26787_.] The coarseness of Skelton's satires and his open disregard of the clerical vows of chastity may justify some doubt of the value of the poet's influence on Henry's character; but he so far observed the conventional duties of his post as to dedicate to his royal pupil, in 1501, a moral treatise in Latin of no particular worth.[47] More deserving of Henry's study were two books inscribed to him a (p.

022) little later by young Boerio, son of the King's Genoese physician and a pupil of Erasmus, who, according to his own account, suffered untold afflictions from the father's temper.

One was a translation of Isocrates' _De Regno_, the other of Lucian's tract against believing calumnies.[48] The latter was, to judge from the tale of Henry's victims, a precept which he scarcely laid to heart in youth.

In other respects he was apt enough to learn.

He showed "remarkable docility for mathematics," became proficient in Latin, spoke French with ease, understood Italian, and, later on, possibly from Catherine of Aragon, acquired a knowledge of Spanish.