32 8 PROVERBS. 



given to the second person in the dialogue, was no other than Marcus, a cele- 

 brated philosopher of the Middle Ages, who was believed to be Marcus 

 Porcius Cato, called the Censor, or Marcus Cato, his son, who were considered 

 to be the joint authors of the " Moral Distiches " (" Disticha de Moribus ") 

 which had since the seventh century been employed as works of education, 

 but which should rather be attributed to a monk named Valerius or Diony- 

 sius, and surnamed Cato. The celebrity of these distiches, which were read 

 and expounded in the schools, remained as great as ever all through the 

 Middle Ages. They were more than once translated, paraphrased, or imitated 

 in French verse during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, and they were 

 frequently reprinted in verse during the fifteenth century under the title of 

 the " Grand Chaton," and again at the beginning of the sixteenth, by Peter 

 Grosnet, under the title of " Motz dores du grand et saige Caton." 



There was also in the twelfth century another collection of proverbs, or of 

 proverbial philosophy, which long had a great reputation in the schools, and 

 which was several times translated into French for the use of the upper as of 

 the lower classes, neither of which had much knowledge of Latin. This 

 collection, known as the " Philosophers' Proverbs," contained a selection of 

 sayings (sentences) in verse, most of which were apocryphal, attributed to the 

 most noted personages of ancient times, and in particular to various Greek 

 and Latin authors who were comprised in the category of philosophers. Thus 

 Virgil, Ovid, and Horace appeared in this compilation between Moses and 

 Solomon upon the one hand, and Homer and .ZEsop upon the other (Fig. 278). 

 Afterwards these moral sayings were translated into French with the title of 

 " Dits des Philosophes," but though they doubtless had some resemblance 

 to certain passages of the authors to whom they were attributed, they had 

 more in common, when moulded into verse, with the dialogue of Solomon and 

 Marcoul, as the following lines, which claim to be an imitation of Juvenal, 

 will show : 



"Tant vaut amour comme argent dure : 

 Quant argent fault (manque), amour est nule. 

 Qui despent le sien follement, 

 Si n'est ames (aime) de nule gent." 



In the fifteenth century, Guillaume de Tignouville, Provost of Paris, in 

 the reign of Charles VI. found time, amidst his other numerous occupations, 



