[86] See John Russell’s list of those for the bath of Humfrey, Duke of Gloucester, in The Babees Book, pp. 183-185.—F.
[87] Harrison makes a distinction between “dunghill” and “laistowe” (or laystowe, laystall, etc.), again upsetting the theories of the dictionary men.—W.
[88] This was about the epoch when Captain Price, the “salt sea dog,” was smoking the first pipe ever seen on London streets. Harrison seems to know of tobacco only as a medicine.—W.
[89] “Corn-trees” are probably cornels, from one of which, the C. ras, L., the berries are commonly eaten in Italy, and sherbet made from them in the East. In Italy they are called cornia and corniola.—R. C. A. Prior.
[90] Of these four examples, in four shires, surrounding London, west, south, north, and east, not one remains as Harrison had it in view. The famous grounds of Hampton Court are of William III., Wolsey work being effaced. Nonsuch in Surrey, near Epsom race-course, is a mere memory. In Harrison’s time it was a favourite resort of Elizabeth, being designed by her father as the child of his old age, but really built as a “labour of love” by the last of the Fitzalans, who saved it from destruction by Mary (who loved not her father’s works), making it the scene of many an act in the tragic drama of the royal sisters and their cousin of Scotland. Theobald’s, in Herts, known to all readers of Izaac Walton, was just before Harrison’s day the seat of the family of Burbage, the “original Hamlet,” being bought in 1564 by Cecil, made the favourite haunt of the Stuarts, and finally was destroyed by the Commonwealth people. Cobham, near Gravesend in Kent, was the seat of the Brookes, the ill-starred patrons of Harrison himself. It is still famous in horticultural annals, just as Nonsuch will be immortal from its luscious apples.—W.
[91] Harrison may be said to have made this word his own, and a classic in the language. Its meaning is sufficiently indicated in the text, but the published definition and etymologies are evidently incomplete. A bodger was probably a (tax) collector in his bodge or budget, before he was a buyer and seller.—W.
[92] What a pity the poor men couldn’t co-operate, imitate the rich buyer, and have their own bodger to buy for them!—F.
[93] Victorian writers can say this too. I recollect fresh butter at 8d. and 10d. a pound here at Egham, and now we pay 20d. The imported Italian butter that we get in London, from Ralli, Greek Street, Soho, is 19d.—F.
[94] An interesting anticipation of John Stuart Mill’s point of the evil of a large middleman class checked only by competition. Co-operation, with a few middlemen, the agents and servants of the co-operators, is what we want.—F.
[95] Elizabethan England was the transition period when the slavery of money rents was fastened upon an unsuspecting people, leading to the great famines and revolts of the Stuart period.—W.