Moche Crye and no Wull.
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De laudibus legum Angliae (c. 1470), ch. x, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919). Compare, "All cry and no wool", Samuel Butler, Hudibras (c. 1663), part i. canto i. line 852; see also more cry than wool.John Fortescue
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There ys no solas undyr hevene
Of al that a man may nevene
That shuld a man so mochë glew
As a gode womman that loveth trew.Robert Mannyng
For we Englysshe men ben borne under the domynacyon of the mone, whiche is never stedfaste but ever waverynge, wexynge one season and waneth and dyscreaseth another season. And that comyn Englysshe that is spoken in one shyre varyeth from a-nother, in so moche that in my dayes happened that certayn marchauntes were in a ship in Tamyse for to have sayled over the see into Zelande, and, for lacke of wynde, thei taryed atte Forlond, and wente to lande for to refreshe them. And one of theym named Sheffelde, a mercer, cam in to an hows and axed for mete and specyally he axyd after eggys, and the goode wyf answerde that she could speke no Frenshe. And the marchaunt was angry, for he also coude speke no Frenshe, but wolde have hadde egges; and she understode hym not. And thenne at laste a-nother sayd that he wolde have eyren. Then the good wyf sayd that she understod hym wel. Loo, what sholde a man in thyse dayes now wryte, egges, or eyren? Certaynly it is hard to playse every man, by-cause of dyversite and chaunge of langage.
William Caxton
Fortescue, John
Fortune, Dion
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