38 They both went to this heap of gold, Wherre in a bag he fairly told A thousand pounds in yellow boys, And to this tavern went their ways. 39 This bag they on the table set, Which made the vintner for to fret, And said, Young man, this will not do, For I was but in jest with you. 40 So then bespoke this young man’s friend, And [said], Vintner, thou mayst depend In law this note it will you cast, And he must have his land at last. 41 This made the vintner to comply, Who fetchd the deeds immediately; He had one hundred pounds, and then The young man got his deeds again. 42 At length, the vintner, for to think How he was foold out of his chink, Said, When ’tis found how I came off My neighbours will me game and scoff. 43 So, to prevent their game and laughter, The vintner, in a few days after, Being void of grace, as will appear, He cut his throat from ear to ear. 44 Thus he untimely left the world, Who to this young man prov’d a churl; Now he who followd drunkenness Lives sober and [does] his lands possess. 45 Instead of wasting all his store, As formerly, resolves no more To act the same, but does inde[e]d Poor fatherless and mother- feed. 46 ‘And let all young men, for my sake, Take care how you such havock make, For drunkenness, you plain may see, Was near my ruin for to be.’ Printed and sold in Bow-Church-Yard, London. FOOTNOTES: [17] Cane in hand, 10^3, 22^3. This is bad enough, but not quite so bad as the woman with cane in hand, ‘Tam Lin,’ III, 505, =O= 16^2, and ‘The Kitchie-Boy,’ No 252, =E= 6^2. The mantle and cane are a commonplace. See also =E= 14 of No 252, No 76, =G= 3, and No 97, =B= 20^2. [18] The Gallowgate port of =B a= 35 belongs to Aberdeen. [19] Of the 212 lines of Percy’s ballad, some 80, or the substance of them, occur in the MS. copy, and half a dozen more of the 216 lines of the 4th edition. [20] Reprinted by Dixon, Ancient Poems, Ballads, etc., p. 151, Percy Society, vol. xvii, from a chap-book. [21] 44. Χρυσὸν ἀνὴρ εὑρὼν ἔλιπε βρόχον· αὐτὰρ ὁ χρυσὸν ὃν λίπεν οὐχ εὑρὼν ἧψεν ὃν εὗρε βρόχον. [22] All the above tales, except Pauli’s, have been cited, in one connection or another, by Dunlop, History of Fiction, (II, 201, of Wilson’s late edition); by Benfey, Pantschatantra, I, 97 f.; or by Liebrecht, Göttingische Gelehrte Anzeigen, 1868, p. 1891. Oesterley, in his note to Pauli, 16, p. 552 f., refers to three sixteenth-century story-books which I have not seen. Robert, Fables Inédites, etc., II, 232, in his note to La Fontaine, IX, 16, refers to other fabulists. Clouston, Popular Tales and Fictions, II, 55, gives from some old magazine a story after the pattern of the Greek distich. 268 THE TWA KNIGHTS Buchan’s Ballads of the North of Scotland, II, 271.