Specimens of English literature from the 'Ploughmans crede' to the ...

43^->NOTES.'Jajues. Which is he that killed the deer?A Lord. Sir, it was I.Jaques.Let 's present him to the Duke like a Roman conqueror,' &c.47. Plinius. The reference is wrong; it should be to lib. x. cap. viii.The passage is thus translated by Holland:— 'In a part of Thracia,somwhat higher in the countrey beyond Amphipolis, men and hawkesjoin in fellowship and catch birds together: for the men drive thewoods, beat the bushes and reeds to spring the foule ; then the hawksflying over their heads, seize upon them, and either strike or bear themto the ground fit for their hands. On the other side, the hawkers andfoulers when they have caught the foule, divide the bootie with thehawkes; and by report, they let such birds flie again at libertie aloft intothe aire, and then are the hawkes readie to catch for themselves. Moreover,when the time is of hawking, they will by their manner of crie andflying together, give signe to the faulconers tliat there is good gameabroad, and so draw them forth to hawking for to take the opportunitie.'75. Coknayes, pets.'The original meaning of cockney is a child tootenderly or delicately nurtured, one kept inthe house and not hardenedby out-of-doors life ; hence applied to citizens, as opposed to the hardierinhabitants of the country, and in modem times confined to the inhabitantsof London. The Promptorium Par\iilonim, and the authorities citedin Mr. Way's notes, give " Coknay, carifotus, delicius, mammotrophus."" To bring up like a cochiaye, tnignoter." " Delicias facere, to play thecockney." Cf. " Puer in deliciis matris nutritus, Anghce a cokenay ;" Halliwell." Cockney, niais, mignot ;" Shenvood. The Fr. coqtteliner, to dandle,cocker, fedle, pamper, make a wanton of a child, leads us in the rightdirection.'—Wedg^vood's Etymological Dictionary. To coggle, in provincialEnglish, is to shake about, and the primitive meaning of cocker isto rock a cradle. Hence, for cockney, the successive senses of rocked ina cradle, dandled, pampered, and London-born.XIX.LORD SURREY.(A)From his tramlation of the JEneid.' Surrey was not merely the poet of idleness and gallantry. He wasfitted, both from nature and study, for tlie more solid and laboriousparts of literature.He translated the second and fourth books of Virgilinto blank verse ;and it seems probable, that his active situations of lifeprevented him from completing a design of translating the whole Eneid.This is the first composition in blank verse, extant in the English Ian-