A living Dog better than a dead Lion

Your correspondent "MR. JOHN SANSOM" may, perhaps, accept the following as an answer to the first part of his Query (No. 22. p. 352.). In an ancient MS. preserved in the archives of the see of Ossory, at fol. 66., is entered, in a hand of the latter part of the fourteenth century, a list of ancient proverbs under the following heading:— "Eux sount les proverbes en fraunceys conferme par auctorite del *Dibil*? "Chers amys receiuez de moy Un beau present q vo' envoy, Non pas dor ne dargent Mais de bon enseignment, Que en escriptur ai trove E de latin translatee, &c. &c." Amongst them is the foll…