He tells ye more plain in troth than wittily
original reads
He tells ye more plain in
trot. ..an wittily
they make the Poem look like a Bitch overstock’d
with Puppies, and
suck the sense almost to Skin and Bone.
For a Child to suck the
Mother till the Blood follows, I think
is not unreasonable, but
for a Litter of Epithetes to suck the
sense of a Poem to the Skin
and Bone, is such Fustian stuff that
original reads
they make the Poem look like
a Bitch overstock’d with Pup...s, and
suck ... sense almost to Skin
and Bone. For a C.ild to suck t..
Mother t... ... Blood
follows, I think is not unrea...able, but
fo. . ..tter of Ep.......
.o suck the sense of a Poem to the Skin
and Bone, is such Fustian
..... that
I am even with him with a Dose of Jollop
capital J uncertain
And then buz home again to his own dormitory
in Shooe-lane
original reads Sho.e-lane
p. 27
[Footnote: Collier,]
page reference missing
in original
p. A2v (Maxims ...)
might possibly be thought
original reads possibly
]
[Supplementary Note:
Neither of the verse passages quoted on pg. 15 is by Chaucer. The first is from The Plowman’s Tale, written about 1380 and traditionally attributed to Chaucer:
Of freres I have tolde before,
In a makynge of a Crede.
And yet I coulde tell worse and more,
But men wolde weryen it to
rede.
The second was printed in Tottel’s Miscellany ("Songes and Sonettes written by the ryght honorable Lorde Henry Haward late Earle of Surrey, and other”, 1557):
Flee fro the prese & dwell with sothfastnes
Suffise to thee thy good though it be
small,
For horde hath hate and climyng ticklenesse
Praise hath enuy, and weall is blinde
in all
Fauour no more, then thee behoue shall.
Rede well thy self that others well canst
rede,
And trouth shall the deliuer it is no
drede. ]