I will then own you to be mine, and take care
of you: but if I should lose the battle, then shift as well as you
can, and take care to let nobody know that I am your father, for no
mercy will be shown to any one so nearly related to me;" that the king
gave him a purse of gold and dismissed him; that he followed those
directions, and when he saw the battle was lost and the king slain, he
hastened to London, sold his horse and his fine clothes, and the
better to conceal himself from all suspicion of being the son of a
king, and that he might gain a livelihood, he put himself apprentice
to a bricklayer, and generally spent his spare time in reading. Sir
Thomas, finding him very old, is said to have offered him _the run of
his kitchen_, which he declined, on the ground of his patron having a
large family; but asked his permission to build a small house in one
of his fields, and this being granted, he built a cottage, and
continued in it till his death.
* * * * *
ANTIQUITIES BURLESQUED.
We have often been amused with the different wonders of ancient Rome,
but seldom more than with the following piece of antiquarianism
burlesqued:--
M. Simond, in his Tour in Italy and Sicily, tells us that the Coliseum
is too ruinous--that the Egyptian Museum in the Vatican puts him in
mind of the five wigs in the barber Figaro's shop-window--that the
Apollo Belvidere looks like a broken-backed young gentleman shooting
at a target for the amusement of young ladies.
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