“That I will make no vaine carpynge,
“Of dedes of armes, ne of amours,
“As does Mynstrellis and Gestours——.”
I cannot adhere to the method that I have in general observed, by quoting the first lines of the Moral Proverbes of Christyne of Pyse, translated in metre by earl Rivers, and printed by Caxton in the seventeenth year of Edward IV. (1478), not having a copy of that scarce book. However, as this is the era of the pretended Rowley, I cannot forbear to transcribe the last stanza of that poem, as I find it cited in an account of this accomplished nobleman’s works:
“Of these sayynges Christyne was the aucturesse,
“Which in makyn had such intelligence,
“That thereof she was mireur and maistresse;
“Her werkes testifie thexperience;
“In Frensh languaige was written this sentence;
“And thus englished doth hit reherse