<308>It was said that a pleasant courtier and servitor of King Henry the Eighth, to whom the King had promised some good turn, came and prayed the King to bestow a living on him, that he had found out, worth 100li. by the year more than enough: "Why, saith the King, we have none such in England:"—"Yes Sir, said his man, the provostship of Eaton; for (said he) he is allowed his diet, his lodging, his horse-meat, his servants' wages, his riding charge, his apparel, even to the points of his hose, at the college charge; and 100li. by the year beside." How true this is, I know not; but this I know, that Mr. Day having both this and the deanery of Windsor, was persuaded to leave them both, to succeed him that had been once his vice-provost of Eton, in the church of Winchester. He was a man of good nature, affable and courteous, and at his table, and in other conversation pleasant, yet always sufficiently retaining his gravity.

            When he was first Dean of Windsor, there was a singing man in the choir, one Wolner, a pleasant fellow, but famous for his eating rather than his singing; and for the swallow of his throat, rather than the sweetness of his note. Mr. Dean sent a man to him to reprove him for not singing with his fellows; the messenger thought all were worshipful at least, that wore white surplices; and told him, Mr. Dean would pray his worship to sing:—" Thankee, Mr. Dean (quoth Wolner) and tell him, I am as merry as they that sing;"—which answer, though it would have offended some man, yet hearing him to be such as I have described, he was soon pacified.

            He broke his leg with a fall from a horse, that started under him; whereupon some waggish scholars, of which I think myself was in the quorum, would say it was a just punishment, because the horse was given him by a gentleman to place his son in Eton, which at that time we thought had been a kind of sacrilege, but I may say, cum eram parvulus, sapiebam ut parvulus.<249> He had, in those days, a good and familiar fashion of preaching, not mincing the word, as some do, with three words to feed 3000 people, that go away all sometimes as empty as they came; nor as other, that are nodosi,<309> drawing their auditory with them into deep questions and dangerous passages, that howsoever they suppose they come off themselves much admired, they leave their auditors many times more than half-mired.<310> But his was a good plain fashion, apt to edify, and easy remember: I will repeat one lesson of many that I remember out of sermons of his, which I can imagine yet I hear him pronouncing, and it was concerning prayer: "It is not (saith he) a praying to God, but a tempting of God, to beg his blessings, without doing also our own endeavour; shall a scholar pray to God to make him learned, and never go to his book? shall a husbandman pray for a good harvest, and let his plow stand still?—the Pagans, and Heathen people, would laugh at such devotion. In their fabulous legends they have a tale of Hercules, whom for his strength they counted a God; how a carter, forsooth, had overthrown his cart, and sat down in the way, crying,- "help Hercules, help Hercules;"—at last Hercules (or one in his likeness) came to him, and swaddled him thriftily with a good cudgel, and said, "thou varay lazy fellow, (so he used to pronounce) callest thou to me for help, and dost nothing thyself? Arise, set to thy shoulder, and heave thy part, and then pray to me to help thee, and I will do the rest." And thus much of our good old provost, who being made a new bishop, and of a register of the garter becoming now prelate of the garter, enjoying this dignity a very short time, turned his day into night, though no night can oppress them that "die in the Lord."<311>

            By the way, I think this worth the noting, that whereas in the year of our Lord 1486, being the first of King Henry the Seventh, it was found that three bishops successively had held this bishopric six score years save one, namely, Wykeham, Beaufort, and Wainfleet:—Now in Queen Elizabeth's reign, there. had been seven bishops in forty yearS, five in seventeen yearS, and three in four yearS.

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