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The pudding more religion had than he;
Tho' he would eat it, it will not down you see,
Then of hypocrisy pray all beware.
Lest like disgrace be each dissembler’s share.


Miles all the while was jeered and sported with by all the scholars and town’s people, but after four hours penance, his master dissolved the charm, and released him; and he ever after kept the fasts, not so much out of religion, as for fear that a worse trick should be put upon him.

CHAP.III.

How Friar Bacon saved a gentleman who had sold himself to the Devil for money, and put a trick upon the old deceiver of mankind.


WHen Friar Bacon flourished at Oxford a young gentleman, by his prodigality, having run out his estate and involved himself in debt, grew exceeding pensive and melancholy, purposing to make himself away in order to put an end to his miseries and the scorns that were daily put upon him by his former companions, being also utterly cast off by his friends; so walking by a wood side, full of sorrow, he met as he thought