in a skinner's house,
that dwelled beside the house of the English nation. And after this
the said Berlo set me with a merchant of Middleborough to service
for to learne the language,(44) with whom I dwelled from Christmas
to Easter, and then, I went into Portugale." One does not learn any
language very perfectly and with a good, nay, undistinguishable
accent, between Christmas and Easter; but here let us pause. If this
account was true, the other relating to the duchess Margaret was
false; and then how came Perkin by so accurate a knowledge of the
English court, that he did not faulter, nor could be detected in his
tale? If the confession was not true, it remains that it was trumped
up by Henry, and then Perkin must be allowed the true duke of York.

(40) To what degree arbitrary power dares to trifle with the common
sense of mankind has been seen in Portuguese and Russian manifestos.

(41) As this solution of the likeness is not authorized by the
youth's supposed narrative, the likeness remains uncontrovertable,
and consequently another argument for his being king Edward's son.

(42) On the contrary, Perkins calls his grandfather Diryck Osbeck;
Diryck every body knows is Theodoric, and Theodoric is certainly no
Jewish appellation. Perkin too mentions several of his relations and
their employments at Tournay, without any hint of a Hebrew
connection.

(43) Grafton's Chronicle, p 930.

(44) I take this to mean the English language, for these reasons; he
had just before named the English nation, and the name of his master
was John Strewe, which seems to be an English appellation: but there
is a stronger reason for believing it means the English language,
which is, that a Flemish lad is not set to learn his own language;
though even this absurdity is advanced in this same pretended
confession, Perkin, affirming that his mother, after he had dwelled
some time in Tournay, sent him to Antwerp to learn Flemish. If I am
told by a very improbable supposition, that French was his native
language at Tournay, that he learned Flemish at Antwerp, and Dutch
at Middleburg, I will desire the objector to cast his eye on the
map, and consider the small distance between Tournay, Middleburg,
and Antwerp, and to reflect that the present United Provinces were
not then divided from the rest of Flanders; and then to decide
whether the dialects spoken at Tournay, Antwerp, and Middleburg were
so different in that age, that it was necessary