Chaucer's Troilus and Creseide, b.v.
Afterwards, in the same book, a few stanzas further on, he joins "crop" and "root" together.
"Last of all, if these thinges auayle not the cure, I do commend and allow above all the rest, that you take the iuyce of Celendine rootes, making them cleane from the earth that doth vse to hang to the moores."—The Booke of Falconrie, by George Turbervile, 1611, p. 236.
"Chiefely, if the moare of vertue be not cropped, but dayly rooted deepelyer."—The Fyrste Booke of the Nobles or of Nobilitye, translated from Laurence Humfrey.
The next and last example from the "Second Booke" of this interesting little volume I will quote more at large:
"Aristotle mencioneth in his Politikes an horrible othe vsed in certaine states, consistinge of the regimente of fewe nobles, in maner thus: I will hate the people, and to my power persecute them. Which is the croppe and more of al sedition. Yet too much practised in oure liues. But what cause is there why a noble man should eyther despise the people? or hate them? or wrong them? What? know they not, no tiranny maye bee trusty? Nor how yll garde of cotinuance, feare is? Further, no more may nobilitie misse the people, then in man's body, the heade, the hande. For of trueth, the common people are the handes of the nobles, sith them selues bee handlesse. They labour and sweate for them, with tillinge, saylinge, running, toylinge: by sea, by lad, with hads, wt feete, serue them. So as w'oute theyr seruice, they nor eate, nor drink, nor are clothed, no nor liue. We reade in ye taleteller Esope, a doue was saued by the helpe of an ant. A lyon escaped by the benefit of a mowse. We rede agayne, that euen ants haue theyr choler. And not altogether quite, the egle angered the bytle bee."
The reader will notice in this citation another instance of the verb miss, to dispense with. I have now done for the present; but should the collation of sundry passages, to illustrate the meaning of a word, appear as agreeable to the laws of a sound philology, as conducive to the integrity of our ancient writers, and as instructive to the public as brainspun emendations, whether of a remote or modern date, which now-a-days are pouring in like a flood—to corrupt long recognised readings in our idolised poet Shakspeare, in order to make his phraseology square with the language of the times and his readers' capacities—I will not decline to continue endeavours such as the present essay exhibits with a view to stem and roll back the tide.
W. R. Arrowsmith.
Broad Heath, Presteign, Herefordshire.