"If thou be slow to speake, as one I knew,
Thou wouldst assure thy selfe my counsels true;
Hee (too late) finding her upon her knees
In Church, where yet her husbands coorse she sees,
Hearing the Sermon at his funerall,
Longing to behold his buriall,
This sutor being toucht with inward love,
Approached neare his lovely sute to move,
Then stooping downe he whispered in her eare
Saying he bore her love, as might appeare,
In that so soone he shewed his love unto her,
Before any else did app[r]och to woo her,
Alass (said she) your labour is in vaine,
Last night a husband I did entertaine."
—Uncasing of Machivils Instructions to his Sonne, 1612, Sign. C 3. Stories of this kind are of very common occurrence in the modern collections of facetiæ.
P. [23]. "When Davie Diker diggs, and dallies not,
When smithes shoo horses, as they would be shod,
When millers toll not with a golden thumbe."
—The Steel Glas, a Satyre, by George Gascoigne, Esquire (1576), Sign. H 3 verso.
A writer in the Retrospective Review, New Series, ii. 326, states that this story of the "Miller with the golden thumb" "is still (1854) a favourite in Yorkshire."
P. [30]. Stumble at a Straw, &c.—This proverb is quoted in Machivils Instructions to his Sonne, 1613, p. 16.
P. [35]. Of the good man that sayd to his wyfe. &c.
"Dr. South, visiting a gentleman one morning, was ask'd to stay Dinner, which he accepted of; the Gentleman stept into the next Room and told his Wife, and desired she'd provide something extraordinary. Hereupon she began to murmer and scold, and make a thousand Words; till at length, Her husband, provok'd at her Behaviour, protested, that if it was not for the Stranger in the next Room, he would kick her out of Doors. Upon which the Doctor, who heard all that passed, immediately stept out, crying, I beg, Sir, you'll make no Stranger of me."
—Complete London Jester, ed. 1771, p. 73.
P. [44]. Draughthole.—See Dekker's Guls' Horn Book, 1609, ed. Nott, p. 121-2-3.