Seneca doth counsel thee all swearing to refrain, Although great profit by it thou might gain; Pericles, whose words are manifest and plain, From swearing admonisheth thee to abstain; The law of God and commandment he gave Swearing amongst us in no wise would have. The counsel of philosophers I have here exprest, Amongst whom swearing was utterly detest; Much less among Christians ought it to be used, But utterly of them clean to be refused." There are also admonitions "against the vice of filthy talking" and "against the vice of lying"; and a prayer follows, "to be said when thou goest to bed." The rules laid down in the _Boke of Nurture_ are similar and in the same doggerel measure. It is interesting, by the bye, to compare the alterations in successive editions as indicating changes in the manners and customs of the time. A single illustration must suffice. When the first edition appeared, handkerchiefs had not come into general use; and how to blow the nose without one was evidently a difficulty with the writer and other early authorities on deportment. Even in 1577, when handkerchiefs began to be common, Rhodes says:-- "Blow not your nose on the napkin Where you should wipe your hand, But cleanse it in your handkercher."[3] The _Booke of Demeanor_, printed in 1619, says:-- "Nor imitate with Socrates To wipe thy snivelled nose Upon thy cap, as he would do, Nor yet upon thy clothes: But keep it clean with handkerchief, Provided for the same, Not with thy fingers or thy sleeve, Therein thou art to blame." The introduction of toothpicks, the gradual adoption of forks, already referred to, and sundry other refinements, can be similarly traced in these interesting hand-books. It would appear that this _Schoole of Vertue_, or some other book with the same title, was used in schools for boys. John Brinsley, in his _Grammar Schoole_ of 1612 (quoted by Dr. Furnivall), enumerates the "Bookes to be first learned of children." After mentioning the Primer, the Psalms in metre--"because children will learne that booke with most readinesse and delight through the running of the metre"--and the Testament, he adds: "If any require any other little booke meet to enter children, the _Schoole of Vertue_ is one of the principall, and easiest for the first enterers, being full of precepts of civilitie, and such as children will soone learne and take a delight in, thorow [through] the roundnesse of the metre, as was sayde before of the singing Psalmes: and after it the _Schoole of good manners_, called _the new Schoole of Vertue_, leading the childe as by the hand, in the way of all good manners." INDOOR AMUSEMENTS.