BECKET. I am too like the King here; both of us Too headlong for our office. Better have been A fisherman at Bosham, my good Herbert, Thy birthplace--the sea-creek--the petty rill That falls into it--the green field--the gray church-- The simple lobster-basket, and the mesh-- The more or less of daily labour done-- The pretty gaping bills in the home-nest Piping for bread--the daily want supplied-- The daily pleasure to supply it. HERBERT. Ah, Thomas, You had not borne it, no, not for a day. BECKET. Well, maybe, no. HERBERT. But bear with Walter Map, For here he comes to comment on the time. _Enter_ WALTER MAP. WALTER MAP. Pity, my lord, that you have quenched the warmth of France toward you, tho' His Holiness, after much smouldering and smoking, be kindled again upon your quarter. BECKET. Ay, if he do not end in smoke again. WALTER MAP. My lord, the fire, when first kindled, said to the smoke, 'Go up, my son, straight to Heaven.' And the smoke said, 'I go;' but anon the North-east took and turned him South-west, then the South-west turned him North-east, and so of the other winds; but it was in him to go up straight if the time had been quieter. Your lordship affects the unwavering perpendicular; but His Holiness, pushed one way by the Empire and another by England, if he move at all, Heaven stay him, is fain to diagonalise. HERBERT. Diagonalise! thou art a word-monger! Our Thomas never will diagonalise. Thou art a jester and a verse-maker. Diagonalise! WALTER MAP. Is the world any the worse for my verses if the Latin rhymes be rolled out from a full mouth? or any harm done to the people if my jest be in defence of the Truth? BECKET. Ay, if the jest be so done that the people Delight to wallow in the grossness of it, Till Truth herself be shamed of her defender. _Non defensoribus istis_, Walter Map. WALTER MAP. Is that my case? so if the city be sick, and I cannot call the kennel sweet, your lordship would suspend me from verse-writing, as you suspended yourself after subwriting to the customs. BECKET. I pray God pardon mine infirmity.