And into this pleasant frenzy of much foolish vainglory are there some men brought sometimes by those whom they themselves do (in a manner) hire to flatter them.  And they would not be content if a man should do otherwise, but would be right angry—­not only if a man told them truth when they do evil indeed, but also if they praise it but slenderly.

VINCENT:  Forsooth, uncle, this is very truth.  I have been ere this, and not very long ago, where I saw so proper experience of this point that I must stop your tale long enough to tell you mine.

ANTHONY:  I pray you, cousin, tell on.

VINCENT:  When I was first in Germany, uncle, it happed me to be somewhat favoured by a great man of the church and a great estate, one of the greatest in all that country there.  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, very far above all measure.  And that was great pity, for it did harm and made him abuse many great gifts that God had given him.  Never was he satiated with hearing his own praise.

So happed it one day, that he had in a great audience made an oration in a certain manner, in which he liked himself so well that at his dinner he thought he sat on thorns till he might hear how those who sat with him at his board would commend it.  He sat musing a while, devising, as I thought afterward, upon some pretty proper way to bring it in withal.  And at last, for lack of a better, lest he should have forborne the matter too long, he brought it even bluntly forth and asked us all who sat at his board’s end—­for at his own place in the midst there sat but himself alone—­how well we liked his oration that he had made that day.  But in faith, uncle, when that problem was once proposed, till it was full answered, no man, I believe, ate one morsel of meat more—­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 next to me, and should say his sentence after me, was an unlearned priest, for he could speak no Latin at all.  But when he came forth for his part with my lord’s commendation, the wily fox had been so well accustomed in court to the craft of flattery that he went beyond me by far.  And then might