Pace, we are told, in the collection of letters to and from Erasmus (Basle, 1558), was once in the church at Woodstock, with the King and court, when the Franciscan monk who preached, confined himself in his sermon to denouncing the Greek language, and devoting to destruction all who studied it. The choice of such a subject, and the manner in which it was treated, were the more remarkable, as, a short time previously, a Franciscan monk had been silenced for preaching in the same sense. The Oxford students had hooted him in his cell, and the authorities had to interfere. The King had written to the heads of colleges in favour of the study of Greek; and his amazement was all the more unbounded at the audacity of the new monk, who went even further in his wrath against Greek than the Jewish Rabbis, who were wont to solemnly pronounce accursed the man who allowed his children to learn that language. If the King was enraged, the grave and learned Pace, who sat near him, was delighted. He did not dare exhibit his ecstasy; but he was so overcome with a propensity to burst out laughing, that he was compelled to bury his face in both hands, to conceal his strong and risible emotion. He was rather bolder when Henry subsequently ordered the monk to attend him in his closet, where the king pelted him with questions and menaces, and nearly frightened him out of his senses. The poor preacher had been abusing Erasmus without having read his works. He had, however, as he tremblingly remarked, “cast his eye over some pages of the ‘Eulogy of Folly.’” “Ah,” said Pace, “I really believe that the work was especially written with a view to your reverence.” The monk meekly smiled. He had not heart enough to confront the scholar, but he had sense enough to creep out of the difficulty into which he had fallen. He confessed himself to be reconciled with Greek from the sudden conviction which had descended upon him, that it was derived from the Hebrew. King and courtiers present burst into loud laughter at this sapient observation, under shelter of which the speaker was allowed to withdraw in safety. Pace declared that the monk had wit enough to make the fortune of a court jester; for if it did not save him from getting into a scrape, it certainly was strong enough to draw him out of one.