I hold a mouses wit not worth a leke,

That hath but on hole for to sterten to.1

Canterbury Tales. The Wif of Bathes Prologue. Line 6154.

Loke who that is most vertuous alway,
Prive and apert, and most entendeth ay
To do the gentil dedes that he can,
And take him for the gretest gentilman.

The Wif of Bathes Tale. Line 6695.
Line 6752.

That he is gentil that doth gentil dedis.2
This flour of wifly patience.

The Clerkes Tale. Part v. Line 8797.

They demen gladly to the badder end.

The Squieres Tale. Line 10538.

Therefore behoveth him a ful long spone,
That shall eat with a fend.3

Fie on possession,

But if a man be vertuous withal.

Line 10916.

The Frankeleines Prologue. Line 10998.

Truth is the highest thing that man may keep.

The Frankeleines Tale. Line 11789.

Full wise is he that can himselven knowe.1

The Monkes Tale. Line 1449.

1 Consider the little mouse, how sagacious an animal it is which never entrusts his life to one hole only. - PLAUTUS: Truculentus, act iv. sc. 4.

The mouse that always trusts to one poor hole

Can never be a mouse of any soul.

POPE: Paraphrase of the Prologue, line 298.

2 Handsome is that handsome does. - GOLDSMITH: Vicar of Wakefield, chap. i.

3 Hee must have a long spoon, shall eat with the devil.

Proverbes, part ii. chap. v.

He must have a long spoon that must eat with the devil. SPEARE Comedy of Errors, act iv. sc. 3.

HEYWOOD:

4 Thales was asked what was very difficult; he said, "To know one's

DIOGENES LAERTIUS: Thales, ix.

Know then thyself, presume not God to scan ;

The proper study of mankind is man.

POPE: Epistle ii. line 1.

He helde about him alway, out of drede,

A world of folke.

Canterbury Tales. Troilus and Creseide. Book iii. Line 1721. One eare it heard, at the other out it went.1

Line 525.

Book v.

Line 146.

Line 1798.

Eke wonder last but nine deies never in toun.2
I am right sorry for your heavinesse.
Go, little booke! go, my little tragedie!
Your duty is, as ferre as I can gesse.

The Court of Love. Line 178.

The lyfe so short, the craft so long to lerne,3
Th' assay so hard, so sharpe the conquering.

The Assembly of Fowles. Line 1.

For out of the old fieldes, as men saithe,
Cometh al this new corne fro yere to yere;
And out of old bookes, in good faithe,
Cometh al this new science that men lere.
Nature, the vicar of the Almightie Lord.
O little booke, thou art so unconning,

How darst thou put thy-self in prees for drede?

Line 22.

Line 379.

The Flower and the Leaf. Line 59.

Of all the floures in the mede,

Than love I most these floures white and rede,
Soch that men callen daisies in our toun.

Prologue of the Legend of Good Women.

Line 41

That well by reason men it call may
The daisie, or els the eye of the day,
The emprise, and floure of floures all.

Line 183.

For iii may keep a counsel if twain be away.

The Ten Commandments of Love.

1 Went in at the tone eare and out at the tother. HEYWOOD: Proverbes,

part ii. chap. ix.

2 This wonder lasted nine daies.

chap. i.

HEYWOOD: Proverbes, part ii.

8 Ars longa, vita brevis (Art is long life is brief). — HIPPOCRATES : Aphorism i.

4 Three may keepe counsayle, if two be away. - HEYWOOD: Proverbes, part ii. chap. v.

THOMAS A KEMPIS. 1380–1471.

Man proposes, but God disposes.1

Imitation of Christ. Book i. Chap. 19.

And when he is out of sight, quickly also is he out of mind.2

Of two evils, the less is always to be chosen.3

Chap. 23.

JOHN FORTESCUE.

Book iii. Chap. 12.

Circa 1395-1485.

Moche Crye and no Wull.* De Laudibus Ley. Anglice. Chap. x, Comparisons are odious.5

Chap. xix.

1 This expression is of much greater antiquity. It appears in the Chronicle of Battel Abbey, p. 27 (Lower's translation), and in The Vision of Piers Ploughman, line 13994. ed. 1550.

A man's heart deviseth his way; but the Lord directeth his steps. Proverbs xvi. 9.

2 Out of syght, out of mynd. - GOOGE: Eglogs. 1563.

And out of mind as soon as out of sight.

Lord BROOKE: Sonnet lvi.

Fer from eze, fer from herte,

Quoth Hendyng.

HENDYNG: Proverbs, MSS.

Circa 1320.

I do perceive that the old proverbis be not alwaies trew, for I do finde that the absence of my Nath. doth breede in me the more continuall remembrance of him. Anne Lady Bacon to Jane Lady Cornwallis, 1613.

On page 19 of The Private Correspondence of Lady Cornwallis, Sir Nathaniel Bacon speaks of the owlde proverbe, "Out of sighte, out of mynde."

3 See Chaucer, page 5.

4 All cry and no wool. · BUTLER: Hudibras, part i. canto i. line 852. 5 CERVANTES: Don Quixote (Lockhart's ed.); part ii. chap. i. LYLY: Euphues, 1580. MARLOWE: Lust's Dominion, act iii. sc. 4. BURTON: Anatomy of Melancholy, part iii. sec. 3. THOMAS HEYWOOD: A Woman killed with Kindness (first ed. in 1607), act i. sc. 1. DONNE Elegy, viii. HERBERT Jacula Prudentum. GRANGE: Golden Aphrodite.

Comparisons are odorous.

act iii. sc. 5.