The following report, which Mr. Froude views as the liveliest of all that Bishop Bonner's zeal has spared, offers a picturesque sketch of such cases, according to the shape which they often assumed. In Chaucer's tale, told with such unrivalled _vis comica_, of the _Trompington Miller and the Two Cambridge Scholars_, we have a most life-like picture of the miller with his 'big bones,' as a 'dangerous' man for the nonce. Just such a man, just as dangerous, and just as big-boned, we find in the person of an abbot--defending his abbey, not by any reputation for sanctity or learning, but solely by his _dangerousness_ as the wielder of quarter-staff and cudgel. With no bull-dog or mastiff, and taken by surprise, such an abbot naturally lost the stakes for which he played. The letter is addressed to the Secretary of State:--'Please it your goodness to understand, that on Friday the 22nd of October (1535), I rode back with speed to take an inventory of Folkstone; and thence I went to Langden. Whereat immediately descending from my horse, I sent Bartlett, your servant, with all _my_ servants, to circumsept the abbey [_i. e._ to form a hedge round about], and surely to keep [guard] all back-doors and starting holes. I myself went alone to the abbot's lodging--joining upon the fields and wood.' [This position, the reporter goes on to insinuate, was no matter of chance: but, like a rabbit-warren, had been so placed with a view to the advantages for retreat and for cover in the adjacent woodlands.] 'I was a good space knocking at the abbot's door; neither did any sound or sensible manifestation of life betray itself, saving the abbot's little dog, that within his door, fast locked, bayed and barked. I found a short pole-axe standing behind the door; and with it I dashed the abbot's door in pieces _ictu oculi_ [in the twinkling of an eye]; and set one of my men to keep that door; and about the house I go with that pole-axe in my hand--_ne forte_ ["_lest by any chance_"[54]--holding in suspense such words as "_some violence should be offered_"]--for the abbot is a dangerous, desperate knave, and a hardy. But, for a conclusion, his gentlewoman bestirred her stumps towards her starting holes; and then Bartlett, watching the pursuit, took the tender _demoisel_; and, after I had examined her, to Dover--to the mayor, to set her in some cage or prison for eight days. And I brought holy father abbot to Canterbury; and here, in Christ Church, I will leave him in prison.' [Footnote 54: '_Ne forte_' is a case of what is learnedly called _aposiopesis_ or _reticentia_; that is, where (for the sake of effect) some emphatic words are left to be guessed at: as Virgil's _Quos ego_----(Whom if I catch, I'll----)]