COCKE LORELLES BOTE. One Hundred and One Copies Printed, One of which is on Vellum. Cocke Lorelles Bote A SATIRICAL POEM _From an unique copy printed by Wynkyn de Worde_ “Come begin; And you the judges bear a wary eye.” _Hamlet._ ABERDEEN J. & J. P. EDMOND & SPARK MDCCCLXXXIV. PREFACE. The singularly interesting fragment of early English literature known as Cocke Lorelles Bote, is a satirical poem of four hundred and fourteen lines, in which various classes of society, chiefly of the lower order, are passed under review in rapid succession. The glimpse we obtain of each class is only momentary, but the author with some well chosen phrase, in that short time sketches their failings. The original from which this poem is reprinted, is in black-letter, and is preserved in the Garrick Collection, British Museum. It is considered unique, but unfortunately it is imperfect at the beginning. It was printed in London, by Wynkyn de Worde, and bears no date, but may safely be ascribed to the early part of the reign of Henry the Eighth. The idea of the “Bote,” in which so many different characters are gathered together, is supposed to have been taken from Sebastian Brandt’s “Shyp of Folys,” which was translated into English by Alexander Barclay, and printed by Pynson at the beginning of the sixteenth century. What gives weight to this suggestion, is the fact that the wood-cuts with which the original of Cocke Lorell is illustrated, are similar to those used in the “Ship of Folys.”