"_Fronte capillata_," &c. (vol. iii., pp. 8. 43.).--The couplet is much
older than G. A. S. seems to think. The author is Dionysius
Cato,--"Catoun," as Chaucer calls him--in his book, _Distichorum de
Moribus_, lib. ii. D. xxvi.:
"Rem tibi quam nosces aptam, dimittere noli:
Fronte capillata, post est Occasio calva."
_Corp. Poet. Lat._, Frankfurt, 1832, p. 1195.
The history of this Dionysius Cato is unknown; and it has been hotly
disputed whether he were a Heathen or Christian; but he is _at least_ as
old as the fourth century of the Christian era, being mentioned by
Vindicianus, chief physician in ordinary to the emperor, in a letter to
Valentinian I., A.D. 365. In the illustrations of _The Baptistery_, Parker,
Oxford, 1842, which are re-engraved from the originals in the _Via Vitae
Eternae_, designed by Boetius a Bolswert, the figure of "Occasion" is always
drawn with the hair hanging loose in front, according to the distich.