A gentleman, playing on the lute under his mistress’s window; she disdaining his presence and despising his service, caused her servants to pelt him thence with stones; of which disgrace complaining afterwards to a friend of his, his friend told him that he had much mistaken the gentle woman; for what greater grace could she do to your music than to make the very stones dance about you, as they did to Orpheus.
ONE FOWLE A GENTLEMAN.
One Fowle by name, petitioning to a great man in this kingdom, was a long while delayed. At length, somewhat importunate, he stirred the nobleman’s patience so far that in a great rage he bad him get him gone for a woodcock as he was, at which the petitioner, smiling, humbly thanked his Lordship for that present courtesy. The lord, turning back and supposing he had flouted, asked him what courtesy? “Why, truly, my lord,” said he, “I have known myself a Fowle these fifty years and upwards, but never knew what fowl till now your lordship told me.” His answer pleased, and his suite was despatched with all possible speed.
AN ABOMINABLE TRUTH.
A notable braggard boasted how it was his chance to meet with two of his arch-enemies at once. “The one,” said he, “I tossed so high in the air, that had he had at his back a baker’s basket full of bread, though he had eaten all the way, he would have been starved in his fall ere he had reached the ground; the other he struck so deep into the earth that he left no more of him to be seen above ground but his head and one of his arms, and those to no other end than to put off his hat to him, as he had occasion to pass that way.”
A PAINTED FACE.
A lady, that used to plaister her face extremely so by art, to repair the decays of nature, was on a time, with divers others, invited abroad to dinner. But one of them, an acquaintance of her’s, wished her by no means to go. “Why?” said my lady. “Marry,” replies the gentleman, “’tis ten to one we shall be wondrous merry, and you cannot well laugh, for fear of shewing two faces.”
A TUTOR AND HIS SCHOLAR.
A young lad of a college in Oxford, when he should have been in the public hall at disputations, a little before the time fell asleep, and by that means failed of coming down. His tutor, being then moderator, missed him, and after exercise was done went up to his study, where, finding him asleep, he waked him, chid him for sleeping at that time of day, and angrily asked him why he was not at disputations. The youth, after a little yawning and stretching, replied, “Truly, sir, I did not dream of it.”
PETER MARTYR.