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

——46iSNOTES.850. Chaucer (Prol. 190) says of the monk, that'Greyhoundes he hadde, as swifte as fowel in flight ;Of prikjTig and of huntj-ng for the hareWas al his lust, for no cost wolde he spare.'The hawks and hounds used by the clergy, even by bishops, furnisheda good subject for satire, of which our old poets frequentlyavailed themselves. Ck Piers the Plowman, B. x. 308, and a note inWarton, Hist. Eng. Poetry, ii. 57, ed. 1840; ii. 261, ed. 1871.864. Shakespeare uses ceremonies at the end of a line in the samemanner; Julius Caesar, i. i. 70.874. Bidde you pray. Here the poet imitates the form of a biddingprayer,as it is called. Beades means prayers, and a bidding-prayer signifiesetymologically a praying prayer, and to hid heads is to pray prayers.876. Christes sake, the correct form, sometimes corrupted into Christbis sake, as in our present Prayer Book.IG17. Peerce. The fame of the poem entitled ' Piers the Plowman'made the phrase proverbial; see 1. 1025.1018. So, in that case. Sayler, sailor.1029. Clime to heauen. This looks as if Gascoigne had actually readPiers the Plowman, viz. in the editions of 1550 or 1561. Compare'Ne none sonner saued ne sadder \Jirnier'] of biieueThan plowmen and pastoures and pore comune laboreres.Souteres and shepherdes, such lewed iottes [wretches']Percen with a pater-noster the paleys of heuene,' &c.—B. x. 458.1034. ' By ploughing up the ridges which mark their boundaries.'1039. '^hey racke, they (the landlords) stretch, raise. A rack-rent is arent estimated at ihefull value.105S. Cockets, certificates that goods have paid duty. Also used inthe sense of a stamp for bread, and hence bread of a peculiar quality wascalled cocket.1. 306.See Piers the Plowman (Clar. Press Ser.), note to Pass. vi.1066. When, &c. This, of course, means never.loy -J.Firrtientie. Nares says:—' Furmenty, Furmity, or Frumity..Still a favourite dish in the north, consisting of hulled wheat boiled inmilk, and seasoned. It was especially a Christmas dish.' But Gascoignehere uses it to denote adulterated malt.1078. Datiie Diker, David the ditcher ; a proverbial name. It occurs inPiers. PI. B. v. 320.1080. Toll, take toll, by stealing some of the corn sent to be ground.Golden tbnmbe ; see a long note in Mr. Morris's Chaucer's Prologue,&c. (Clar. Press Scr.), on 1. 563 of the Prologue.1083. Blowe, suffer to be fly-blown.