297. i.e., Asketh, inquireth. So, in Henryson's "Testament of Creside"—
"Quha had bene thair, and lyking for to heir
His facound toung and termis exquisite,
Of Rhetorick the prettick he micht leir,
In breif sermone are pregnant sentence wryte,
Befoir Cupide veiling his cap alyte,
Speiris the caus of that vocatioun?
And he anone schew his intentioun."
—Laing's Edit., 1865, p. 84.
Again, Douglas's "Virgil," B. iii. p. 72—
"The seik ground deny is frute and fudis,
My fader exhortis us turn againe our studis
To Delos, and Apollois ansure spere,
Be seiking him of succours us to lere."
Again, B. v. p. 140—
"Ane uthir mache to him was socht and sperit."
298. The colophon is: Thus endeth thys Tragedy or enterlude, manyfestynge the chefe promyses of God unto Man by all ages in the olde lawe, from the fall of Adam to the incarnacyon of the Lorde Jesus Christ. Compyled by Johan Bayle, Anno Domini 1538.
299. Wood, in his "Athenae Oxonienses," vol. 1, p. 149, positively fixes his birth at this place. Other writers have made him a native of North Mims in Hertfordshire, but apparently without any authority. [See Warton's "H.E.P.," edit. 1871, i. 80.] Bale, who lived nearest to the author's time, calls him Civis Londinensis; which words, though they do not absolutely prove that he was born in London, yet surely are sufficient in a matter of this uncertainty to warrant any one to conclude that he was a native of that city, as no circumstance appears to induce a belief that he acquired the title of Citizen of London otherwise than by birth.
300. Peacham's "Compleat Gentleman," 4to, 1627, p. 95.
301. Gabriel Harvey's "MS. Note to Speght's Chaucer," as quoted in Mr Steevens's "Shakspeare," vol. 5.