Anonymous

“ After him, succeeded by general councell, one Cocke Lorrell, the most notorious knave that ever lived: by trade he was a tinker, often carrying a panne and a hammer for show: but when he came to a good booty, he would cast his profession in a ditch, and play the padder, [1] and then would away, and as hee past through the toune, crie, ‘Ha you any worke for a tinker?’ To write of his knaveries it would aske a long time: I referre {viii}you to the old manuscript remayning on record in Maunder’s Hall. ”

“ Dr. Bliss describes the above mentioned tract at length, in the “British Bibliographer,” Vol. II., p. 12, and makes further allusion to it in his edition of Earle’s “Microcosmography,” p. 256, published in 1811.
One of the earliest, if not the earliest, printed mention of the Bote occurs in Thomas Feylde’s “A contrauersye bytwene a louer and a Jaye. [Colophon.] Imprynted at London in Fletestrete at the sygne of the Sonne{xi} by Wynkyn de Worde.” The Lover in the preceding verses apostrophizes Nature regarding his passion for his mistress, at which the Jay thus expostulates ”

“ The next mention of Cocke Lorell is in a black-letter poem, preserved in the Bodleian Library, without date or printer’s name, entitled “Doctour Double Ale.”
“I hold you a grota
Ye wyll rede by rota,
That ye wete a cota
In cocke lorels bota.”
{xii}
The Rev. Charles H. Hartshorne, in “Ancient Metrical Tales,” reprinted “Doctour Double Ale,” but rendered the last line cocke losels bota.
In pointing out this error, Mr. Collier says, that in John Heywood’s “Epigrams upon three hundred proverbs,” printed in 1566, mention is made of Cocke Lorelles Bote, under the heading of
“A BUSY BODY ”

“ Henry Drury, but the impression was limited to thirty-five copies, two of which were printed on vellum.
It was again printed at Edinburgh for Stanley and Blake in 1817, from a transcript made by the Rev. Joseph Stevenson, with an{xv} introductory notice by Mr. James Maidment. This reprint has become almost as rare as the Roxburghe Club edition, only forty copies having been taken.
The Percy Society, in 1843, issued an edition of the “Bote” to its members, with a preface by Dr. E. F. Rimbault. ”

“ This was he that reduced and brought in forme the Catalogue of Vagabonds, or Quarterne of Knaves, called the five and twentie Orders of Knaves: but because it is extant, and in every mans shop, I passe them over.... This Cocke Lorrell continued among them longer than any of his predecessors before him, or after him, for he ruled almost two and twentie yeares, until the yeare An. Dom. ”