John Lively, Vicar of Kelloe,
Had seven daughters and never a fellow.
An equivocal rhyme of the bishopric, which may either mean that the
parson of the sixteenth century had no son, or that he had no equal in
learning, &c. He certainly, however, mentions no son in his will, in
which he leaves to his daughter Elizabeth, his best gold ring _with a
death's head in it_ (Compare Love's Labour Lost, v. 2), and seventeen
yards of white cloth for curtains of a bed, and to his daughter Mary his
silver seal of arms, his gimald ring, and black gold ring. Another
version of the proverb reads "_six_ daughters," and indeed _seven_ is
often merely a conventional number.