ALLUSIONS IN THE HOMILIES.
“A Good Wife,” &c., and “God speed the Plough!”—I should hold myself deeply indebted to any of your correspondents who would inform me where the two following quotations are to be found.
I have been anxiously looking for them for some years. I have taken some pains myself—“I have poached in Suidas for unlicensed Greek”—have applied to my various antiquarian friends (many of whose names I was delighted to recognise among the brilliant galaxy that enlightened your first number)—but hitherto all in vain; and I am reduced to acknowledge the truth of the old proberb, “A —— may ask more questions in an hour than a wise man can answer in seven years:”—
I. “For thus will most truly be verified the saying of the poet, ‘A good wife, by obeying her husband, shall bear the rule, so that he shall have a delight and a gladness the sooner at all times to return home to her.’ But, on the contrary part, ‘when the wives be stubborn, froward, and malapert, their husbands are compelled thereby to abhor and flee from their own houses, even as they should have battle with their enemies.’”—Homily on Matrimony, p. 450. ed. Oxford, 1840.
Query—Who is the poet?
II. “Let no good and discreet subjects, therefore, follow the flag or banner displayed to rebellions, and borne by rebels, though it have the image of the plough painted therein, with God speed the plough written under in great letters, knowing that none hinder the plough more than rebels, who will neither go to the plough themselves, nor suffer other that would go unto it.”—Fourth Part of the Homily against Wilful Rebellion, p. 518.
In what rebellion was such a banner carried?
These questions may appear very trifling; but each man has his hobby, and mine is, not to suffer a quotation to pass without verification.
It is fortunate that I am not a despotic monarch, as I would certainly make it felony without benefit of clergy to quote a passage without giving a plain reference.
L.S.