Page:A happy half-century and other essays.djvu/209

Rh is scholarly but inconvenient), and the determination of Edward Montagu "not to speak Latin in the presence of ladies," embarrass social intercourse. Catherine Clarenham, the young person who walks barefooted over stone floors, has been so blighted by this pious exercise that she cannot, at twenty, translate the Pater Noster or Ave Maria into English, and remains a melancholy illustration of Latinity. When young Basil Clarenham shows symptoms of yielding to Montagu arguments, and begins to want a Bible of his own, he is spirited away to Rome, and confined in a monastery of the Inquisition, where he spends his time reading "books forbidden by the Inquisitors," and especially "a New Testament with the prohibitory mark of the Holy Office upon it," which the weak-minded monks have amiably placed at his disposal. Indeed, the monastery library, to which the captive is made kindly welcome, seems to have been well stocked with interdicted literature; and, after browsing in these pastures for several tranquil months, Basil tells his astonished hosts that their books have taught him that "the Romish Church is the most corrupt