This is a genius piece of work, I have shared it on the ‘Roots Chat Forum‘ and had some great suggestions as to what it is, huge thank you to Andrew Tarr and Millipede for their input. Essentially you make it to be whatever you want it to be! The words in normal text are the actual lines of the poem, the bits in italics is where you add words, probably the ones in the larger font. It is probably a ‘Skill and Judgement’ exercise. It is all rather confusing, but undoubtedly brilliant and as one forum user said ‘No doubt it can be made as saucy as one wants’!
This is my first attempt at it (using just the large font words)!
Wit and Folley in Amaizement
Had both wit and a friend of whom I thought great store
Lent my money to my friend and took his word therefore
Asked my friend of my money and nothing but word I got
Lost my friend and my money for sue him I would not
But at length, with wit came my friend which pleaded me wonderous well
Got my money but my wit away quite from me fell.
But if I had money and a friend as I had once before
Would keep my friend and my money and play the foul no more
****
Update 3rd May 2020
Holding the paper up to the light I have just spotted a really interesting watermark on the paper.
