Note 486 — NEW ENGLISH CANAAN OR NEW CANAAN. (continued 3)

John Scogan was the famous court buffoon, attached to the household of Edward IV., whose head Justice Shallow makes the youthful Falstaff break at the court gate (Henry IV. Part II. act iii. sc. 2), though Falstaff is represented as having died at least twenty years before Scogan could have been born. In regard to him, see Doran’s Court Fools, pp. 123-30. “Scogan’s choice,” in Morton’s day, seems to have been a popular expression, signifying that a choice of some sort is better than no power to choose at all. It was derived probably from the story of Scogan, that he was once ordered to be hanged, but allowed the privilege of choosing the tree. He escaped the penalty by being unable to find a tree to his liking. Morton uses the expression again, see infra, *137. But the reference here is as obscure as “the poem.”