The monastery; The abbot.

THE MONASTERY. 10T
uttered. Indeed, the gallant knight's language was far too courtly to be
understood by persons of much greater acuteness than Mysie's.
It was about this period,, that the "only rare poet of his time, the witty,
comical, facetiously-quick, and quickly-facetious, John Lylly-he that sate
at Apollo's table, and to whom Phoebus gave a wreath of his own bays
without snatching" —he, in short, who wrote that singularly coxcomical
work, called Euphues and his England, was in the very zenith of his
absurdity and his reputation. The quaint, forced, and unnatural style which
he introduced by his "Anatomy of Wit," had a fashion as rapid as it was
momentary-all the court ladies were his scholars, and to parle Euphuisme,
was as necessary a qualification to a courtly gallant, as those of understanding how to use his rapier, or to dance a measure.
It was no wonder that the Maid of the Mill was soon as effectually blinded
by the intricacies of this erudite and courtly style of conversation, as she
had ever been by the dust of her father's own meal-sacks. But there she
sate with her mouth and eyes as open as the mill-door and the two windows,
showing teeth as white as her father's bolted flour, and endeavouring to
secure a word or two for her own future use out of the pearls of rhetoric
which Sir Piercie Shafton scattered around him with such bounteous profusion.
For the male part of the company, Edward felt ashamed of his own
manner and slowness of speech, when he observed the handsome young
courtier, with an ease and volubility of which he had no conception, run
over all the commonplace topics of high-flown gallantry. It is true the
good sense and natural taste of young Glendinning soon informed him that
the gallant cavalier was speaking nonsense. But, alas! where is the man
of modest merit, and real talent, who has not suffered from being outshone
in conversation and outstripped in the race of life, by men of less reserve,
and of qualities more showy, though less substantial? and well constituted
must the mind be, that can yield up the prize without envy to competitors
more worthy than himself.
Edward Glendinning had no such philosophy. While he despised the
jargon of the gay cavalier, he envied the facility with which he could run
on, as well as the courtly tone and expression, and the perfect ease and
elegance with which he offered all the little acts of politeness to which the
duties of the table gave opportunity. And if I am to speak truth, I must
own that he envied those qualities the more as they were all exercised in
Mary Avenel's service, and, although only so far accepted as they could not
be refused, intimated a wish on the stranger's part to place himself in her
good graces, as the only person in the room to whom he thought it worth
while to recommend himself. His title, rank, and very handsome figure,
together with some sparks of wit and spirit which flashed across the cloud
of nonsense which he uttered, rendered him, as the words of the old song
say, " a lad for a rady's viewing;" so that poor Edward, with all his real
worth and acquired knowledge, in his home-spun doublet, blue cap, and
deerskin trowsers, looked like a clown beside the courtier, and, feeling the
full inferiority, nourished no good-will to him by whom he was eclipsed.
Christie, on the other hand, as soon as he had satisfied to the full a commodious appetite, by means of which persons of his profession could, like
the wolf and eagle, gorge themselves with as much food at one meal as
might serve them for several days, began also to feel himself more in the
back-ground than he liked to be. This worthy had, amongst his other good
qualities, an excellent opinion of himself; and, being of a bold and forward
disposition, had no mind to be thrown into the shade by any one. With an
impudent familiarity which such persons mistake for graceful ease, he
* Such, and yet more extravagant, are the compliments paid to this author by his editor, Blount. Notwithstanding all exaggeration, Lylly was really a man of wit and imagination, though both were Jefdomed by the
most urnatural affectation that ever disgraced a printed page.