Usually ascribed to Thomas Dekker (who "conveyed" them bodily, and with errors, to _Lanthorne and Candlelight_, published in 1609) this jingle of popular Canting phrases, strung together almost at haphazard, is the production of Robert Copland (1508-1547), the author of _The Hye Way to the Spyttel House_, a pamphlet printed after 1535, and of which only two or three copies are now known. Copland was a printer-author; in the former capacity a pupil of Caxton in the office of Wynkyn de Worde. The plan of _The Hye Way_ is simplicity itself. Copland, taking refuge near St. Bartholomew's Hospital during a passing shower, engages the porter in conversation concerning the "losels, mighty beggars and vagabonds, the michers, hedge-creepers, fylloks and luskes" that "ask lodging for Our Lord's sake". Thereupon is drawn a vivid and vigorous picture of the seamy side of the social life of the times. All grades of "vagrom men," with their frauds and shifts, are passed in review, and when Copland asks about their "bousy" speech, the porter entertains him with these lines. Lines 2 and 4. _Bousy_ = drunken, sottish, dissipated. So Skelton in _Elynoor Rommin_ (Harl. MSS. ed. Park, I. 416), 'Her face all _bowsie_'. _Booze_ = to drink heavily, is still colloquial; and, = to drink, was in use as early as A.D. 1300. Line 4. _Cove_ (or _Cofe_) = a man, an individual. _Maimed nace_ (_nase_ or _nazy_) = helplessly drunk; Lat. _nausea_ = sickness; _cf_. line 9, '_nace gere_'. Line 5. _Teare_ (_toure_ or _towre_) = to look, to see. _Patrying cove_ (_patrico, patricove_, or _pattercove_) = a strolling priest; _cf_. Awdeley, _Frat. of Vacabondes_ (1560), p. 6.:-- "A Patriarke Co. doth make marriages, and that is untill death depart the married folke, which is after this sort: When they come to a dead Horse or any dead Catell, then they shake hands and so depart, euery one of them a seuerall way." The form _patrying cove_ seems to suggest a derivation from 'pattering' or 'muttering'--the Pater- noster, up to the time of the Reformation, was recited by the priest in a low voice as far as 'and lead us not into temptation' when the choir joined in. _Darkman_