Page:The Chronicle of Clemendy.pdf/252

 firmed to be of an uncertain and hazardous nature, the manner of whose operations it was impossible to predict. However, he promised to speak earnestly to her husband, and to admonish him that his wife required different treatment at his hands, or else would fade away like a flower shut out from the sun. The which promise Albericus faithfully fulfilled, and bade my lord look more into Constance's beautiful eyes and less into his manuscripts; "since," said he, "change of all things is sweet, and you, my lord duke, have surely had enough of yellow and black, and would do well to inspect and examine a little more closely that admirable red and white; in the which process you will discover more poetry, philosophy, science, and measured eloquence than there is in all the books of the ancients." I think this was excellent advice, and well worthy the author of the Consultations; but as it fell out the doctor made a slip which quite spoilt everything. For he thought to humour the duke by speaking to him in Latin, and strove to do so elegantly, and indeed he rounded off his periods very floridly and pompously, and avoided ending a sentence with a word of one syllable as is done in the Missal and Breviary. But unfortunately he used a word found only in very early writers and very late ones, which twanged so hideously in my lord's ears that he paid Signor Albericus his fee and sent him away without more ado, and read Cicero all night, like a man that has tasted an addled egg and must swill out his mouth with pure water and choice wine, to purify it. Hence Constance