O timidorum caudatorum formidolositas! quam beatus, quam mundus præsens foret exercitus, si a caudis purgaretur et caudatis.
O the cowardliness of these fearful Long-tails! How happie, how cleane would this our armie be, were it but purged from tails and Long-tailes.
That the English were nicked by this speech appears by the reply of the Earle of Salisbury following still the metaphor; The son of my father shall presse thither to day, whither you shall not dare to approach his horse taile. Some will have the English so called from wearing a pouch or poake, (a bag to carry their baggage in) behind their backs, whilest probably the proud Monsieurs had their Lacquies for that purpose. In proof whereof they produce ancient pictures of the English Drapery and Armory, wherein such conveyances doe appear. If so, it was neither sin nor shame for the common sort of people to carry their own necessaries, and it matters not much whether the pocket be made on either side, or wholly behinde. If any demand how this nick-name (cut off from the rest of England) continues still entaild on Kent? The best conjecture is, because that county lieth nearest to France, and the French are beheld as the first founders of this aspersion. But if any will have the Kentish so called from drawing and dragging boughs of trees behind them, which afterwards they advanced above their heads and so partly cozened partly threatned King William the Conqueror to continue their ancient customes, I say, if any will impute it to this original, I will not oppose.” Worthies (Kent, p. 63), ed. 1662. The preceding passage of Fuller, somewhat abridged, is copied by Ray into his Proverbs, p. 245. ed. 1768. For fanciful stories concerning the origin of Kentish long-tails, see also Cornv-copiæ, Pasquils Night-cap, 1612, (attributed to S. Rowlands), p. 42. sqq.; and the commencement of Robin Good-fellow, His mad Prankes and Merry Jests, 1628, (a tract which originally appeared at an earlier date).
Page 193. v. 1. Gup] See note, p. 99. v. 17.
v. 23. Agayn] i. e. Against.
v. 26. dur] i. e. door.
v. 28. Go shake thy dog, hey] In our author’s Magnyfycence, v. 306. vol. i. 235, is,—
“Go, shake the dogge, hay, syth ye wyll nedys.”
and had the expression occurred only in these two passages of Skelton, I should have felt confident that in the present one “thy” was a misprint for “the,” and that both were to be explained—“Go shake thee, dog,” &c.; but again, in his poem Howe the douty Duke of Albany, &c. v. 159. vol. ii. 72, we find,