rhyming
with the fourth, then a line with a new rhyme, while the seventh line
rhymes with the third and fourth, and the eighth with the sixth. He
continues the narrative of his sufferings in the following manner:

"About eyght dayes, or soone after
Our maryage, the tyme for to passe
My wyfe I toke, and dyd set her
Upon my knee for to solace;
And began her for to enbrace,
Sayenge, syster, go get the tyme loste;
We must thynke to labour a pace
To recompence that it hathe us coste.

"Than for to despyte she up arose,
And drewe her faste behynde me,
To me sayenge, is this the glose?
Alas, pore caytyfe, well I se
That I never shall have, quod she,
With you more than payne and tormente:
I am in an evyll degre;
I have now loste my sacramente.

"For me be to longe with you here,
Alas, I ought well for to thynke
What we sholde do within ten yere,
Whan we shall have at our herte brynke
Many chyldren on for to thynke,
And crye after us without fayle
For theyr meate and theyr drynke;
Then shall it be no mervayle.

"Cursed be the houre that I ne was
Made a none in some cloyster,
Never there for to passe;
Or had be made some syster,
In servage with a clousterer.
It is not eyght dayes sythe oure weddynge
That we two togyther weere:
By god, ye speke to soone of werkynge."

The second piece of ancient _facetiae_, "the complaynte of them that ben
to late maryed," is written with much more humour, and is far better
worth preservation, but it is disfigured by indelicacy, though not of
the grossest kind, and never introduced but for the sake of heightening
the drollery. It is the lamentation of an elderly gentleman, who after a
youth of riot had married a young frolicksome wife, and he relates very
feelingly the inconveniences, annoyances, and jealousies to which he is
thereby exposed. After two introductory stanzas, (all of them are in the
ordinary seven-line ballad form) he thus states his resolution late in
life to commit the folly of matrimony.

"To longe have I lyved without ony make;
All to longe have I used my yonge age:
I wyll all for go and a wyfe to me take
For to increase both our twoos lynage;
For saynt John sayth that he is sage
That ayenst his wyll doth him governe,
And our lordes precepte hym selfe for to learne

"There is no greter pleasure tha