disuse himself, that he from henceforth, in such seasons, was no more so ordinarily sent for.” In short, he feigned heaviness of humour, that he might escape the honours paid to, and the services expected from, a court jester. Had any friend expressed astonishment at the change in his bearing, More might have excused himself nearly in the words of the essayist, who said:--“If my readers should at any time remark that I am particularly dull, they may be assured there is a design under it.” So More contrived for awhile to be more at home, where he had a wife who missed all the points of his puns, and a household fool who had about as much wit as his mistress. The latter was one Patteson, an ex-mummer, half crazed by a fall from a church-steeple, who had lost his old itinerant vocation, and whom More took into his family, poor, shabby, droll fellow as he was, and amused himself, after application to high subjects, by listening to his small wit, even as a man may take now and then to small-beer after too hot and long an acquaintance with ruddy Vin de Beaune. Patteson founded his desire to be a household fool, on the very sufficient ground that, as he was already laughed at for one, he thought he might as well be hired in a great family, where he should be paid, fed, and lodged for being thus the object of risibility. Sir Thomas answered, that he had had little thought of employing such a retainer, being rather inclined to do all the fooling in his family, himself. The great negotiation, however, was brought to a conclusion by a compromise; the business was to be divided, Sir Thomas continuing unlicensed joker, and Patteson being paid full salary for inoffensive small wit, cleanliness of life, and restraint of his tongue before ladies. Patteson was not an educated jester, like Scogan and other great wearers of the cap and bells under the roofs of kings. He could not read. “But what of that?” he is said to have asked; “there never was but one that I ever heard of, that never having learned, knew his letters, and well _he_ might, for he made them that made them.” The witty remark deserved to procure for Patteson his desired engagement; and this he had no sooner procured, than he affected to take precedence of his master, in his own house; “for,” said he, “you, brother, are but jester to King Harry, whereas _I_ am jester to Sir Thomas More; and I leave you to determine which is the greater man of the two.”