Page 66. v. 485. _at a brayde_] Has occurred before in our author’s _Bowge of Courte_; see note, p. 109. v. 181; but here it seems to have a somewhat different meaning, and to signify—at an effort, at a push. “_At a brayde, Faysant mon effort, ton effort, son effort_, &c.” Palsgrave’s _Lesclar. de la Lang. Fr._, 1530. fol. ccccxxxviii. (Table of Aduerbes). “_I Abrayde_, I inforce me to do a thynge.” ... “I _Breyde_ I make _a brayde_ to do a thing sodaynly.” _Id._ fols. cxxxvi. clxxii. (Table of Verbes).
v. 487. _To solfe aboue ela_]—_solfe_, i. e. solfa: _ela_, i. e. the highest note in the scale of music.
v. 488. _lorell_] i. e. good-for-nothing fellow (see Tyrwhitt’s _Gloss._ to Chaucer’s _Cant. Tales_): used here as a sportive term of reproach.
_The best that we can,_ _To make hym our belman,_ _And let hym ryng the bellys;_ _He can do nothyng ellys_]
“_Sit campanista, qui non vult esse sophista_, Let him bee a bellringer, that will bee no good Singer.” Withals’s _Dict._ p. 178. ed. 1634.
_Chaunteclere, our coke,_ ... _By the astrology_ _That he hath naturally, &c._]
“But when _the cocke_, commune _Astrologer_, Gan on his brest to beate,” &c.
_Troilus and Creseide_, B. iii. fol. 164.—_Workes_, ed. 1602.
See also Lydgate’s _Warres of Troy_, B. i. sig. D v. ed. 1555; and his copy of verses (entitled in the Catalogue _Advices for people to keep a guard over their tongues_), _MS. Harl._ 2255. fol. 132.
v. 499. _cought_] i. e. caught: compare the first of our author’s _Balettys_, v. 19. vol. i. 22.
v. 500. _tought_] i. e. taught. “Musyke hath me _tought_.” Hawes’s _Pastime of pleasure_, sig. G iiii. ed. 1555.
v. 501. _Albumazer_] A famous Arabian, of the ninth century.
The celebrated Claudius Ptolemy, an Egyptian: “Il fleurit vers l’an 125 et jusqu’à l’an 139 de l’ère vulgaire.” _Biog. Univ._—In _The Shepherds Kalendar_ (a work popular in the days of Skelton) a chapter is entitled “To know the fortunes and destinies of man born under the xii signs, after _Ptolomie, prince of astronomy_ [i. e. astrology].” “_Astronomy_, and _Astronomer_, is the Art of, and the foreteller of things done and past, and what shall happen to any person, &c.” R. Holme’s _Ac. of Armory_, 1688. B. ii. p. 438.