In pointing out this error, Mr. Collier says, that in John Heywood’s “Epigrams upon three hundred proverbs,” printed in 1566, mention is made of Cocke Lorelles Bote, under the heading of
He will have an ore in every man’s barge, Even in cocke lorels barge, he berth that charge.”
Later on we find that the rascal is not forgotten, for Ben Jonson in his masque of the “Gypsies Metamorphosed,” has introduced him as feasting the Evil One, in a song which continued popular for some considerable time, and was frequently printed as a broadside, copies of which are in the Pepysian and Ashmolean Collections.
“Cock Lorrell would need have the devil his guest, And bid him once into the Peak to dinner, Where never the fiend had such a feast Provided him yet at the charge of a sinner.”
In 1807, the Rev. William Beloe, in his “Anecdotes of Literature and Scarce Works,” Vol. I., p. 393, called attention to the following tract, but unfortunately he changed the title to “Cocke Lorells Vote,” in place of “Bote.” That this was a misprint may be inferred from the fact, that in another place in the same work, he makes reference to a passage in Bishop Percy’s Reliques, where the correct title is given.
Dibdin, who appears never to have seen the work, but says he was “indebted to Mr. H. Ellis of the British Museum” for specimens “of this singular performance” has fallen into the droll blunder of writing “of the licentious and _predatory character_ of its AUTHOR, ... one Cock Lorell,” whose “popularity has, I believe, escaped the notice of our chroniclers.”[3]
The poem was presented to the members of the Roxburghe Club in 1817, by the Rev. Henry Drury, but the impression was limited to thirty-five copies, two of which were printed on vellum.
It was again printed at Edinburgh for Stanley and Blake in 1817, from a transcript made by the Rev. Joseph Stevenson, with an introductory notice by Mr. James Maidment. This reprint has become almost as rare as the Roxburghe Club edition, only forty copies having been taken.
The Percy Society, in 1843, issued an edition of the “Bote” to its members, with a preface by Dr. E. F. Rimbault. The rarity of the two first mentioned reprints, and the form, apart altogether from the comparative scarcity of the last, has led to the reprinting once more of this poem. The writer begs to acknowledge his obligations to both Mr. Maidment’s and Dr. Rimbault’s editions as supplying the material for the foregoing notice. While aware that there is little that is new which can be said about Cocke Lorell, he trusts that this edition may be favourably received, if for no other reasons than these, that while it avoids the many inaccuracies of the Edinburgh edition, it omits the modern punctuation which has been introduced into the Percy Society’s reprint.