(Vol. iv., p. 237.)
Halliwell illustrates this word by a quotation from Nash's _Pierce
Penilesse_, 1592:
"A young heyre or _cockney_, that is his mother's darling, if hee
playde the waste-good at the innes of the court, or about London,
falles in a quarrelling humor with his fortune, because she made
him not king of the Indies."
Richardson gives the following quotation from Fuller's _Worthies_:
"I meet with a double sense of this word _cockeney_.... 1st, One
coaks'd or cockered, made a wanton or nestle-cock of.... 2nd, One
utterly ignorant of husbandry and housewifery, such as is
practised in the country...."
Webster gives the following derivation, &c.:
"COCKNEY, _n._ [Most probably from L. _coquina_, a kitchin, or
_coquino_, to cook; Fr. _coquin_, idle; Fr. _cocagne_, It.
_cuccagna_, an imaginary country of idleness and luxury....
Hence, a citizen who leads an idle life, or never leaves the
city.]
"1. A native of London, by way of contempt. _Watts. Shak._
"'And yet I say by my soul I have no salt bacon
Ne no _cokeney_ by Christe coloppes to make.'
"'At that feast were they served in rich array;
Every five and five had a _cokeney_.'"
Chaucer, in the above lines quoted by Webster, probably refers to any
substantial dish of fresh meat, which might be cut in collops; possibly,
however, to young roasted pigs, which, as every one knows, are
continually running about, all over the land of cockaigne, with knives
and forks stuck into them, crying, "Come eat me, come eat me."
Whether the word cockney be derived from the the land of cockaigne, or
the legend of cockaigne arise from cockney, it appears probable that
both words have their origin in the same root with the verb _to cook_,
and that the epithet originally conveyed the imputation to citizens, of
a superfluous consumption of cooked meat; inasmuch as the inhabitants of
large cities generally consider the daily use of fresh meat almost as a
necessary of life, while the provincial population is content to exist
on less nutritious food.
Whatever may be the original import of the epithet, the modern
application of it is, I believe, confined to the natives of the
metropolis, and it corresponds in use and signification with the terms
_rustic_ and _chaw-bacon_, which distinguish the natives of the
provinces; the latter term being exclusively appropriated to
agriculturalists. Epithets, apparently of similar origin, exist in the
seaman's _land-lubber_, the landsman's _jack-tar_, the Englishman's
_froggy_, and the Frenchman's _ros-bif_.
Londoners themselves appear to have a theoretical notion that the
inhabitants of Belgravia, and other enlightened metropolitan districts,
are strictly entitled to the designation _cockney_, in virtue of their
birth and residence within the sound of Bow-bells; but practically limit
its application to those members of the lower, and more ignorant classes
of the community, who traditionally retain some of the obsolete idioms,
and other peculiarities of speech, of our Anglo-Saxon forefathers.