“Things badly obtained are badly scattered.” As he narrates the tale,— “One day it happened that a huge ape, nourished in the house of a miser who found pleasure only in his crowns, after seeing through a hole his master playing with his crowns upon a table, obtained means of entering within by an open window, while the miser was at dinner. The ape took a stool, as his master did, but soon began to throw the silver out of the window into the street. How much the passers by kept laughing and the miser was vexed, I shall not attempt to say. I will not mock him among his neighbours who were picking up his bright crowns either for a nestegg, or for a son or a brother,—for a gamester, a driveller or a drunkard,—for I cannot but remember that fine and true saying which affirms, ‘Things badly gained are badly scattered.’”
This tale, derived by Paradin from Gabriel Symeoni’s Imprese Heroiche et Morali, is assumed by Whitney as the groundwork of his very lively narrative (p. 169), Against Userers, of which we venture to give the whole.
Malè parta malè dilabuntur.
In fæneratores.
Whitney, 1586.
“An vserer, whose Idol was his goulde,
Within his house, a peeuishe ape retain’d:
A seruaunt fitte, for suche a miser oulde,