4o8 HENRY'S ECONOMY. [XVI. servant; but it is worth while speculating on Henry's own character for avarice. He was a man who had a fair intelligence and a fair knowledge of history: he had been very poor himself, and he had learned that poverty and want of economic governance had ruined the great house to which \ Henry V had imparted so much glory. He knew, from the *first, that he must save in order to get on at all; and when he had begun to save, and when, by the forfeitures of the early years, he had managed to save to some purpose, non only did the love of money increase as the money itselfA accumulated, but he found it pleasant to rule without having to ask parliament for money; and finally found it pleasant, through Empson and Dudley, both to rule and to gather money without the trouble of parliament. However that may have been, the seven parliaments each had a subsidy or a budget ; and the financial history is capable of a brief summary. In the first parliament Henry succeeded in obtaining a revenue for life ; Bishop Alcock had made a moving speech on the text, ' Good luck have thou with thine honour, ride on ;' in which he adduced the fable of the belly and members, the properties of bees, Isidore on the virtues of royalty, S. Ambrose in the Hexaemeron, and Ovid on the Golden Age ; with the usual application. After the approval of the Speaker, the king addressed the Commons with a declaration of his title and promises of good government: and they responded with a liberal vote of tunnage, poundage, and the custom on leather for lifej; apportioning £14,000 to the household, £10,000 odd to Calais, and £2105 19*. nd. to the wardrobe ; there was likewise an act of resumption. In the session of 1487 Morton preached on 'Cease to do evil, learn to do well:' a wonderful sermon in four heads, subdivided each into three arguments, illustrated from Cicero and other gentile philosophers, the moral of which was the