"John Peyton. Edw. Coke."
31.
The Letting Humor's Blood in the Head-vaine; with a new Morissco daunced by Seven Satyres upon the bottome of Diogenes' Tubbe. (1600.)
The Knave of Clubbs. 'Tis merry when Knaves meete. (1600.)
The author of these tracts was Samuel Rowlands, a prolific writer of the end of the sixteenth and early part of the succeeding century. He appears to have commenced his literary career in the year 1598 by the publication of a collection of sacred poems entitled "The Betraying of Christ, Judas in Despaire, the Seven Words of our Saviour on the Crosse, &c.," but soon found that humorous pieces were more saleable, and these being perhaps more suited to the bent of his mind, he changed his style accordingly.
The Knave of Clubbs upon its appearance in the year 1600 gave such offence, on account of the severity of its satire and the obviousness of its allusions, that an order was made that it should be burnt, first publicly, and afterwards in the Hall Kitchen of the Stationers' Company. The order is dated October 26, 1600, and is worded as follows: "Yt is ordered that the next court-day two bookes lately printed, th'one called The Letting of Humor's Blood in the Head Vayne, th'other A Mery Metinge, or 'tis mery when Knaves mete, shal be publiquely burnt, for that they conteyne matters unfytt to be published; then to be burnd in the Hall Kytchen, with other Popish bookes and thinges that were lately taken."
The first tract mentioned in the order as containing matters unfit to be published was one of the most popular of Rowlands' productions. It was originally printed under the title given above, but upon its condemnation by the Stationers' Company, the bookseller changed its title to "Humour's Ordinarie, where a man may be verie merrie and exceeding well used for his sixe-pence," and published an edition of it without date; but after the feeling had subsided in 1611, it again appeared with its original title, although the printer thought it prudent not to put his name on the title page. The Knave of Clubbs was reprinted and edited for the Percy Society in 1843 by Dr. Rimbault, and I am indebted to that gentleman's introduction for the preceding account of this curious book.
The Letting of Humor's Blood was reprinted in 1815 with an introduction and notes by Sir Walter Scott, who says of Rowland,