May 18.

"_Fools rush in_" (Vol. i., p. 348.).--The line in Pope,

"For fools rush in where angels fear to tread,"

it has been long ago pointed out, is founded upon that of Shakspeare,

"For wrens make wing where eagles dare not perch."

I know not why that line of Pope is in your correspondent's list. It
is not a proverb.

C.B.


_Allusion in Friar Brackley's Sermon_ (Vol. i., p. 351.)--It seems
vain to inquire who the persons were of whom stories were told in
medieval books, as if they were really historical. See the _Gesta
Romanorum_, for instance: or consider who the Greek king Aulix was,
having dealings with the king of Syria, in the 7th Story of the
_Novelle Antiche_. The passage in the sermon about a Greek king, seems
plainly to be still part of the extract from the _Liber Decalogorum_,
being in Latin. This book was perhaps the _Dialogi decem_, put into
print at Cologne in 1472: Brunet.

C.B.