The “Catalogue of Vagabonds” to which Rowlands alludes in the above extract as having been written by Cocke Lorell, is a tract printed by John Awdely in 1565, and of which a second edition was issued by the same printer in 1575. It is not improbable that Awdely may have himself been the compiler of the “Catalogue.” A copy of the edition of 1575 is in the Bodleian Library, the quaint title of which is as follows:--“The Fraternitye of Vacabondes. As wel of ruflyng Vacabondes, as of beggerly, of Women as of Men, of Gyrles as of Boyes, with their proper names and qualities. With a description of the crafty company of Cousoners and Shifters. Whereunto also is adioyned the XXV Orders of Knaues, otherwyse called a Quartern of Knaues Confirmed for euer by Cocke Lorell.
Our Brotherhood of Vacabondes, If you would know where dwell; In graues end Barge which seldome standes, The talke wyll shew ryght well.
Some orders of my Knaues also In that Barge shall ye fynde; For no where shall ye walke I trow, But ye shall see their kynde.
Imprinted at London by John Awdely, dwellynge in little Britayne Streete withoute Aldersgate, 1575.”
Dr. Bliss describes the above mentioned tract at length, in the “British Bibliographer,” Vol. II., p. 12, and makes further allusion to it in his edition of Earle’s “Microcosmography,” p. 256, published in 1811.
One of the earliest, if not the earliest, printed mention of the Bote occurs in Thomas Feylde’s “A contrauersye bytwene a louer and a Jaye. [Colophon.] Imprynted at London in Fletestrete at the sygne of the Sonne by Wynkyn de Worde.” The Lover in the preceding verses apostrophizes Nature regarding his passion for his mistress, at which the Jay thus expostulates:--
“Thoughe nature moue, And bydde the loue, Yet wysdome wolde proue, Or it be hote, Whan fortune sowre Dothe on the lowre, Thou getest an ore In cocke lorels bote.”
The next mention of Cocke Lorell is in a black-letter poem, preserved in the Bodleian Library, without date or printer’s name, entitled “Doctour Double Ale.”
“I hold you a grota Ye wyll rede by rota, That ye wete a cota In cocke lorels bota.”
The Rev. Charles H. Hartshorne, in “Ancient Metrical Tales,” reprinted “Doctour Double Ale,” but rendered the last line _cocke losels bota_.