As all subjects were equally seductive to the artless pen of a primitive author, who had yet no rivals to encounter in public, Elyot turned his useful studies to a topic very opposite to that of political ethics. He put forth "The Castle of Health," a medical treatise, which passed through nearly as many honourable editions as "The Governor." It did not, however, abate the number, though it changed the character of his cavillers, who were now the whole corporate body of the physicians! The author has told his amusing story in the preface to a third edition, in 1541. "Why should I be grieved with reproaches wherewith some of my country do recompense me for my labours, taken without hope of temporal reward, only for the fervent affection which I have ever borne toward the public weal of my country? 'A worthy matter!' saith one; 'Sir Thomas Elyot has become a physician, and writeth on physic, which beseemeth not a knight; he might have been much better occupied.' Truly, if they will call him a physician who is studious of the weal of his country, let men so name me." But there was no shame in studying this science, or setting forth any book, being-- "Thereto provoked by the noble example of my noble master King Henry VIII.; for his Highness hath not disdained to be the chief author of an introduction to grammar for the children of his subjects. "If physicians be angry that I have written physic in English, let them remember that Greeks wrote in Greek, the Romans in Latin, and Avicenna in Arabic, which were their own proper and maternal tongues. These were paynims and Jews, but in this part of charity they far surmounted us Christians." Several years after, when our author reverted to his "Castle of Health," the Castle was brightened by the beams of public favour. Its author now exulted that "It shall long preserve men, be some physicians never so angry." The work had not been intended to depreciate medical professors, but "for their commodity, by instructing the sick, and observing a good order in diet, preventing the great causes of sickness, or by which they could the sooner be cured." Our philosopher had attempted to draw aside that mystifying veil with which some affected to envelope the arcana of medicine, as if they were desirous "of writing in cypher that none but themselves could read." Our author had anticipated that revolution in medical science which afterwards, at a distant period, has been productive of some of the ablest treatises in the vernacular languages of Europe. The patriotic studies of Elyot did not terminate in these ethical and popular volumes, for he had taxed his daily diligence for his country's weal. This appeared in "The Dictionary of Sir Thomas Elyot, 1535," a folio, which laid the foundation of our future lexicons, "declaring Latin by English," as Elyot describes his own labour.