Calandrino, however, is but the “merry servant” to the nephew of the Great Duke, and has only the attributes of the official jester, without actually exercising the office.
It will be remembered that against all fools, and especially against those introduced on the stage, Sir Philip Sidney made eloquent protest; and all that Puttenham could advance in support of the professional household jester, was that something amusing was to be found in listening to the pretended foolishness of a jester, who had the wit to be wise when he chose so to direct it.
The stage fool expired in 1662, in a prologue spoken by a “fool.” The play is a long-since forgotten piece called ‘Thorney Abbey,’ and the motley speaker of the prologue affects to reproach the author for writing a drama with a king and court in it, and omitting the time-honoured character of the jester.
Meanwhile, the buffoon was a prominent character, not only at court, but in corporations, where he measured out gaiety for the mayor and his guests; and in great households, when, for all his license, he sometimes got whipped for telling stories rather too coarse, in presence of ladies who could listen to a great amount of that sort of thing without blushing. We find him also in taverns, where he amused the topers by his rude jests and ruder minstrelsy, just as Dionysius, in his exile, is said to have done, when he enacted buffoon in a barber’s shop, for his daily bread; and finally, the buffoon was that, and bully too, in other establishments open to the public, but less favourably considered by the law.
We leave these, to follow more exclusively the court and household fool. The office of the jester was one which, says Fuller, in his ‘Holy State,’ “none but he that hath wit can perform; and none but he that wants it, will perform.” There is little doubt of this, for wit had its miseries, as Lodge graphically pointed out, in 1599, in a book which, under the title of ‘Wit’s Misery,’ has especial reference to this subject. The author, after pointing out the immoderate and inordinate jollity which was the stock-in-trade of the fool,—his comeliness of person, and his courtliness of dress,—adds that, after all, he was more of an ape than a man, and that his chief duties were to study the coining of bitter jests, to practise quaint and antique motions, to sing immodest songs, to laugh intemperately on very small occasion for it, and, when the wine was in his head, to mouth and gibe at all around him. The fool, says Lodge, “dances about the house, leaps over tables, outskips men’s heads, trips up his companions’ heels, burns sack with a candle, and hath all the feats of a lord of misrule in the country; feed him in his humour, you shall have his heart; in mere kindness, he will hug you in his arms, kiss you on the cheek, and, rapping out a horrible oath, cry, ‘God’s soul, Tom, I love you; you know my poor heart; come to my chamber for a pipe of tobacco; there lives not a man in this world that I more honour.’ In the ceremonies, you shall know his courting; and it is a special mark of him at the table, he sits and makes faces. Keep not this fellow company; for in juggling with him, your wardrobe shall be wasted, your credit cracked, your crowns consumed, and your time (the most precious riches in the world) utterly lost.” This was written in 1599; but only thirty-five years later, 1634, we find that some jesters at least had not a very miserable time of it; for Stafford tells us, in his Code of Honour, that “he had known a great and competently wise man, who would much respect any man that was good to his fool.”
In many cases, the latter was as much a household servant as mere jester, and was equally at home at the master’s board, or in the kitchen, where he received such whippings as he chanced to earn. That he was occasionally as much relished by the retainers as by his patron, there can be no doubt, and his position among these is so well described by Thornbury, in his rattling ‘Songs of the Cavaliers and Roundheads,’ that, in place of illustrating that position by citing old ballads and ballad-makers, I will place before my readers the lively picture portrayed by a skilful and living artist,—in ‘The Jester’s Sermon.’—
“The jester shook his hood and bells and leaped upon a chair;
The pages laughed, the women screamed, and tossed their scented hair;
The falcon whistled, stag-hounds bayed, the lap-dog barked without;
The scullion dropped the pitcher brown,—the cook railed at the lout;
The steward, counting out his gold, let pouch and money fall:
And why? Because the jester rose to say grace in the hall!
“The page played with the heron’s plume, the steward with his chain;
The butler drummed upon the board, and laughed with might and main;
The grooms beat on their metal cans, and roared till they turned red;
But still the jester shut his eyes and rolled his witty head;
And when they grew a little still, read half a yard of text;
And waving hand struck on the desk, then frowned, like one perplexed.
“‘Dear sinners all!’ the fool began, ‘man’s life is but a jest,
A dream, a shadow, bubbles, air, a vapour, at the best.
In a thousand pounds of law I find not a single ounce of love.
A blind man killed the parson’s cow, in shooting at the dove.
The fool that eats till he is sick must fast till he is well.
The wooer who can flatter most will bear away the bell.
“‘Let no man halloo he is safe till he is through the wood.
He who will not when he may, must tarry when he should.
He who laughs at crooked men should need walk very straight.
Oh, he who once has won a name may lie abed till eight.
Make haste to purchase house and land, be very slow to wed.
True coral needs no painter’s brush, nor need be daubed with red.