ANTHONY:  In good faith, cousin, so begin we to fare here indeed, and that but even now of late.  For since the title of the crown hath come in question, the good rule of this realm hath very sore decayed, as little a while as it is.  And undoubtedly Hungary shall never do well as long as men’s minds hearken after novelty and have their hearts hanging upon a change.  And much the worse I like it, when their words walk so large toward the favour of the Turk’s sect, which they were ever wont to have in so great abomination, as every true-minded Christian man—­and Christian woman, too—­must have.

I am of such age as you see, and verily from as far as I can remember, it hath been marked and often proved true, that when children in Buda have fallen in a fancy by themselves to draw together and in their playing make as it were corpses carried to church, and sing after their childish fashion the tune of the dirge, great death hath followed shortly thereafter.  And twice or thrice I can remember in my day when children in divers parts of this realm have gathered themselves in sundry companies and made as it were troops and battles.  And after their battles in sport, in which some children have yet taken great hurt, there hath fallen true battle and deadly war indeed.  These tokens were somewhat like your example of the sea, since they are tokens going before, of things that afterward follow, through some secret motion or instinct of which the cause is unknown.

But, by St. Mary, cousin, these tokens like I much worse—­these tokens, I say, not of children’s play nor of children’s songs, but old knaves’ large open words, so boldly spoken in the favour of Mahomet’s sect in this realm of Hungary, which hath been ever hitherto a very sure key of Christendom.  And without doubt if Hungary be lost and the Turk have it once fast in his possession, he shall, ere it be long afterward, have an open ready way into almost all the rest of Christendom.  Though he win it not all in a week, the great part will be won, I fear me, within very few years after.

VINCENT:  But yet evermore I trust in Christ, good uncle, that he shall not suffer that abominable sect of his mortal enemies in such wise to prevail against his Christian countries.

ANTHONY:  That is very well said, cousin.  Let us have our sure hope in him, and then shall we be very sure that we shall not be deceived.  For we shall have either the thing that we hope for, or a better thing in its stead.  For, as for the thing itself that we pray for and hope to have, God will not always send it to us.  And therefore, as I said in our first communication, in all things save only for heaven, our prayer and our hope may never be too precise, although the thing may be lawful to ask.