed, but also if they
praise it but slenderly.

VINCENT: Forsooth, uncle, this is very truth. I have been ere
this, and not very long ago, where I saw so proper experience of
this point that I must stop your tale long enough to tell you mine.

ANTHONY: I pray you, cousin, tell on.

VINCENT: When I was first in Germany, uncle, it happed me to be
somewhat favoured by a great man of the church and a great estate,
one of the greatest in all that country there. And indeed,
whosoever could spend as much as he could for one thing and
another, would be a right great estate in any country of
Christendom. But vainglorious was he, very far above all measure.
And that was great pity, for it did harm and made him abuse many
great gifts that God had given him. Never was he satiated with
hearing his own praise.

So happed it one day, that he had in a great audience made an
oration in a certain manner, in which he liked himself so well that
at his dinner he thought he sat on thorns till he might hear how
those who sat with him at his board would commend it. He sat musing
a while, devising, as I thought afterward, upon some pretty proper
way to bring it in withal. And at last, for lack of a better, lest
he should have forborne the matter too long, he brought it even
bluntly forth and asked us all who sat at his board's end--for at
his own place in the midst there sat but himself alone--how well we
liked his oration that he had made that day. But in faith, uncle,
when that problem was once proposed, till it was full answered, no
man, I believe, ate one morsel of meat more--every man was fallen
in so deep a study for the finding of some exquisite praise. For he
who should have brought out but a vulgar and common commendation,
would have thought himself shamed for ever. Ten said we our
sentences, by row as we sat, from the lowest unto the highest in
good order, as though it had been a great matter of the common weal
in a right solemn council. When it came to my part--I say it not,
uncle, for a boast--methought that, by our Lady, for my part, I
quit myself well enough! And I liked myself the better because
methought that, being but a foreigner, my words went yet with some
grace in the German tongue, in which, le