Dr. Bliss describes the above mentioned tract at length, in the “British Bibliographer,” Vol. II., p. 12, and makes further allusion to it in his edition of Earle’s “Microcosmography,” p. 256, published in 1811.
One of the earliest, if not the earliest, printed mention of the Bote occurs in Thomas Feylde’s “A contrauersye bytwene a louer and a Jaye. [Colophon.] Imprynted at London in Fletestrete at the sygne of the Sonne by Wynkyn de Worde.” The Lover in the preceding verses apostrophizes Nature regarding his passion for his mistress, at which the Jay thus expostulates:—
“Thoughe nature moue,
And bydde the loue,
Yet wysdome wolde proue,
Or it be hote,
Whan fortune sowre
Dothe on the lowre,
Thou getest an ore
In cocke lorels bote.”
The next mention of Cocke Lorell is in a black-letter poem, preserved in the Bodleian Library, without date or printer’s name, entitled “Doctour Double Ale.”
“I hold you a grota
Ye wyll rede by rota,
That ye wete a cota
In cocke lorels bota.”
The Rev. Charles H. Hartshorne, in “Ancient Metrical Tales,” reprinted “Doctour Double Ale,” but rendered the last line cocke losels bota.
In pointing out this error, Mr. Collier says, that in John Heywood’s “Epigrams upon three hundred proverbs,” printed in 1566, mention is made of Cocke Lorelles Bote, under the heading of
“A BUSY BODY
He will have an ore in every man’s barge,
Even in cocke lorels barge, he berth that charge.”
Later on we find that the rascal is not forgotten, for Ben Jonson in his masque of the “Gypsies Metamorphosed,” has introduced him as feasting the Evil One, in a song which continued popular for some considerable time, and was frequently printed as a broadside, copies of which are in the Pepysian and Ashmolean Collections.