[57] Biogr. hist. of England, i. 116.
[58] The woman captain, 1680, Sc. i.
[59] Bigland's Collect. for Gloucest.
[60] Perroniana, inter Scaligerana, &c. i. 115.
[61] Vigneul de Marville, Mêlanges, ii. 50.
[62] Table talk, Art. Evil-speaking.
[63] This appears from many of our old plays. Lear threatens his fool with the whip, Act I. Scene 4; and see As you like it, Act I. Scene 2. In Dr. Turner's New booke of spirituall physik, 1555, 12mo, fo. 8, there is a very curious story of John of Low, the king of Scotland's fool, which throws light on the subject in question. Yet the chastising of the poor fools seems to have been a very unfair practice, when it is considered that they were a privileged class with respect to their wit and satire. Olivia, in Twelfth night, says, that "there is no slander in an allowed fool though he do nothing but rail;" and Jaques, in As you like it, alludes to the above privilege. See likewise other instances in Reed's Old plays, iii. 253, and xi. 417. Yet in cases where the free discourse of fools gave just offence to the ears of modest females they seem to have been treated without mercy, and to have forfeited their usual privilege. This we learn from Brantôme, who, at the end of his Dames galantes, relates a story of a fool belonging to Elizabeth of France, who got a whipping in the kitchen for a licentious speech to his mistress. A representation of the manner in which the flagellation of fools was performed may be seen in a German edition of Petrarch De remediis utriusque fortunæ, published more than once at Frankfort, in the sixteenth century, part ii. chap. 100.
[64] See his note in All's well that ends well, Act I. Scene 3.
[65] Plate II. fig. 1; also figs. 2 and 3, p. 516; and fig. 4, p. 517.
[66] Plate II. fig. 3.