[89]. Thus Skelton, in Why come ye nat to Courte? says:—
‘Twit, Andrewe, twit, Scot,
Ge hame, ge scour thy pot.’
[90]. An instance of the diminutive is found in ‘Thomas Jemmitt,’ recorded in Clutterbuck’s Hertford, Index, vol. i.
[91]. Thus, in Why come ye nat to Courte? Skelton introduces such fictitious characters as—
‘Havell, and Harvy Hafter,
Jack Travell, and Cole Crafter.’
[92]. I have stated in p. [80] that Polson is nothing more than Paulson. A proof of this is found in the case of ‘Pol Withipol,’ who was summoned to attend the council to show why the statute passed 27th Henry VIII., for the making of broadcloths and kerseys, should not be repealed.—Proc. and Ord. Privy Council, vii. 156.
[93]. Capgrave, in his ‘Chronicles,’ under date 1394, says: ‘In this time the Lolardis set up scrowis at Westminster and at Poules.’
[94]. Lord Macaulay has noticed this. Speaking of the Old Testament, and in respect of the old Puritans, he says: ‘In such a history it was not difficult for fierce and gloomy spirits to find much that might be distorted to suit their wishes. The extreme Puritans, therefore, began to feel for the Old Testament a preference which, perhaps, they did not distinctly avow even to themselves, but which showed itself in all their sentiments and habits. They paid to the Hebrew language a respect which they refused to that tongue in which the discourses of Jesus and the epistles of Paul have come down to us. They baptized their children by the names, not of Christian saints, but of Hebrew patriarchs and warriors.’—(Hist. Eng. ch. 1.)