holds good. That sentence may not be luminous with meaning, but I will
give you an illustration.

I think it was in the spring of 1509, at any rate soon after the death
of the "Modern Solomon," as Queen Catherine called her old
father-in-law, the late King Henry VII, that his august majesty Henry
VIII, "The Vndubitate Flower and very Heire of both the sayd Linages,"
came to the throne of England, and tendered me the honorable position
of Master of the Dance at his sumptuous court.

As to "worldly goods," as some of the new religionists call wealth, I
was very comfortably off; having inherited from my father, one of the
counselors of Henry VII, a very competent fortune indeed. How my
worthy father contrived to save from the greedy hand of that rich old
miser so great a fortune, I am sure I can not tell. He was the only
man of my knowledge who did it; for the old king had a reach as long
as the kingdom, and, upon one pretext or another, appropriated to
himself everything on which he could lay his hands. My father,
however, was himself pretty shrewd in money matters, having inherited
along with his fortune a rare knack at keeping it. His father was a
goldsmith in the time of King Edward, and enjoyed the marked favor of
that puissant prince.

Being thus in a position of affluence, I cared nothing for the fact
that little or no emolument went with the office; it was the honor
which delighted me. Besides, I was thereby an inmate of the king's
palace, and brought into intimate relations with the court, and above
all, with the finest ladies of the land--the best company a man can
keep, since it ennobles his mind with better thoughts, purifies his
heart with cleaner motives, and makes him gentle without detracting