5415. Psa. vii, 15. Concepit dolorem et peperit iniquitatem. 5417. Whitaker's text inserts before this line-- Caym, the cursed creature, Conceyved was in synne; After that Adam and Eve Hadden y-synged, Withoute repentaunce Of here rechelessnesse, A rybaud thei engendrede, And a gome unryghtful; As an hywe that ereth nat Auntreth hym to sowe On a leye lond, Ayens hus lordes wille, So was Caym conceyved, And so ben cursed wrettches That lycame han ayen the lawe That oure Lord ordeynede. 5433. Gen. vi, 7. pænitet enim me fecisse eos. 5464. Ezech. xviii, 20. 5470. Whitaker's text adds here:-- Westminster lawe, ich wot, Worcheth the contrarie; For thauh the fader be a frankelayne, And for a felon be hanged, The heritage that the air sholde have Ys at the kynges wille. 5479. Matt. vii, 16. 5497. John xiv, 6. 5507. _many a peire, sithen the pestilence._ The continuator of William de Nangis, who gives a detailed account of the effects of the great pestilence on the Continent, mentions the hasty marriages which followed it, but he gives quite a different account of their fruitfulness. "Cessante autem dicta epidimia, pestilentia, et mortalitate, nupserunt viri qui remanserunt et mulieres ad invicem, conceperunt uxores residuæ per mundum ultra modum, nulla sterilis efficiebatur, sed prægnantes hinc inde videbantur, et plures geminos pariebant, et aliquæ tres infantes insimul vivos emittebant." The writer goes on to observe, "Sed proh dolor! ex hujus renovatione sæculi non est mundus propter hoc in melius commutatus. Nam homines fuerunt postea magis avari et tenaces, cum multo plura bona quam antea possiderent; magis etiam cupidi et per lites, brigas, et rixas, atque per placita, seipsos conturbantes.... Charitas etiam ab illo tempore refrigescere cæpit valde, et iniquitas abundavit cum ignorantiis et peccatis; nam pauci inveniebantur qui scirent aut vellent in domibus, villis, et castris informare pueros in grammaticalibus rudimentis."--_Contin. G. de Nangis, in Dacherii Spicileg._ iii, 110 (_ed._ 1723). 5515. _do hem to Dunmowe._ This is, I believe, the earliest allusion at present known to the custom of the flitch of bacon at Dunmow, which was evidently, at that time, a matter of general celebrity. In Chaucer, about half a century later, the Wife of Bath says of her two old husbands, and of the way in which she tyrannized over them,-- The bacoun was nought fet for hem, I trowe, That som men fecche in Essex at Donmowe.--_Cant. T._ 5799. In a curious religious poem preserved in a manuscript in the Bodleian Library at Oxford, written about the year 1460, from which some extracts are printed in the "Reliquiæ Antiquæ," ii, 27-29, we have the following satirical allusion to this custom:--