476 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[No. 111. 



In Cokaygne is met and drink 

 Withute care, how, and swink 



Tlier nis lac of met no cloth 



Ther beth rivers gret and fine 

 Of oile, melk, honi and wine. 

 Water soruitli tlier to nothing 

 Bot to siyt and to waussing. 



ThcT is a wel fair abbei 



Of white monkes and of grei 



The gees irostid on the spitte 

 Fleey to that abbai, god hit wot. 

 And gredith ' sjees al hole, al hot.' " 



Shakspeare's use of Cockney, in Twelfth Night, 

 Act IV. So. 1., is somewhat obscure; but I con- 

 ceive that the Clown moans to express his opinion 

 that the world is already replete with folly: 



" Seb. I prithee vent thy folly somewhere else; 

 thou knovpf'st not me. 



" Clown. Vent my folly ! He has heard that word 

 of some great man, and now applies it to a fool. Vent 

 my folly! I am afraid this great lubber, the world, will 

 prove a Cockney." 



The Clown probably intends to say, that to vent 

 his folly to the world will be like sending coals to 

 Newcastle, or provisions to Cocagno ; for that, as 

 regards folly, this great lubber the world will 

 prove to be a Cocngne or Cokeney, i.e. a land of 

 plenty. He may, however, mean to hint, in a round- 

 about way, that Cockneys, or natives of London, 

 are full of folly; or that the world is as well 

 sujiplied with folly as a Cockney is with food. 



i do not know whether I committed a Cockney, 

 a clerical, or a canonical error, when I wrote the 

 name of Chaucer under the following lines instead 

 of the word Cokeney : — 



" I have no peny, quod Pierce, polettes for to bie, 

 Ne neither gose ne grys, but two grenc cheses, 

 A i'ew ciirdes and creame, and an haver cake, 

 And two loves of beanes and bianne, bake for mi 



folke, 

 And yet I s,\v by my soule, 1 have no salt bacon 

 Ne no Cokcnei/, by Christe, colo])pes to make." 



The i^isioti of Pierce Plowman, printed 1550. 



" At that fest thay wer seruyd ivith a ryche aray, 

 Every fyve and fyve had a Cokenai/." 



The Turnamtnt of Tottenham. 



The sentence for which I am responsible, p. 318., 

 should read thus : " Cokeney, in the above lines 

 quoted by Webster, probably refers to any sub- 

 stantial dish of fresh meat which might be cut in 

 collops." I may add that this use of the word 

 brings it into close alliance with the Anglo-Saxon 

 word cocnuhga, signifying things cooked, pies, pud- 

 dings, and cooiis-meut. 



The French and Neapolitan festivals, called 

 cocagne and cocagna, appear to have presented 



themselves in this country under the form of 

 Cockneys' feasts and revels conducted by the King 

 of Cockneys. Strype, in the first ap]iendix to his 

 edition of Stow's London, under the head " Step- 

 ney," describes at some length " The Cockney's 

 Feast of Stepney ;" and Dugdale, in his Origines 

 Jnridiciales, recapitulates an order entered on the 

 Register of Lincobis Inn, vol. iv. fo. 81a, in the 

 9th of Henry VHI.: 



•' That the King of Cockneys on Childermass-day 

 should sit and have due service, and that he and all his 

 officers should use honest and lawful manner and good 

 order, without any waste or destruction making, in wine, 

 brawn, chely, or other victuals : as also that be, bis 

 marshal, butler, and constable marshal, should have 

 their lawful and honest commandments by delivery of 

 the officers of Christmas : and that the said King of 

 Cockneys, ne none of his officers, medyll neither in the 

 buttry nor in the Stuard of Christmass his office — upon 

 pain of xl'. for every such medling. And lastly, that 

 Jack Straw and all his adherents should be thenceforth 

 utterly banislit, and no more to be used in this house 

 upon pain to forfeit, for every time five pounds, to be 

 levied on every fellow hapning to offend against this 

 rule." 



Some oblisinn; bencher of Lincoln's Inn will 

 perliaps have the goodness to examine, or to per- 

 mit me to examine the Ilegister, to ascertain 

 whether this potentate was king of Cockney*, as 

 Dugdale has it, or of Cockney. A Londoner. 



i\ri3lir£i to iHinor OurricS. 



The Word Inforluner (Vol. iv., p. 328.). — 

 J. C. W. en(juires, " Is infortuner to be found in 

 any old Dictionary ? " I would state that I have 

 not been able to find it ; but in Cockeram's English 

 Dictionarie, 163'J, I find " Infortunate, unhappy;" 

 and in Bailey's Dictionary, vol. i. 1753, "Infor- 

 tunate, unhappy, uidiicky;" '■'■ Infortune, misfor- 

 tune," referred to Chaucer ; " Infortunes, an as- 

 trological term, ap[)Iied to Saturn and Mars, 

 because of their unibrtunate inllnences;" '■'' Infor- 

 tunid, unfortunate," retL-rred to Chaucer ; and in 

 vol. ii. of Bailey's Dictionary, 1727, I find '■'• Infor- 

 tunateness, unhappiness, unluckiness." It is sin- 

 ffular that Cockerani jiives "infortunate" in his 

 first alphabet, which, he says, in his preface, 

 " hath the choicest words now in use, wherewith 

 our language is enriched." "Unfortunate" he 

 places in the second alphabet, which, he says, 

 " contains the vulgar words." Neither Cole's 

 English Dictionary, 1685, nor Blount's Glosso- 

 graphia, 1670, nor Phillips' World of Wo7-ds, 1678, 

 contain the word " unfortunate" in any of its 

 teiininations or applications. Mr. Halliwell, in 

 his Dictionary of Provincial Words, gives the 

 wonl '■'•Infortune, misfortune," deriving it from the 

 Anglo-Norman. 



^Vhilst referring thus to our early lexicogra- 



