“Let hym [i.e. the husbandman who wants to reckon the tithe of his corn] goo to the ende of his lande, and begynne and tell [i.e. count] .ix. sheues, and let hym caste out the .x. shefe in the name of god, and so to _pervse_ from lande to lande, tyll he have trewely tythed all his corne;” sect. 30, l. 4.
“And thus [let the shepherd] _peruse_ them all tyll he haue doone;” sect. 40, l. 23.
“Than [let the surveyor who is surveying property go] to the second howse on the same east side in lyke maner, and so to _peruse_ from house to house tyll he come to St. Magnus churche;” Book of Surveying (1767), chap. xix.
“Begyn to plowe a forowe in the middes of the side of the land, and cast it downe as yf thou shulde falowe it, and so _peruse_ both sydes tyl the rygge be cast down,” etc.; Book of Surveying (1767); chap. xxiv.
The special application to a book may be seen in Baret’s Alvearie: “To ouerlooke and _peruse_ a booke againe, _Retractare librum_.” And accordingly it need not surprise us that Levins, in 1570, translated _to peruse_ by _peruti_.
There is just one more suggestion which I venture to make, though I fear, like most conjectures which are made with respect to Shakespeare, it is probably valueless. When King Lear appears, in Act iv. sc. 4--
“Crowned with rank fumiter and furrow-weeds, With _hor-docks_, hemlock, nettles, cuckoo-flowers, Darnel, and _all the idle weeds that grow In our sustaining corn_”--
I cannot help being reminded of Fitzherbert’s list of weeds in sect. 20 (p. 29), in which he includes _haudoddes_, _i.e._ corn blue-bottles, as is obvious from his description; see also Britten and Holland’s English Plant-names. It is certainly remarkable that the _haudod_ is precisely one of “the idle weeds that grow in corn,” and that its bright colour would be particularly attractive to the gatherer of a wild garland. We must not, however, overlook the form _hardhake_, which Mr. Wright has found in a MS. herbal as a name for the knapweed; see his note upon the passage. The two results do not, however, greatly differ, and it is conceivable that the same name could be applied at different times to _both_ these flowers, the latter being _Centaurea nigra_, and the former _Centaurea Cyanus_. We also find the term _hardewes_, occurring as a name for the wild succory; see _Hawdod_ in the Glossarial Index, p. 156. In any case, the proposal of Dr. Prior to explain _hordock_ by the burdock (_Arctium lappa_), merely because he thinks the burs were sometimes entangled with flax, and so formed lumps in it called _hards_, is a wild guess that should be rejected. _Hards_ are simply the coarse parts of flax, without any reference to burdocks whatever.