[E405] "False birds can fetch the wind;" an expression taken from hawking. To fetch the wind, to take the wind (Bacon), and to have the wind are various forms of the same expression, the meaning of which is to gain or take an advantage. We still use the expression "to get to windward of another," meaning to get the better or advantage of him. Mavor reads, "false words can fetch the wind," i.e. slander will spread as though borne on the wind. I do not, however, know on what authority he has adopted this reading, as the text of 1577 gives "birds."
[E406] The following poem on Evil Tongues is from a MS. of the 15th century, edited for the Percy Soc. by the late Mr. T. Wright, 1847:
"A man that con his tong stere,
He ther not rek wer that he go."
"Ittes knowyn in every schyre,
Wekyd tongges have no pere;
I wold thei wer brent in the fer,
That warke men soo mykyll wo.
Ittes knowyn in every lond,
Wekyd tongges don gret wrong,
Thei make me to lyyn long,
And also in myche car.
Ȝyf a man go in clothes gay,
Or elles in gud aray,
Wekyd tongges yet wyl say,
Wer cam the by therto?
Ȝyf a man go in cloys ill,
And have not the world at wyl,
Wekyd tongges thei wyll hym spyll,
And seyd he ys a stake, lat hym goo.
Now us to amend God yeve us grace,
Of repentens and of gud grace,
That we mut se hys glorius face.
Amen, Amen, for charyte."
[E407] There is a smoothness in the versification of this sonnet, and a succession of imagery, though drawn from common sources, which we do not often find in Tusser. He has made a good use of the figure erotesis.—M. Compare Milton, Lycidas, 45:
"As killing as the canker to the rose,
Or taint-worm to the weanling herds that graze."