28. I. e. learn to know when you are well off. 'Half a loaf is better than
no bread.' 'Better sit still than rise and fall' (Heywood). 'Better some of
a pudding than none of pie' (Ray). In the Fairfax MS., the following rimed
proverb is quoted at the end of the poem:--
'Better is to suffre, and fortune abyde,
Than[292] hastely to clymbe, and sodeynly to slyde.'
The same occurs (says Hazlitt) at the end of Caxton's edition of Lydgate's
Stans Puer ad Mensam; but does not belong to that poem.
29. The reference is to the Wife of Bathes Prologue, which curiously
enough, is again referred to by Chaucer in the Marchauntes Tale, C. T. 9559
(E 1685). This reference shews that the present poem was written quite late
in life, as the whole tone of it shews; and the same remark applies to the
Marchauntes Tale also. We may suspect that Chaucer was rather proud of his
Prologue to the Wife of Bathes Tale. Unquestionably, he took a great deal
of pains about it.