Page:The house of Cecil.djvu/32

 i8 THE CECILS

a letter written to him by Edward Griffin, the Queen's Attorney, in 1557, in which he says he is sorry Cecil was never of Gray's Inn, " nor can skill of no law." Probably he never intended to take up the law as a profession, and if he applied himself seriously to the subject at all, his studies were broken off by his promotion at Court. He is said to have laid the foundation at this time of his knowledge of genealogy and heraldry, of which mention has already been made. In these matters he was afterwards recognised as an expert, being specially interested in the pedigrees of Royal houses and great families in England and abroad a taste he gratified by decorating the walls of Theobalds with genealogical trees. Such import- ance did he attach to this study, that when his son was in Paris, in 1561, he was anxious that he should receive instruction from a herald, so as to " understand the principal families and their alliances in France." l

Whatever his intellectual occupations may have been while at Gray's Inn, his " witty mirth and merry temper " made him popular among his fellows, and he is said to have been very fond of practical jokes and other merry jests. An example is given by his domestic biographer :

" Among the rest I heard him tell this merriment of himself. That a mad companion enticed him to play, where in short time he lost all his money, bedding, and books to his companion ; having never used play before. And being among his other company, told how such a one

1 Burgon, Life of Sir T. Gresham, I. 229.

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