However agreeable to the vanity, and useful to the cause, of the King, the book is a somewhat dreary book to read now; and save that it consists of a long dialogue between the King, Luther, and Murner, there need be little more said of it. Those who wish to read it will find it in its original German in that valuable collection of Middle Age literature made by Scheible, and entitled _Das Kloster_ (the Convent) Volume IV. pp. 893–982. The dispute continued to give a tone to his life henceforth, and all his later years were spent in empty and angry controversy. Indeed, we lose sight of him altogether in the year 1530; and it has been suspected that he was murdered at Lucerne, though we hear the last of him at Strasburg. His death was certainly before 1537.
“Simple” is here used in the sense of “cunning,” “bad.”
Charles V. was in England from the 26th of May, when he landed at Dover, till the 1st of July, 1522.
_The verses inserted by William Copland in the English black-letter Howleglas of 1528._
_How Howleglas came to a scoler to make verses with hym to that vse of reason. And howe that Howleglas began, as after shal folowe_:—
Mars with septer[19] a king coronate, Furius[20] in affliction, and taketh no regarde. By terrible fightyng he is our prymate And god of battell, and person ryght forward, Of warries[21] the tutor, the locke and the warde. His power, his might, who can them resyst? Not all this worlde, if that him selfe lyst.
Not all this worlde, who told the[22] so? Where is that written, ryght fayne wold I see? Ye came lyke a foole and so shall ye go. By one person only deceived ye may be And by astronomy, I tell vnto the. If that will not helpe, some shyft shal I fynde By craft or cunnyng, Mars for to blynde.
Venus a god of loue most decorate, The floure of women and lady most pvre, Louers to concorde she doth aye aggregate With parfyte loue, as marble to dure, The knot of loue, she knittes on them sure With frendly amite[23] and neuer to discorde By dedes, thought, cogitation, nor worde.
Not to discorde? yed[24] did I never see, Knowe not here tell of louers suche twayne, But some fault there was, learne this of me. Other in thought, or yet in wordes playne Your reasons be nought, your tongue goeth in vayne. By naturall person such loue is not found In Fraunce, Flaunders, nor yet in Englysh ground.