1. _Bukton._ Most old editions have the queer reading:--'My mayster. &c.
whan of Christ our kyng.' Tyrwhitt was the first to correct this, and
added:--'It has always been printed at the end of the _Book of the
Duchesse_, with an &c. in the first line instead of the name of _Bukton_;
and in Mr. Urry's edition the following most unaccountable note is prefixed
to it--"This seems an Envoy to the Duke of _Lancaster_ after his loss of
_Blanch_." From the reference to the _Wife of Bathe_, l. 29, I should
suppose this to have been one of our author's later compositions, and I
find that there was a _Peter de Buketon_, the King's Escheator for the
County of York, in 1397 (Pat. 20 R. II. p. 2, m. 3, ap. Rymer) to whom this
poem, from the familiar style of it, is much more likely to have been
addressed than to the Duke of Lancaster.' Julian Notary's edition is the
only one that retains Bukton's name.
_My maister Bukton_ is in the vocative case.