COCKE LORELLES BOTE.
One Hundred and One Copies Printed,
One of which is on Vellum.
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A SATIRICAL POEM
From an unique copy printed by Wynkyn de Worde
And you the judges bear a wary eye.”
ABERDEEN
J. & J. P. EDMOND & SPARK
MDCCCLXXXIV.
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PREFACE.
THE singularly interesting fragment of early English literature known asCocke Lorelles Bote, is a satirical poem of four hundred and fourteenlines, in which various classes of society, chiefly of the lower order,are passed under review in rapid succession. The glimpse we obtain ofeach class is only momentary, but the author with some well chosenphrase, in that short time sketches their failings.
The original from which this poem is reprinted, is in black-letter, and{vi}is preserved in the Garrick Collection, British Museum. It isconsidered unique, but unfortunately it is imperfect at the beginning.
It was printed in London, by Wynkyn de Worde, and bears no date, but maysafely be ascribed to the early part of the reign of Henry the Eighth.The idea of the “Bote,” in which so many different characters aregathered together, is supposed to have been taken from SebastianBrandt’s “Shyp of Folys,” which was translated into English by AlexanderBarclay, and printed by Pynson at the beginning of the sixteenthcentury. What gives weight to this suggestion, is the fact that thewood-cuts with which the original of Cocke Lorell is illustrated, aresimilar to those used in the “Ship of Folys.”
The hero of the poem was the leader of a notorious band of robbers which{vii}infested the metropolis, and was probably alive at the time of itspublication. He is mentioned by Samuel Rowlands in “Martin Mark-all,Beadle of Bridewell, his Defence and Answere to the Belman of London,”printed in 1610, who describes him in these terms:—“After him,succeeded by general councell, one Cocke Lorrell, the most notoriousknave that ever lived: by trade he was a tinker, often carrying a panneand a hammer for show: but when he came to a good booty, he would casthis profession in a ditch, and play the padder,[1] and then would away,and as hee past through the toune, crie, ‘Ha you any worke for atinker?’ To write of his knaveries it would aske a long time: I referre{viii}you to the old manuscript remayning on record in Maunder’s Hall.[2]This was he that reduced and brought in forme the Catalogue ofVagabonds, or Quarterne of Knaves, called the five and twentie Orders ofKnaves: but because it is extant, and in every mans shop, I passe themover.... This Cocke Lorrell continued among them longer th