ou ly'd, she said,
And swearing, laid her hand upon the bread.
Then eat the bread, quoth he, that I may deem
That fancie false, that true to me did seem.
Nay, sir, said she, the matter well to handle,
Since you swore first, you first shall eat the candle."

_Wits Interpreter, the English Parnassus_, By John Cotgrave, 1662, p. 286.

P. 87. _Of the man that had the dome wyfe._

"A certain man, as fortune fel,
A woman tungles wedded to wive,
Whose frowning countenance perceivig by live
Til he might know what she ment he thought long,
And wished ful oft she had a tung.
The devil was redy, and appeered anon,
An aspin lefe he bid the man take,
And in her mouth should put but one,
A tung, said the devil, it shall her make;
Til he had doon his hed did ake;
Leaves he gathered, and took plentie,
And in her mouth put two or three.
Within a while the medicine wrought:
The man could tarry no longer time,
But wakened her, to the end he mought
The vertue knowe of the medicine;
The first woord she spake to him
She said: 'thou whoresonne knave and theef,
How durst thou waken me, with a mischeef!'
From that day forward she never ceased.
Her boistrous bable greeved him sore:
The devil he met, and him entreated
To make her tungles, as she was before;
'Not so,' said the devil, 'I will meddle no more.
A devil a woman to speak may constrain,
But all that in hel be, cannot let it again.'"

_Schole-house of Women_, 1542 (Utterson's _Select Pieces of Early
Popular Poetry_, ii. 74).

P. 89. _Of the Proctour of Arches that had the lytel wyfe._

"One ask'd his Friend, why he, so proper a Man himself, marry'd so small
a Wyfe? _Why_, said he, _I thought you had known, that of all evils we
should chuse the least_."--_Complete London Jester_, ed. 1771, p. 65.

P. 92. _Of him that wolde gette, &c._

In the _Scholehouse of Women_, 1542, the same story is differently
related:--

"A husband man, having good trust
His wife to him bad be agreeable,
Thought to attempt if she had be reformable,
Bad her take the pot, that sod over the fire,
And set it aboove upon the astire.
She answered him: 'I hold thee mad,
And I more fool, by Saint Martine;
Thy dinner is redy, as thou me bad,
And time it were that thou shouldst dine,
And thou wilt not, I will go to mine.'
'I bid thee (said he) vere up the pot.'
'A ha! (she said) I trow thou dote,'
Up she