Shakespeare Jest-Books Part 42

Chaucer employs the word in a similar sense very frequently. In the _Cuckoo and the Nightingale_, is the following pa.s.sage:--

"To telle his might my wit may not suffice, For he can make of wise folks ful nice."

P. 103. Crakers.--See the last edition of Nares, voce _Crake and Craker_. But an earlier example of the use of the word than any given in the Glossary occurs in Lupset's _Works_, 1546, 12mo (_A Compendious Treatise teachying the waie of dying well_, fol. 34 _verso_; this treatise was first printed separately in 1541). In a reprint of the _C. Mery Talys_, which appeared in 1845, the Editor, not knowing what to make of _crake_ and _craker_, altered them, wherever they occurred, to _crack_ and _cracker_ respectively!

P. 113. Ch' adde.--In _Wits Interpreter, The English Parna.s.sus_, by J.

Cotgrave. 1655, ed. 1662, p. 247, is "the Devons.h.i.+re Ditty," from which the following is an extract:--

"c.o.c.kbodikins, chil work no more, Dost think chi labour to be poor?

No, no, ich chave a do--" &c.

But this phraseology is not peculiar to Devons.h.i.+re.

P. 113, note 2.--Some additional particulars of interest, relative to ancient wines, may be found in _Morte Arthure_, ed. 1847, pp. 18, 20; and in the _Squyer of Low Degre_ (Ritson's _Ancient Engl. Met.

Renancees_, iii).

P. 121. _Of the Courtear that ete the hot costerde._

"An arch Boy being at Table where there was a piping hot Applepye, putting a Bit into his Mouth, burnt it so that the Tears ran down his Cheeks. A Gentleman that sate by, ask'd him, Why he wept? Only said he, because it is just come into my Remembrance that my poor Grandmother died this Day Twelvemonth. Phoo! says the other, is that all? So whipping a large Piece into his Mouth, he quickly sympathized with the Boy; who seeing his Eyes brim-full, with a malicious Sneer Ask'd him, Why he wept? A Pox on you, said he, because you were not hanged, you young Dog, the same Day your Grandmother died."--_Complete London Jester_, ed. 1771, p. 53.

P. 140.--_Of the Canon and his man. Note._

"When King James came into England, coming to Boughton, hee was feasted by Sir Edward Montague, and his six sonnes brought upp the six first dishes; three of them after were lords, and three more knights, Sir Walter Montague, Sir Sydney, and Sir Charles, whose daughter Lady Hatton is."--_Ward's Diary_, ed. Severn, p. 170-1.

P. 143. _For at this foul araye._--So, in the _Child of Bristow_, an early metrical legend, we read:--

"When the burges the child gan se, He seid then, benedicite, Sone, what _araye_ is this?"

Some later writers thought it necessary to use this word with a qualifying adjective, as _shrewd array_, &c. thus, in fact, reducing it to something like its ordinary and modern signification.

P. 148, _note_. 1. See Pepys' _Diary_, 6th ed. I. 29. "They brought me a draft of their drink in a brown bowl, tipt with silver, which I drank off, and at the bottom was a picture of the Virgin with the child in her arms, done in silver."--27th Feb. 1659-60. See also Brydges' _British Bibliographer_, vol. ii. p. 109.

THE END.