[200] Silly and licentious talk. Taylor the Water-Poet, at the end of
his _Wit and Mirth_, 1622 (_Works_, 1630, folio I. p. 200), uses the
expression _Ribble-rabble of Gossips_, which seems to be a phrase of
very similar import.
[201] Padua.
+ _Of the Uplandysshe man, that sawe the kynge._ xli.
+ An vplandysshe man, nourysshed in the woddes, came on a tyme to the
citie, whanne all the stretes were full of people, and the common voyce
amonge them was: The kynge cometh. This rurall manne, moued with
noueltie of that voyce, had great desyre to se, what that multitude
houed[202] to beholde. Sodaynly the kynge, with many nobuls and states
before hym, came rydynge royally. Than the people all about stedfastly
behelde the kynge and cryed aloude: God saue the kynge: God saue the
kynge. This villayne[203] herynge them crye so, sayde: O where is the
kynge, where is the kynge? Than one, shewynge hym the kynge, sayde:
yonder is he, that rydeth upon the goodly whyte horse. Is that the kyng,
quod the villayne? what, thou mockest me, quod he; me thinke that is a
man in a peynted garment.
By this tale ye may perceyue (as Lycurgus proued by experience) that
nourysshynge, good bryngynge vp and exercyse ben more apte to leade
folke to humanite and the doynge of honest thynges than Nature her
selfe. They for the mooste part are noble, free, and vertuous, whiche in
their youthe bene well nourysshed vp, and vertuously endoctryned.