Part 34

THE YOUNG CHILDREN’S BOOK

MS. Ashmole 61 (Bodleian Library), fol. 20, about 1500.

p. 21. Seven Sciences, i.e., knowledges, hence Arts. The introduction is nearly identical, but very few of the maxims agree.

p. 22. What you get with your hands. One of the many allusions which suggest adaptation to the middle class. Others are to buying and selling, to getting your money honestly, &c. The stress upon morals rather than manners is perhaps due to the same cause.

p. 25. At the school. The inference seems to be that they would learn manners there.

p. 25. Quoth Kate. The same name occurs at the end of the three next poems as they appear in MS. Ashmole 61. It is probably a corruption, unless we have here one of the rare instances of a woman copyist. Cato suggests itself as the most likely original; and in this way. He was undoubtedly identified with the Wise Man, as appears from the Luytel Caton of the Vernon MS. (see p. 189, below). Accordingly, Quod Cato might have stood at the end of this poem, and have become confused with Kate from Katharine or Catherine.

STANS PUER AD MENSAM

This must have been a popular form of the maxims, as many MSS. still exist. The translation is made from MS. Lambeth 853, fol. 150, about 1430, with occasional references to Harl. 2251, fol. 153 (148), about 1460(?). A much longer and more tedious (250 lines, instead of 99) version was printed by Dr. Furnivall in Queene Eliz. Achad., from MS. Ashmole 61. This last quotes Grostum Caput, i.e., Grossetete, and refers several times to “Dr. Palere,” of whom nothing seems to be known. The Ashmole version, however, contains several interesting points not mentioned in the other two:—

“Thy elbow and arms have in thy thought, Too far on the table do them not lay.”

“And if thou see any man reading a letter, Come not too nigh him for dread of blame.”

“And if thou go with any man in field or in town, By wall or by hedge, by palace or by pale, To go without (outside) him, look thou be bown (ready), And take him betwixt thee and that same wall; And if thou meet him, look thou be sure That thou go without him, and leave him next the wall.”

“Stare not on a strange man too much, be thou ware.”

“Nor never mock an old man, though he be old.”

Various other MSS. are (1) Jesus College, Cambridge (Q.T. 8, printed by Wright & Halliwell, in Reliquiæ Antiquæ, I., 156-58), (2) Cotton Caligula A ii, Harl. 4011, Lansdowne 699, Additional 5467, &c. It was printed once by Caxton, and several times by Wynkyn de Worde.

The only reason for considering John Lydgate as the author lies in the attribution to him in the last stanza (see next page).

p. 27. Indict. Text: edwite, modern, twit.

p. 30. Ah, little ballad, &c. The Harl. text reads:

“Go, little bill, barren of eloquence, Pray young children that thee shall see or read, Though thou be compendious of sentence, Of thy clauses for to take heed, Which to all virtue shall their youth lead. Of the writing, though there be no date, If aught be amiss in word, syllable, or deed, Put all the default upon John Lydgate.”

HOW THE GOOD WIFE TAUGHT HER DAUGHTER

MS. Lambeth 853, p. 102, about 1430, written without breaks. Other MSS. are Trinity College, Cambridge, R. 3, 19, and Ashmole 61, p. 7 (printed in Queene Elizabethes Achademy), a later and inferior text, which contains, however, a fresh and interesting stanza:

“And if it thus thee betide, That friends fail thee on every side, And God from thee thy child take, Thy wreak (vengeance) on God thou must not take, For thyself it will undo And all thews (virtues) that thee ’longs to. Many a one for her own folly, Spills (destroys) themselves unthriftily.”

MS. Porkington 10, p. 135 back, about 1460-70 contained a variant form The Good Wife Would a Pilgrimage, i.e., before she sets out for the Holy Land, she leaves instructions for her daughter. This version (printed in Queene Eliz. Achad.) is interesting for its proverbs:

“The loth (hated) child behoves lore, And lief child much more.”

“Seldom mosseth the stone, That oft is turned and wend.”

“A fool’s bolt is soon shot And doth but little good.”

“When deed is done, it is too late; Beware of ‘Had I wist.’”

A third version was printed in 1597 under the title, The Northern Mother’s Blessing. Written nine years before the death of G. Chaucer. Together with it a short poem: The Way to Thrift. This contains several different and interesting stanzas.

It begins: