ler with the golden thumb" "is still (1854) a
favourite in Yorkshire."

P. 30. _Stumble at a Straw, &c._--This proverb is quoted in _Machivils
Instructions to his Sonne_, 1613, p. 16.

P. 35. _Of the good man that sayd to his wyfe. &c._

"Dr. _South_, visiting a gentleman one morning, was ask'd to stay
Dinner, which he accepted of; the Gentleman stept into the next Room and
told his Wife, and desired she'd provide something extraordinary.
Hereupon she began to murmer and scold, and make a thousand Words; till
at length, Her husband, provok'd at her Behaviour, protested, that if it
was not for the Stranger in the next Room, he would kick her out of
Doors. Upon which the Doctor, who heard all that passed, immediately
stept out, crying, _I beg, Sir, you'll make no Stranger of me_."

--_Complete London Jester_, ed. 1771, p. 73.

P. 44. _Draughthole._--See Dekker's _Guls' Horn Book_, 1609, ed. Nott,
p. 121-2-3.

P. 47. _Saynte Thomas of Acres._

"A the Austen fryers
They count us for lyers:
And at Saynt Thomas of Akers
They carpe us lyke crakers."

--Skelton's _Colin Clout_ (Works, ed. Dyce, i. 357).

This tale is imitated in _Hobson's Conceits_.

P. 60. _Of the gentylman, that promysed the scoler of Oxforde a sarcenet
typet_--Sarcenet, at the period to which this story refers, was a
material which only certain persons were allowed to wear. See Nicolas'
note to a passage in the _Privy Purse Expenses of Elizabeth of York_, p.
220. This jest is transplanted by Johnson, with very little alteration,
into the _Pleasant Conceits of Old Hobson_, 1607.

P. 78. _Therefore I pray thee, teche me my Pater noster, and by my
truthe, I shall therfore teche thee a songe of Robyn Hode that shall be
worth xx of it!_

The following passage from a poem, which has been sometimes ascribed to
Skelton, is a curious illustration of this paragraph:--

Thus these sysmatickes,
And lowsy lunatickes,
With spurres and prickes
Call true men heretickes.
They finger their fidles,
And cry in quinibles,
Away these bibles,
For they be but ridles!
And give them Robyn Whode,
To red howe he stode
In mery grene wode,
When he gathered good,
Before Noyes ffloodd!

_The Image of Ipocrysy_, Part iii.

P. 84. _Of the wyfe that bad, &c._

_Of swearing between a wyfe and her husband._

"Cis, by this candle in my sleep I thought
One told me of thy body thou wert nought.
Good husband, he that told y