courtiers are dust and forgotten.

Judge Methuen and I shall in due time pass away, but our
courtiers--they who have ever contributed to our delight and
solace--our Horace, our Cervantes, our Shakespeare, and the rest
of the innumerable train--these shall never die. And inspired
and sustained by this immortal companionship we blithely walk the
pathway illumined by its glory, and we sing, in season and out,
the song ever dear to us and ever dear to thee, I hope, O gentle
reader:

Oh, for a booke and a shady nooke,
Eyther in doore or out,
With the greene leaves whispering overhead,
Or the streete cryes all about;
Where I maie reade all at my ease
Both of the newe and old,
For a jollie goode booke whereon to looke
Is better to me than golde!




VI

MY ROMANCE WITH FIAMMETTA

My bookseller and I came nigh to blows some months ago over an
edition of Boccaccio, which my bookseller tried to sell me. This
was a copy in the original, published at Antwerp in 1603,