_Hearne_, Thomas (1678-1735) edited William of Worcester’s _Annales Rerum
Anglicarum_ in 1728. “I know indeed there is extant a very old poem, in
_black letter_, to which it might have been supposed Sir John Harrington
alluded, had he not spoken of the discovery as a _new_ one, and
recommended it as worthy the notice of his countrymen: I am persuaded the
method in the old bard will not be thought _either_. At the end of the
sixth volume of Leland’s _Itinerary_, we are _favoured_ by Mr. Hearne with
a Macaronic poem on a battle at Oxford between the scholars and the
townsmen: on a line of which, ‘Invadunt aulas _bycheson cum forth_
geminantes,’ our commentator very wisely and gravely remarks: ‘_Bycheson_,
id est, _son_ of a _byche_, ut e codice Rawlinsoniano edidi. Eo nempe modo
quo et olim _whorson_ dixerunt pro _son of a whore_. Exempla habemus cum
alibi tum in libello quodam lepido & antiquo (inter codices Seldenianos in
Bibl. Bodl.) qui inscribitur: _The Wife lapped in Morel’s Skin: or the
Taming of a Shrew_’ ” (Farmer). Farmer then gives Hearne’s quotation of
two verses from it, pp. 36 and 42.