Lytel popies, that serueth for ladies, were sūtyme bellis: sūtyme colers ful of prickkis for theyr defēce.
I haue layde many gynnys, pottis, and other: for to take fisshe.
Some fisshe scatre at the nette.
Poules steple is a mighty great thyng / and so hye that vneth a man may discerne the wether cocke.
It is an olde duty / and an auncyent custume / that the Mayre of London with his bretherne shall offer at Poules certayne dayes in the yere.
In London be. lij. parysshe chyrches.
Two or. iij. neses be holsome: one is a shrowed tokē.”
These selected extracts will convey some notion of the unusual curiosity of the Vulgaria of Horman, of which a second edition came out in 1530; it is so far rather surprising that it did not prove more popular. But it had to enter into competition with books of a similar title and cast by Stanbridge and Whittinton, who had their established connection to assist the sale of their publications.
The concluding item in this list of educational performances is also a curious philological relic, and a factor in the illustration of the imperfect mastery of English by foreigners of all periods and almost all countries. I allude to an edition of the Declensions of the learned Parisian printer Ascensius with an English gloss. The tract was evidently printed abroad; and I am tempted to transcribe the paragraph on Punctuation, as it may afford an idea of the nature of the publication and of the English of that day as written by a foreigner. It will be observed that the author seems to confound the comma and the colon:—
“Of the craft of poynting.