322. at our large, free, at large; we now drop our. Cf. A. 1283.
325. See notes to ll. 180, 183. We need not search in Ptolemy for this saying.
327. who hath the world in honde, i. e. who has abundant wealth. Cf. l. 330. The sense of the proverb is, that the wisest man is he who is contented, who cares nothing that others are much richer than himself. Cf. 1 Tim. vi. 6, 8; and the proverb—'Content is all.' In the margin of E. is written the Latin form of the saying:—'Inter omnes altior existit, qui non curat in cuius manu sit mundus.'
333. werne, forbid, refuse. The idea is from Le Roman de la Rose, l. 7447:—
'Moult est fox qui tel chose esperne,
C'est la chandele en la lanterne;
Qui mil en i alumeroit,
Ja mains de feu n'i troveroit.
Chascun set la similitude,' &c.
It was quite a proverbial phrase, as the last line shews. It occurs, for example, in Alexander and Dindimus, ed. Skeat, l. 233, and in the original Latin text of the same. Duke Francesco Maria della Rovere used the device of 'a lighted candle, by which others are lighted, with the motto Non degener addam'; i. e. I will add without loss.—Mrs. Palliser, Historic Devices, p. 263. Cicero (De Officiis, i. 16) quotes three lines from Ennius containing the same idea.