Dialogue of Comfort Against Tribulation / With Modifications To Obsolete Language By Monica Stevens

selves do (in a manner) hire to flatter them. And they would not be content if a man should do otherwise, but would

is, and not very long ago, where I saw so proper experience of t

ray you, cou

re. 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, ver

re-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, letting my Latin alone, it pleased me to show my skill. And I hoped to be liked the better because I saw that he who sat

every man's word who spoke before him! And it seemed that the more proper every word was, the worse he liked it, for the cumbrance that he had to study out a better one to surpass it. The man even sweated with the labour, s

so many of you, some good fe

uncle. For he found out such a shift tha

y, what sai

others afterward either have made the visage less dolorous than he could, and thereby have forborne some part of his praise, or, doing the uttermost of his craft, might have happed to make some other look more heavily for the pity of her pain than her own father, which would have been yet a far greater fault in his painting. When he came, therefore, to the making of her father's face last o

oken before already, the wily fox would speak never a word. But as one who were ravished heavenward with the wonder of the wisdom and eloquence that my lord's grace had uttered in

f the flatterers of Tiberius the emperor, who among the rest so magnified the great fish that the emperor had sent for them to show them. This blind senator-Montanus, I believe they called him-marvelled at the fish as much as any that marvelled mo

great deal more than half. But this I am sure: had it been the worst that ever was made, the praise would not have been the less by one hair. For those w

olk make men of fools even stark mad. And much ca

he things that they specially keep them for. For those who are of such vainglorious mind, be they lords or be they meaner men, can be much better contented to have their devices commended than ame

nd of his who required his judgment how he liked his verses, but prayed him in an

th of me thou

h is this, my

thou wouldst no

ould approve them. Thereupon, longing sore to be praised, he called unto him a friend of his, a man well learned and of good worship, and very well expert in those matters, as one who had been divers times ambassador for that country and had made many such treaties himself. When he gave him the treaty and he had read it, he asked him how he liked it, and

e, I say, who are of such a vainglorious mind. For if they be content to hear the truth, let them then make much of those who tell them the truth, an

ss on it for his praise of their own making besides, then would he shortly say unto them, "I pray thee, good fellow, when thou sayest grace at my board, never bring in a Gloria Patri without a sicut erat. Any act that ever I did, if thou report it again to mine hono

se must prick them forth. But better it were to do well and look for none. Howbeit, those who cannot find it in their hearts to commend another man's good deed show themselves either envious or else of nature very cold and dull. But without question, he who