[16:8] Sottes bolt is sone shote.—Proverbs of Hendyng. MSS.

[16:9] It has been the Providence of Nature to give this creature nine lives instead of one.—Pilpay: The Greedy and Ambitious Cat, fable iii. b. c.

[16:10] Lyly: Euphues (Arber's reprint), p. 80.

[17:1] Pryde and Abuse of Women. 1550. The Marriage of True Wit and Science. Butler: Hudibras, part ii. canto i. line 698. Fielding: The Grub Street Opera, act ii. sc. 4. Prior: Epilogue to Lucius.

Lord Macaulay (History of England, vol. i. chap. iii.) thinks that this proverb originated in the preference generally given to the gray mares of Flanders over the finest coach-horses of England. Macaulay, however, is writing of the latter half of the seventeenth century, while the proverb was used a century earlier.

[17:2] See Chaucer, page [6].

Two may keep counsel when the third 's away.—Shakespeare: Titus Andronicus, act iv. sc. 2.

[17:3] Pitchers have ears.—Shakespeare: Richard III. act ii. sc. 4.

[17:4] See Chaucer, page [3].

[17:5] Thou shalt come out of a warme sunne into Gods blessing.—Lyly: Euphues.