Specimens of English literature from the 'Ploughmans crede' to the ...

XX. (a) sir THOMAS WIAT. 44342. Pepe. This seems to be like our modern ' Peep, bo!' It wassaid shrilly, to startle the other mouse playfully.48. As it fell to purpose, as it happened suitably, at fitting times.53. Stemyng, gleaming. Compare'Of hise mouth it stod a stemAls it were a sunnebem.''Out of his mouth there stood a gleam, like a sunbeam.' Havelok theDane ; ed. Skeat, 1. 591. So, too, in the Promptorium Parvulorum, wefind—' Steem, or lowe of fyre. Flamma ' and again, ' Stetnyn, or lowynvp.Flammo.'54. The insertion of itvo improves the metre.58. Imitated from Chaucer :In fact,'For naturelly a beest desireth fleeFro his contrarie, if he may it see,Though he never er had seyn it with his ye ^eyel.'Nonne Prestes Tale, 1.459.Wiat has, throughout these satires, much of Chaucer's manner.78. Sergeant with mace. Wiat is thinking of the Roman consularislictor, as the passage is clearly imitated from Horace :'Non enim gazas neque consularisSubmovet lictor miseros tumultusMentis, et curas laqueata circumTecta uolantes.' Carm. ii. 16.A hawbart is a halberd, which was a lance fitted at the end with asmall battle-axe.86. The words bryers, ritiers, desire, form but an imperfect leash ofrimes. Warton proposes to read breeres (which is certainly a commonerold spelling), in order to rime with riueres ; but this does nottell us what to do with desire.88. Hayefor cotiies, snare for rabbits.97. Cf. 'nee te quaesiueris extra;' Persius, Sat. i. 7.100. Madde, i, e. ye mad ones ; he here addresses men's wretchedmindes ; see 1. 75.Continue; accented on theirs/ syllable, as in Sect. X. 1. 10. Thesentence means—' Mad ones, if ye wish to keep your disease, let thepresent pass, and gape after the future, and so sink yourselves stilldeeper in toil.' Cf. 1. 91.103. All and summe, the whole matter (collectively and particularly)a phrase used by Chaucer, Wif of Bathes Prol. 1. 91.105. A word is clearly wanting here; I supply bow because it ismonosyllabic; but the context rather requires be answerable to, be responsibleto.