An outline of humor / Being a true chronicle from prehistoric ages to the twentieth century

by Unknown

MODERN HUMOR

With the readiness of the essayists to ascribe literary paternity, Chaucer is called the Father of English Poetry.

Coleridge observes that he is the best representative in English of the Norman-French Trouvères, but even more than by the French, Chaucer was influenced by the great Italians, Dante, Petrarch and Boccaccio, as well as by Ovid and Virgil.

Father of Modern Poetry more correctly describes Chaucer, and as he was the first notable English poet who was a layman, so also, was he the first connected with the court.

Though his time, the Fourteenth Century, is practically in the Middle Ages, Chaucer is distinctly modern in viewpoint and philosophy.

Born in London, he lived his life in the company of the men and women of the circles he knew and loved. Mankind was his study and his theme.

The average reader is hampered by the difficulties of the early English diction, and the modern mind is shocked by the freedom of speech then in vogue.

But we append such bits of Chaucer’s verse as space allows.

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The story of the Cock and the Fox, in the Nun’s Priest’s Tale, is allowed by judges to be the most admirable fable (in the narration) that ever was written. The description of the birds, the delightful gravity with which they are invested with intellectual endowments, are conceived in the highest taste of true poetry and natural humour.

THE COCK AND THE FOX

Now every wise man, let him hearken me:

This story is all so true, I undertake,

As is the book of Lancelot du Lake,

That women hold in full great reverence.

Now will I turn again to my sentence.

A col fox, full of sly iniquity,

That in the grove had wonned yearés three,

By high imagination forecast.

The samé night throughout the hedges brast

Into the yard where Chanticleer the fair

Was wont, and eke his wivés to repair,

And in a bed of wortés still he lay

Till it was passed undern of the day,

Waiting his time on Chanticleer to fall,

As gladly do these homicidés all

That in await liggen to murder men.

O falsé murderer! rucking in thy den,

O newé Scariot, newé Ganelon!

O false dissimuler, O Greek Simon!

That broughtest Troy all utterly to sorrow.

O Chanticleer, accursed be the morrow

That thou into thy yard flew from thy beams

Thou were full well ywarnéd by thy dreams

That thilké day was perilous to thee:

But what that God forewot must needés be,

After the opinion of certain clerkés,

Witness on him that any perfect clerk is,

That in schoolé is great altercation

In this matteré, and great disputision,

And hath been of a hundred thousand men:

But I ne cannot boult it to the bren,

As can the holy Doctor Augustin,

Or Boece, or the Bishop Bradwardin,

Whether that Godde’s worthy foreweeting

Straineth me needly for to do a thing

(Needely clepe I simple necessity)

Or elles if free choice be granted me

To do the samé thing or do it naught

Though God forewot it ere that it was wrought,

Or if his weeting straineth never a deal

But by necessity conditional.

I will not have to do of such mattere;

My Tale is of a Cock, as ye may hear,

That took his counsel of his wife with sorrow,

To walken in the yard upon the morrow

That he had met the dream, as I you told.

Womenne’s counsels be full often cold;

Womenne’s counsels brought us first to woe,

And made Adam from Paradise to go,

There as he was full merry and well at ease:

But for I n’ot to whom I might displease

If I counsel of women wouldé blame—

Pass over, for I said it in my game.

Read authors where they treat of such mattere,

And what they say of women ye may hear,

These be the cocke’s wordés and not mine:

I can none harm of no womán devine.

Fair in the sand to bathe her merrily

Li’th Partelote, and all her sisters by,

Against the sun, and Chanticleer so free

Sang merrier than the mermaid in the sea,

(For Phisiologus sayeth sikerly

How that they singeth well and merrily).

And so befell that as he cast his eye

Among the wortés on a butterfly,

He was ware of this fox that lay full low,

Nothing he list him thenné for to crow,

But cried anon, “Cok! cok!” and up he start

As man that was affrayed in his heart,

For naturally a beast desireth flee

From his contráry if he may it see,

Though he ne’er erst had seen it with his eye.

This Chanticleer, when he ’gan him espy,

He would have fled, but that the fox anon

Said: “Gentle sir, alas! what will be done?

Be ye afraid of me that am your friend?

Now, certes, I were worse than any fiend

If I to you would harm or villany.

I am not come your counsel to espy;

But truély the cause of my coming

Was only for to hearken how ye sing,

For truély ye have as merry a steven

As any angel hath that is in heaven;

Therwith ye have of music more feeling

Than had Boece, or any that can sing.

My Lord, your father (God his soulé bless!)

And eke your mother of her gentleness,

Have in my house ybeen to my great ease,

And certés, Sir, full fain would I you please.

But for men speak of singing, I will say,

(So may I brouken well my eyen tway,)

Save you, ne heard I never man so sing

As did your father in the morrowning:

Certés it was of heart all that he sung:

And for to make his voice the moré strong

He would so pain him, that with both his eyen

He musté wink, so loud he wouldé crien,

And standen on his tiptoes therewithal,

And stretchen forth his necké long and small.

And eke he was of such discretion,

That there n’as no man in no región

That him in song or wisdom mighté pass.

I have well read in Dan Burnel the ass

Among his Vers, how that there was a cock,

That for a Priestés son gave him a knock

Upon his leg when he was young and nice

He made him for to lose his benefice;

But certain there is no comparison

Betwixt the wisdom and discretion

Of youré father and his subtilty.

Now singeth, Sir, for Sainté Charity:

Let see, can ye your father counterfeit?

This Chanticleer his wingés ’gan to beat,

As man that could not his treason espy,

So was he ravished with his flattery.

Alas! ye lordés, many a false flatour

Is in your court, and many a losengeour,

That pleaseth you well moré, by my faith,

Than he that sothfastness unto you saith.

Readeth Ecclesiast of flattery:

Beware ye lordés of their treachery.

This Chanticleer stood high upon his toes

Stretching his neck, and held his eyen close,

And ’gan to crowen loude for the nones;

And Dan Russell the fox start up at once,

And by the gargat henté Chanticleer

And on his back toward the wood him bear,

For yet ne was there no man that him sued.

O destiny! that mayst not be eschew’d,

Alas that Chanticleer flew from the beams,

Alas his wife ne raughté not of dreams!

And on a Friday fell all this mischance.

TO MY EMPTY PURSE

To you, my purse, and to none other wight,

Complain I, for ye be my lady dear;

I am sorry now that ye be so light,

For certés ye now make me heavy cheer;

Me were as lief be laid upon a bier,

For which unto your mercy thus I cry,

Be heavy again, or ellés must I die.

Now vouchsafen this day, ere it be night,

That I of you the blissful sound may hear,

Or see your colour like the sunné bright,

That of yellowness ne had never peer;

Ye be my life, ye be my heartés steer;

Queen of comfórt and of good company,

Be heavy again, or ellés must I die.

Now, purse, that art to me my livés light,

And saviour, as down in this world here,

Out of this towné help me by your might,

Sithen that you will not be my tresór,

For I am shave as nigh as any frere,

But I prayen unto your courtesy,

Be heavy again, or ellés must I die.

BALLAD OF WOMEN’S DOUBLENESS

This world is full of variance

In everything; who taketh heed,

That faith and trust, and all Constance,

Exiléd be, this is no drede,

And save only in womanhead,

I can ysee no sikerness;

But, for all that, yet as I read,

Beware alway of doubleness.

Also that the fresh summer flowers,

The white and red, the blue and green,

Be suddenly with winter showers,

Made faint and fade, withouten ween;

That trust is none, as ye may seen,

In no thing, nor no steadfastness,

Except in women, thus I mean;

Yet aye beware of doubleness.

The crooked moon (this is no tale),

Some while isheen and bright of hue,

And after that full dark and pale,

And every moneth changeth new,

That who the very sothé knew

All thing is built on brittleness,

Save that women always be true;

Yet aye beware of doubleness.

The lusty freshé summer’s day,

And Phœbus with his beamés clear,

Towardés night they draw away,

And no longer list t’ appear,

That in this present life now here

Nothing abideth in his fairness,

Save women aye be found entere,

And devoid of all doubleness.

The sea eke with his sterné wawés

Each day yfloweth new again,

And by the concourse of his lawés

The ebbe floweth in certain;

After great drought there cometh rain;

That farewell here all stableness,

Save that women be whole and plein;

Yet aye beware of doubleness.

Fortunés wheel go’th round about

A thousand timés day and night,

Whose course standeth ever in doubt

For to transmue she is so light,

For which adverteth in your sight

Th’ untrust of worldly fickleness,

Save women, which of kindly right

Ne hath no touch of doubleness.

What man ymay the wind restrain,

Or holden a snake by the tail?

Who may a slipper eel constrain

That it will void withouten fail?

Or who can driven so a nail

To maké sure newfangleness,

Save women, that can gie their sail

To row their boat with doubleness?

At every haven they can arrive

Whereat they wot is good passáge;

Of innocence they cannot strive

With wawés, nor no rockés rage;

So happy is their lodemanage

With needle and stone their course to dress,

That Solomon was not so sage

To find in them no doubleness.

Therefore whoso doth them accuse

Of any double intentión,

To speaké rown, other to muse,

To pinch at their conditión,

All is but false collusión,

I dare right well the soth express;

They have no better protectión,

But shroud them under doubleness.

So well fortunéd is their chance,

The dice to-turnen up so down,

With sice and cinque they can advance,

And then by revolutión

They set a fell conclusión

Of lombés, as in sothfastness,

Though clerkés maken mentión

Their kind is fret with doubleness.

Sampson yhad experience

That women were full true yfound

When Dalila of innocence

With shearés ’gan his hair to round;

To speak also of Rosamond,

And Cleopatra’s faithfulness,

The stories plainly will confound

Men that apeach their doubleness.

Single thing is not ypraiséd,

Nor of old is of no renown,

In balance when they be ypesed,

For lack of weight they be borne down,

And for this cause of just reason

These women all of rightwisness

Of choice and free electión

Most love exchange and doubleness.

L’ENVOI

O ye women! which be inclinéd

By influence of your natúre

To be as pure as gold yfinéd,

And in your truth for to endure,

Armeth yourself in strong armúre,

(Lest men assail your sikerness,)

Set on your breast, yourself t’assure,

A mighty shield of doubleness.

Chaucer was called the Morning Star of Song, and his immediate followers proved to be satellites of far less magnitude.

John Skelton, an early Poet Laureate, was of a buffoon type of humor, yet thus speaks of his own verse.

Though my rhyme be ragged,

Tattered and gagged,

Rudely rainbeaten,

Rusty, moth-eaten,

If ye take well therewith,

It hath in it some pith.

One, at least, of his whimsical poems is not without charm.

TO MAISTRES MARGARET HUSSEY

Mirry Margaret

As midsomer flowre,

Gentyll as faucon

Or hauke of the towre,

With solace and gladnes

Moch mirth, and no madnes,

All good and no badnes,

So joyously

So maydenly

So womanly

Her demeynynge

In every thynge

Far, far passynge

That I can endite

Or suffice to write

Of mirry Margaret

As mydsomer flowre

Gentill as faucon

Or hawke of the towre.

As pacient and as styll

And as ful of good wil

As faire Isiphyll

Coliander

Sweete pomaunder

Good Cassander;

Stedfast of thought

Wel made, wel wroght,

Far may be sought

Erst that ye can fynde

So curteise so kynde

As mirry Margaret

This midsomer flowre,

Gentyll as faucon

Or hauke of the towre.

The Troubadours and Minstrels were followed by a type of entertainer known as the Fool or the Court Fool, who took the place of the satirist in the great households.

Soon various jests were collected, and attributed to these domestic fools, whose garb began to take the form of the cap and bells, accompanied by the jester’s bauble.

As printing became more widespread, the jestbooks multiplied, and many collections were published in England.

Skelton seems to have been quite as much Court Jester as Poet Laureate under Henry VII and Henry VIII, and a volume of Merie Tayles of Skelton is one of the earliest of the Jest Books.

Yet, since this was published some forty years after Skelton’s death it is assumed that but few of the tales are really of the poet’s origination.

Likewise, Scogin’s Jests and the stories attributed to Tarlton and Peele are considered unauthentic as to authorship and merely the work of the hack writers of the period.

These Jestbooks as well as the C. Mery Talys, or Hundred Merry Tales, which, with its companion volume, Mery Tales and Quicke Answeres, was, we are told, used by Shakespeare, are now found in many reprints, and only a few bits of their witty or humorous lore may be given here.

As an example of the sharp satire of Skelton, the following shows how he regarded the prevalent practice of obtaining letters patent of monopoly from the crown, and also is a hit at the fondness for drinking among the Welsh.

HOW THE WELSHMAN DYD DESYRE SKELTON TO AYDE HIM IN HYS SUTE TO THE KYNGE FOR A PATENT TO SELL DRYNKE

Skelton, when he was in London went to the kynge’s courte, where there dyd come to him a Welshman saying, “Syr, it is so that many dooth come upp of my country to the kynge’s court, and some doth get of the kynge by a patent a castell, and some a parke, and some a forest, and some one fee and some another, and they doe lyve lyke honest men, and I should lyve as honestly as the best, if I might have a patent for good drynke, wherefore I dooe praye you to write a fewe woords for me in a lytle byll to geve the same to the kynge’s handes, and I will geve you well for your laboure. I am contented sayde Skelton. Syte downe, then, sayd the Welshman and write. What shall I wryte? sayde Skelton. The Welshman said wryte “dryncke.” Nowe sayde the Welshman wryte “more dryncke.” What nowe? said Skelton. Wryte now “A great deale of dryncke.” Nowe sayd the Welshman putte to all thys dryncke “A littell crome of breade, and a great déale of dryncke to it,” and reade once again. Skelton dyd reade “Dryncke, more dryncke, and a great deale of dryncke and a lytle crome of breade and a great deale of dryncke to it.” Then the Welshman sayde Put oute the litle crome of breade, and sette in all dryncke and no breade. And if I myght have thys sygned of the kynge, sayde the Welshman, I care for no more as long as I lyve. Well, then, sayde Skelton, when you have thys sygned of the kynge then will I labour for a patent to have bread, that you wyth your dryncke and I with the bread may fare well, and seeke our livinge with bagge and staffe.

Here Begynneth Certayne Merye Tales of Skelton, Poet Lauriat
HOW SKELTON CAME LATE HOME TO OXFORD FROM ABINGTON

Skelton was an Englysheman borne as Skogyn was, and hee was educated & broughte up in Oxfoorde: and there was he made a poete lauriat. And on a tyme he had ben at Abbington to make mery, wher that he had eate salte meates, and hee did com late home to Oxforde, and he did lye in an ine named y^e Tabere whyche is now the Angell, and hee dyd drynke, & went to bed. About midnight he was so thyrstie or drye that hee was constrained to call to the tapster for drynke, & the tapster harde him not. Then hee cryed to hys oste & hys ostes, and to the ostler, for drinke; and no man wold here hym. Alacke, sayd Skelton, I shall peryshe for lacke of drynke! what reamedye? At the last he dyd crie out and sayd: Fyer, fyer, fyer! when Skelton hard euery man bustle hymselfe upward, & some of them were naked, & some were halfe asleepe and amased, and Skelton dyd crye: Fier, fier! styll, that everye man knewe not whether to resorte. Skelton did go to bed, and the oste and ostis, & the tapster with the ostler, dyd runne to Skeltons chamber with candles lyghted in theyr handes, saying: where, where, where is the fyer? Here, here, here, said Skelton, & poynted hys fynger to hys moouth, saying: fetch me some drynke to quenche the fyer and the heate and the drinesse in my mouthe: & so they dyd. Wherfore it is good for everye man to helpe hys owne selfe in tyme of neede wythe some policie or crafte, so bee it there bee no deceit nor falshed used.

The Jests of Scogin
HOW JACKE BY SOPHISTRY WOULD MAKE OF TWO EGGS THREE

Scogin on a tyme had two egs to his breakfast, and Jack his scholler should rost them; and as they were rosting, Scogin went to the fire to warme him. And as the egs were rosting, Jacke said: sir, I can by sophistry prove that here be three egs. Let me se that, said Scogin. I shall tel you, sir, said Jack. Is not here one? Yes, said Scogin. And is not here two? Yes, said Scogin; of that I am sure. Then Jack did tell the first egge againe, saying: is not this the third? O, said Scogin, Jack, thou art a good sophister; wel, said Scogin, these two eggs shall serve me for my breakfast, and take thou the third for thy labour and for the herring that thou didst give mee the last day. So one good turne doth aske another, and to deceive him that goeth about to deceive is no deceit.

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This is a very common story. It is, in a slightly varied form, No. 67 of A C Mery Tales, and Johnson has introduced it into The Pleasant Conceits of Old Hobson, the Merry Londoner, 1607.

HOW SCOGIN SOLD POWDER TO KILL FLEAS

Scogin divers times did lacke money, and could not tell what shift to make. At last, he thought to play the physician, and did fill a box full of the powder of a rotten post; and on a Sunday he went to a Parish Church, and told the wives that hee had a powder to kil up all the fleas in the country, and every wife bought a pennyworth; and Scogin went his way, ere Masse was done. The wives went home, and cast the powder into their beds and in their chambers, and the fleas continued still. On a time, Scogin came to the same Church on a sunday, and when the wives had espied him, the one said to the other: this is he that deceived us with the powder to kill fleas; see, said the one to the other, this is the selfe-same person. When Masse was done, the wives gathered about Scogin, and said: you be an honest man to deceive us with the powder to kill fleas. Why, said Scogin, are not your fleas all dead? We have more now (said they) than ever we had. I marvell of that, said Scogin, I am sure you did not use the medicine as you should have done. They said: wee did cast it in our beds and in our chambers. I, said he, there be a sort of fooles that will buy a thing, and will not aske what they should doe with it. I tell you all, that you should have taken every flea by the neck, and then they would gape; and then you should have cast a little of the powder into every flea’s mouth, and so you should have killed them all. Then said the wives: we have not onely lost our money, but we are mocked for our labour.

From Mery Tales of the Mad Men of Gottam
THE SECOND TALE

There was a man of Gottam did ride to the market with two bushells of wheate, and because his horse should not beare heavy, he caried his corne upon his owne necke, & did ride upon his horse, because his horse should not cary to heavy a burthen. Judge you which was the wisest, his horse or himselfe.

THE THIRD TALE

On a tyme, the men of Gottam would have pinned in the Cuckoo, whereby shee should sing all the yeere, and in the midst of ye town they made a hedge round in compasse, and they had got a Cuckoo, and had put her into it, and said: Sing here all the yeere, and thou shalt lacke neither meate nor drinke. The Cuckoo, as soone as she perceived her selfe incompassed within the hedge, flew away. A vengeance on her! said they; we made not our hedge high enough.

From Mother Bunches Merriments
HOW MADDE COOMES, WHEN HIS WIFE WAS DROWNED, SOUGHT HER AGAINST THE STREAME

Coomes of Stapforth, hearing that his wife was drowned comming from market, went with certayne of his friends to see if they could find her in the river. He, contrary to all the rest, sought his wife against the streame; which they perceyving, sayd he lookt the wrong way. And why so? (quoth he.) Because (quoth they) you should looke downe the streame, and not against it. Nay, zounds (quoth hee), I shall never find her that way: for shee did all things so contrary in her life time, that now she is dead, I am sure she will goe against the streame.

The Pleasant Conceits of Old Hobson
HOW MAISTER HOBSON SAID HE WAS NOT AT HOME

On a time Master Hobson upon some ocation came to Master Fleetewoods house to speake with him, being then new chosen the recorder of London, and asked one of his men if he were within, and he said he was not at home. But Maister Hobson, perceving that his maister bad him say so, and that he was within (not being willing at that time to be spoken withall), for that time desembling the matter, he went his way. Within a few dayes after, it was Maister Fleetwoods chaunse to come to Maister Hobson’s, and knocking at the dore, asked if he were within. Maister Hobson, hearing and knowing how he was denyed Maister Fleetwoods speach before time, spake himselfe aloud, and said hee was not at home. Then sayd Maister Fleetwood: what, Master Hobson, thinke you that I knowe not your voyce? Whereunto Maister Hobson answered and said: now, Maister Fleetewood, am I quit with you: for when I came to speake with you, I beleeved your man that said you were not at home, and now you will not beleeve mine owne selfe; and this was the mery conference betwixt these two merry gentlemen.

FROM CERTAINE CONCEYTS & JEASTS; AS WELL TO LAUGH DOWNE OUR HARDER UNDIGESTED MORSELLS, AS BREAKE UP WITH MYRTH OUR BOOKE AND BANQUET. COLLECTED OUT OF SCOTUS POGGIUS, AND OTHERS

A certayne Poore-man met king Phillip, & besought him for something, because he was his kinsman. The king demanded frō whence descended. Who answered: from Adam. Then the K. commaunded an Almes to be given. Hee replyed, an Almes was not the gift of a king; to whome the king answered: if I should so reward all my kindred in that kinde, I should leave but little for myselfe.

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A certaine conceyted Traveller being at a Banquet, where chanced a flye to fall into his cuppe, which hee (being to drinke) tooke out for himselfe, and afterwards put in againe for his fellow: being demanded his reason, answered, that for his owne part he affected them not, but it might be some other did.

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A certaine player, seeing Thieves in his house in the night, thus laughingly sayde: I knowe not what you will finde here in the dark, when I can find nothing my selfe in the light.

WIT AND MIRTH. CHARGEABLY COLLECTED OUT OF TAVERNS, ORDINARIES, INNES, BOWLING-GREENES AND ALLYES, ALEHOUSES, TOBACCO-SHOPS, HIGHWAYES, AND WATER-PASSAGES. MADE UP, AND FASHIONED INTO CLINCHES, BULLS, QUIRKES, YERKES, QUIPS, AND JERKES. APOTHEGMATICALLY BUNDLED UP AND GARBLED AT THE REQUEST OF JOHN GARRET’S GHOST

Taylor the Water-Poet was one of the favourite authors of Robert Southey, who has given an account of his life and writings in his Uneducated Poets, and has quoted him largely in his Common-Place Book.

John Garret, at the request of whose ghost the Water-Poet professes to have formed the present collection, was a jester of the period, mentioned by Bishop Corbet and others. Heylin, author of the Cosmography, speaks of “Archy’s bobs, and Garrets sawcy jests.” In his dedication of the Wit and Mirth, Taylor alludes to Garret as “that old honest mirrour of mirth deceased.”

Taylor, to forestall possible cavils at his plagiarisms from others, or adoption of good sayings already published and well-known, expressly says in the dedication: “Because I had many of them [the jests] by relation and heare-say, I am in doubt that some of them may be in print in some other Authors, which I doe assure you is more than I doe know.”

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One said, that hee could never have his health in Cambridge, and that if hee had lived there till this time, hee thought in his conscience that hee had dyed seven yeeres agoe.

A Judge upon the Bench did aske an old man how old he was. My Lord, said he, I am eight and fourscore. And why not fourscore and eight? said the Judge. The other repli’d: because I was eight, before I was fourescore.

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A rich man told his nephew that hee had read a booke called Lucius Apuleius of the Golden Asse, and that he found there how Apuleius, after he had beene an asse many yeeres, by eating of Roses he did recover his manly shape againe, and was no more an asse: the young man replied to his uncle: Sir, if I were worthy to advise you, I would give you counsell to eate a salled of Roses once a weeke yourselfe.

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A country man being demanded how such a River was called, that ranne through their Country, hee answered that they never had need to call the River, for it alwayes came without calling.

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One borrowed a cloake of a Gentleman, and met one that knew him, who said: I thinke I know that cloake. It may be so, said the other, I borrowed it of such a Gentleman. The other told him that it was too short. Yea, but, quoth he that had the cloake, I will have it long enough, before I bring it home againe.

OF THE WOMAN THAT FOLLOWED HER FOURTH HUSBANDS BERE AND WEPT

A woman there was which had had iiii husbandys. It fourtuned also that this fourth husbande dyed and was brought to chyrche upon the bere; whom this woman folowed and made great mone, and waxed very sory, in so moche that her neyghbours thought she wolde swown and dye for sorow. Wherfore one of her gosseps cam to her, and spake to her in her ere, and bad her, for Godds sake, comfort her self and refrayne that lamentacion, or ellys it wold hurt her and peraventure put her in jeopardy of her life. To whom this woman answeryd and sayd: I wys, good gosyp, I have grete cause to morne, if ye knew all. For I have beryed iii husbandes besyde this man; but I was never in the case that I am now. For there was not one of them but when that I folowed the corse to chyrch, yet I was sure of an nother husband, before the corse cam out of my house, and now I am sure of no nother husband; and therfore ye may be sure I have great cause to be sad and hevy.

By thys tale ye may se that the olde proverbe ys trew, that it is as great pyte to se a woman wepe as a gose to go barefote.

A C. Mery Talys
OF THE MERCHAUNTE OF LONDON THAT DYD PUT NOBLES IN HIS MOUTHE IN HYS DETHE BEDDE

A ryche covetous marchant there was that dwellid in London, which ever gaderyd mony and could never fynd in hys hert to spend ought upon hym selfe nor upon no man els. Whiche fell sore syke, and as he laye on hys deth bed had his purs lyenge at his beddys hede, and [he] had suche a love to his money that he put his hande in his purs, and toke out thereof x or xii li. in nobles and put them in his mouth. And because his wyfe and other perceyved hym very syke and lyke to dye, they exortyd hym to be confessyd, and brought the curate unto hym. Which when they had caused him to say Benedicite, the curate bad hym crye God mercy and shewe to hym his synnes. Than this seyck man began to sey: I crey God mercy I have offendyd in the vii dedly synnes and broken the x commaundementes; but because of the gold in his mouth he muffled so in his speche, that the curate could not well understande hym: wherfore the curat askyd hym, what he had in his mouthe that letted his spech. I wys, mayster parsone, quod the syke man, muffelynge, I have nothyng in my mouthe but a lyttle money; bycause I wot not whither I shal go, I thought I wold take some spendynge money with me: for I wot not what nede I shall have therof; and incontynent after that sayeng dyed, before he was confessyd or repentant that any man coulde perceyve, and so by lyklyhod went to the devyll.

By this tale ye may se, that they that all theyr lyves wyll never do charyte to theyr neghbours, that God in tyme of theyr dethe wyll not suffre them to have grace of repentaunce.

OF THE SCOLER OF OXFORDE THAT PROVED BY SOVESTRY II CHYKENS III

A ryche Frankelyn in the contrey havynge by his wyfe but one chylde and no mo, for the great affeccyon that he had to his sayd chylde founde hym at Oxforde to schole by the space of ii or iii yere. Thys yonge scoler, in a vacacyon tyme, for his disporte came home to his father. It fortuned afterwarde on a nyght, the father, the mother and the sayd yonge scoler

5 lines wanting.

I have studyed sovestry, and by that scyence I can prove, that these ii chekyns in the dysshe be thre chekyns. Mary, sayde the father, that wolde I fayne se. The scoller toke one of the chekyns in his hande and said: lo! here is one chekyn, and incontynente he toke bothe the chekyns in his hande jointely and sayd: here is ii chekyns; and one and ii maketh iii: ergo here is iii chekyns. Than the father toke one of the chekyns to him selfe, and gave another to his wyfe, and sayd thus: lo! I wyll have one of the chekyns to my parte, and thy mother shal have a nother, and because of thy good argumente thou shalte have the thyrde to thy supper: for thou gettyst no more meate here at this tyme; whyche promyse the father kepte, and so the scoller wente without his supper.

By this tale men may se, that it is great foly to put one to scole to lerne any subtyll scyence, whiche hathe no naturall wytte.

OF THE COURTEAR THAT ETE THE HOT CUSTARDE

A certayne merchaunt and a courtear, being upon a time together at dyner having a hote custerd, the courtear being somwhat homely of maner toke parte of it and put it in hys mouth, whych was so hote that made him shed teares. The merchaunt, lookyng on him, thought that he had ben weeping, and asked hym why he wept. This curtear, not wyllynge it to be known that he had brent his mouth with the hote custerd, answered and said, sir: quod he, I had a brother whych dyd a certayn offence wherfore he was hanged; and, chauncing to think now uppon his deth, it maketh me to wepe. This merchaunt thought the courtear had said trew, and anon after the merchaunt was disposid to ete of the custerd, and put a sponefull of it in his mouth, and brent his mouth also, that his eyes watered. This courtear, that percevyng, spake to the merchaunt and seyd: sir, quod he, pray why do ye wepe now? The merchaunt perseyved how he had bene deceived and said: mary, quod he, I wepe, because thou wast not hangid, when that they brother was hangyd.

OF HYM THAT SOUGHT HIS WYFE AGAYNST THE STREME

A man there was whose wyfe, as she came over a bridg, fell in to the ryver and was drowned; wherfore he wente and sought for her upward against the stream, wherat his neighboures, that wente with hym, marvayled, and sayde he dyd nought, he shulde go seke her downeward with the streme. Naye, quod he, I am sure I shall never fynde her that waye: for she was so waywarde and so contrary to every thynge, while she lyvedde, that I knowe very well nowe she is deed, she wyll go a gaynste the stream.

OF THE FOOLE THAT THOUGHT HYM SELFE DEED

There was a felowe dwellynge at Florence, called Nigniaca, whiche was nat verye wyse, nor all a foole, but merye and jocunde. A sorte of yonge men, for to laughe and pastyme, appoynted to gether to make hym beleve that he was sycke. So, whan they were agreed howe they wolde do, one of them mette hym in the mornynge, as he came out of his house, and bad him good morowe, and than asked him, if he were nat yl at ease? No, quod the foole, I ayle nothynge, I thanke God. By my faith, ye have a sickely pale colour, quod the other, and wente his waye.

Anone after, an other of them mette hym, and asked hym if he had nat an ague: for your face and colour (quod he) sheweth that ye be very sycke. Than the foole beganne a lyttel to doubt, whether he were sycke or no: for he halfe beleved that they sayd trouth. Whan he had gone a lytel farther, the thyrde man mette hym, and sayde: Jesu! manne, what do you out of your bed? ye loke as ye wolde nat lyve an houre to an ende. Nowe he doubted greatly, and thought verily in his mynde, that he had hadde some sharpe ague; wherfore he stode styll and wolde go no further; and, as he stode, the fourth man came and sayde: Jesu! man, what dost thou here, and arte so sycke? Gette the home to thy bedde: for I parceyve thou canste nat lyve an houre to an ende. Than the foles harte beganne to feynte, and [he] prayde this laste man that came to hym to helpe hym home. Yes, quod he, I wyll do as moche for the as for myn owne brother. So home he brought hym, and layde hym in his bed, and than he fared with hym selfe, as thoughe he wolde gyve up the gooste. Forth with came the other felowes, and saide he hadde well done to lay hym in his bedde. Anone after, came one whiche toke on hym to be a phisitian; whiche, touchynge the pulse, sayde the malady was so vehement, that he coulde nat lyve an houre. So they, standynge aboute the bedde, sayde one to an other: nowe he gothe his waye: for his speche and syght fayle him; by and by he wyll yelde up the goste. Therfore lette us close his eyes, and laye his hands a crosse, and cary hym forth to be buryed. And than they sayde lamentynge one to an other: O! what a losse have we of this good felowe, our frende?

The foole laye stylle, as one [that] were deade; yea, and thought in his mynde, that he was deade in dede. So they layde hym on a bere, and caryed hym through the cite. And whan any body asked them what they caryed, they sayd the corps of Nigniaca to his grave. And ever as they went, people drew about them. Among the prece ther was a taverners boy, the whiche, whan he herde that it was the cors of Nigniaca, he said to them: O! what a vile bestly knave, and what a stronge thefe is deed! by the masse, he was well worthy to have ben hanged longe ago. Whan the fole harde those wordes, he put out his heed and sayd: I wys, horeson, if I were alyve nowe, as I am deed, I wolde prove the a false lyer to thy face. They, that caryed him, began to laugh so hartilye, that they sette downe the bere, and wente theyr waye.

By this tale ye maye se, what the perswasion of many doth. Certaynly he is very wyse, that is nat inclined to foly, if he be stered thereunto by a multitude. Yet sapience is founde in fewe persones: and they be lyghtly olde sobre men.

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A few further bits are added, being witty sayings from Camden, Bacon and the Jest Books and manuscripts of the period.

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Queen Elizabeth seeing a gentleman in her garden, who had not felt the effect of her favours so soon as he expected, looking out of her window, said to him, in Italian, “What does a man think of, Sir Edward, when he thinks of nothing?” After a little pause, he answered, “He thinks, Madam, of a woman’s promise.” The queen shrunk in her head, but was heard to say, Well, Sir Edward, I must not confute you: Anger makes dull men witty, but it keeps them poor.

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A certain nobleman sold a gentleman a horse for a good round sum, which he took upon his lordship’s word, that he had no fault. About three weeks after, he met my lord; “Why, your lordship told me,” says he, “that your horse had no fault, and he is blind of an eye.” Well, Sir, says my lord, it is no fault, it is only a misfortune.

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A doctor of little learning, and less modesty, having talked much at table; one, much admiring him, asked another, when the doctor was gone, if he did not think him a great scholar? The answer was, He may be learned, for aught I know, or can discover; but I never heard learning make such a noise.

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Sir Drue Drury called for tobacco-pipes at a tavern. The waiter brought some, and, in laying them down on the table, broke most of them. Sir Drue swore a great oath, that they were made of the same metal with the Commandments. “Why so?” says one. Because they are so soon broken.

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A rich usurer was very lame of one of his legs, and yet nothing of hurt outwardly to be seen, whereupon he sent for a surgeon for his advice; who, being more honest than ordinary, told him, “It was in vain to meddle with it, for it was only old age that was the cause.” But why then (said the usurer) should not my other leg be as lame as this, seeing that the one is no older than the other?

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A gentleman disputing about religion in Button’s Coffeehouse, some of the company said, “You talk of religion! I will hold you five guineas, you cannot repeat the Lord’s prayer; Sir Richard Steele here shall hold stakes.” The money being deposited, the gentleman began, I believe in God; and so went through his Creed. Well, said the other, I own I have lost, but I did not think that you could have done it.

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A gentleman calling for small-beer at another gentleman’s table, finding it very hard, gave it the servant again without drinking. “What,” said the master of the house, “do you not like the beer?” It is not to be found fault with, answered the other, for one should never speak ill of the dead.

Some gentlemen being at a tavern together, for want of better diversion, some proposed play; but, said another of the company, “I have fourteen good reasons against gaming.” “What are those,” said another? “In the first place,” answered he, I have no Money. Oh! said the first, if you had four hundred reasons, you need not name another.

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Quin used to apply a story to the then ministry. A master of a brig calls out, Who is there? A boy answered, Will, Sir.—What are you doing?—Nothing, Sir.—Is Tom there?—Yes, says Tom.—What are you doing, Tom?—Helping Will, Sir.

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A gentleman, passing a woman who was skinning eels, and observing the torture of the poor animals, asked her, how she could have the heart to put them to such pain. Ah, said she, poor creatures! they be used to it.

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A silly priest at Trumpington being to read that place, Eli, Eli, Lamasabachthani, began to consider with himself, that it might be ridiculous and absurd for him to read it as it stood, because he was vicar of Trumpington, and not of Ely: and therefore he read it, Trumpington, Trumpington, Lamasabachthani.

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It seems impossible, right here, not to digress, chronologically, for a moment.

Every one will have noticed that these old time jests are the foundations on which many modern stories are built, but the last one quoted above is so palpably the prototype of a current Boston story that it must be told.

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A small child named Halliwell, spending the night with a neighbor, Mrs. Cabot, knelt at the knee of her hostess to say her evening prayer.

“Our Father who art in Heaven,” the little visitor began devoutly, “Cabot be thy name—”

“What? What do you mean?” asked the startled lady.

“Oh,” said the child, “of course, at home, I say ‘Halliwell be thy name,’ but here, I thought it more polite to say Cabot.”

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It is held by most writers on the subject that the great influx of humor into literature took place in the latter half of the sixteenth century.

This is partly because the progressing art of printing brought about the influx of many elements into literature at that time, and also because then appeared the work of three of the greatest of the world’s humorists.

Shakespeare in England, Rabelais in France and Cervantes in Spain, gave us their immortal works.

Earlier in the century Thomas More in his Utopia and Nicholas Udall in his Ralph Royster Doyster wrote in humorously satiric vein, but these works are difficult to quote from satisfactorily.

Having reached the period when Humor began to be produced in various countries independently of one another, it becomes necessary to modify our strict chronological arrangement and consider the nations and their humorists separately.

Before this, broadly speaking, literature should be considered as a whole, but as great names began to appear in certain widely separated localities, a national division must be made.

And so, continuing in England, we come to William Shakespeare.

With Shakespeare’s greatness as a poet and dramatist we are not here concerned, but there are some critics who dispute his preeminence as a humorist.

While Hazlitt declared that in his opinion Molière was as great or greater than Shakespeare as a comic genius; Doctor Johnson, on the other hand, held that Shakespeare’s comedies are better than his tragedies.

However, few are found to support Johnson’s opinion, and Hazlitt qualifies his by saying that as Shakespeare’s imagination and poetry were the master qualities of his mind, the ludicrous was forced to take second place.

Both these worthies, however, agree on the question of Falstaff’s greatness, and Hazlitt takes this attitude.

“I would not be understood to say that there are not scenes or whole characters in Shakespeare equal in wit and drollery to anything upon record. Falstaff alone is an instance, which, if I would, I could not get over. He is the leviathan of all the creatures of the author’s comic genius, and tumbles about his unwieldy bulk in an ocean of wit and humour. But in general it will be found (if I am not mistaken), that even in the very best of these the spirit of humanity and the fancy of the poet greatly prevail over the mere wit and satire, and that we sympathize with his characters oftener than we laugh at them. His ridicule wants the sting of ill-nature. He had hardly such a thing as spleen in his composition. Falstaff himself is so great a joke, rather from his being so huge a mass of enjoyment than of absurdity.”

While with equal perceptive judgment “Falstaff,” says Dr. Johnson, “unimitated, unimitable Falstaff, how shall I describe thee? Thou compound of sense and vice; of sense which may be admired but not esteemed; of vice which may be despised, but hardly detested! Falstaff ... is a thief and a glutton, a coward and a boaster, always ready to cheat the weak and prey upon the poor; to terrify the timorous and insult the defenceless. At once obsequious and malignant, he satirizes in their absence those whom he lives by flattering.... Yet the man thus corrupt, thus despicable, makes himself necessary to the Prince that despises him, by the most pleasing of all qualities, perpetual gaiety, by an unfailing power of exciting laughter, which is the more freely indulged, as his wit is not of the splendid or ambitious kind, but consists in easy scapes and sallies of levity, which make sport, but raise no envy.”

One of the most difficult of all poets to quote from, we can only offer detached and fugitive fragments of Shakespeare’s plays; beginning with a bit quoted by Hazlitt and accompanied by his delightful observations thereon.

“Shakespeare takes up the meanest subjects with the same tenderness that we do an insect’s wing, and would not kill a fly. To give a more particular instance of what I mean, I will take the inimitable and affecting, though most absurd and ludicrous dialogue, between Shallow and Silence, on the death of old Double.”

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Shallow. Come on, come on, come on; give me your hand, sir; give me your hand, sir; an early stirrer, by the rood. And how doth my good cousin Silence?

Silence. Good morrow, good cousin Shallow.

Shallow. And how doth my cousin, your bedfellow? and your fairest daughter, and mine, my god-daughter Ellen?

Silence. Alas, a black ouzel, cousin Shallow.

Shallow. By yea and nay, sir; I dare say, my cousin William is become a good scholar: he is at Oxford still, is he not?

Silence. Indeed, sir, to my cost.

Shallow. He must then to the inns of court shortly. I was once of Clement’s inn; where, I think, they will talk of mad Shallow yet.

Silence. You were called lusty Shallow then, cousin.

Shallow. I was called anything, and I would have done anything indeed, and roundly too. There was I, and little John Doit of Staffordshire, and black George Bare, and Francis Pickbone, and Will Squele, a Cotswold man, you had not four such swinge-bucklers in all the inns of court again; and, I may say to you, we knew where the bonarobas were, and had the best of them all at commandment. Then was Jack Falstaff, now Sir John, a boy, and page to Thomas Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk.

Silence. This Sir John, cousin, that comes hither anon about soldiers?

Shallow. The same Sir John, the very same: I saw him break Schoggan’s head at the court-gate, when he was a crack, not thus high; and the very same day did I fight with one Sampson Stockfish, a fruiterer, behind Gray’s-inn. O, the mad days that I have spent! and to see how many of mine old acquaintances are dead!

Silence. We shall all follow, cousin.

Shallow. Certain, ’tis certain, very sure, very sure: death (as the Psalmist saith) is certain to all, all shall die.—How a good yoke of bullocks at Stamford fair?

Silence. Truly cousin, I was not there.

Shallow. Death is certain. Is old Double of your town living yet?

Silence. Dead, sir.

Shallow. Dead! see, see! he drew a good bow; and dead? he shot a fine shoot. John of Gaunt loved him well, and betted much money on his head. Dead! he would have clapped i’ th’ clout at twelve score; and carried you a forehand shaft a fourteen and a half, that it would have done a man’s heart good to see.—How a score of ewes now?

Silence. Thereafter as they be: a score of good ewes may be worth ten pounds.

Shallow. And is old Double dead?

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There is not anything more characteristic than this in all Shakespeare. A finer sermon on mortality was never preached. We see the frail condition of human life, and the weakness of the human understanding in Shallow’s reflections on it; who, while the past is sliding from beneath his feet, still clings to the present. The meanest circumstances are shown through an atmosphere of abstraction that dignifies them: their very insignificance makes them more affecting, for they instantly put a check on our aspiring thoughts, and remind us that, seen through that dim perspective, the difference between the great and little, the wise and foolish, is not much. ‘One touch of nature makes the whole world kin’: and old Double, though his exploits had been greater, could but have had his day. There is a pathetic naïveté mixed up with Shallow’s commonplace reflections and impertinent digressions. The reader laughs (as well he may) in reading the passage, but he lays down the book to think. The wit, however diverting, is social and humane. But this is not the distinguishing characteristic of wit, which is generally provoked by folly, and spends its venom upon vice.

The fault, then, of Shakespeare’s comic Muse is, in my opinion, that it is too good-natured and magnanimous. It mounts above its quarry. It is ‘apprehensive, quick, forgetive, full of nimble, fiery, and delectable shapes’: but it does not take the highest pleasure in making human nature look as mean, as ridiculous, and contemptible as possible. It is in this respect, chiefly, that it differs from the comedy of a later, and (what is called) a more refined period.”

FROM HENRY IV, PART I

Enter Henry Prince of Wales and Sir John Falstaff.

Falstaff. Now, Hal, what time of day is it, lad?

Prince Henry. Thou art so fat-witted with drinking of old sack, and unbuttoning thee after supper, and sleeping upon benches after noon, that thou hast forgotten to demand that truly which thou wouldst truly know. What a devil hast thou to do with the time of the day? Unless hours were cups of sack, and minutes capons, and clocks the tongues of bawds, and dials the signs of leaping-houses, and the blessed sun himself a fair hot wench in flame-colored taffata, I see no reason why thou should’st be so superfluous to demand the time of the day.

Falstaff. Indeed, you come near me now, Hal; for we that take purses, go by the moon and seven stars; and not by Phœbus—he, “that wand’ring knight so fair.” And, I pray thee, sweet wag, when thou art king, as God save thy grace (majesty I should say; for grace thou wilt have none)—

Prince Henry. What! none?

Falstaff. No, by my troth; not so much as will serve to be prologue to an egg and butter.

Prince Henry. Well, how then? come, roundly, roundly.

Falstaff. Marry, then, sweet wag, when thou art king, let not us that are squires of the night’s body, be called thieves of the day’s beauty; let us be—Diana’s foresters, gentlemen of the shade, minions of the moon: and let men say, we be men of good government; being governed, as the sea is, by our noble and chaste mistress the moon, under whose countenance we—steal.

Prince Henry. Thou say’st well, and it holds well, too; for the fortune of us, that are the moon’s men, doth ebb and flow like the sea; being governed as the sea is, by the moon. As, for proof, now, a purse of gold most resolutely snatched on Monday night, and most dissolutely spent on Tuesday morning; got with swearing—lay by; and spent with crying—bring in; now, in as low an ebb as the foot of the ladder; and, by and by, in as high a flow as the ridge of the gallows.

Falstaff. By the Lord, thou say’st true, lad. And is not my hostess of the tavern a most sweet wench?

Prince Henry. As the honey of Hybla, my old lad of the castle. And is not a buff jerkin a most sweet robe of durance?

Falstaff. How now, how now, mad wag? what, in thy quips and thy quiddities? what a plague have I to do with a buff jerkin?

Prince Henry. Why, what a pox have I to do with my hostess of the tavern?

Falstaff. Well, thou hast called her to a reckoning many a time and oft.

Prince Henry. Did I ever call for thee to pay thy part?

Falstaff. No, I’ll give thee thy due, thou hast paid all there.

Prince Henry. Yea, and elsewhere, so far as my coin would stretch; and where it would not I have used my credit.

Falstaff. Yea, and so used it, that, were it not here apparent that thou art heir apparent,—But, I pr’ythee, sweet wag, shall there be gallows standing in England when thou art king? and resolution thus fobbed as it is, with the rusty curb of old father antic the law? Do not thou, when thou art king, hang a thief.

Prince Henry. No; thou shalt.

Falstaff. Shall I? Oh, rare! By the Lord, I’ll be a brave judge.

Prince Henry. Thou judgest false already; I mean thou shalt have the hanging of the thieves, and so become a rare hangman.

Falstaff. Well, Hal, well; and in some sort it jumps with my humor, as well as waiting in the court, I can tell you.

Prince Henry. For obtaining of suits?

Falstaff. Yea, for obtaining of suits; whereof the hangman hath no lean wardrobe. ’Sblood, I am as melancholy as a gib-cat or a lugged bear.

Prince Henry. Or an old lion; or a lover’s lute.

Falstaff. Yea, or the drone of a Lincolnshire bagpipe.

Prince Henry. What say’st thou to a hare, or the melancholy of Moor-ditch.

Falstaff. Thou hast the most unsavory similes; and art, indeed, the most comparative, rascalliest,—sweet young prince,—But Hal, I pr’ythee trouble me no more with vanity. I would to God thou and I knew where a commodity of good names were to be bought: an old lord of the council rated me the other day in the street about you, sir; but I marked him not; and yet he talked very wisely; but I regarded him not: and yet he talked wisely, and in the street too.

Prince Henry. Thou didst well; for wisdom cries out in the streets and no man regards it.

Falstaff. Oh, thou hast damnable iteration; and art, indeed, able to corrupt a saint. Thou hast done much harm upon me, Hal,—God forgive thee for it! Before I knew thee, Hal, I knew nothing; and now am I, if a man should speak truly, little better than one of the wicked. I must give over this life, and I will give it over; by the Lord, and I do not, I am a villain; I’ll be damned for never a king’s son in Christendom.

Prince Henry. Where shall we take a purse tomorrow, Jack?

Falstaff. Zounds, where thou wilt, lad; I’ll make one; an I do not, call me villain, and baffle me.

Prince Henry. I see a good amendment of life in thee; from praying to purse-taking.

FROM MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING

Conrade, Borachio, Dogberry, Verges, Sexton, and the Watch.

Dogberry. Is our whole dissembly appeared?

Verges. Oh, a stool and a cushion for the sexton!

Sexton. Which be the malefactors?

Dogberry. Marry, that am I and my partner.

Verges. Nay, that’s certain. We have the exhibition to examine.

Sexton. But which are the offenders that are to be examined? Let them come before master constable.

Dogberry. Yea, marry, let them come before me. What is your name, friend?

Borachio. Borachio.

Dogberry. Pray, write down—Borachio.—Yours, sirrah?

Conrade. I am a gentleman, sir, and my name is Conrade.

Dogberry. Write down—master gentleman Conrade.—Masters, do you serve God?

Conrade, Borachio. Yea, sir, we hope.

Dogberry. Write down—that they hope they serve God. And write God first; for God defend but God should go before such villains!—Masters, it is proved already that you are little better than false knaves; and it will go near to be thought so shortly. How answer you for yourselves?

Conrade. Marry, sir, we are none.

Dogberry. A marvellous witty fellow, I assure you; but I will go about with him.—Come you hither, sirrah; a word in your ear, sir; I say to you, it is thought you are false knaves.

Borachio. Sir, I say to you, we are none.

Dogberry. Well, stand aside.—’Fore God, they are both in a tale. Have you writ down, that they are none?

Sexton. Master constable, you go not the way to examine: you must call forth the watch that are their accusers.

Dogberry. Yea, marry, that’s the eftest way.—Let the watch come forth.—Masters, I charge you, in the prince’s name, accuse these men.

1st Watch. This man said, sir, that Don John, the prince’s brother, was a villain.

Dogberry. Write down—Prince John a villain. Why, this is flat perjury, to call a prince’s brother villain.

Borachio. Master constable—

Dogberry. Pray thee, fellow, peace: I do not like thy look, I promise thee.

Sexton. What heard you him say else?

2d Watch. Marry, that he had received a thousand ducats of Don John, for accusing the Lady Hero wrongfully.

Dogberry. Flat burglary as ever was committed!

Verges. Yea, by the mass, that it is.

Sexton. What else, fellow?

1st Watch. And that Count Claudio did mean, upon his words, to disgrace Hero before the whole assembly, and not marry her.

Dogberry. O villain! thou wilt be condemned into everlasting redemption for this.

Sexton. What else?

2d Watch. This is all.

Sexton. And this is more, masters, than you can deny. Prince John is this morning secretly stolen away; Hero was in this manner accused, in this very manner refused, and, upon the grief of this, suddenly died.—Master constable, let these men be bound, and brought to Leonato’s: I will go before, and show him their examination.

(Exit.)

Dogberry. Come, let them be opinioned.

Verges. Let them be in the hands—

Conrade. Off, coxcomb!

Dogberry. God’s my life! Where’s the sexton? Let him write down—the prince’s officer, coxcomb.—Come, bind them.—Thou naughty varlet!

Conrade. Away! You are an ass! you are an ass!

Dogberry. Dost thou not suspect my place? Dost thou not suspect my years?—Oh, that he were here to write me down an ass!—But, masters, remember that I am an ass; though it be not written down, yet forget not than I am an ass.—No, thou villain, thou art full of piety, as shall be proved upon thee by good witness. I am a wise fellow; and, which is more, an officer; and, which is more, a householder; and, which is more, as pretty a piece of flesh as any in Messina; and one that knows the law, go to; and a rich fellow enough, go to; and a fellow that hath had losses; and one that hath two gowns, and everything handsome about him.—Bring him away.—Oh, that I had been writ down an ass!

FROM THE MERCHANT OF VENICE

Launcelot. Certainly, my conscience will serve me to run this Jew my master. The fiend is at mine elbow, and tempts me, saying to me, “Gobbo, Launcelot Gobbo, good Launcelot,” or “good Gobbo,” or “good Launcelot Gobbo, use your legs, take the start, run away.” My conscience says, “No; take heed, honest Launcelot; take heed, honest Gobbo”; or, as aforesaid, “honest Launcelot Gobbo; do not run; scorn running with thy heels.” Well, the most courageous fiend bids me pack: “Via!” says the fiend; “away!” says the fiend; “for the heavens, rouse up a brave mind,” says the fiend, “and run.” Well, my conscience, hanging about the neck of my heart, says very wisely to me, “My honest friend Launcelot, being an honest man’s son,” or rather an honest woman’s son; for, indeed, my father did something smack—something grow to—he had a kind of taste—well, my conscience says, “Launcelot, budge not.” “Budge,” says the fiend. “Budge not,” says my conscience. “Conscience,” say I, “you counsel well.” “Fiend,” say I, “you counsel well.” To be ruled by my conscience, I should stay with the Jew my master, who—God bless the mark!—is a kind of devil; and to run away from the Jew, I should be ruled by the fiend, who, saving your reverence, is the devil himself. Certainly, the Jew is the very devil incarnation; and, in my conscience, my conscience is a kind of hard conscience to offer to counsel me to stay with the Jew. The fiend gives the more friendly counsel: I will run, fiend; my heels are at your commandment; I will run.

FROM HAMLET

Polonius and Hamlet, reading.

Polonius. How does my good Lord Hamlet?

Hamlet. Well, God-’a’-mercy.

Polonius. Do you know me, my lord?

Hamlet. Excellent well; you are a fishmonger

Polonius. Not I, my lord.

Hamlet. Then I would you were so honest a man.

Polonius. Honest, my lord?

Hamlet. Ay, sir: to be honest, as this world goes, is to be one man picked out of ten thousand.

Polonius. That’s very true, my lord.

Hamlet. For if the sun breed maggots in a dead dog, being a good kissing carrion—Have you a daughter?

Polonius. I have, my lord.

Hamlet. Let her not walk i’ the sun: conception is a blessing; but not as your daughter may conceive. Friend, look to’t.

Polonius. How say you by that? (Aside.) Still harping on my daughter. Yet he knew me not at first; he said I was a fishmonger. He is far gone, far gone: and truly in my youth I suffered much extremity for love; very near this. I’ll speak to him again.—What do you read, my lord?

Hamlet. Words, words, words.

Polonius. What is the matter, my lord?

Hamlet. Between who?

Polonius. I mean the matter that you read, my lord.

Hamlet. Slanders, sir. For the satirical slave says here, that old men have gray beards; that their faces are wrinkled; their eyes purging thick amber or plum-tree gum; and that they have a plentiful lack of wit, together with weak hams. All of which, sir, though I most powerfully and potently believe, yet I hold it not honesty to have it thus set down; for you yourself, sir, shall grow old as I am: if, like a crab, you could go backward.

Polonius. (Aside.) Though this be madness, yet there is method in’t.—Will you walk out o’ the air, my lord?

Hamlet. Into my grave?

Polonius. Indeed, that is out o’ the air. (Aside.) How pregnant sometimes his replies are! A happiness that often madness hits on, which reason and sanity could not so prosperously be delivered of. I will leave him, and suddenly contrive the means of meeting between him and my daughter.—My honourable lord, I will most humbly take my leave of you.

Hamlet. You cannot, sir, take from me anything that I will more willingly part withal: except my life, except my life, except my life.

Polonius. Fare you well, my lord.

Hamlet. These tedious old fools!

FROM AS YOU LIKE IT

Rosalind and Orlando

Rosalind. (Aside.) I will speak to him like a saucy lackey, and under that habit play the knave with him.—Do you hear, forester?

Orlando. Very well: what would you?

Rosalind. I pray you, what is’t o’clock?

Orlando. You should ask me, what time o’ day: there’s no clock in the forest.

Rosalind. Then there is no true lover in the forest; else sighing every minute, and groaning every hour, would detect the lazy foot of Time as well as a clock.

Orlando. And why not the swift foot of Time? Had not that been as proper?

Rosalind. By no means, sir. Time travels in divers paces with divers persons. I’ll tell you, who Time ambles withal, who Time trots withal, who Time gallops withal, and who he stands still withal.

Orlando. I prithee, who doth he trot withal?

Rosalind. Marry, he trots hard with a young maid, between the contract of her marriage and the day it is solemnised: if the interim be but a se’nnight, Time’s pace is so hard that it seems the length of seven years.

Orlando. Who ambles Time withal?

Rosalind. With a priest that lacks Latin, and a rich man that hath not the gout; for the one sleeps easily, because he cannot study; and the other lives merrily, because he feels no pain: the one lacking the burden of lean and wasteful learning; the other knowing no burden of heavy, tedious penury. These Time ambles withal.

Orlando. Who doth he gallop withal?

Rosalind. With a thief to the gallows; for though he go as softly as foot can fall, he thinks himself too soon there.

Orlando. Who stays it still withal?

Rosalind. With lawyers in the vacation; for they sleep between term and term, and then they perceive not how Time moves.

Orlando. Where dwell you, pretty youth?

Rosalind. Here in the skirts of the forest, like fringe upon a petticoat.

Orlando. Are you native of this place?

Rosalind. As the cony, that you see dwell where she is kindled.

Orlando. Your accent is something finer than you could purchase in so removed a dwelling.

Rosalind. I have been told of so many: but, indeed, an old religious uncle of mine taught me to speak, who was in his youth an inland man; one that knew courtship too well, for there he fell in love. I have heard him read many lectures against it; and I thank God I am not a woman, to be touched with so many giddy offences as he hath generally taxed their whole sex withal.

Orlando. Can you remember any of the principal evils that he laid to the charge of women?

Rosalind. There were none principal: they were all like one another, as half-pence are; every one fault seeming monstrous, till its fellow fault came to match it.

Orlando. I prithee, recount some of them.

Rosalind. No; I will not cast away my physic but on those that are sick. There is a man haunts the forest, that abuses our young plants with carving Rosalind on their barks; hangs odes upon hawthorns, and elegies on brambles; all, forsooth, deifying the name of Rosalind: if I could meet that fancy-monger I would give him some good counsel, for he seems to have the quotidian of love upon him.

Orlando. I am he that is so love-shaked. I pray you, tell me your remedy.

Rosalind. There is none of my uncle’s marks upon you: he taught me how to know a man in love; in which cage of rushes, I am sure, you are not prisoner.

Orlando. What were his marks?

Rosalind. A lean cheek, which you have not; a blue eye, and sunken, which you have not; an unquestionable spirit, which you have not; a beard neglected, which you have not (but I pardon you for that, for, simply, your having in beard is a younger brother’s revenue. Then, your hose shall be ungartered, your bonnet unbanded, your sleeve unbuttoned, your shoe untied, and everything about you demonstrating a careless desolation. But you are no such man; you are rather point-device in your accoutrements, as loving yourself, than seeming the lover of any other.

Orlando. Fair youth, I would I could make thee believe I love.

Rosalind. Me believe it? You may as soon make her that you love believe it; which, I warrant, she is apter to do than to confess she does. That is one of the points in the which women still give the lie to their consciences. But, in good sooth, are you he that hangs the verses on the trees, wherein Rosalind is so admired?

Orlando. I swear to thee, youth, by the white hand of Rosalind, I am that he, that unfortunate he.

Rosalind. But are you so much in love as your rhymes speak?

Orlando. Neither rhyme nor reason can express how much.

Rosalind. Love is merely a madness; and, I tell you, deserves as well a dark house and a whip as madmen do. And the reason why they are not so punished and cured is, that the lunacy is so ordinary that the whippers are in love too. Yet I profess curing it by counsel.

Orlando. Did you ever cure any so?

Rosalind. Yes, one; and in this manner. He was to imagine me his love, his mistress, and I set him every day to woo me: at which time would I, being but a moonish youth, grieve, be effeminate, changeable, longing, and liking; proud, fantastical, apish, shallow, inconstant, full of tears, full of smiles; for every passion something, and for no passion truly anything, as boys and women are, for the most part, cattle of this colour: would now like him, now loathe him; then entertain him, then forswear him; now weep for him, then spit at him; that I drave my suitor from his mad humour of love, to a living humour of madness, which was, to forswear the full stream of the world, and to live in a nook merely monastic. And thus I cured him; and in this way will I take upon me to wash your liver as clean as a sound sheep’s heart, that there shall not be one spot of love in’t.

Orlando. I would not be cured, youth.

Rosalind. I would cure you, if you would but call me Rosalind, and come every day to my cote, and woo me.

Orlando. Now, by the faith of my love, I will. Tell me where it is.

Rosalind. Go with me to it, and I’ll show it you; and, by the way, you shall tell me where in the forest you live. Will you go?

Orlando. With all my heart, good youth.

---

Francis, Lord Bacon, gave us much wise writing, and, incidentally much of the wit of wisdom, but we look to him in vain for laughable humor.

A few epigrammatic selections from his essays are given.

---

All colours will agree in the dark.

---

This is certain, that a man that studieth revenge keepeth his own wounds green, which otherwise would heal and do well.

---

Whosoever esteemeth too much of an amourous affection, quitteth both riches and wisdom.

Money is like muck: not good except it be spread.

---

Princes are like to heavenly bodies, which cause good or evil times, and which have much veneration, and no rest.

---

Old men object too much, consult too long, adventure too little, repent too soon.

---

To take advice of some few friends is ever honourable; for lookers-on many times see more than gamesters.

---

Suspicions that the mind of itself gathers are but buzzes; but suspicions that are artificially nourished and put into men’s heads by the tales and whisperings of others, have stings.

---

Reading maketh a full man, conference a ready man, and writing an exact man. And therefore, if man write little, he had need have a great memory; if he confer little, he had need have a present wit; and if he read little, he had need have much cunning to seem to know that which he doth not.

---

Sir John Harington, chiefly remembered for his translation of Orlando Furioso, wrote clever humorous verse.

OF A PRECISE TAILOR

A tailor, thought a man of upright dealing—

True, but for lying, honest, but for stealing—

Did fall one day extremely sick by chance,

And on the sudden was in wondrous trance.

The fiends of hell, mustering in fearful manner,

Of sundry coloured silks displayed a banner

Which he had stolen, and wished, as they did tell,

That he might find it all one day in hell.

The man, affrighted with this apparition,

Upon recovery grew a great precisian.

He bought a Bible of the best translation,

And in his life he showed great reformation;

He walked mannerly, he talked meekly,

He heard three lectures and two sermons weekly;

He vowed to shun all company unruly,

And in his speech he used no oath but “truly”;

And, zealously to keep the Sabbath’s rest,

His meat for that day on the eve was drest;

And, lest the custom which he had to steal

Might cause him sometimes to forget his zeal,

He gives his journeyman a special charge,

That if the stuff, allowance being large,

He found his fingers were to filch inclined,

Bid him to have the banner in his mind.

This done—I scant can tell the rest for laughter—

A captain of a ship came three days after,

And brought three yards of velvet and three-quarters,

To make Venetians down below the garters.

He, that precisely knew what was enough,

Soon slipt aside three-quarters of the stuff.

His man, espying it, said, in derision,

“Master, remember how you saw the vision!”

“Peace, knave!” quoth he; “I did not see one rag

Of such a coloured silk in all the flag.”

OF A CERTAIN MAN

There was (not certain when) a certain preacher

That never learned, and yet became a teacher,

Who, having read in Latin thus a text

Of erat quidam homo, much perplext,

He seemed the same with studie great to scan,

In English thus: There was a certain man.

But now (quoth he), good people, note you this:

He saith there was—he doth not say there is;

For in these days of ours it is most plain

Of promise, oath, word, deed, no man’s certain;

Yet by my text you see it comes to pass

That surely once a certain man there was;

But yet, I think, in all your Bible no man

Can find this text, There was a certain woman.

Ben Jonson, next to Shakespeare as a dramatist, is a master of satiric wit. His strong, somewhat psychological comedies are difficult to quote from except in long extracts.

FROM “EVERY MAN IN HIS HUMOR”

Bobadil. I will tell you, sir, by the way of private, and under seal, I am a gentleman, and live here obscure, and to myself; but were I known to her majesty and the lords (observe me), I would undertake, upon this poor head and life, for the public benefit of the state, not only to spare the entire lives of her subjects in general, but to save the one-half, nay, three parts of her yearly charge in holding war, and against what enemy soever. And how would I do it, think you?

E. Knowell. Nay, I know not, nor can I conceive.

Bobadil. Why, thus, sir. I would select nineteen more, to myself, throughout the land; gentlemen they should be of good spirit, strong and able constitution; I would choose them by an instinct, a character that I have: and I would teach these nineteen the special rules—as your punto, your reverso, your stoccata, your imbroccato, your passado, your montanto—till they could all play very near, or altogether as well as myself. This done, say the enemy were forty thousand strong, we twenty would come into the field the tenth of March, or thereabouts; and we would challenge twenty of the enemy; they could not in their honor refuse us; well, we would kill them: challenge twenty more, kill them; twenty more, kill them; twenty more, kill them too; and thus would we kill every man his twenty a day, that’s twenty score; twenty score, that’s two hundred; two hundred a day, five days a thousand; forty thousand; forty times five, five times forty, two hundred days kills them all up by computation. And this will I venture my poor gentleman-like carcass to perform, provided there be no treason practised upon us, by fair and discreet manhood; that is, civilly by the sword.

FROM “VOLPONE”

Volpone. Lady, I kiss your bounty, and for this timely grace you have done your poor Scoto, of Mantua, I will return you, over and above my oil, a secret of that high and inestimable nature which shall make you for ever enamoured on that minute, wherein your eye first descended on so mean, yet not altogether to be despised, an object. Here is a powder concealed in this paper, of which, if I should speak to the worth, nine thousand volumes were but as one page, that page as a line, that line as a word; so short is this pilgrimage of man, which some call life, to the expression of it. Would I reflect on the price? Why, the whole world is but as an empire, that empire as a province, that province as a bank, that bank as a private purse to the purchase of it. I will only tell you it is the powder that made Venus a goddess, given her by Apollo, that kept her perpetually young, cleared her wrinkles, firmed her gums, filled her skin, coloured her hair, from her derived to Helen, and at the sack of Troy unfortunately lost: till now, in this our age, it was as happily recovered, by a studious antiquary, out of some ruins of Asia, who sent a moiety of it to the Court of France, but much sophisticated, wherewith the ladies there now colour their hair. The rest, at this present, remains with me, extracted to a quintessence; so that, wherever it but touches in youth it perpetually preserves, in age restores the complexion; seats your teeth, did they dance like virginal jacks, firm as a wall; makes them white as ivory, that were black as coal.

A VINTNER,

To whom Jonson was in debt, told him that he would excuse the payment, if he could give an immediate answer to the following questions: What God is best pleased with; what the devil is best pleased with: what the world is best pleased with; and what he was best pleased with. Jonson, without hesitation, replied thus:

God is best pleas’d, when men forsake their sin;

The devil’s best pleas’d, when they persist therein:

The world’s best pleas’d, when thou dost sell good wine;

And you’re best pleas’d, when I do pay for mine.

It was the fashion to flatter in those days, and King James had abundance of such incense offered to him, though according to Ben Jonson it was impossible to flatter so perfect a monarch. The dramatist addressed the following epigram To the Ghost of Martial (Ep. 36):

Martial, thou gav’st far nobler epigrams

To thy Domitian, than I can my James:

But in my royal subject I pass thee,

Thou flattered’st thine, mine cannot flatter’d be.

A thought which has been humorously expanded by Ben Jonson (Ep. 42):

Who says that Giles and Joan at discord be?

Th’ observing neighbours no such mood can see.

Indeed, poor Giles repents he married ever;

But that his Joan doth too. And Giles would never

By his free will be in Joan’s company;

No more would Joan he should. Giles riseth early,

And having got him out of doors is glad;

The like is Joan. But turning home is sad;

And so is Joan. Oft-times when Giles doth find

Harsh sights at home, Giles wisheth he were blind;

All this doth Joan. Or that his long-yearn’d life

Were quite outspun; the like wish hath his wife.

*****

If now, with man and wife, to will and nill

The self-same things, a note of concord be,

I know no couple better can agree.

John Donne, one of the greatest preachers of the English church, was also a noted wit, poet and courtier. Like his contemporaries his wit was satirical, but in more playful vein than most.

THE WILL

Before I sigh my last gasp, let me breathe,

Great Love, some legacies: Here I bequeathe

Mine eyes to Argus, if mine eyes can see;

If they be blind, then, Love, I give them thee;

My tongue to fame; to embassadors mine ears;

To women or the sea, my tears.

Thou, Love, hast taught me heretofore,

By making me serve her who had twenty more,

That I should give to none but such as had too much before.

My constancy I to the planets give;

My truth to them who at the court do live;

My ingenuity and openness

To Jesuits; to buffoons my pensiveness;

My silence to any who abroad have been;

My money to a Capuchin.

Thou, Love, taught’st me, by appointing me

To love there where no love received can be,

Only to give to such as have an incapacity.

My faith I give to Roman Catholics;

All my good works unto the schismatics

Of Amsterdam; my best civility

And courtship to a university;

My modesty I give to soldiers bare;

My patience let gamesters share.

Thou, Love taught’st me, by making me

Love her that holds my love disparity,

Only to give to those that count my gifts indignity.

I give my reputation to those

Which were my friends; mine industry to foes;

To schoolmen I bequeathe my doubtfulness;

My sickness to physicians, or excess;

To Nature all that I in rhyme have writ;

And to my company my wit.

Thou, Love, by making me adore

Her who begot this love in me before,

Taught’st me to make as though I gave, when I do but restore.

To him for whom the passing bell next tolls

I give my physic-books; my written rolls

Of moral counsel I to Bedlam give;

My brazen medals unto them which live

In want of bread; to them which pass among

All foreigners, mine English tongue.

Thou, Love, by making me love one

Who thinks her friendship a fit portion

For younger lovers, dost my gifts thus disproportion.

Therefore I’ll give no more, but I’ll undo

The world by dying, because love dies too.

Then all your beauties will no more be worth

Than gold in mines where none doth draw it forth;

And all your graces no more use shall have

Than a sundial in a grave.

Thou, Love, taught’st me, by making me

Love her who doth neglect both thee and me,

To invent and practise this one way to annihilate all three.

Thomas Dekker was a prolific dramatic author of the period, and his satirical characterizations are among the wittiest of his day.

OBEDIENT HUSBANDS

There is a humour incident to a woman, which is, when a young man hath turmoiled himself so long that with much ado he hath gotten into marriage, and hath perhaps met with a wife according to his own desire, and perchance such an one that it had been better for him had he lighted on another, yet he likes her so well that he would not have missed her for any gold; for, in his opinion, there is no woman like unto her. He hath a great delight to hear her speak, is proud of his match, and is, peradventure, withal of so sheepish a nature, that he has purposed to govern himself wholly by her counsel and direction, so that if any one speak to him of a bargain, or whatsoever other business, he tells them that he will have his wife’s opinion on it, and if she be content, he will go through with it; if not, then will he give it over.

Thus he is as tame and pliable as a jackanapes to his keeper. If the Prince set forth an army, and she be unwilling that he should go, who (you may think) will ask her leave, then must he stay at home, fight who will for the country. But if she be desirous at any time to have his room (which many times she likes better than his company), she wants no journey to employ him in, and he is as ready as a page to undertake them. If she chide, he answers not a word; generally, whatsoever she does, or howsoever, he thinks it well done.

Judge, now, in what a case this silly calf is! Is not he, think you, finely dressed, that is in such subjection? The honestest woman and most modest of that sex, if she wear the breeches, is so out of reason in taunting and controlling her husband—for this is their common fault—and be she never so wise, yet a woman, scarce able to govern herself, much less her husband and all his affairs; for, were it not so, God would have made her the head. Which, since it is otherwise, what can be more preposterous than that the head should be governed by the foot?

If, then, a wise and honest woman’s superiority be unseemly, and breed great inconvenience, how is he dressed, think you, if he light on a fond, wanton, and malicious dame? Then doubtless he is soundly sped. She will keep a sweetheart under his nose, yet is he so blind that he can perceive nothing. But, for more security, she will many times send him packing beyond sea, about some odd errand that she will buzz in his ears, and he will perform it at her pleasure, though she send him forth at midnight, in hail, rain, and snow, for he must be a man for all weathers.

Their children, if they have any, must be brought up, apparelled, taught, and fed according to her pleasure, and one point of their learning is always to make no account of their father. Finally, she orders all things as she thinks best herself, making no more account of him, especially if he be in years, than men do of an old horse that is put to labour. Thus is he mewed up, plunged in a sea of cares; and yet he, kind fool, deems himself most happy in his happiness, wherein he must now perforce remain while life doth last, and pity it were he should want it, since he likes it so well.—The Bachelor’s Banquet.

Horace is thus amusingly introduced as in the act of concocting an ode:

To thee whose forehead swells with roses,

Whose most haunted bower

Gives life and scent to every flower,

Whose most adoréd name encloses

Things abstruse, deep and divine;

Whose yellow tresses shine

Bright as Eoan fire.

Oh, me thy priest inspire!

For I to thee and thine immortal name,

In—in—in golden tunes,

For I to thee and thine immortal name—

In—sacred raptures flowing, flowing, swimming, swimming:

In sacred raptures swimming,

Immortal name, game, dame, tame, lame, lame, lame,

[Foh,] hath, shame, proclaim, oh—

In sacred raptures flowing, will proclaim [no!].

Oh, me they priest inspire!

For I to thee and thine immortal name,

In flowing numbers filled with spright and flame (Good, good!)

In flowing numbers filled with spright and flame.

John Fletcher is believed to have composed the greater part of the plays by Beaumont and Fletcher.

The Laughing Song is attributed to Fletcher alone.

LAUGHING SONG
(For several voices)

Oh how my lungs do tickle! ha ha ha!

Of how my lungs do tickle! ho ho ho ho!

Set a sharp jest

Against my breast,

Then how my lungs do tickle!

As nightingales,

And things in cambric rails,

Sing best against a prickle.

Ha ha ha ha!

Ho ho ho ho ho!

Laugh! Laugh! Laugh! Laugh!

Wide! Loud! And vary!

A smile is for a simpering novice,—

One that ne’er tasted caviarë,

Nor knows the smack of dear anchovies.

Ha ha ha ha ha!

Ho ho ho ho ho!

A giggling waiting-wench for me,

That shows her teeth how white they be,—

A thing not fit for gravity,

For theirs are foul and hardly three.

Ha ha ha!

Ho ho ho!

“Democritus, thou ancient fleerer,

How I miss thy laugh, and ha’ since!”

There thou named the famous[est] jeerer

That e’er jeered in Rome or Athens.

Ha ha ha!

Ho ho ho!

“How brave lives he that keeps a fool,

Although the rate be deeper!”

But he that is his own fool, sir,

Does live a great deal cheaper.

“Sure I shall burst, burst, quite break,

Thou art so witty.”

“’Tis rare to break at court,

For that belongs to the city.”

Ha ha! my spleen is almost worn

To the last laughter.

“Oh keep a corner for a friend!

A jest may come hereafter.”

Bishop Corbet, more sociable and vivacious than many of his calling wrote rollicking verses as well as wise and serious sermons.

Perhaps this is the first known example of sheer nonsense verse.

LIKE TO THE THUNDERING TONE

Like to the thundering tone of unspoke speeches,

Or like a lobster clad in logic breeches,

Or like the gray fur of a crimson cat,

Or like the mooncalf in a slipshod hat;

E’en such is he who never was begotten

Until his children were both dead and rotten.

Like to the fiery tombstone of a cabbage,

Or like a crab-louse with its bag and baggage,

Or like the four square circle of a ring,

Or like to hey ding, ding-a, ding-a, ding;

E’en such is he who spake, and yet, no doubt,

Spake to small purpose, when his tongue was out.

Like to a fair, fresh, fading, wither’d rose,

Or like to rhyming verse that runs in prose,

Or like the stumbles of a tinder-box,

Or like a man that’s sound yet sickness mocks;

E’en such is he who died and yet did laugh

To see these lines writ for his epitaph.

It may be that utter nonsense was more in vogue at this time than can be definitely asserted, for such productions would, naturally, not be preserved as were the more important matters.

This anonymous bit of nonsense is said to have been written in 1617, and may be from the pen of the same worthy Bishop.

NONSENSE

Oh, that my lungs could bleat like butter’d Pease;

But bleating of my lungs hath caught the itch,

And are as mangy as the Irish seas

That offer wary windmills to the Rich.

I grant that Rainbowes being lull’d asleep,

Snort like a woodknife in a Lady’s eyes;

Which makes her grieve to see a pudding creep,

For Creeping puddings only please the wise.

Not that a hard-row’d herring should presume

To swing a tyth pig in a Cateskin purse;

For fear the hailstons which did fall at Rome,

By lesning of the fault should make it worse.

For ’tis most certain Winter woolsacks grow

From geese to swans if men could keep them so.

Till that the sheep shorn Planets gave the hint

To pickle pancakes in Geneva print.

Some men there were that did suppose the skie

Was made of Carbonado’d Antidotes;

But my opinion is, a Whale’s left eye,

Need not be coynéd all King Harry groates.

The reason’s plain, for Charon’s Westerne barge

Running a tilt at the Subjunctive mood,

Beckoned to Bednal Green, and gave him charge

To fasten padlockes with Antartic food.

The End will be the Mill ponds must be laded,

To fish for white pots in a Country dance;

So they that suffered wrong and were upbraded

Shall be made friends in a left-handed trance.

A charming lyric by Bishop Corbet is:

FAREWELL TO THE FAIRIES

“Farewell, rewards and fairies!”

Good housewives now may say,

For now foul sluts in dairies

Do fare as well as they.

And, though they sweep their hearths no less

Than maids were wont to do,

Yet who of late, for cleanliness,

Finds sixpence in her shoe?

Lament, lament, old Abbeys,

The fairies lost command!

They did but change priests’ babies,

But some have changed your land;

And all your children stoln from thence

Are now grown Puritans;

Who live as changelings ever since,

For love of your domains.

At morning and at evening both,

You merry were and glad,

So little care of sleep or sloth

These pretty ladies had;

When Tom came home from labour,

Or Cis to milking rose,

Then merrily went their tabor,

And nimbly went their toes.

Witness those rings and roundelays

Of theirs, which yet remain,

Were footed in Queen Mary’s days

On many a grassy plain;

But, since of late Elizabeth,

And later James, came in,

They never danced on any heath

As when the time hath been.

By which we note the fairies

Were of the old profession,

Their songs were Ave-Maries,

Their dances were procession:

But now, alas! they all are dead,

Or gone beyond the seas;

Or further for religion fled,

Or else they take their ease.

A tell-tale in their company

They never could endure,

And whoso kept not secretly

Their mirth was punished sure;

It was a just and Christian deed

To pinch such black and blue:

Oh how the commonwealth doth need

Such justices as you!

Bishop Corbet’s epigram on Beaumont’s early death is well known:

He that hath such acuteness and such wit,

As would ask ten good heads to husband it;

He, that can write so well that no man dare

Refuse it for the best, let him beware:

Beaumont is dead, by whose sole death appears,

Wit’s a disease consumes men in few years.

Sir Walter Raleigh, the graceful and brilliant courtier, is thought by most students of the subject to have written The Lie. Though it has been attributed to various authors the weight of evidence is in favor of Raleigh.

THE LIE

Go, Soul, the body’s guest,

Upon a thankless errand;

Fear not to touch the best;

The truth shall be thy warrant.

Go, since I needs must die,

And give them all the lie.

Go tell the Court it glows

And shines like rotten wood;

Go tell the Church it shows

What’s good, but does no good.

If Court and Church reply,

Give Court and Church the lie.

Tell Potentates they live

Acting, but oh! their actions;

Not loved, unless they give,

Not strong but by their factions.

If Potentates reply,

Give Potentates the lie.

Tell men of high condition,

That rule affairs of state,

Their purpose is ambition;

Their practice only hate;

And if they do reply,

Then give them all the lie.

Tell those that brave it most,

They beg for more by spending,

Who in their greatest cost

Seek nothing but commending;

And if they make reply,

Spare not to give the lie.

Tell zeal it wants devotion;

Tell love it is but lust;

Tell time it is but motion;

Tell flesh it is but dust:

And wish them not reply,

For thou must give the lie.

Tell age it daily wasteth;

Tell honor how it alters;

Tell beauty how she blasteth;

Tell favor how it falters:

And as they shall reply,

Give every one the lie.

Tell wit how much it wrangles

In tickle points of niceness;

Tell wisdom she entangles

Herself in over-wiseness:

And when they do reply,

Straight give them both the lie.

Tell physic of her boldness;

Tell skill it is pretension;

Tell charity of coldness;

Tell law it is contention:

And as they do reply,

So give them still the lie.

Tell fortune of her blindness;

Tell nature of decay;

Tell friendship of unkindness;

Tell justice of delay:

And if they will reply,

Then give them all the lie.

Tell arts they have no soundness,

But vary by esteeming;

Tell schools they want profoundness,

And stand too much on seeming:

If arts and schools reply,

Give arts and schools the lie.

Tell faith it’s fled the city;

Tell how the country erreth;

Tell, manhood shakes off pity;

Tell, virtue least preferreth:

And if they do reply,

Spare not to give the lie.

So when thou hast, as I

Commanded thee, done blabbing,—

Although to give the lie

Deserves no less than stabbing,—

Yet, stab at thee that will,

No stab the soul can kill.

The following well-known and thoroughly characteristic verses originally appeared in Gammer Gurton’s Needle, an old English comedy, which was long supposed to be the earliest written in the language, but which now ranks as the second in point of age. It was written by John Still, afterwards Bishop of Bath and Wells.

JOLLY GOOD ALE AND OLD

I cannot eat but little meat;

My stomach is not good;

But sure I think that I can drink

With him that wears a hood.

Though I go bare, take ye no care,

I nothing am a-cold,

I stuff my skin so full within

Of jolly good ale and old.

Back and side go bare, go bare;

Both foot and hand go cold;

But, belly, God send thee good ale enough,

Whether it be new or old.

I love no roast but a nut-brown toast,

And a crab laid in the fire;

And little bread shall do me stead;

Much bread I nought desire.

No frost, no snow, no wind, I trow,

Can hurt me if I wold,

I am so wrapp’d, and thoroughly lapp’d,

Of jolly good ale and old.

Back and side, etc.

And Tib, my wife, that as her life

Loveth well good ale to seek,

Full oft drinks she, till ye may see

The tears run down her cheek:

Then doth she troul to me the bowl,

Even as a maltworm should,

And saith, “Sweetheart, I took my part

Of this jolly good ale and old.”

Back and side, etc.

Now let them drink till they nod and wink

Even as good fellows should do;

They shall not miss to have the bliss

Good ale doth bring men to.

And all poor souls that have scour’d bowls

Or have them lustily troul’d,

God save the lives of them and their wives,

Whether they be young or old.

Back and side, etc.

Sir John Davies, poet and lawyer, wrote many acrostics to Queen Elizabeth, and other witty verses.

ACROSTICS

Earth now is green and heaven is blue;

Lively spring which makes all new,

Iolly spring doth enter.

Sweet young sunbeams do subdue

Angry aged winter.

Blasts are mild and seas are calm,

Every meadow flows with balm,

The earth wears all her riches,

Harmonious birds sing such a psalm

As ear and heart bewitches.

Reserve (sweet spring) this nymph of ours,

Eternal garlands of thy flowers,

Green garlands never wasting;

In her shall last our state’s fair spring,

Now and forever flourishing,

As long as heaven is lasting.

THE MARRIED STATE

Wedlock, indeed, hath oft comparèd been

To public feasts, where meet a public rout,

Where they that are without would fain go in,

And they that are within would fain go out.

John Marston, both dramatist and divine, gives us this bit of humorous satire—

THE SCHOLAR AND HIS DOG

I was a scholar: seven useful springs

Did I deflower in quotations

Of cross’d opinions ’bout the soul of man;

The more I learnt, the more I learnt to doubt.

Delight my spaniel slept, whilst I baus’d leaves,

Toss’d o’er the dunces, pored on the old print

Of titled words: and still my spaniel slept.

Whilst I wasted lamp-oil, baited my flesh,

Shrunk up my veins: and still my spaniel slept.

And still I held converse with Zabarell,

Aquinas, Scotus, and the musty saw

Of antick Donate: still my spaniel slept.

Still on went I; first, an sit anima;

Then, an it were mortal. Oh, hold, hold! at that

They’re at brain buffets, fell by the ears amain

Pell-mell together; still my spaniel slept.

Then, whether ’t were corporeal, local, fixt,

Ex traduce, but whether ’t had free will

Or no, hot philosophers

Stood banding factions, all so strongly propt,

I stagger’d, knew not which was firmer part,

But thought, quoted, read, observ’d, and pryed,

Stufft noting-books: and still my spaniel slept.

At length he wak’d, and yawned; and by yon sky,

For aught I know he knew as much as I.

Following the example of Jest Books and collections of Merry Tales, came the Anthologies.

The most important of these was the Miscellany, which went through eight editions in thirty years, and is said to be the book of songs and sonnets that Master Slender missed so much.

This book was first published in 1557 and was followed by many less worthy collections.

In 1576 appeared The Paradise of Dainty Devices which also ran through many editions.

As a rule these collections were uninteresting and composed largely of dull and prosy numbers. Their chief charm lay in their titles, which were such as A Gorgeous Gallery of Gallant Inventions, A Handful of Pleasant Delights, and A Bouquet of Dainty Conceits.

Yet it must be remembered that this latter half of the Sixteenth Century saw the splendid flowering of lyric poetry, and in the last year appeared a famous book called England’s Helicon or The Muses’ Harmony, which was a sort of Golden Treasury of the Elizabethan age.

This was supplemented two years later by the Poetical Rhapsody, edited by Francis Davison, and from then on, the collected songs and verses of England showed poetry from the masters.

Also there were produced at this period many translations, both of the classics and of more modern works of various countries; though no important humorous work was translated until the next century, when Urquhart gave Rabelais to the English people.