17555. ‘Qant homme ad paié sa monoie, Quoy valt ce lors a repentir?’ 18013. ‘L’en dist ensi communement, Retrai le fieu bien sagement Et la fumée exteinderas.’ 18020. ‘courser megre ne salt pas.’ 20420. ‘Cil qui sanz draps se fait aler, Mal avera son garçon vestu.’ 21085. ‘Ly moigne, ensi comme truis escrit, Ne sont pas fait de leur habit.’ 22927. ‘la fortune a les hardis S’encline.’ 23413. ‘Trop est l’oisel de mesprisure Q’au son ny propre fait lesure.’ 24230. ‘L’un covoitous et l’autre fals Ils s’entracordont de leger.’ 24265. ‘Nul trop nous valt, sicomme l’en dist.’ 24962. ‘Sicome crepaldz dist al herice, Maldit soient tant seigneurant.’ 25010. ‘Om doit seignour par la maisnie Conoistre.’ 25015. ‘tiel corsaint, tiel offrendour.’ 25302. ‘Te dourra craie pour fourmage.’ 27867. ‘qui bien ayme point n’oublie.’ 28597. ‘De la proverbe me sovient, Q’om dist que molt sovent avient Apres grant joye grant dolour.’ Akin to the proverbs are the illustrations from Natural History, real or fictitious, of which there is a considerable number in the _Mirour_. These are of very various classes, from simple facts of ordinary observation to the monstrous inventions of the Bestiaries, which were repeated by one writer after another with a faith which rested not on any evidence of the facts stated, but upon their supposed agreement with the fitness of things, that is, practically, their supposed aptness as moral lessons, the medieval idea of the animal world being apparently that it was created and kept in being largely for the instruction of mankind. In taking the glow-worm as an illustration of hypocrisy (1130), the lark of joyous thankfulness (5637), the grasshopper of improvidence (5821), the lapwing of female dissimulation (8869), the turtle-dove of constancy (17881), the drone of indolence (5437), the camel of revengeful malice (4417), and the blind kitten of drunken helplessness (8221), the author is merely making a literary use of every-day observation. There are however, as might be expected, plenty of illustrations of a more questionable character. Presumption is like the tiger beguiled with the mirror (1561); the proud man who is disobedient to law is like the unicorn, which cannot be tamed (2101); the devil breaking down the virtue of a man by raising him high in his own conceit is like the osprey, which carries bones high in the air and breaks them by dropping them upon rocks (1849); Envy, who destroys with her breath the honour of all around her, is like the basilisk which kills all vegetation in the place where it is found (3745); the man-faced bird, which pines away because it has slain a man, is produced as a lesson to murderers (5029); the bad father, who teaches his sons to plunder the poor, is like the hawk, which beats its young