“Now, Master Heywood,” said Mary on the occasion in question, “what wind blew you to court?” “There were two,” answered audacious John; “one, that I might see your Majesty, and the other, that your Majesty might see me.” When he was told that a certain Master of Arts had assumed the ordinary attire of the court fool, “There is no great harm in that,” remarked Heywood, “he is merely a wise man in a fool’s coat; the evil is, when the fool puts over his motley the wise man’s gown.”—“How do you like my beer?” asked a host of him, “is it not well hopped?” “So well,” said Heywood, “that had it hopped a little further, it would have hopped into water.” This reminds me of a far wittier saying by a brighter English wit than Heywood—the late Douglas Jerrold; and which is better worth recording. At an hotel at Hastings, Jerrold was dining with two friends, one of whom, after dinner, ordered among other pleasant things, “a bottle of old port.” “Waiter,” said Douglas, with that twinkle of the eye which was always a promise of wit, “Mind, now; a bottle of your old port, not your elder port.” Heywood never equalled that, though he gave utterance to as many witty thoughts as the wittiest man of his time. Among them was his remark, to a person complaining that the great number of lawyers would spoil the profession. “Not so,” exclaimed John; “for the more spaniels, the more game!”
His familiarity with Mary, was doubtless founded on his long service. When she was a mere little girl at Greenwich, Heywood officiated as manager of the troop of child actors who performed in her presence. On one occasion he appears to have received six and eightpence for his pains. Later, he wrote ballads for her, sometimes making herself the subject of them. When her coronation procession passed St. Paul’s, there was mirthful John, seated beneath a vine; and, as the Queen approached, he arose and delivered an oration. When Mary was ill, he went to her chamber and recited verses or read plays to her; and when she was dying, says Flögel, he stood by her death-bed, and solaced her with music; “Er war auch ein berühmter Musikus, und musste der Königin Maria von England, auf ihrem Todbette, mit seiner Musik aufwarten.” This could not have been, however, when her death was very near. Lingard simply says, that “on the morning of her death, Mass was celebrated in her chamber; she was perfectly sensible, and expired a few minutes before the conclusion.”
With the reputation of having been “King’s Jester,” Heywood is also known to us as a poet, a dramatist, and a writer of epigrams. In the first capacity, his most laboured piece is the least successful. I have tried in vain to read through his ninety-eight chapters, in octave stanzas, devoted to the subject of “The Spider and the Fly,” in the gaily-bound copy in the British Museum. I quite agree with Harrison’s description of it (quoted by Warton), that “neither he himself that made it, neither any one that readeth it, can read unto the meaning thereof.” It is far less amusing than the comic song, with the same title, by the old free-and-easy poet, Tom Hudson.
As a dramatist, Heywood was among the earliest of English writers of comedy. He was not among the best for delicacy, humour, or decency. All these are of the roughest and dirtiest, such as might have been expected from Will Sommers. I must however differ in some degree from Warton, unassailable as his judgments generally are, when he describes Heywood’s plays as “altogether void of plot, humour, and character.” Yet, I confess, detestable as I hold idleness to be, a man were better occupied in doing nothing than in reading these productions. They hardly repay the curiosity of the student of literature, and even he must rise from the perusal sorely in need of civet wherewith to sweeten his imagination.
It is as an epigrammatist that this honorary jester was most celebrated, and continues to be best known to the few who care to cultivate acquaintance with him. Of the epigrams I will select a few specimens. Bearing in mind that they are often the versification of his jests, and that the latter must frequently have had allusion to passing subjects, the following probably points at a then living prince. It is entitled:—
OF AN ILL GOVERNOR CALLED JUDE.
A ruler there was in a country afar,
And of the people a great executioner,
Who by name, I understand, was called Jude.
One gave him an ass, which gift when he had view’d,
He asked the giver, for what intent
He brought him that ass. “For a present
I bring, Master Jude,” quoth he, “this ass hither;
To join Master Jude and this ass together,
Which two joined in one, this is brought to pass,
I may bid you good even, Master Jude—ass.”
“Maccabee or Iscariot, thou knave?” quoth he;—
“Whom it pleaseth your mastership, him let it be!”
The following, too, is very much after the fashion of the French “fous à titre d’office” when they repelled the unwelcome familiarity of certain courtiers.
TWO, ARM-IN-ARM.
One said to another, on taking his arm,
“By license, friend, and take this for no harm.”
“No, Sir,” (quoth the other,) “I give you full leave
To hang on my arm, Sir, but not on my sleeve.”