p. [21]. Seven Sciences, i.e., knowledges, hence Arts. The introduction is nearly identical, but very few of the maxims agree.
p. [22]. What you get with your hands. One of the many allusions which suggest adaptation to the middle class. Others are to buying and selling, to getting your money honestly, &c. The stress upon morals rather than manners is perhaps due to the same cause.
p. [25]. At the school. The inference seems to be that they would learn manners there.
p. [25]. Quoth Kate. The same name occurs at the end of the three next poems as they appear in MS. Ashmole 61. It is probably a corruption, unless we have here one of the rare instances of a woman copyist. Cato suggests itself as the most likely original; and in this way. He was undoubtedly identified with the Wise Man, as appears from the Luytel Caton of the Vernon MS. (see p. [189], below). Accordingly, Quod Cato might have stood at the end of this poem, and have become confused with Kate from Katharine or Catherine.
STANS PUER AD MENSAM
This must have been a popular form of the maxims, as many MSS. still exist. The translation is made from MS. Lambeth 853, fol. 150, about 1430, with occasional references to Harl. 2251, fol. 153 (148), about 1460(?). A much longer and more tedious (250 lines, instead of 99) version was printed by Dr. Furnivall in Queene Eliz. Achad., from MS. Ashmole 61. This last quotes Grostum Caput, i.e., Grossetete, and refers several times to “Dr. Palere,” of whom nothing seems to be known. The Ashmole version, however, contains several interesting points not mentioned in the other two:—
“Thy elbow and arms have in thy thought,
Too far on the table do them not lay.”
“And if thou see any man reading a letter,
Come not too nigh him for dread of blame.”