“Go lytell quayre, apace In moost humble wyse, Before his noble grace, That caused you to devise This lytell enterprise; And hym most lowly pray, In his mynde to comprise These wordes his grace dyd saye On an ammas gray. Je foy enterment en sa bonne grace.” “You fell from his good grace?” “I did. How, it boots not to relate. Tongue! tongue! that must needs be making rhymes, whether on Cardinal or on Priest, on Lord or Varlet. He gave me nothing; yet he made much of me: gave me what they call Bowge a court at his own great table, where he entertained a hundred daily. He heard my verses, and he smiled; yet he gave me nothing. He heard my jests, and laughed; yet he gave me nothing. Wherefore, the Muse working powerfully within me, not to be resisted, I wrote such verses as I have already told you, and fled hither. And here must I remain, for the Cardinal can never forgive me, seeing that I have set upon him a mark that he can in no way rub off. My only hope is that, as King’s favourites do fall as well as rise, and that His Highness the King hath a temper which is like the wind in March, the great man may fall before I die--otherwise, a Sanctuary man shall I remain unto the end. Drink, good sir.” Then, as his visitor would take no more of the strong brown ale, he rose. [Illustration: PICKERING CUP, BELONGING TO THE BURGESSES OF WESTMINSTER.] “Let us sally forth,” he said, “and I will show thee this Sanctuary or Common Sink of all rogues. Here,” he said, as he stood before the Double Chapel, “is the place where, morning and evening, we must hear matins and vespers. So sayeth the Rule; but who is there to examine and find out whether the Rule be kept or not? ‘Tis a dark and gloomy place, built for the better admonition of sinners and the exhorting to repentance. But of repentance is there little or none. [Illustration: THE SOUTHERN EXTREMITY OF THIEVING LANE, A. D. 1800.]