A Literary History of the English People, from the Origins to the Renaissance

Note 616 — from the Origins To the Renaissance (continued 6)

Reading edition

Camélion c'est une beste fière Qui vit tansoulement de l'air sanz plus; Ensi pour dire en mesme la manière, De soule espoir qe j'ai d'amour conçuz Sont mes pensers en vie sustenuz.

Ballad xvi; what a chameleon is, was thus explained in a Vocabulary of the fifteenth century: "Hic gamelion, animal varii coloris et sola aere vivit—a buttyrfle" (Th. Wright, "Vocabularies," 1857, 4to, p, 220).

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