whether it be newe or olde."[106:D]
To tell gleeful tales, "whilst round the bole doth trot," was an amusement much more common among our ancestors, during the age of Elizabeth, and the subsequent century, than it has been in any later period. The Winter's Tale of Shakspeare owes its title to this custom, of which an example is placed before us in the first scene of the second act.
Her. Come Sir—
—— Pray you, sit by us,
And tell 's a tale.
Mam. Merry, or sad, shal't be?
Her. As merry as you will.[107:A]
And Burton, the first edition of whose Anatomy of Melancholy was published in 1617, enumerates, among the ordinary recreations of Winter, "merry tales of errant knights, queens, lovers, lords, ladies, giants, dwarfs, thieves, cheaters, witches, fayries, goblins, friars, &c.—which some delight to hear, some to tell; all are well pleased with;" and he remarks shortly afterwards, "when three or four good companions meet, they tell old stories by the fire-side, or in the sun, as old folks usually do, remembering afresh and with pleasure antient matters, and such like accidents, which happened in their younger years."[107:B] Milton also, in his L'Allegro, first printed in 1645, gives a conspicuous station
—— "to the spicy nut-brown ale,
With stories told of many a feat:"