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If these enter into the due consideration of wise men, and if platformes of these thinges be sett downe and executed duelye and with spede and effecte, no doubte but the Spanishe empire falles to the grounde, and the Spanishe kinge shall be lefte bare as Aesops proude crowe, the peacocke, the perot, the pye, and the popingey, and every other birde havinge taken home from him his gorgeous fethers, he will, in shorte space, become a laughinge stocke for all the worlde; with such a mayme to the Pope and to that side, as never hapned to the sea of Rome by the practise of the late Kinge of famous memory, her Majesties father, or by all the former practises of all the Protestant princes of Germanie, or by any other advise layde downe by Monsieur de Aldegond, here after by them to be put in execution.
The sentiment, or its equivalent in Ball's famous distich, was not new; it was employed for mystical purposes in Richard Rolle's "When Adam delf and Eue span, spir, if thou wil spede, Whare was then the pride of man, that now merres his mede?" Library of Early English Writers. Richard Rolle of Hampole and his followers, ed. Horstman, i., 73 . Cal. Papal Registers, Letters, iii., 565.
The Chaucerian stanza rhymes a b a b b c c: "'Loke up, I seye, and telle me what she is Anon, that I may gone aboute thi nede: Know iche hire ought? for my love telle me this; Thanne wolde I hopen the rather for to spede. Tho gan the veyne of Troilus to blede, For he was hit, and wex alle rede for schame; 'Aha! quod Pandare, 'here bygynneth game."
The Venecians stande daily in feare of them, almoste as moche as of the Turke, and doubte that, if they be not with spede restrained, they will inclose them and use them at their pleasure, beinge on bothe sides become almoste lordes of the mouthe of the Straites of Giberaulter.
From Jougne the duke went to Noseret, and you can understand that he was very sad and melancholy at having lost the battle, where his rich baggage was stolen and his army shattered." Men tolde hym that they were ffrowarde karlys butte he wolde nott beleve it and yitt men seye that he woll to them ageyn. Gode spede them bothe."
Those capitaines whiche come to faight a field, cannot stand behind a wal, or behind bankes, nor where thei maie not be reached: therfore it is mete for them, seyng thei cannot finde a waie to defende them, to finde some mean, by the whiche thei maie be least hurte: nor thei cannot finde any other waie, then to prevente it quickly: the waie to prevent it, is to go to finde it out of hande, and hastely, not at leasure and in a heape: for that through spede, the blowe is not suffered to bee redoubled, and by the thinnesse, lesse nomber of menne maie be hurt.
Edmunds, in Suffolk, a very prolix writer, who composed, among other things, the Story of Thebes, as an addition to the Canterbury Tales. His ballad of London Lyckpenny, recounting the adventures of a countryman who goes to the law courts at Westminster in search of justice But for lack of mony I could not spede is of interest for the glimpse that it gives us of London street life.
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