Colin Clout, 744.
In the last passage, perhaps, meaning, knowledge, best expresses the sense. Ledden may have been one of the words which led Ben Jonson to charge Spenser with "affecting the ancients." However, I find it employed by one of his cotemporaries, Fairfax:
"With party-colour'd plumes and purple bill,
A wond'rous bird among the rest there flew,
That in plain speech sung love-lays loud and shrill,
Her leden was like human language true."
Fairfax's Tasso, book xvi. st. 13.
The expression lede, in lede, which so often occurs in Sir Tristram, may also have arisen from the Anglo-Saxon form of the word Latin. Sir W. Scott, in his Glossary, explains it: "Lede, in lede. In language, an expletive, synonymous to I tell you." The following are a few of the passages in which it is found:
"Monestow neuer in lede
Nought lain."—Fytte i. st. 60.