"One utterly ignorant of husbandry and huswifery such as is
practised in the country, so that he may be easily persuaded
anything about rural commodities, and the original thereof."
He relates the old _cock-neigh_ story, and adds another jest of a
similar kind:
"One merrily persuaded a she-citizen, that seeing _malt_ did not
grow, the good huswives in the country did spin it; 'I knew as
much,' said the _Cockney_, 'for one may see the threads hang out
at the ends thereof."
Shakspeare uses the word _Cockney_ in this latter sense in _King Lear_,
Act II. Sc. 4.:
"_Lear._ Oh me, my heart, my rising heart! But down."
"_Fool._ Cry to it, nuncle, as the _Cockney_ did to the eels, when
she put 'em i' th' paste alive; she knapt 'em o' th' coxcombs with
a stick, and cried 'Down, wantons, down;' 'twas her brother, that
in pure kindness to his horse buttered his hay."
_Cokeney_ was apparently used in very early times to designate _London_.
In the _Britannia_, art. "Suffolk," Hugh Bigod, a rebellious baron in
the time of Henry II., boasts thus:
"Were I in my castle of Bungey,
Upon the river Waveney,
I would ne care for the King of _Cockeney_."
I conceive that _Cokeney_ in this sense is derived from the Anglo-Saxon
word _cycene_, a kitchen or cooking place. Nares, however, in his
_Glossary_, says:
"Le pais de cocagne, in French, means a country of good cheer; in
old French _coquaine_; cocagna, in Italian, has the same meaning.
Both might be derived from _coquina_. This famous country, if it
could be found, is described as a region 'where the hills were
made of sugar-candy, and the loaves ran down the hills, crying
'Come eat me, _come eat me_.'"
Hickes gives, in his _Anglo-Saxon Grammar_, an ancient poem, describing
the plenteous land of _Cokeney_ or _Cokaigne_:
"Fur in see hi west Spaynge
Is a lond ihote Cocaygne
Ther nis lond under hevenriche
Of wel of goodnis hit iliche
In Cokaygne is met and drink
Withute care, how, and swink
.......
Ther nis lac of met no cloth
.......
Ther beth rivers gret and fine
Of oile, melk, honi and wine.
Water seruith ther to nothing
Bot to siyt and to waussing.
.......
Ther is a wel fair abbei
Of white monkes and of grei
.......
The gees irostid on the spitte
Fleey to that abbai, god hit wot,
And gredith 'gees al hote, al hot.'"
Shakspeare's use of _Cockney_, in _Twelfth Night_, Act IV. Sc. 1., is
somewhat obscure; but I conceive that the Clown means to express his
opinion that the world is already replete with folly:
"_Seb._ I prithee vent thy folly somewhere else; thou know'st
not me.
"_Clown._ Vent my folly! He has heard that word of some great
man, and now applies it to a fool. Vent my folly! I am
afraid this great lubber, the world, will prove a
_Cockney_."
The Clown probably intends to say, that to vent his folly to the world
will be like sending coals to Newcastle, or provisions to _Cocagne_; for
that, as regards folly, this great lubber the world will prove to be a
_Cocagne_ or _Cokeney_, _i.e._ a land of plenty. He may, however, mean
to hint, in a round-about way, that _Cockneys_, or natives of London,
are full of folly; or that the world is as well supplied with folly as a
_Cockney_ is with food.
I do not know whether I committed a _Cockney_, a _clerical_, or a
_canonical_ error, when I wrote the name of Chaucer under the following
lines instead of the word _Cokeney_:--
"I have no peny, quod Pierce, polettes for to bie,
Ne neither gose ne grys, but two grene cheses,
A few curdes and creame, and an haver cake,
And two loves of beanes and branne, bake for mi folke,
And yet I say by my soule, I have no salt bacon
Ne no _Cokeney_, by Christe, coloppes to make."
_The Vision of Pierce Plowman_, printed 1550.
"At that fest thay wer seruyd with a ryche aray,
Every fyve and fyve had a _Cokenay_."
_The Turnament of Tottenham._
The sentence for which I am responsible, p. 318., should read thus:
"_Cokeney_, in the above lines quoted by Webster, probably refers to any
substantial dish of fresh meat which might be cut in collops." I may add
that this use of the word brings it into close alliance with the
Anglo-Saxon word _cocnunga_, signifying _things cooked_, _pies_,
_puddings_, and _cock's-meat_.
The French and Neapolitan festivals, called _cocagne_ and _cocagna_,
appear to have presented themselves in this country under the form of
Cockneys' feasts and revels conducted by the King of Cockneys. Strype,
in the first appendix to his edition of Stow's _London_, under the head
"Stepney," describes at some length "The Cockney's Feast of Stepney;"
and Dugdale, in his _Origines Juridiciales_, recapitulates an order
entered on the _Register of Lincoln's Inn_, vol. iv. fo. 81a, in the 9th
of Henry VIII.:
"That the _King of Cockneys_ in Childermass-day should sit and
have due service, and that he and all his officers should use
honest and lawful manner and good order, without any waste of
destruction making, in wine, brawn, chely, or other victuals: as
also that he, his marshal, butler, and constable marshal, should
have their lawful and honest commandments by delivery of the
officers of Christmas: and that the said King of Cockneys, ne none
of his officers, medyll neither in the buttry nor in the Stuard of
Christmass his office--upon pain of xi's. for every such medling.
And lastly, that Jack Straw and all his adherents should be
thenceforth utterly banisht, and no more to be used in this house
upon pain to forfeit, for every time five pounds, to be levied on
every fellow hapning to offend against this rule."
Some obliging bencher of Lincoln's Inn will perhaps have the goodness to
examine, or to permit me to examine the _Register_, to ascertain whether
this potentate was king of Cockneys, as Dugdale has it, or of Cockney.