[427]. ‘Benjamin Cogman’ occurs in an old Norfolk register. Hence ‘Cockman,’ like ‘Cocker,’ may in some instance belong to this more seafaring occupation.
[428]. ‘John Shipgroom’ occurs in the Rot. Orig. (G.); ‘John Shypward’ in Cal. Rot. Chartarum (D.); and ‘Alexander Schipward’ in Rolls of Parl. (H.).
[429]. ‘Richard Drawater’ (A.) would be a nickname.
[430]. This word ‘lead’ is worthy of some extended notice. We still speak of a path leading our steps to a place, but we scarcely now would say that we lead our steps to it. Shakespeare, however, does so, where Richard III. addresses Elizabeth—
‘Dorset your son, that with a fearful soul
Leads discontented steps in foreign soil.’
Several commentators on Shakespeare have proposed ‘treads’ in the place of ‘leads,’ not knowing, seemingly, how familiar was this sense of carrying or bearing in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. A century earlier the Malvern Dreamer says—
‘And maketh of Lyere a lang cart
To leden all these othere:’
while just before he writes—