[236] Knot, party.
[237] To grow faint.
[238] Crowd.
[239] Usually. See Nares, edit. 1839, in voce.
[240] This story is to be found in Poggius, who calls it Mortuus Loquens, and from Poggius it was transferred by Grazzini to his collection of Tales, not published till after his death.
[241] Scarcely.
[242] Readily. A story very like this occurs in A Sackful of Newes, 1673. It was originally related by Poggius in his Facetiæ, where it is entitled Asinus Perditus, and it has been imitated by La Fontaine in the fable of "Le Villageois qui cherche son veau." It is also the 12th tale of Les Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles.
[243] Before.
[244] Pillaged.
[245] "Now there was one Marcus Livius, a Romaine that was Gouernour of Tarentum at that time when Hanniball tooke it, and neverthelesse kept the castell still out of Hannibals hands, and so held it untill the city came againe into the hands of the Romaines. This Livius spited to see such honour done to Fabius, so that one day in open Senate, being drowned with enuy and ambition, he burst out and said, that it was himselfe, not Fabius, that was cause of taking of the city of Tarentum again. Fabius, smiling to hear him, answeryd him opely: 'Indeed, thou saiest true, for if thou hadst not lost it, I had never won it again.'"—Plutarch's Lives, transl. by Sir T. North, ed. 1603, fol. 192.