refer to his own
exquisite art in arranging pageants, morris-dances, May-day festivities,
and such-like holiday delights, for which he assured Tressilian he had
positively the purest and the most inventive brain in England; insomuch,
that his cunning in framing such pleasures had made him known to many
honourable persons, both in country and court, and especially to the
noble Earl of Leicester. "And although he may now seem to forget me,"
he said, "in the multitude of state affairs, yet I am well assured that,
had he some pretty pastime to array for entertainment of the Queen's
Grace, horse and man would be seeking the humble cottage of Erasmus
Holiday. PARVO CONTENTUS, in the meanwhile, I hear my pupils parse and
construe, worshipful sir, and drive away my time with the aid of the
Muses. And I have at all times, when in correspondence with foreign
scholars, subscribed myself Erasmus ab Die Fausto, and have enjoyed the
distinction due to the learned under that title: witness the erudite
Diedrichus Buckerschockius, who dedicated to me under that title his
treatise on the letter TAU. In fine, sir, I have been a happy and
distinguished man."

"Long may it be so, sir!" said the traveller; "but permit me to ask, in
your own learned phrase, QUID HOC AD IPHYCLI BOVES? what has all this to
do with the shoeing of my poor nag?"

"FESTINA LENTE," said the man of learning, "we will presently came to
that point. You must know that some two or three years past there came
to these parts one who called himself Doctor Doboobie, although it may
be he never wrote even MAGISTER ARTIUM, save in right of his hungry
belly. Or it may be, that if he had any degrees, they were of the
devil's giving; for he was what the vulgar call a white witch, a cunning
man, and such like.--Now, good sir, I perceive you are impatient; but if
a man tell not his tale his own way, how have you warrant to think that
he can tell it in yours?"

"Well, then, learned sir, take your way," answered Tressilian; "only let
us travel at a sharper pace, for my time is somewhat of the shortest."

"Well, sir," resumed Erasmus Holiday, with the most provoking
perseverance, "I will not say that this same Demetrius for so he wrote
himself when in foreign parts, was an actual conjurer, but certain it
is that he professed to be a brother of the mystical Order of the Rosy
Cross, a disciple of Geber (EX NOMINE CUJUS VENIT VERBUM VERNACULUM,
GIBBERISH). He cured wounds by salving