Note 1. From Mr. A. T. Quiller-Couch’s Golden Pomp, 1896, where the editor says it was “Kindly sent to me by Dr. Grosart, from a MS. in Trinity College, Dublin.” Wisdome was a Protestant fugitive in Mary’s reign; afterwards Rector of Systed in Essex and of Settrington in Yorkshire. He died in 1568. Ralph Erskine’s Tobacco Spiritualised, beginning: “Tobacco is an Indian weed,” etc., is clearly but a copy of this old ditty of Wisdome’s. Erskine died in 1752. [back]
