As an instance of a word improved by the Oriel text, may be cited the 'brecheles feste' of Caxton's and Hill's texts, l. 66, and l. 300,
ffor truste ye well ye shall you not excuse ffrom brecheles feste, & I may you espye Playenge at any game of rebawdrye.—Hill, l. 299-301.
Could it be 'profitless,' from A.-Sax. bréc, gain, profit; or 'breechless,' a feast of birch for the boy with his breeches off? The latter was evidently meant, but it was a forced construction. The Oriel byrcheley set matters right at once.
Another passage I cannot feel sure is set at rest by the Oriel text. Hill's and Caxton's texts, when describing the ill-mannered servant whose ways are to be avoided, say of him, as to his hair, that he is
Absolon with disheveled heres smale,
lyke to a prysoner of saynt Malowes,[1]
a sonny busshe able to the galowes.—Hill, l. 462.
[Footnote 1: An allusion to the strong castle built at St Malo's by
Anne, Duchess of Bretayne.—Dyce.]
For the last line the Oriel MS. reads,
a sonny bush myght cause hym to goo louse,
and Mr Skeat says,—"This is clearly the right reading, of which galowes is an unmeaning corruption. The poet is speaking of the dirty state of a bad and ill-behaved servant. He is as dirty as a man come out of St Malo's prison; a sunny bush would cause him to go and free himself from minute attendants. A 'sunny bush' probably means no more than a warm nook, inviting one to rest, or to such quiet pursuits as the one indicated. That this is really the reading is shown by the next stanza, wherein the poet apologizes for having spoken too bluntly; he ought to have spoken of such a chase by saying that he goes a-hawking or a-hunting. Such was the right euphemism required by 'norture.'"
If this is the meaning, we may compare with it the old poet's reproof to the proud man: