“This worlde, whiche ever is in balaunce,
“It stant not in my suffisaunce——.”
Of Occleve’s translation of Egidius de Regimine principum, not having it before me, I cannot transcribe the first lines. But here are the first that Mr. Warton has quoted from that poet, and he probably did not choose the worst. I should add, that Occleve wrote in the reign of King Henry V., about the year 1420:
“[Aristotle, most famous philosofre],
“His epistles to Alisaunder sent,
“Whos sentence is wel bet then golde in cofre,
“And more holsum, grounded in trewe entent——.”
The following is the first stanza of the Letter of Cupide, written by the same authour, and printed in Thynne’s edition of Chaucer, 1561:
“Cupide, unto whose commaundement
“The gentill kinrede of goddes on hie