APP.  Mendacio, hang this superiority; crown me no crown, but Bacchus’s crown of roses; give me no sceptre but a fat capon’s leg, to show that I am the great king of Hungary!  Therefore, I prythee, talk no more of state-matters:  but in brief, tell me, my little rascal, how thou hast spent thy time this many a day.

MEN.  Faith, in some credit, since thou sawest me last.

APP.  How so? where?

MEN.  Everywhere.  In the court your gentlewomen hang me at their apron-strings, and that makes them answer so readily.  In the city I am honoured like a god; none so well acquainted with your tradesmen.  Your lawyers, all the termtime, hire me of my lady; your gallants, if they hear my name abused, they stab for my sake; your travellers so doat upon me as passes.[209] O, they have good reason; for I have carried them to many a good meal under the countenance of my familiarity.  Nay, your statesmen have oftentimes closely conveyed me under their tongues, to make their policies more current.  As for old men, they challenge my company by authority.

APP.  I am exceeding glad of your great promotion.

MEN.  Now, when I am disposed, I can philosophy it in the university with the subtlest of them all.

APP.  I cannot be persuaded that thou art acquainted with scholars, ever since thou wert pressed to death in a printing-house.

MEN.  No? why, I was the first founder of the three sects of philosophy, except one of the Peripatetics, who acknowledge Aristotle, I confess, their great grandfather.

APP.  Thou boy! how is this possible?  Thou art but a child, and there were sects of philosophy, before thou wert born.

MEN.  Appetitus, thou mistakest me.  I tell thee, three thousand years ago was Mendacio born in Greece,[210] nursed in Crete, and ever since honoured everywhere.  I’ll be sworn I held old Homer’s pen, when he writ his Iliads and his Odysseys.

APP.  Thou hadst need, for I hear say he was blind.

MEN.  I helped Herodotus to pen some part of his “Muses";[211] lent Pliny ink to write his history; rounded Rabelais in the ear,[212] when he historified Pantagruel:  as for Lucian, I was his genius.  O, those two books “De Vera Historia,” howsoever they go under his name, I’ll be sworn I writ them every tittle.

APP.  Sure as I am hungry, thou’st have it for lying.  But hast thou rusted this latter time for want of exercise?

MEN.  Nothing less.  I must confess I would fain have jogged Stow and great Hollingshed on their elbows, when they were about their chronicles; and, as I remember, Sir John Mandeville’s “Travels” and a great part of the “Decads"[213] were of my doing.  But for the “Mirror of Knighthood,” “Bevis of Southampton,” “Palmerin of England,” “Amadis of Gaul,” “Huon de Bordeaux,” “Sir Guy of Warwick,” “Martin Marprelate,” “Robin Hood,” “Garragantua,” “Gerileon,” and a thousand such exquisite monuments as these, no doubt but they breathe in my breath up and down.