.

JOHN HEYWOOD.
After so much care and excitement, the king needed an hour of recreation and amusement.

Since the fair young queen was seeking these far away in the chase, and amid the beauties of Nature, Henry must, no doubt, be content to seek them for himself, and in a way different from the queen's.

His unwieldiness and his load of flesh prevented him from pursuing the joys of life beyond his own halls; so the lords and ladies of his court had to bring them hither to him, and station the flitting goddess of Joy, with her wings fettered, in front of the king's trundle-chair.
The gout had that day again overcome that mighty king of earth; and a heavy, grotesque mass it was which sat there in the elbow-chair.
But the courtiers still called him a fine-looking and fascinating man; and the ladies still smiled on him and said, by their sighs and by their looks, that they loved him; that he was ever to them the same handsome and captivating man that he was twenty years before, when yet young, fine-looking, and slim.

How they smile upon him, and ogle him! How Lady Jane, the maiden otherwise so haughty and so chaste, does wish to ensnare him with her bright eyes as with a net! How bewitchingly does the Duchess of Richmond, that fair and voluptuous woman, laugh at the king's merry jests and double entendres! Poor king! whose corpulency forbids him to dance as he once had done with so much pleasure and so much dexterity! Poor king! whose age forbids him to sing as once he had done to the delight both of the court and himself! But there are yet, however, pleasant, precious, joyous hours, when the man revives some little in the king; when even youth once more again awakes within him, and smiles in a few dear, blessed pleasures.