Page:The Life of Sir Thomas More (William Roper, ed by Samuel Singer).djvu/191

 be Esope's. For by that the matter goeth all upon confession, it semeth to be fained since Cristendom began. For in Grece, before Christes daies, they vsed not confession, no more the men than, than the beastes nowe. And Esope was a Greke, and died long ere Christ was borne. But what? who made it, maketh but little matter. Nor I enuy not that Esope hath the name. But surely it is. somewhat to subtil for me. For whan his lordship vnderstandeth by the lyon,and the woolfe, which both twayn confessed themself, of rauin and dewouring of al that came to their handes, and the tone enlarged his conscience at his pleasure in the construccion of his penance, nor whom by the good discrete confessor that enjoyned the tone a little penance, and the tother none at all, and sent the poore Asse to the byshop, of all these thinges can I nothing tel. But by the foolishe scrupelous Asse, that had so sore a conscience for the taking of a straw for hunger out of hys maisters shoo, my lordes other woordes of my scruple declare, that his lordshyp merely meant that by me: signifying (as it semeth by that similitude), that of ouersight and folye, my scrupulous conscience taketh for a gret perilous thynge towarde my soule, if I should sweare this othe, Wich thing as his lordship thinketh, wer in dede but a tryfle. And I suppose well, Margaret, as you tolde me right now, that so thinketh many mo besyde, as well spirituall as temporal, and that euen of those, that for theyr learning and their vertue, my self not alittle esteme. And yet albeit that I suppose this to be true, yet beleve I not euen very surely, that euerye man so thynketh that so saith. But though they did, daughter, that would not make much to me, not though I shoulde see my Lorde of Rochester say the same, and sweare the oth himself before me teo. For whereas you told me right now, that such as loue me, wold not aduyse me, that against all other men, I should leane vnto hys mind alone, verely daughter no more I dooe. For albeit that of very trouthe, I have him in that reuerent estimacion, that I reckon in this realme no one man, in wisdom, learning, and long approucd vertue together, mete to be matched and compared with him, yet that in this matter I was not lead by him, very wel and plain appeareth, both in that I refused the othe before it was offred him,