John Lively, Vicar of Kelloe,

Had seven daughters and never a fellow.

An equivocal rhyme of the bishopric, which may either mean that the parson of the sixteenth century had no son, or that he had no equal in learning, &c. He certainly, however, mentions no son in his will, in which he leaves to his daughter Elizabeth, his best gold ring with a death's head in it (Compare Love's Labour Lost, v. 2), and seventeen yards of white cloth for curtains of a bed, and to his daughter Mary his silver seal of arms, his gimald ring, and black gold ring. Another version of the proverb reads "six daughters," and indeed seven is often merely a conventional number.