17. _Out of this toune._ This seems to mean--'help me to retire from London
to some cheaper place.' At any rate, _toune_ seems to refer to some large
town, where prices were high. From the tone of this line, and that of l. 8,
I should conclude that the poem was written on some occasion of special
temporary difficulty, irrespectively of general poverty; and that the
_Envoy_ was hastily added afterwards, without revision of the poem itself.
(I find that Ten Brink says the same.) Compare Thackeray's Carmen
Lilliense.
19. 'That is, I am as bare of money as the tonsure of a friar is of hair';
Bell.
22. _Brutes Albioun_, the Albion of Brutus. _Albion_ is the old name for
England or Britain in the histories which follow Geoffrey of Monmouth and
profess to give the ancient history of Britain before the coming of the
Romans. See Layamon's Brut, l. 1243; Higden's Polychronicon, bk. i. c. 39;
Fabyan's Chronicle, ed. Ellis, pp. 1, 2, 7. According to the same accounts,
Albion was first reigned over by Brutus, in English spelling _Brute_, a
descendant of Æneas of Troy, who arrived in Albion (says Fabyan) in the
eighteenth year of Eli, judge of Israel. Layamon's poem is a translation
from a poem by Wace, entitled Brut; and Wace borrowed from Geoffrey of
Monmouth. See _Brute_ (2) in the New E. Dict.
23. This line makes it certain that the king meant is Henry IV.; and
indeed, the title _conquerour_ in l. 21 proves the same thing sufficiently.
'In Henry IV's proclamation to the people of England he founds his title on
_conquest_, _hereditary right_, and _election_; and from this inconsistent
and absurd document Chaucer no doubt took his cue'; Bell.