introduction to Dr. Johnson's Dictionary. Another poem, also transcribed from Hickes's extract, by Dr. Johnson, is a life of St. Margaret, which, as Mr. Warton tells us, forms part of a voluminous MS. in the Bodleian library, containing various lives of the saints, translated, perhaps, from some earlier Latin or French original.

But the most entertaining and curious specimen preserved in Hickes's Thesaurus, is one which that learned editor has characterised as a most malevolent satire on the religious orders. It, however, by no means deserves this disgraceful appellation, because it does not contain one of those opprobrious expressions which are so liberally employed, as a substitute for wit, by the early satirists. The author, whoever he was, takes advantage of a popular tradition respecting the existence of an imaginary terrestrial paradise, in some unknown quarter of the globe, which he calls the Land of Cokaine; in which his Houris are nuns, and their happy companions white and grey monks; and his object is to insinuate, that the ease and luxury enjoyed in the monasteries, had scarcely less effect in peopling the monastic orders, than the inducements more usually assigned by the proselytes of zeal and devotion. In the Harleian MSS. there is an ancient French poem, quoted by Mr. Warton, on a nearly

similar plan, called "Le Ordre de bel Eyse.” The same idea is also pursued by Rabelais, and seems to have been a great favourite with the early French satirists. The word cokaine seems to be Frenchified Latin; and our poem bears the strongest mark of being a translation; because the elegance of the sketch, and the refined irony of the general composition, are strongly contrasted with the rudeness of the language. As the poem is not excessively long, it is here printed entire, with such notes as appeared necessary to render it tolerably intelligible. There are, however, some passages, corrupted perhaps by the negligence of transcribers, the obscurity of which I have not been able to

remove.

Far in the sea, by West Spain,

Is a land ihote1 Cokaigne,2

'Called. (Saxon.)

From coquina; whence cucina, cuisine, &c. and the old English word cockney. In P. Ploughman's Vision, p. 35, (quoted hereafter) P. P. says,

I have no salt bacon,

Ne no cokeney, by Christ! collops for to make. Perhaps the intelligence which the inhabitants of the metropolis displayed in the culinary art, may have procured them the appellation of cockneys from the uplandish or country-men.

There n'is land under heaven-reich,*
Of wel2 of goodness it y-like.

Though Paradise be merry and bright,
Cokayn is of fairer sight.

What is there in Paradise

But grass, and flower, and green-rise ? 3
Though there be joy and great dute,+
There n'is meat but fruit.

There n'is hall, bures, no bench

But water, man-is thirst to quench,

Beth' there no men but two ;

12

Where there wonith' men no mo.TM1⁄2

• Heaven, the kingdom of heaven. Sax.

• Wealth, abundance of goodness. Sax. Branches. Sax.

* Pleasure, deduit. Old Fr.

• Bower, (Sax.) synonimous with chamber. F. 6 No, and sometimes nether, are used for nor. ? There are.

8 Elias.

The sense seems to be, "It is easy for them to be clean "and of pure heart, because they are only two, and cannot "be corrupted by bad example."-Why Paradise should contain only two inhabitants is not very intelligible, but, it was thus represented in the pageants, as appears froin a passage in the Fabian, quoted by Strutt, (View of Manners, &c. Vol. II. p. 53.) "In the border of this delicious place,

In Cokayn is meat and drink,
Without care, how1 and swink*

The meat is trie,3 the drink so clear,
To noon, russin,4 and suppér

I sigges (for sooth boot were")
There n'is land on earth is peer.
Under heaven n'is land I wiss
Of so muckle joy and bliss.

There is many a sweet sight:
All is day, n'is there no night;

"which was named Paradise, stode two forgrowen faders, "resemblynge Enoch, and Hely, the which had thys sayenge "to the kynge," &c.

10

They. The words they and them, instead of hi and hem, seem to have been introduced, as Mr. Tyrwhitt observes, about the time of Chaucer.

4 Rushing is still used, in the northern counties, for what the French call a gouter, or meal between dinner and supper. Vide Grose's Prov. Glossary. Noon was the usual time of dinner.

5 I say, or affirm.

This kind of phrase is now obsolete; and yet we might say" for falsehood boot-less were.'

7 Apparently for his, instead of its.

erect a barrier against the encroachments of the aristocracy; and this policy, in which he persevered during the remainder of his reign, was also adopted by his sons. Several proofs of it are recorded by Anderson, even in the short and busy reign of Richard I. and they are much more numerous in that of his successor. "Notwithstanding all the "faults too justly charged on King John, (says this "historian) we find him, in the first year of his "reign (A. D. 1199), beginning the good purpose as a king, which he afterwards pursued through "his whole reign, of erecting his demesne towns "into free burghs; which thereby paved the way "for the introduction of commerce into this king"dom." The barons, on the other hand, with no less policy, declared themselves the champions of all the privileges obtained or claimed by the cities, who thus derived a double advantage from the contest for popularity between the king and the aristocracy.

It is not our present business to pursue the gradual effects of these measures in disseminating liberty and prosperity, but it seems probable that their operation on our language must have beenimmediate and extensive. The Norman and Saxon inhabitants of England were now permanently united by the bonds of common interest; and the