Why he ne hadde whasshen it,
8899
Or wiped it with a brusshe.
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EDINBURGH AND LONDON.
Notes
[1] See the "Apocalypsis Goliæ" and other pieces in the poems of Walter Mapes; the Order of Fair Ease in the Political Songs, and the Poems of Rutebeuf; and, in English, the remarkable "Poem on the Evil Times of Edward II." in the appendix to the Political Songs. The Poem entitled the Order of Fair Ease bears some resemblance to the Abbaye de Theleme of Rabelais.
[2] This sentiment was perpetuated in a numerous class of ballads, in which the monarch is represented as thrown incognito among the lower classes, as listening to their expressions of loyalty and to the tale of their sufferings. See the "Tale of King Edward and the Shepherd" in Hartshorne's Ancient Metrical Tales; "The King and the Barker," in Ritson's Pieces of Ancient Popular Poetry; "The King and the Miller," and "King Edward IV. and the Tanner of Tamworth," in Percy's Reliques; &c. The earliest known form of this tale is the story of "Henry II. and the Cistercian Abbot," printed from Giraldus Cambrensis in the Reliquiæ Antiquiæ, vol. ii. p. 147.