In the Royal Wills, ed. Nichols, p. 278, we find:--'wher I have beforn ordeyned and _do mad_ [caused to be made] my tombe.' The infinitive appears to have been _fraughten_, though the earliest certain examples of this form seem to be those in Shakespeare, Cymb. i. 1. 126, Temp. i. 2. 13. The proper form of the pp. was _fraughted_ (as in Marlowe, 2 Tamb. i. 2. 33), but the loss of final _-ed_ in past participles of verbs of which the stem ends in _t_ is common; cf. _set_, _put_, &c. Hence this form _fraught_ as a pp. in the present instance. It is a Scandinavian word, from Swed. _frakta_, Dan. _fragte_. At a later period we find _freight_, the mod. E. form. The vowel-change is due to the fact that there was an intermediate form _fret_, borrowed from the French form _fret_ of the Scandinavian word. This form _fret_ disturbed the vowel-sound, without wholly destroying the recollection of the original guttural _gh_, due to the Swed. _k_. For an example of _fret_, we have only to consult the old black-letter editions of Chaucer printed in 1532 and 1561, which give us the present line in the form--'These marchantes han don _fret_ her ships new.' 185. _ceriously_, 'seriously,' i. e. with great minuteness of detail. Used by Fabyan, who says that 'to reherce _ceryously_' all the conquests of Henry V would fill a volume; Chron., ed. Ellis, p. 589. Skelton, in his Garland of Laurell, l. 581, has: 'And _seryously_ she shewyd me ther denominacyons'; on which Dyce remarks that it means _seriatim_, and gives a clear example. It answers to the Low Latin _seriose_, used in two senses; (1) seriously, gravely; (2) minutely, [147] fully. In the latter case it is perhaps to be referred to the Lat. _series_, not _serius_. A similar word, _cereatly_ (Lat. _seriatim_), is found three times in the Romance of Partenay, ed. Skeat, with the sense of _in due order_; cf. _Ceriatly_ and _Ceryows_ in the New E. Dict. In N. and Q. 7 S. xii. 183, I shewed that Lydgate has at least _ten_ examples of this use of the word in his Siege of Troye. In one instance it is spelt _seryously_ (with _s_). 190. This refers to the old belief in astrology and the casting of nativities. Cf. Prol. A. 414-418. Observe that ll. 190-203 are not in the original, and were doubtless added in revision. This is why _this sowdan_ in l. 186 is so far separated from the repetition of the same words in l. 204. 197. Tyrwhitt shews that this stanza is imitated closely from some Latin lines, some of which are quoted in the margin of many MSS. of Chaucer. He quotes them at length from the Megacosmos of Bernardus Silvestris, a poet of the twelfth century (extant in MS. Bodley 1265). The lines are as follows, it being premised that those printed in italics are cited in the margin of MSS. E. Hn. Cp. Pt. and Ln.:--