Famous it was in our domestic circle, but as yet it has not gone beyond;
and since the reader, I am sure, does not turn to the Caxton Memoirs
with the expectation of finding sermons, so to that circle let its fame
be circumscribed. All I shall say about it is that it was a very fine
sermon, and that it proved indisputably--to me at least--the salubrious
effects of a saffron bag applied to the great centre of the nervous
system. But the wise Ali saith that "a fool doth not know what maketh
him look little, neither will he hearken to him that adviseth him." I
cannot assert that my father's friends were fools, but they certainly
came under this definition of Folly.




CHAPTER IV.


For therewith arose, not conviction, but discussion; Trevanion was
logical, Beaudesert sentimental. My father held firm to the saffron
bag. When James the First dedicated to the Duke of Buckingham his
meditation on the Lord's Prayer, he gave a very sensible reason for
selecting his Grace for that honor; "For," saith the king, "it is made
upon a very short and plain prayer, and, therefore, the fitter for a
courtier, for courtiers are for the most part thought neither to have
lust nor leisure to say long prayers, liking best courte messe et long
disner." I suppose it was for a similar reason that my father persisted
in dedicating to the member of parliament and the fine gentleman "this
short and plaine" morality of his,--to wit, the saffron bag. He was
evidently persuaded, if he could once get them to apply that, it was all