And gredith 'gees al hote, al hot.'"
Shakspeare's use of Cockney, in Twelfth Night, Act IV. Sc. 1., is somewhat obscure; but I conceive that the Clown means to express his opinion that the world is already replete with folly:
"Seb. I prithee vent thy folly somewhere else; thou know'st not me.
"Clown. Vent my folly! He has heard that word of some great man, and now applies it to a fool. Vent my folly! I am afraid this great lubber, the world, will prove a Cockney."
The Clown probably intends to say, that to vent his folly to the world will be like sending coals to Newcastle, or provisions to Cocagne; for that, as regards folly, this great lubber the world will prove to be a Cocagne or Cokeney, i.e. a land of plenty. He may, however, mean to hint, in a round-about way, that Cockneys, or natives of London, are full of folly; or that the world is as well supplied with folly as a Cockney is with food.
I do not know whether I committed a Cockney, a clerical, or a canonical error, when I wrote the name of Chaucer under the following lines instead of the word Cokeney:—
"I have no peny, quod Pierce, polettes for to bie,
Ne neither gose ne grys, but two grene cheses,
A few curdes and creame, and an haver cake,
And two loves of beanes and branne, bake for mi folke,