“His throte was clere, and lustely coude _fayne_.”
v. 55. _Thys docter Deuyas commensyd in a cart_] So again Skelton in his _Colyn Cloute_,
Compare a much later writer: “What, a graue Doctor, a base Iohn Doleta the Almanack-maker, _Doctor Deuse-ace_ and Doctor Merryman?” Nash’s _Haue with you to Saffron-Walden_, 1596. sig. L 3.—_commensyd_, i. e. who took his degree.
v. 62. _walk, and be nought!_] Equivalent to—away, and a mischief on you!
v. 68. _Take thys in worth_] “I _Take in worthe_ or I take in good worthe, _Ie prens en gré_.” Palsgrave’s _Lesclar. de la Lang. Fr._, 1530. fol. ccclxxxiiii. (Table of Verbes.)
v. 69. _Wryten at Croydon by Crowland in the Clay_] Concerning this line, the Rev. Joseph Hunter has obligingly remarked to me: “I was in hope of finding ‘Croydon by Crowland in the Clay’ by looking in Ingulphus and his Continuator, where all the places are mentioned in which the Abbey of Crowland (Croyland) had estates. No such name as Croydon appears; and as it is not in Speed’s maps, I see little chance of meeting with the place so called by Skelton. It would be a very bold emendation to read,—
‘Wryten _in Hoyland_ by Crowland in the Clay:’
the parts of Lincolnshire in which Crowland is situated are called Holland or formerly Hoylande.”—To G. Steinman Steinman, Esq., author of the _Hist. of Croydon_, I am indebted for the following observations: “The passage has been a puzzle to me. The distance is very great between Crowland and Croydon in Cambridgeshire; and in Croydon in Surrey there is no such place as Crowland, though I can point out to you ‘the Clays’ there. The manor of Crou_ham_ is in the Surrey Croydon, but far away from ‘the Clays.’”
_couenable_, i. e. befitting: _sentence_, i. e. sense, meaning. The pointing perhaps ought to be thus;—“_in Englysh couenable, in sentence commendable_,” &c.
v. 13. _shyderyd_] i. e. split, splintered.
_Oure days be datyd,_ _To be chekmatyd_ _With drawttys of deth_]
_Checkmate_, the term at chess when the king is made prisoner, and the game consequently finished, is often used figuratively by our early writers. With the present lines compare the following passages:
_Kyng Roberd of Cysylle_,—_MS. Harl._ 1701. fol. 93.
“But she had taken suche cold for the defaute of helpe that depe _draughtes of deth_ toke her, that nedes she must dye,” &c. _Morte d’Arthur_, B. viii. c. i. vol. i. 247. ed. Southey.