But we want something more than wits and drolleries, and even public performances, to complete our idea of Comedy. We must have literary composition and artistic construction. From songs of warlike achievements such as were chanted by the old scalders to cheer their chiefs over the bowl, there arose by degrees fanciful tales with which the Saxons and their successors amused themselves after their dinner, and round the blazing hearth. In the tenth century the clergy found stories to amuse the post-prandial hour—extravagant, indelicate, or profane—such were the times, but marking improved activity of thought. Thus they enjoyed such a tale as that a "prophet" went to Heriger (Archbishop of Mayence about 920) and told him he had been to the nether world, a place, he said, surrounded by woods. The Archbishop replied that, if that was the case, he would send his lean swine there to eat acorns. The prophet added that afterwards he went to heaven, and saw Christ and his saints sitting at table and eating; John the Baptist was the butler, and served the wine, and St. Peter was the cook. The Archbishop asked the stranger how he fared himself, and on his saying that he sat in the corner and stole a piece of liver—Heriger instead of praising his sanctity ordered him to be tied to a stake, and flogged for theft. The "Supper," as old as the tenth century, is another humorous description. A grave assembly of scriptural characters, from Adam and Eve downwards, are invited, Cain sits on a plough, Abel on a milk-pail &c.; two, Paul and Esau, are obliged to stand for want of room, and Job complains of having nothing to sit on but a dunghill. Jonah is here the butler. Samson brings honey to the dessert, and Adam apples—

"Tunc Adam poma ministrat, Samson favi dulcia. David cytharum percussit, et Maria tympana, Judith choreas ducebat et Jubal psalteria Asael metra canebat, saltabat Herodias."[51]

Thus stories, by degrees, began to be not only composed, but written, and although not intended for acting, to be dignified with the old name of "Comedies." Such poems were written by Robert Baston, who accompanied Edward II. to Scotland.

The Tournament of Tottenham is a merry story of this kind, written in the reign of Henry VI. It is full of a rough kind of hostile humour, and shows the sort of things which amused at that time. Here we have a burlesque upon the deeds of chivalry. A mock tournament is held, the prize is to be the Reve of Tottenham's daughter, a brood hen, a dun cow, a grey mare, and a spotted sow. The combatants—clowns and rustics—provide themselves with flails, and poles, and sheep skins

"They armed tham in mattes; They set on ther nollys (heads) For to kape ther pollys, Gode blake bollys (bowls) For t' batryng of battes (cudgels)."

The fierceness of the combat is described:

"And fewe wordys spoken, There were flayles al to-slatered, Ther were scheldys al to-flatred, Bollys and dysches al to-schatred, And many hedys brokyn."

We find some specimen of the kind of tales called Comedies, which preceded acted Comedy, in the works of Chaucer, who died in 1400. Scarcely any part of Chaucer's writings would raise a laugh at the present day, though they might a blush.[52] But he was by no means a man who revelled in indelicacy. We may suppose that he was moderate for the time in which he lived, and when he makes an offensive allusion, he usually adds some excuse for it. The antiquated language in which his works are written prevents our now appreciating much of the humour they contained; generally, there is more refinement and grace in his writings. No doubt at the time he was thought witty, and his tendency in this direction is shown by his praise of mirth in the "Romaunt of the Rose."

"Full faire was mirth, full long and high, A fairer man I never sigh: As round as apple was his face, Full roddie and white in every place, Fetis he was and well besey, With meetly mouth and eyen gray, His nose by measure wrought full right, Crispe was his haire, and eke full bright, His shoulderes of large trede And smallish in the girdlestede: He seemed like a purtreiture, So noble was he of his stature, So faire, so jolly, and so fetise With limmes wrought at point devise, Deliver smart, and of great might; Ne saw thou never man so light Of berd unneth had he nothing, For it was in the firste spring, Full young he was and merry of thought, And in samette with birdes wrought And with golde beaten full fetously His bodie was clad full richely. Wrought was his robe in straunge gise And all slitttered for queintise In many a place, low and hie, And shode he was with great maistrie With shoone decoped and with lace, By drurie and by solace His leefe a rosen chapelet Had made, and on his head it set."

He speaks in equally high terms of "Dame Gladnesse."

We can appreciate Chaucer's address to his empty purse—

"To you my purse, and to none other wight Complaine I, for ye be my lady dere, I am sorry now that ye be light, For certes ye now make me heauy chere Me were as lefe laid vpon a bere, For which vnto your mercy thus I crie Be heauy againe or els mote I die.

"Now vouchsafe this day or it be night That I of you the blissful sowne may here, Or see your colour like the sunne bright That of yelowness had neuer pere; Ye be my life, ye be my hertes stere Queen of comfort, and good companie Be heauy againe, or els mote I die.

"Now purse that art to me my liues delight And sauiour, as downe in this world here, Out of this towne helpe me by your might Sith that you woll not be my treasure, For I am shave as nere as any frere, But I pray vnto your curtesie Be heauy againe, or els mote I die."

Chaucer was very fond of allegory. This is especially visible not only in the "Romaunt of the Rose," but in the "Court of Love," "Flower and Leaf," the "House of Fame," and the "Cuckoo and Nightingale." In the "Assembly of Fowls" we have a fable. Chaucer was attached to the service of John of Gaunt, which may have led to his attacking the clergy, but in his youth he was fined two shillings for beating a Franciscan friar in Fleet Street. He favoured Wickliffe, and was for this reason eventually obliged to flee the country; but he returned and obtained remunerative appointments. It is said that on his death-bed he lamented the encouragement which vice might receive from his writings, but their indelicacy was not really great for the age in which he lived.

Henry Heywood has been called the "Father of English Comedy," and he was certainly one of the first that wrote original dramas, representing the ordinary social life of this country. His pieces, which all appeared before 1550, were short and simple, and seem to us very deficient in delicacy and humour. But in his day he was considered a great wit, and as a court-jester drew many a lusty laugh from old King Hal, and could even soothe the rugged brow of the fanatical Mary. One of his best sayings was addressed to her. When the Queen told Heywood that the priests must forego their wives, he answered. "Then your Grace must allow them lemans, for the clergy cannot live without sauce." He was called the epigrammatist, but the greater part of his jests seem to have little point. Some of them have been attributed to Sir Thomas More.

One of the earliest English comedies written by Nicholas Udall, and found entered in the books of the Stationers' Company in the year, 1566, is Royster Doister.

"Which against the vayne glorious doth invey Whose humour the roysting sort continually doth feede."

The play turns on Ralph Royster Doister—a conceited fool—thinking every woman must fall in love with him. Much of the humour is acoustic, and depends on repetitions—

"Then twang with our sonnets, and twang with our dumps, And hey hough for our heart, as heavie as lead lumps. Then to our recorder with toodle doodle poope, As the howlet out of an yvie bushe should hoope Anon to our gitterne, thrumpledum, thrumpledrum thrum, Thrumpledum, thrumpledum, thrumpledum, thrumpledum, thrum."

Royster is duped into sending Custance a love-letter, telling her that he seeks only her fortune, and that he will annoy her in every way after marriage. On discovering the deception, he determines to take vengeance on the scribbler who wrote the love-letter for him:—

"Yes, for although he had as many lives As a thousande widowes and a thousande wives, As a thousande lyons and a thousande rattes, A thousande wolves and a thousande cattes, A thousande bulles, and a thousande calves And a thousande legions divided in halves, He shall never 'scape death on my sworde's point Though I shoulde be torne therefore joynt by joynt."

Where he prepares to punish Custance and her friends for refusing him, there is a play on the word "stomacke"—used for courage:

Ralph Royster. Yea, they shall know, and thou knowest I have a stomacke.

M.M. A stomacke (quod you) you, as good as ere man had.

R. Royster. I trowe they shall finde and feele that I am a lad.

M.M. By this crosse I have seene you eate your meat as well.

As any that ere I have seene of, or heard tell, A stomacke quod you? he that will that denie, I know was never at dynner in your companie.

R. Royster. Nay, the stomacke of a man it is that I meane.

M.M. Nay, the stomacke of a horse or a dogge I weene.

R. Royster. Nay, a man's stomacke with a weapon mean I.

M.M. Ten men can scarce match you with a spoon in a pie.

"Gammer Gurton's Needle" was acted in 1552. It bears marks of an early time in its words being coarsely indelicate, but not amatory. The humour is that of blows and insults and we may observe the great value then attached to needles. It is "a right pithy, pleasant and merry comedy"—a country story of an old dame who loses her needle when sewing a patch on the seat of her servant Hodge's breeches. The cat's misdoings interrupt her, and her needle is lost. The hunt for the needle is amusing, and Gammer Gurton and Dame Chat, whom she suspects of having stolen it, abuse and call each other witches. Hodge, the man with the patched breeches encourages Gammer Gurton, who seems little to require it.

"Smite, I say Gammer, Bite, I say Gammer, Where be your nails? Claw her by the jawes Pull me out both her eyen.

Hoise her, souse her, bounce her, trounce her, Pull out her thrott."

On some one giving Hodge a good slap, the needle runs into him, and is thus happily found.

At the opening of the second act of Gammer Gurton there is a drinking song, which deserves notice as it was the first written in English,—

"I cannot eat but little meat My stomack is not good: But sure I think that I can drink With him that wears a hood. Though I go bare, take ye no care I nothing am a colde; I stuff my skin so full within Of ioly good ale and olde. Backe and side go bare, go bare, Booth foot and hand go colde; But belly, God send thee good ale inoughe, Whether it be new or olde;

"I love no rost, but a nut browne toste And a crab laid in the fire; A little bread shall do me stead Moche bread I noght desire. No frost, no snow, no wind I trowe Can hurt me if I wolde. I am so wrapt and throwly lapt Of ioly good ale and olde. Backe and side, &c.

"And Tib my wife, that as her life Loveth well good ale to seeke, Full oft drinkes shee, till ye may see The teares run downe her cheeke. Then doth she trowle to me the bowle Even as a mault-worm sholde, And saith 'sweet heart I tooke my part Of this ioly good ale and olde.' Backe and side, &c.

"Now let them drinke, till they nod and winke, Even as good fellows should do; They shall not misse to have the blisse Good ale doth bring men to. And al goode sowles that have scoured bowles, Or have them lustely trolde, God save the lives of them and their wives Whether they be yong or olde. Backe and side, &c."



CHAPTER IV.

ROBERT GREENE.

Robert Greene—Friar Bacon's Demons—The "Looking Glasse"—Nash and Harvey.

One of the principal humorists at this time was Robert Greene, born at Norwich about 1560. He was educated at Cambridge, and was generally styled "Robert Greene, Maister of Artes." Early in life he became, as he tells us, "an author of playes and a penner of love pamphlets." From the titles of some of them, and from his motto, "Omne tulit punctum qui miscuit utile dulci," it is evident that they were intended to be humorous. Thus, his "Euphues" professes to contain "Mirth to purge Melancholy;" his "Quips for an Vpstart Courtier" is "A Quaint Dispute between Velvet-breeches and Cloth-breeches," and his "Notable Discovery of Coosnage" has "a delightfull discourse of the coosnage of Colliers;" his "Second and last part of conny-catching" has "new additions containing many merry tales of all lawes worth the reading, because they are worthy to be remembered. Discoursing strange cunning coosnage, which if you reade without laughing, Ile give you my cap for a Noble." But in all these works there is but little humour, and what we learn in reading them is, that a very small amount of it was then thought considerable, and that stories, which we should think slightly entertaining, appeared in that simple age to be very ingenious and even comic. In the "Comicall Historie of Alphonsus, King of Arragon," we do not find anything that could have possibly been humorous, unless the speaking of a brazen head, and the letting Venus down from Heaven and drawing her up again, could have been so regarded. Greene is characteristic of his time in his love of introducing magic and enchanters, and of characters from classic and scripture history. In the "Looking-Glasse for London and England," in which our metropolis is compared to Nineveh, we have angels and magicians brought in. "A hand out of a cloud threateneth a burning sword," and "Jonas is cast out of the whale's belly upon the stage."

Greene is fond of introducing devils. In "The Honourable Historie of Frier Bacon and Frier Bongay," Ralph says, "Why, Sirrah Ned we'll ride to Oxford to Friar Bacon. O! he is a brave scholar, sirrah; they say he is a brave necromancer, that he can make women of devils, and he can juggle cats into coster-mongers." Further on in the same play a devil and Miles, Bacon's servant, enter.

Miles. A scholar, quoth you; marry, Sir, I would I had been a bottle maker, when I was made a scholar, for I can get neither to be a deacon, reader, nor schoolmaster. No, not the clerk of the parish. Some call me dunce, another saith my head is full of Latin, as an egg's full of oatmeal: thus I am tormented that the devil and Friar Bacon haunt me. Good Lord, here's one of my master's devils! I'll go speak to him. What Master Plutus, how cheer you?

D. Dost know me?

M. Know you, Sir? Why are not you one of my master's devils, that were wont to come to my master, Doctor Bacon at Brazen-Nose?

D. Yes, marry am I.

M. Good Lord, Master Plutus, I have seen you a thousand times at my master's; and yet I had never the manners to make you drink. But, Sir, I am glad to see how comformable you are to the statutes. I warrant you he's as yeomanly a man as you shall see; mark you, masters, here's a plain honest man without welt or guard. But I pray you Sir, do you come lately from hell?

D. Ay, marry, how then?

M. Faith, 'tis a place I have desired long to see: have you not good tippling houses there? May not a man have a lusty fire there, a good pot of ale, a pair of cards, a swinging piece of chalk, and a brown toast that will clap a white waistcoat on a cup of good drink.

D. All this you may have there.

M. You are for me, friend, and I am for you. But I pray you, may I not have an office there?

D. Yes, a thousand; what wouldst thou be?

M. By my troth, Sir, in a place where I may profit myself. I know hell is a hot place, and men are marvellous dry, and much drink is spent there. I would be a tapster.

In one play Greene introduces a court-fool, and he mixes with the stupidity and knavery of his clowns, a sort of artificial philosophy and argumentative ingenuity, which savours much of the old jesters. In "James the Fourth" Slipper says:—

O mistress, mistress, may I turn a word upon you?

Countess. Friend, what wilt thou?

Slipper. O! what a happy gentlewoman be you truly; the world reports this of you, mistress, that a man can no sooner come to your house, but the butler comes with a black-jack, and says, "Welcome, friend, here's a cup of the best for you," verily, mistress, you are said to have the best ale in all Scotland.

Countess. Sirrah, go fetch him drink [an attendant brings drink.] How likest thou this?

Slip. Like it mistress! why this is quincy quarie, pepper de watchet, single goby, of all that ever I tasted. I'll prove in this ale, and toast the compass of the whole world. First, this is the earth; it ties in the middle a fair brown toast, a goodly country for hungry teeth to dwell upon; next this is the sea, a fair pool for a dry tongue to fish in; now come I, and seeing the world is naught, I divide it thus: and because the sea cannot stand without the earth, as Aristotle saith, I put them both into their first chaos, which is my belly, and so, mistress, you may see your ale is become a miracle.

Further on Slipper again shows his readiness in dialogue—

Sir Bartram. Ho, fellow! stay and let me speak with thee.

Slip. Fellow! friend thou dost abuse me: I am a gentleman.

Sir B. A gentleman! how so?

Slip. Why, I rub horses, Sir.

Sir B. And what of that?

Slip. O simple-witted! mark my reason. They that do good service in the commonweal are gentlemen, but such as rub horses do good service in the commonweal, ergo, tarbox, master courtier, a horse-keeper is a gentleman.

Sir B. Here is over much wit in good earnest. But, sirrah, where is thy master?

Slip. Neither above ground nor under ground; drawing out red into white, swallowing that down without chawing, which was never made without treading.

Sir B. Why, where is he then?

Slip. Why in his cellar, drinking a cup of neat and brisk claret in a bowl of silver. Oh, Sir, the wine runs trillill down his throat, which cost the poor vintner many a stamp before it was made. But I must hence, Sir, I have haste.

Sir Bertram intimates that he wants his assistance, and will pay him.

Slip. A good word, thou hast won me; this word is like a warm caudle to a cold stomach.

Sir B. Sirrah, wilt thou for money and reward Convey me certain letters, out of hand, From out thy master's pocket?

Slip. Will I, Sir? Why were it to rob my father, hang my mother, or any such like trifles, I am at your commandment, Sir. What will you give me, Sir?

Sir B. A hundred pounds.

Slip. I am your man; give me earnest. I am dead at a pocket, Sir; why I am a lifter, master, by occupation.

Sir B. A lifter! what is that?

Slip. Why, Sir, I can lift a pot as well as any man, and pick a purse as soon as any thief in the country.

These humorous characters remind us a little of the slaves and parasites in Roman comedy, of whom, no doubt, Greene had read. His amusing fellows are free livers, and fond of wine like himself. In the "Looking-Glasse" above mentioned, Nineveh represents London, and a fast being proclaimed, we find Adam, a smith's journeyman, trying to evade it.

(Enter Adam solus, with a bottle of beer in one slop (trouser) and a great piece of beef in the other.)

Adam. Well, goodman Jonas, I would you had never come from Jewry to this country; you have made me look like a lean rib of roast beef, or like the picture of Lent, painted upon a red-herring's cob. Alas! masters, we are commanded by the proclamation to fast and pray! By my troth, I could prettily so, so away with praying, but for fasting, why 'tis so contrary to my nature, that I had rather suffer a short hanging than a long fasting. Mark me, the words be these: thou shalt take no manner of food for so many days. I had as lief he should have said, thou shalt hang thyself for so many days. And yet, in faith, I need not find fault with the proclamation, for I have a buttery and a pantry and a kitchen about me; for proof, ecce signum! This right slop is my pantry, behold a manchet; this place is my kitchen, for lo! a piece of beef. O! let me repeat that sweet word again!—for lo! a piece of beef. This is my buttery, for see, see, my friends, to my great joy a bottle of beer. Thus, alas! I make shift to wear out this fasting; I drive away the time. But there go searchers about to seek if any man breaks the king's command. O, here they be; in with your victuals, Adam.

(Enter two Searchers.)

1st Searcher. How duly the men of Nineveh keep the proclamation! how they are armed to repentance! We have searched through the whole city, and have not as yet found one that breaks the fast.

2nd Sear. The sign of the more grace; but stay, there sits one, methinks at his prayers; let us see who it is.

1st Sear. 'Tis Adam, the smith's man. How, now, Adam?

Adam. Trouble me not; thou shalt take no manner of food, but fast and pray.

1st Sear. How devoutly he sits at his orisons! But stay, methinks I feel a smell of some meat or bread about him.

2nd Sear. So thinks me too. You, Sirrah, what victuals have you about you?

Adam. Victuals! O horrible blasphemy! Hinder me not of my prayer, nor drive me not into a choler. Victuals? why heardest thou not the sentence, thou shalt take no food, but fast and pray?

2nd Sear. Troth, so it should be; but, methinks, I smell meat about thee.

Adam. About me, my friends? these words are actions in the case. About me? no! no! hang those gluttons that cannot fast and pray.

1st Sear. Well, for all your words we must search you.

Adam. Search me? take heed what you do! my hose are my castles; 'tis burglary if you break ope a slop; no officer must lift up an iron hatch; take heed, my slops are iron.

2nd Sear. O, villain! See how he hath gotten victuals—bread, beef and beer, where the king commanded upon pain of death none should eat for so many days, not the sucking infant.

Adam. Alas! Sir, this is nothing but a modicum non nocet ut medicus daret; why, Sir, a bit to comfort my stomach.

1st Sear. Villain! thou shalt be hanged for it.

Adam. These are your words, I shall be hanged for it; but first answer me this question, how many days have we to fast still?

2nd Sear. Five days.

Adam. Five days! a long time; then I must be hanged.

1st Sear. Ay, marry must thou.

Adam. I am your man, I am for you, Sir, for I had rather be hanged than abide so long a fast. What! five days! Come, I'll untruss. Is your halter, and the gallows, the ladder, and all such furniture in readiness.

1st Sear. I warrant thee thou shalt want none of these.

Adam. But hear you, must I be hanged?

1st Sear. Ay, marry.

Adam. And for eating of meat. Then, friends, know ye by these presents, I will eat up all my meat, and drink up all my drink, for it shall never be said, I was hanged with an empty stomach.

It has been supposed that Greene was very indelicate in his language, as well as reckless in his life. But we cannot find in his plays anything very offensive, considering the date at which he wrote, and in the tract called "Greene's Funeralls," we read:—

His gadding Muse, although it ran of love, Yet did he sweetly morralize his song; Ne ever gaue the looser cause to laugh Ne men of judgement for to be offended.

Greene died in "most woefull and rascall estate" at the house of a poor shoemaker near Dowgate. He had previously written his "Groat's-worth of Wit bought with a Million of Repentance;" in which he warns his former companions and "gentlemen who spend their wits in making playes," to take warning by his fate. He could get none of his friends to visit him at the last but Mistress Appleby, and the mother of "his base sonne Infortunatus Greene." He gave the following note for his wife—whom he had not seen for six years—to the shoemaker:

"Doll, I charge thee by the love of our youth, and by my soule's rest, that thow wilte see this man paide; for if hee and his wife had not succoured me, I had died in the streetes.

"ROBERT GREENE."

Gabriel Harvey writes, "My next businesse was to inquire after the famous author who was reported to lye dangerously sicke in a shop neere Dowgate, not of plague, but of a surfett of pickle herringe and rennish wine."

Thomas Nash was one of Greene's jolly companions at this fatal banquet. After Greene's death Harvey replied to some reflections made upon him by Greene, and called him in accordance with the amenities of the times, "a wilde head, ful of mad braine and a thousand crotchets; a scholler, a discourser, a courtier, a ruffian, a gamester, a lover, a souldier, a trauailer, a merchant, a broker, an artificer, a botcher, a pettifogger, a player, a coosener, a rayler, a beggar, an omnium-gatherum, a gay-nothing, a stoare-house of bald and baggage stuffe, unworth the answering or reading, a triuall and triobular autor for knaves and fooles," &c., &c.

Nash, although he seems to have forsaken Greene in his last distress, became the defender of his character after his death, and answered this vituperation by still coarser abuse and invective, saying, "Had hee lived, Gabriel, and thou shouldest vnartifically and odiously libel against him as thou hast done, he would have made thee an example of ignominy to all ages that are to come, and driven thee to eate thy owne booke buttered, as I saw him make an Appariter once in a tavern eate his Citation, waxe and all, very handsomely served 'twixt two dishes.'"

From this he proceeds to caricature Gabriel's person. "That word complexion is dropt forth in good time, for to describe to you his complexion and composition entred I with this tale by the way. It is of an adust swarth chollericke dye, like restie bacon, or a dried scate-fish; so leane and so meagre, that you wold thinke (with the Turks) he observed 4 Lents in a yere, or take him for a gentleman's man in the courtier, who was so thin-cheeked, and gaunt, and starv'd, that as he was blowing the fire with his mouth the smoke took him up like a light strawe, and carried him to the top or funnell of the chimney, wher he had flowne out God knowes whither if there had not been crosse barres overthwart that stayde him; his skin riddled and crumpled like a piece of burnt parchment; and more channels and creases he hath in his face than there be fairie circles on Salsburie Plaine, and wrinckles and frets of old age, than characters on Christ's sepulcher in Mount Calvarie, on which euerie one that comes scrapes his name, and sets his marke to shewe that hee hath been there; so that whosoever shall behold him

"Esse putet Boreae triste furentis opus,"

will sweare on a book I have brought him lowe, and shrowdly broken him; which more to confirme, look on his head, and you shall find a gray haire for euery line I have writ against him; and you shall have all his beard white too, by that time he hath read over this booke. For his stature, he is such another pretie Jacke-a-Lent as boyes throw at in the streete, and lookes in his blacke sute of veluet, like one of these jet-droppes which divers weare at their eares instead of a iewell. A smudge peice of a handsome fellow it hath been in his dayes, but now he is olde and past his best, and fit for nothing but to be a nobleman's porter, or a knight of Windsor."

Nash was so full of invective and personal abuse that he scarcely deserved the name of a satirist, and so great was the animosity with which the quarrel between him and Gabriel Harvey was conducted, that the Archbishop of Canterbury and Bishop of London issued an order in 1599 that all such books "be taken wheresoever they be found, and that none of the said books be ever printed hereafter."

His humour was remarkable, as it largely consisted of coining long and almost unintelligible words. This he laid great store by, and he speaks wrathfully of one who translated his "Piers Penniless," into what he calls "maccaronical language." In his "Lenten Stuffe or Praise of the Red Herring," i.e., of Great Yarmouth, he calls those who despised Homer in his life-time "dull-pated pennifathers," and says that "those grey-beard huddle-duddles and crusty cum-twangs were strooke with stinging remorse of their miserable euchonisme and sundgery."

Peele was one of the gay play-writers to whom Greene addressed his warning. They seem at this time to have united the professions of dramatist and actor, and to have been infected with that dissipation which has since been attributed with more or less justice to the stage. Peele is as fond as Greene of surprises and miraculous interventions. In the "Arraignment of Paris" a golden tree grows up, and in the "Old Wives Tale," the most humorous of his works, the head of Huanebango rises from a well. He is fond of dealing in phonetic words Latinisms and barbarisms; in one place he makes Corebus say:

"O falsum Latinum The fair maid is minum Cum apurtinantibus gibletis and all."

Peele was very popular in his day, and was often called upon to write pieces for the Lord Mayor and for royal receptions. He sometimes used Hexameter lines such as:

"Dub, dub-a-dub bounce, quoth the guns with a sulphurous huff shuff."

Gabriel Harvey first introduced this metre into English, and he tried to induce Spenser to adopt it. Nash calls it "that drunken staggering kind of verse which is all vp hill and downe hill, like the way betwixt Stamford and Beechfeild, and goes like a horse plunging through the mire in the deep of winter, now soust vp to the saddle and straight aloft on his tip-toes."



CHAPTER V.

Donne—Hall—Fuller.

Already we have seen that some of our earliest humorists were ecclesiastics, and it would be unfitting that we should here overlook three eminent men, Donne, Hall, and Fuller. Pleasantry was with them little more than a vehicle of instruction; the object was not to entertain, but to enforce and illustrate their moral sentiments. Hence their sober quaintness never raises a laugh, much less does it border upon the profane or indelicate.

Donne was born in 1573, in London, and was educated, as was not then uncommon, first at Oxford, and then at Cambridge. His ability in church controversy attracted the attention of James, and he was made chaplain to the King. He became preacher at Lincoln's Inn, and afterwards was made Dean of St. Paul's. He lived to be fifty-eight.

His sermons are full of antitheses and epigrammatic diction. There is an airy lightness in his letters and poems, but he scarcely ever actually reaches humour. The following poem, an epistle to Sir Edmund Herbert at Juliers, will give an idea of his style.

"Man is a lump, where all beasts kneaded be, Wisdom makes him an ark where all agree; The fool in whom these beasts do live at jar, Is sport to others, and a theatre. Nor scapes he so, but is himself their prey, All which was man in him is eat away, And now his beasts on one another feed, Yet couple in anger, and new monsters breed. How happy's he, which hath due place assigned To his beasts, and disaforested his mind! Empaled himself to keep them out, not in, Can sow, and dares trust corn where they've been; Can use his horse, goat, wolf, and every beast, And is not ass himself to all the rest."

Bishop Hall was born in 1574, and commenced his extensive literary labours by writing when twenty-three years of age, at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, three books of satires called Virgidemiae. These books he calls "Toothless Satyres, poetical, academical, and moral," and he attacks bad writers, astrologers, drunkards, gallants, and others. Alluding to the superabundance of indifferent poetry in his days, he says:—

"Let them, that mean by bookish business To earn their bread, or holpen to profess Their hard-got skill, let them alone for me Busy their brains with deeper bookery. Great gains shall bide you sure, when ye have spent A thousand lamps, and thousand reams have rent Of needless papers; and a thousand nights Have burned out with costly candle-lights."

In the following year, he produced three books of "Byting Satyres." In these he laughs at the effeminacy of the times—the strange dresses and high heels.

"When comely striplings wish it were their chance For Caenis' distaff to exchange their lance, And wear curled periwigs, and chalk their face And still are poring on their pocket-glass; Tired with pinned ruffs and fans and partlet strips And busks and verdingales about their hips; And tread on corked stilts, a prisoner's pace, And make their napkin for a spitting place, And gripe their waist within a narrow span, Fond Caenis that wouldst wish to be a man!"

The most severe is against the Pope:—

"To see an old shorn lozel perched high Crossing beneath a golden canopy; The whiles a thousand hairless crowns crouch low To kiss the precious case of his proud toe; And for the lordly fasces borne of old To see two quiet crossed keys of gold; But that he most would gaze and wonder at To the horned mitre and the bloody hat, The crooked staff, the cowl's strange form and store Save that he saw the same in hell before; To see the broken nuns, with new shorn heads In a blind cloister toss their idle heads."

Although Bishop Hall wrote learnedly and voluminously on theological subjects, this light medley is now more esteemed than his graver works. He claimed upon the strength of it to be the earliest English satirist, and perhaps none of our writings of this kind had as yet been of equal importance. The work was one of those condemned to the flames by Whitgift and Bancroft.

Fuller was born in Northamptonshire, in 1608. He became a distinguished man at Cambridge, where he obtained a fellowship at Sidney Sussex College. He was also an eminent preacher in London, and a prebendary of Salisbury. In the Civil War, being a stanch Royalist, he was driven from place to place, and held at one time the interesting post of "Infant Lady's Chaplain" to the Princess Henrietta. In his "Worthies of England," Fuller not only enumerates the eminent men for which each country is distinguished, but gives an account of its products and proverbs. "A Proverb is much matter decocted into few words. Six essentials are wanting to it—that it be short, plain, common, figurative, ancient, true." The most ordinary subject is enlivened by his learned and humorous mind. Thus, in Bedfordshire, under the head of "Larks," he tells us, "The most and best of these are caught and well-dressed about Dunstable in this shire. A harmless bird while living, not trespassing on grain, and wholesome when dead, then filling the stomach with meat, as formerly the ear with music. In winter they fly in flocks, probably the reason why Alauda signifieth in Latin both a lark and a legion of soldiers; except any will say a legion is so called because helmeted on their heads and crested like a lark, therefore also called in Latin Galerita. If men would imitate the early rising of this bird, it would conduce much unto their healthfulness."

Fuller abounds with figures and illustrations in which learning and humour are excellently intermingled. "They that marry where they do not love, will love where they do not marry." "He knows little, who will tell his wife all he knows." Speaking of children, he says that a man complained that never father had so undutiful a child as he. "Yes," said the son, "my grandfather had." Alluding to servants, and saying that the Emperor Charles the Fifth being caught in a tempest had many horses thrown overboard to save the lives of the slaves—which were not of so great market-value—he asks, "Are there not many that in such a case had rather save Jack the horse than Jockey the keeper?" Of widows' evil speaking he observes, "Foolish is their project who, by raking up bad savours against their former husbands, think thereby to perfume their bed for a second marriage." Of celibacy he says, "If Christians be forced to run races for their lives, the unmarried have the advantage of being lighter by many ounces!"

Speaking of the "Controversial Divine," he says, "What? make the Muses, yea the Graces scolds? Such purulent spittle argues exulcerated lungs. Why should there be so much railing about the body of Christ, when there was none about the body of Moses in the act kept betwixt the devil and Michael, the Archangel?" On schoolmasters he wrote, "That schoolmaster deserves to be beaten himself, who beats Nature in a boy for a fault. And I question whether all the whipping in the world can make their parts, that are naturally sluggish, rise one minute before the hour Nature hath appointed."

The following are some good sayings that have been selected from his works by an eminent humorist:—

Virtue in a short person. "His soul had but a short diocese to visit, and therefore might the better attend the effectual informing thereof."

Intellect in a very tall one. "Oft times such, who are built four storeys high, are observed to have little in their cock-loft."

Mr. Perkins, the Divine. "He would pronounce the word Damn with such an emphasis, as left a doleful echo in his auditor's ears a good while after."

Memory. "Philosophers place it in the rear of the head; and it seems the mine of memory lies there, because men there naturally dig for it, scratching it when they are at a loss."

To this we may add something from his "Holy State,"—a pleasant and profitable work, in which Fuller is happy in making his humour subserve the best ends:—Of "The Good Wife," he says, "She never crosseth her husband in the spring-tide of his anger, but stays till it be ebbing-water. And then mildly she argues the matter, not so much to condemn him as to acquit herself. Surely men, contrary to iron, are worst to be wrought upon when they are hot, and are far more tractable in cold blood. It is an observation of seamen, 'That if a single meteor or fire-ball falls on their mast, it portends ill-luck; but if two come together (which they count Castor and Pollux) they presage good success.' But sure in a family it bodeth most bad when two fire balls (husband's and wife's anger) both come together." In speaking of good parents, he says, "A father that whipt his son for swearing, and swore at him while he whipt him, did more harm by his example than good by his correction."



CHAPTER VI.

Shakespeare—Ben Jonson—Beaumont and Fletcher—The Wise Men of Gotham.

Greene, in his admonition to his brother sinners of the stage, tells them that "there is an vpstart crow beautified with our feathers an absolute Johannes factotum, in his own conceyt the onely Shake-scene in a countrey," and in truth these olden writers are principally interesting as having laid the foundations upon which Shakespeare built some of his earliest plays. The genius of our great dramatist was essentially poetic, and some of his plays, which we now call comedies, were originally entitled "histories." How seldom do we hear any of his humorous passages quoted, or find them reckoned among our household words! From some of his observations we might think he was altogether averse from jocosity. Henry V. says

"How ill gray hairs become a fool—a jester!"

In "Much ado about Nothing," Beatrice speaks as follows—

"Why, he is the Prince's jester; a very dull fool, only his gift is in devising unprofitable slanders; none but libertines delight in him, and the commendation is not in his wit, but in his villany, for he both pleases men and angers them, and then they laugh at him and beat him."

But notwithstanding all this condemnation Beatrice is herself the liveliest character in Shakespeare, and her lady's wit is some of the best he shows—

Beatrice. For hear me, Hero; wooing, wedding, and repenting is as a Scotch jig, a measure and a cinque-pace; the first suit is hot and hasty, like a Scotch jig, and full as fantastical; the wedding mannerly-modest, as a measure full of state and ancientry; and then comes repentance, and with his bad legs, falls into the cinque-pace faster and faster, till he sinks into his grave.

Leonato. Cousin, you apprehend shrewdly.

Beat. I have a good eye, uncle; I can see a church, by daylight.

In the "Merchant of Venice" Lorenzo thus answers Launcelot—

"How every fool can play upon the word. I think the best grace of wit will shortly turn into silence, and discourse grow commendable in none but parrots."

Again Lorenzo—

"Oh, dear discretion, how his words are suited, The fool hath planted in his memory An army of good words: And I do know A many fools that stand in better place Garnished like him, that for a tricksie word Defie the matter."

Comedians from Aristophanes downwards have been wont to complain in one place of that which they adopt in another—their object not being to adopt fixed principles so much as to show the varying shades of human thought. Shakespeare required something light to bring his deep reflections into bolder relief, and therefore frequently had recourse to humour. We are not surprised that he had no very high estimate of it, when we find him so much dependant upon "the alms-basket of words." There is so much of this in his plays, that it is almost superfluous to quote, but a few instances may be taken at random. Falstaff to Poins—

"You are straight enough in the shoulders; you care not who sees your back—call you that backing your friends? A plague upon such backing; give me a man who will face me."

Falstaff to Prince Henry. Act I. Scene II.

I prythee, sweet wag, when thou art king, as God save thy grace—majesty, I should say, for grace thou wilt have none—

P. Hen. What! none?

Fal. No, by my troth; not so much as will serve to be prologue to an egg and butter.

In Love's Labour Lost. Act I. Scene II.

Armado. Comfort me, boy. What great men have been in love?

Inoth. Hercules, master.

Arm. Most sweet Hercules! More authority, dear boy, name more; and, sweet my child, let them be men of good repute and carriage.

Inoth. Samson, master; he was a man of good carriage, for he raised the town gates on his back like a porter, and he was in love.

In the musicians scene, in Romeo and Juliet, Act IV. Scene V. we find—

Musician. Pray you put up your dagger, and put out your wit.

Peter. Then have at you with my wit. I will dry beat you with my iron wit, and put up my iron dagger. Answer me like:

When griping grief the heart doth wound, And doleful dumps the mind oppress, Then music with her silver sound—

Why silver sound? Why music with her silver sound? What say you, Simon Catling?

First Mins. Marry, Sir, because silver hath a sweet sound.

Peter. Pretty. What say you, Hugh Rebeck?

Sec. Mins. I say "silver sound," because musicians sound for silver.

Peter. Pretty, too! What say you, James Soundpost?

Third Mins. Faith! I know not what to say.

Peter. O! I cry for mercy; you are the singer; I will say for you. It is music with her silver sound, because musicians have no gold for sounding.

We may here observe that the puns of Shakespeare are never of the "atrocious" class; there is always something to back them up, and give them a shadow of probability. The tournaments of humour which he is fond of introducing, although good in effect upon the stage, are not favourable for any keen wit. Such conflicts must be kept up by artifice, cannot flow from natural suggestion, and degenerate into a mere splintering of words. One cause of the absence of "salt" in his writings is that he was not of a censorious or cynical spirit; another was that his turn of mind was rather sentimental than gay. Shakespeare evidently knew there might be humour among men of attainments, for he writes,—

"None are so surely caught, when they are catched, As wit turned fool; folly is wisdom hatched, Hath wisdom's warrant and the help of school And wits' own grace to grace a learned fool."

But with him, those who indulge in it are clowns, simpletons, and profligates. Few of his grand characters are witty. Perhaps he was conscious of the great difficulty there would be in finding suitable sayings for them. Indelicacy and hostility would have to be alike avoided, and thus when the sage Gonzalo is to be amusing, he sketches a Utopian state of things, which he would introduce were he King of the island on which they are cast. He would surpass the golden age. Sebastian and Antonio laugh at him, and cry "God save the King," Alonzo replies "Prythee, no more, thou dost talk nothing (i.e. nonsense) to me." Gonzalo replies that he did so purposely "to minister occasion to those gentlemen, who are of such sensible and nimble lungs that they always use to laugh at nothing." They retort that they were not laughing at his humour, but at himself. "Who," he replies, "in this merry fooling am nothing to you" meaning, apparently, that he is acting the fool intentionally and out of his real character.

Hamlet, when his mind is distraught, "like sweet bells jangled," is allowed to indulge in a little punning, and Biron is humorous, for which he is reproached by Rosalind, who tells him that he is one

"Whose influence is begot of that loose grace Which shallow laughing hearers give to fools;"

that only silly thoughtless people admire wit, and that

"A jest's prosperity lies in the ear Of him that hears it—never in the tongue Of him that makes it."

Here the variable character of humour is recognised, but it is not to be supposed that Rosalind's arguments were intended to be strictly correct. Very much must depend upon the form in which a jest is produced, and without the tongue of the utterer, it cannot exist though the sympathy of the listener is required for its appreciation.

In Shakespeare's plays, and in most comedies we find humour in the representation of ludicrous characters. Words, which would be dull enough in ordinary cases, become highly amusing when coming from men of peculiar views. Sometimes people are represented as perpetually riding their hobby, or harping on one favourite subject. We have an instance of this in Holophernes and his pedantry; and the conversation between the two gravediggers in Hamlet, is largely indebted for its relish to the contrast between the language of the men and their occupation. In the same way, the ignorance and misrepresentations of rustics in play acting, which Shakespeare had probably often observed in the provinces—gives zest to the exaggerated caricature in "Midsummer Night's Dream."—

Bottom. There are things in this comedy of Pyramus and Thisbe that will never please. First, Pyramus must draw a sword to kill himself, which ladies cannot abide. How answer you that?

Snout. By'r lakin a parlous fear.

Starveling. I believe we must leave the killing out, when all is done.

Bottom. Not a whit. I have a device to make all well. Write me a prologue, and let the prologue seem to say, we will not do harm with our swords, and that Pyramus is not killed indeed; and for the more better assurance, tell them that I, Pyramus, am not Pyramus, but Bottom the weaver; this will put them out of fear.

* * * * *

Snout. Will not the ladies be afeard of the lion?

Sta. I fear it, I promise you.

Bottom. Masters, you ought to consider with yourselves to bring in—God shield us! a lion among ladies is a most dreadful thing; for there is not a more fearful wildfowl than your lion living, and we ought to look to it.

Snout. Therefore another prologue must tell, he is not a lion.

Bottom. Nay, you must name his name, and half his face must be seen through the lion's neck; and he must himself speak through, saying thus, or to the same effect—"Ladies," or "Fair ladies, I would wish you," or "I would request you," or "I would entreat you not to fear, nor to tremble: my life for yours. If you think I come hither as a lion, it were pity of my life: no, I am no such thing. I am a man as other men are," and there then let him name his name and tell them plainly he is Snug the joiner.

When the play comes on for performance and Snug the joiner roars "like any sucking dove," the Duke Theseus remarks—

A very gentle beast, and of a good conscience.

Demetrius. The very best as a beast, my lord, that e'er I saw.

Lysander. This lion is a very fox for his valour.

Theseus. True, and a goose for his discretion.

Demetrius. Not so, my lord, for his valour cannot carry his discretion, and the fox carries the goose.

Theseus. His discretion, I am sure, cannot carry his valour, for the goose carries not the fox.

The enigmas and logical quibbles, which he occasionally intermingles with his verbal conceits, remind us of the old philosophic paradoxes. Sometimes a riddle is attempted; thus, he asks—"What was a month old at Cain's birth, that's not five weeks old now?" Answer—"The Moon."

Taken generally, there is such a remarkable uniformity in Shakespeare's humour as must acquit him of all charge of plagiarism in this respect, and may go some way towards proving the general originality of his plays. Certainly, verbal conceits were then in high favour, and the character of Shakespeare's humour is only one of many proofs that pleasantry had not at this time reached its highest excellence.

To Shakespeare's kindness and discretion Ben Jonson owed his first introduction to dramatic fame. The young poet had presented "Every Man in his Humour," to one of the leading players of the company to which Shakespeare belonged, and the comedian upon reading it, determined to refuse it. Jonson's fate was trembling in the balance; he was a struggling man, and, had he been unsuccessful, might have eventually, returned to his bricklayer's work, but he was destined to be raised up for his own benefit and that of others. Shakespeare was present when his play was about to be rejected, asked to be allowed to look over it, and, at once recognising the poet's talent, recommended it to his companions. From that moment Jonson's career was secured. But he was never destined to acquire the lasting fame of Shakespeare. With him the stream of Comedy was losing its deep and strong reflections, and beginning to flow in a swifter and shallower current, meandering through labyrinths of court and city life. Perhaps, also, his large amount of humorous illustration, which must have been mostly ephemeral, tended to cut short his fame. The best of it is interwoven with his several designs and plots, as where, in "The Alchemist," a gentleman leaves his house in town, and his housekeeper fills it with fortune-tellers vagabonds, who carry on their trade there; and in "The Fox" a rich and childless man is courted by his friends, from whom he obtains presents under the pretence that he will leave them his property. In this last play a parasite is introduced, and in general these plays abound with classical allusions, sometimes very incongruously intermixed with modern concerns. An indiscriminating admiration of ancient literature and art was as much one of the features of the day, as was its crude humour—a cleverness joined to folly and attributed to boobies and simpletons. Much of this jocosity scarcely deserves the name of humour, and we may remark that in Jonson's time it did not receive it. With him humour is thus defined—

"To be a quality of air or water, And in itself holds these two properties, Moisture and fluxure.... Now thus far It may by metaphor apply itself Unto the general disposition: As when some one peculiar quality Doth so possess a man, that it doth draw All his affects, his spirits, and his power."

The social peculiarities of the day are frequently alluded to by Jonson. In "Every Man out of his own Humour," we have complete directions for the conduct of a gentleman of the time. Smoking, then lately introduced, is especially mentioned as one of the necessities of foppery. Cob, a water-bearer says, "Ods me, I marle what pleasure or felicity they have in taking this roguish tobacco. It's good for nothing but to choke a man, and fill him full of smoke and embers: there were four died out of one house last week with taking of it, and two more the bell went for yesternight; one of them they say will never 'scape it: he cast up a bushel of soot yesterday."

In Cynthia's Revels a courtier is thus described—

"He walks most commonly with a clove or toothpick in his mouth: he is the very mint of compliment, all his behaviours are pointed: his face is another volume of essays, and his beard is Aristarchus. He speaks all cream skimmed, and more affected than a dozen waiting women. The other gallant is his zany, and doth most of these tricks after him, sweats to imitate him in everything to a hair, except his beard, which is not yet extant."

But the stamp of the age is especially prominent in the constant recurrence of verbal conceits. Jonson was fond of coining words, and of using such as are long and little known. He evidently found this a successful kind of humour, and may have partly imitated Plautus—

Lady Politick Would-be, to Volpone, supposed sick—

Seed pearl were good now, boiled with syrup of apples, Tincture of gold, and coral, citron pills, Your elicampane root, myrobalanes—

Volpone (tired with her talk) Ah me! I have ta'en a grasshopper by the wing.

In "The Alchemist" Subtle says to Face,

Sirrah my varlet, stand you forth and speak to him Like a philosopher: answer in the language, Name the vexations and the martyrizations Of metals in the work.

Face. Sir, putrefaction, Solution, ablution, sublimation, Cohabation, calcination, ceration and Fixation.

From "Every Man out of his Humour."

Macilente. Pork! heart! what dost thou with such a greasy dish? I think thou dost varnish thy face with the fat on't, it looks so like a glue-pot.

Carlo. True, my raw-boned rogue, and if thou wouldst farce thy lean ribs with it too, they would not like rugged laths, rub out so many doublets as they do; but thou knowest not a good dish thou. No marvel though, that saucy stubborn generation, the Jews, were forbidden it, for what would they have done, well pampered with fat pork, that durst murmur at their Maker out of garlick and onions? 'Slight! fed with it—the strummel-patched, goggle-eyed, grumbledones would have gigantomachized.—

The following extracts will give a slight idea of Ben Jonson's varied talent. At the conclusion of a play directed against plagiarists and libellers, he sums up—

"Blush, folly, blush! here's none that fears The wagging of an ass's ears, Although a wolfish case he wears. Detraction is but baseness varlet And apes are apes, though clothed in scarlet."

From "The Alchemist."

Tribulation. What makes the devil so devilish, I would ask you. Sathan our common enemy, but his being Perpetually about the fire, and boiling Brimstone and arsenic?...

Fastidious. How like you her wit.

Macilente. Her ingenuity is excellent, Sir.

Fast. You see the subject of her sweet fingers there (the viol) oh, she tickles it so that—she makes it laugh most divinely—I'll tell you a good jest just now, and yourself shall say it's a good one. I have wished myself to be that instrument, I think a thousand times, and not so few by heaven.

The two following are from "Bartholomew Fair."

Littlewit. I envy no man my delicates, Sir.

Winwife. Alas, you have the garden where they grow still. A wife here with a strawberry breath, cherry lips, apricot cheeks, and a soft velvet head like a melicotton.

Lit. Good i' faith! now dulness upon us, that I had not that before him, that I should not light on't as well as he! Velvet head!...

Knockem. Sir, I will take your counsel, and cut my hair, and leave vapours. I see that tobacco and bottle ale, and pig and whit, and very Ursula herself is all vanity.

Busy. Only pig was not comprehended in my admonition—the rest were: for long hair, it is an ensign of pride, a banner: and the world is full of those banners—very full of banners. And bottle ale is a drink of Satan's, a diet-drink of Satan's devised to puff us up, and make us swell in this latter age of vanity; as the smoke of tobacco to keep us in mist and error: but the fleshly woman, which you call Ursula, is above all to be avoided, having the marks upon her of the three enemies of man—the world, as being in the Fair, the Devil, as being in the fire;[53] and the flesh as being herself.

Ben Jonson has a strange, and I believe original conceit of introducing persons to explain their plays, and make remarks on the characters. Sometimes many interruptions of this kind occur in the course of a drama, affording variety and amusement to the audience, or the reader. In "Midsummer's Night's Dream" we have the insertion of a play within a play. The following taken from Jonson's epigrams have fine complexity, and show a certain tinge of humour.

THE HOUR GLASS.

"Consider this small dust here in the glass, By atoms moved: Could you believe that this the body was Of one that loved; And in his mistress' flame, playing like a fly, Was turned to cinders by her eye: Yes; and in death as like unblest, To have't exprest, Ev'n ashes of lovers find no rest."

MY PICTURE.—LEFT IN SCOTLAND.

I now think Love is rather deaf than blind, For else it could not be That she, Whom I adore so much, should so slight me, And cast my suit behind; I'm sure my language to her was as sweet, And every close did meet In sentence of as subtle feet, As hath the youngest, he, That sits in shadow of Apollo's tree. Oh! but my conscious fears That fly my thoughts between Tell me that she hath seen My hundreds of gray hairs, Told seven and forty years, Read so much waste, as she cannot embrace My mountain belly, and my rocky face, And all these through her eyes have stopt her ears.

Although fond of indulging in strong language, Jonson is scarcely ever guilty of any really coarse allusion—he expresses his aversion from anything of the kind, and this in the age in which he lived, argued great refinement of feeling.

In Fletcher we mark a progress in humour. Ben Jonson was so personal that he made enemies, and was suspected of attacking Inigo Jones and others, but Fletcher was general in his references, and merely ridiculed the manners of the age. The classic element disappears, and quibbling and playing with words—so fashionable in Shakespeare's time—is not found in this author, whose humour has more point, and generally more sarcasm, but of a refined character.

The name of Fletcher is invariably connected with Beaumont. The two young men lived together in the same house, and it is even said wore each other's clothes. But Beaumont only lived to be twenty-nine, and has left little in comparison with the voluminous works of Fletcher. They were both born in a good position, and, mingling in the fashionable society of their day, filled their pages with love intrigues, in colours not then offensive. Fletcher never married, and those who look for contrasts between fathers and children may learn that his father, who was Bishop of London, was suspended by Elizabeth for taking a second wife. Our author is said to have been himself a comedy, and his death, if we can believe the story, was consistent with his gay life, for we are told that, through waiting in London for a new suit of clothes, he died of cholera, which was raging there at the time.

Here is a specimen of his sketches—the character of a rich usurer—

Sanchio. Thou'art very brave.

Cacafogo. I've reason; I have money.

San. Is money reason?

Cac. Yes, and rhyme too, captain. If you've no money you're an ass.

San. I thank you.

Cac. You've manners! ever thank him that has money.

San. Wilt thou lend me any?

Cac. Not a farthing, captain; captains are casual things.

San. Why, so are all men: Thou shalt have my bond.

Cac. Nor bonds, nor fetters, captain: My money is my own; I make no doubt on't.

Juan. What dost thou do with it?

Cac. Put it to pious uses— Buy wine—

Juan. Are you for the wars, Sir?

Cac. I am not poor enough to be a soldier, Nor have I faith enough to ward a bullet; This is no living for a trench, I take it.

Juan. You have said wisely.

Cac. Had you but money

You'd swear it, colonel. I'd rather drill at home A hundred thousand crowns, and with more honour, Than exercise ten thousand fools with nothing; A wise man safely feeds, fools cut their fingers.

The prurient coarseness of Fletcher is due to the peculiar licentiousness of the period. In his plays, although kissing is sometimes provocative of jealousy, it is generally regarded, even by persons of rank, as of less importance than it is now by boys and girls, who play "Kiss in the ring." In "Rule a wife and have a wife" Margarita says to the Duke

"I may kiss a stranger, For you must be so now."

This lady is desirous of obtaining a very easy husband, who will let her do whatever she likes. A friend says she has found one for her in Leon, who is forthwith introduced. Margarita puts some questions to him to ascertain his docility, and then says—

"Let me try your kisses— How the fool shakes!—I will not eat you, Sir. Beshrew my heart, he kisses wondrous manly! You must not look to be my master, Sir, Nor talk i' th' house as though you wore the breeches, No, nor command in anything. . . You must not be saucy, No, nor at any time familiar with me; Scarce know me when I call not."

After trying and approving his kisses again, she tells him that he is not to start or be offended if he sees her kissing anyone else. He is to keep in the cellar, when not wanted. The proposed husband promises to be most obedient and accommodating in everything, but as soon as he is accepted and the ceremony performed, he appears in a totally different character. He informs his wife, in whose magnificent house he goes to live—

You've nothing to do here, Madam, But as a servant to sweep clean the lodgings, And at my farther will to do me service. Margarita (to her servants.) Get me my coach! Leon. Let me see who dare get it Till I command; I'll make him draw your coach And eat your couch, (which will be hard duty).

On Cacafogo making some slighting remark, this gentle individual exclaims—

"Peace! dirt and dunghill! I will not lose mine anger on a rascal; Provoke me more,—I will beat thy blown body Till thou rebound'st again like a tennis-ball."

In "Monsieur Thomas" we have the following jovial passage—

Francisco. What hast thou there? a julep?

Hylas. He must not touch it; 'Tis present death.

Thomas. You are an ass, a twirepipe, A Jeffery John Bo-peep! Thou minister? Thou mend a left-handed pack-saddle? Out! puppy! My Friend, Frank, but a very foolish fellow. Dost thou see that bottle? view it well.

Fran. I do, Tom.

Tho. There be as many lives in it as a cat carries; 'Tis everlasting liquor.

Fran. What?

Tho. Old sack, boy. Old reverend sack; which for ought that I can read yet Was the philosopher's stone the wise King Ptolomus Did all his wonders by.

Fran. I see no harm, Tom. Drink with a moderation.

Tho. Drink with sugar, Which I have ready here, and here a glass, boy.

* * * * *

Hang up your juleps, and your Portugal possets, Your barley broths and sorrel soups; they are mangy And breed the scratches only: Give me sack!

The devil now becomes a constant resource for humour. In "The Chances" Antonio has lost his jewels. His servant suggests that the thieves have "taken towards the ports."

Ant. Get me a conjurer, One that can raise a water-devil. I'll port 'em. Play at duck and drake with my money? Take heed, fiddler, I'll dance ye by this hand: your fiddlestick I'll grease of a new fashion, for presuming To meddle with my de-gambos! get me a conjurer, Inquire me out a man that lets out devils.

Beaumont and Fletcher were great conversationalists, their racy raillery is said to have been as good as their plays. They were members of the celebrated Mermaid Club in Fleet Street, a centre where the wits of the day sharpened their humour in friendly conflict. In his epistle to Ben Jonson, Beaumont writes—

"What things have we seen Done at the 'Mermaid!' heard words that have been So nimble and so full of subtle flame, As if that every one from whom they came Had meant to put his whole wit in a jest, And had resolved to live a fool the rest Of his dull life."

Here it was that Shakespeare and Jonson often contended, the former like "a light English man-of-war" the latter like "a high-built Spanish galleon."

To some portion of the seventeenth century, we must attribute those curious stories called "The Merry tales of the Wise Men of Gotham" although by some they have been attributed to Andrew Gotham, a physician of Henry VIII. They are said to have been suggested by a circumstance which occurred in the time of King John. He intended to pass through Gotham, a village in Northamptonshire, but the inhabitants placed some difficulties in his way. On his expressing his determination to carry out his project, and sending officers to make inquiries about the opposition offered, the inhabitants were seized with a panic and pretended to have lost their senses. This was the tradition upon which, in after-times, these tales were founded, and being unobjectionable they are well adapted for the nursery, but being mere exercises of ingenuity they afford but very slight pleasure to older minds. Although aimless, there is something clever in them. The Wise Men determine to hedge round a cuckoo to keep it in so that it should sing all the year. The bird seeing the hedge flies away. "A vengeance on her," say the Wise Men, "we made not the hedge high enough." There is the story of the young man, whose mother told him to throw sheep's eyes at his sweetheart, and who, literally, performed her bidding. One Good Friday the Men of Gotham consulted what to do with their red herrings, and other salt fish, and agreed to cart them into a pond that the number might increase next year. At the beginning of the next summer they drag the pond, and only find a great eel. "A mischief on him," they say, "he hath eaten up our fish." Some propose to chop him in pieces, but the rest think it would be best to drown him, so they throw him into another pond. Twelve men of Gotham go to fish, and some stand on dry land, and some in the water. And one says "We have ventured wonderfully in wading; I pray that none of us come home drowned." So they begin to count, and as each omits himself he can only count eleven, and so they go back to the water, and make great lamentation. A courtier, who meets them, convinces them of their mistake by laying his whip on each of them, who calls out in turn "Here's one," until twelve are counted. The minister of Gotham preaches that men should not drink in Lent. A man, who comes for absolution, and confesses to having been drunk in Lent, replies that fish should swim. "Yes," returns the priest, "but in water." "I cannot enjoin your prayer," he adds, "for you cannot say your Paternoster. It is folly to make you fast because you never get meat. Labour hard, and get a dinner on Sunday, and I will come and dine with you."



CHAPTER VII.

Jesters—Court of Queen Elizabeth—James I.—The "Counterblasts to Tobacco"—Puritans—Charles II.—Rochester—Buckingham—Dryden—Butler.

Professed fools seem to have been highly appreciated in the time of Shakespeare. They do not correspond to our modern idea of a fool, because there was intention in their actions, and yet we could not have considered them to be really sensible men. Nor had they great talent, their gifts being generally lower than those of our professed wits.

Addison observes that, "when a man of wit makes us laugh, it is by betraying some oddness or infirmity in his own character," and at the present day, not only do those who indulge much in humour often say things approaching nonsense, and make themselves in other ways ridiculous, but their object, being entirely idle diversion and pleasantry, appears foolish and puerile. Those who cultivate humour are not generally to be complimented on their success, and a popular writer has thus classified fools—"First, the ordinary fool; secondly the fool who is one, and does not know it; thirdly, the fool who is not satisfied with being one in reality, but undertakes in addition to play the fool." Thus, to a certain extent we may always regard a professed wit as a silly fellow, but still at the present day the acts or sayings of an absolute idiot or lunatic, would be depressing and offensive, and could afford little amusement in any way except accidentally.[54] They would resemble the incongruities in dreams which although strange are not generally laughable. And if we are not amused with a fool, neither are we with a man who imitates him, although Cicero says that humour consists in a man who is not a fool, speaking as though he were one. Some mistake supposed to be made by an ordinary man is what amuses us, and although humorous sayings originated in an imitation of ludicrous things, and Quintilian's observation sometimes holds good that the same things, which if they drop from us unintentionally are foolish, if we imitate them are humorous; still humour is not confined to this; there is generally no such imitation, and the witty sayings of the present day are seldom representations of such things as anyone would utter in earnest, whether he were a fool or not.

We must not confuse folly and wit, though they may exist in the same person and in close relationship. The latter requires intelligence and intention. If a humorous man ever purposely enacts the dullard, the impersonation is always modified—he is like Snug, the joiner, who does not "fright the ladies." There is always some peculiar point in his blunders; if he acted the fool to the life we should not laugh with him. We always see something clever and admirable in him, and to be successful in this way, a man should possess considerable mental gifts, and be able to gauge the feelings of others. Still we can hardly assent to the proposition that "it takes a wise man to make a fool." A man may be witty without having any constructive power of mind. It is easier to find fault than to be faultless, to see a blemish than to produce what is perfect—a pilot may point out rocks, but not be able to steer a safe course.

At the time of which we are now speaking, the double character of the court fool corresponded with that early and inferior humour which was always on the verge of the ludicrous. The connection thus established, long remained and led to witty observations being often spoken of as "foolerie." Upon this conceit or confusion Shakespeare founded the speech of Jaques in "As you like it."

Act II. Scene IV.

Jaques. A fool! a fool!—I met a fool i' the forest, A motley fool:—a miserable fool!— As I do live by food, I met a fool: Who laid him down, and basked him in the sun, And railed on Lady Fortune in good terms. In good set terms—and yet a motley fool. "Good morrow, fool," quoth I. "No, Sir," quoth he, "Call me not fool till heaven hath sent me fortune." And then he drew a dial from his poke, And looking on it with lack lustre eye, Says very wisely, "It is ten o'clock;" "Thus we may see," quoth he, "how the world wags; 'Tis but an hour ago since it was nine, And after one hour more t'will be eleven, And so from hour to hour we ripe and ripe, And then from hour to hour we rot and rot, And thereby hangs a tale."

There is nothing very laughable in the above reflections, but they contain a deep satire, and afford a beautiful example of Shakespearian complexity. From the mixture of wisdom and folly compounded in the "fool" of the day—who was then, it must be remembered, the monitor of the great—it is here implied that in his awkward way he sometimes arrived at truth better than the sage. As supremely wise men are often regarded as fools, so what seems folly may be the highest wisdom—"motley's your only wear."

The fool is generally represented in Shakespeare as saying things which have a certain wit and shrewdness.

Clown. God bless thee, lady.

Olivia. Take the fool away.

Clo. Do you not hear, fellows? Take away the lady.

* * * * *

Good Madonna, why mournest thou?

Oli. Good fool, for my brother's death.

Clo. I think his soul is in hell, Madonna.

Oli. I know his soul is in heaven, fool.

Clo. The more fool, Madonna, to mourn for your brother's soul being in heaven. Take away the fool, gentlemen.

In King Lear.

Fool. Dost thou know the difference, my boy, between a bitter fool and a sweet one?

Lear. No, lad, teach me.

Fool. That lord that counselled thee

To give away thy land, Come place him here by me— Do thou for him stand: The sweet and bitter fool Will presently appear, The one in motley here, The other found out there.

Lear. Dost thou call me fool, boy?

Fool. All thy other titles thou hast given away that thou wast born with.

Kent. This is not altogether a fool, my lord.

The fact was that wit was now gradually improving, and was being wielded by so called fools in such a way that it could not be confounded with fatuity. The time was approaching when the humour manufactured by professed jesters would not be appreciated. Something higher and keener, such as Shakespeare has here shadowed forth would be required. This was not reached in Ben Jonson's time, but fools and their artifices are by him discarded for something more natural, for country bumpkins and servants, ludicrous in their stupidity, knavery and drunkenness. As civilization advanced, jugglers and clowns were relegated to country fairs.

Henry the Eighth, at the commencement of his reign was a great patron of men of wit and learning, and probably the humour of More, as well as his virtue, recommended him to the King. We read that at Cardinal Morton's entertainments of his Christmas company, the future Chancellor, then a boy, would often mount the stage and extemporize with so much wit and talent as to surpass all the professional players. During his university course, and shortly afterwards, he wrote many neat Latin epigrams of which the two following rough translations will give some idea—

"A thief about to be accused, implored Advice, and sent his counsel many a pound, The counsel, when o'er mighty tomes he'd pored, Replied, 'If you'd escape, you must abscond.'

"Once in the loving cup, a guest saw flies, Removed them, drank, and then put back a few. And, being questioned, sagely thus replies, 'I like them not—but cannot speak for you.'"

He was to the last fond of pleasantry and kept a jester.

The daughter of Henry the Eighth and Anne Boleyn[55] could scarcely have been deficient in mirthfulness, and we find that the dangers through which she passed in her youth were not able to extinguish Elizabeth's love of humour. According to the custom of the day she exhibited this not only in her sayings, but, as comedians were then often received in great houses, she ordered in 1583 that twelve of them should be made grooms of the chamber, be sworn the Queen's servants, and be arrayed in her livery. The most remarkable of these was Tarlton. He came of humble origin. Fuller says that, while tending his father's swine, a servant of Robert, Earl of Leicester, passing by was so pleased with his happy unhappy answers that he took him to court. But Tarlton's humour was often that of the common fool, and depended generally upon action, look, and voice. His face was in this respect his fortune, for he had a flat nose and squinting eyes. Nash mentions that on one occasion he "peept out his head," probably with a grimace, at the audience, which caused a burst of laughter, and led one of the justices, who did not understand the fun, to beat the people on the bare pates, inasmuch as they, "being farmers and hinds, had dared to laugh at the Queen's men." He was celebrated for his jigs, i.e. extempore songs accompanied with tabor and pipe, and sometimes with dancing.

Fuller says he had great influence with Elizabeth, and could "undumpish" her at pleasure. Her favourites were wont to go to him to prepare their access to her, and "he told the Queen more of her faults than most of her chaplains, and cured her melancholy better than all her physicians."

Bohun says that, "at supper she would divert herself with her friends and attendants, and if they made no answer she would put them upon mirth and pleasant discourse with great civility. She would then also admit Tarlton, a famous comedian and pleasant talker, and other men to divert her with stories of the town, and the common jests or accidents, but so that they kept within the bounds of modesty." Tarlton, on one occasion, cast reflections upon Leicester; and said of Raleigh, "the knave commands the Queen," at which she was so much offended that she forbade any of her jesters to approach her table.

The jests of Scogan, or rather those attributed to him, were very popular in Elizabeth's time. This man was court-fool to Henry VII., and is said to have been "of pleasant wit and bent to merrie devices." He was fond of practical jokes, and often attacked the clergy. Elizabeth seems to have had a natural gift of humour, and we read of many of her witty sayings. On one occasion, upon an archbishop finding fault with some of her actions, and quoting Scripture to prove she had acted more as a politician than a Christian. "I see, my lord," she replied, "that you have read the scriptures, but not the book of Kings." She was so well acquainted with proverbs, that on being presented with a collection of English aphorisms, and told by the author that it contained them all, she answered, "Nay, where is 'Bate me an ace, quoth Bolton.'"

Among the sayings, good for the period, which have been attributed to her, we read that when the Archduke raised the siege of Grave, the Queen who heard of it before her secretary, said to him, "Wot you that the Archduke is risen from the Grave." When at Lord Burleigh's she promised to make seven knights, and the gentlemen to be so honoured were placed in a line as the Queen was going out. The least worthy of them, however, were through interest with Lord Burleigh placed first, so that they might have precedence of creation. But the Queen passed down the row and took no notice of them; but when she had reached the screen, turned, and observing, "I had almost forgotten my promise," proceeded to knight from the lower end. On one of her Privy Council saying "Your Majesty was too politic for my Lord Burleigh," she replied, "I have but followed the scripture—'the first shall be last and the last first.'"

The cares of sovereignty, and the opposition of her Roman Catholic subjects led Elizabeth's humour to assume a somewhat severe complexion. Her thoughts gradually became more earnest, and her jests cynical. Moreover, as seen in Shakespeare, the age in which she lived was reflective, and the budding activity of mind was directed towards great interests. There was not that impression of the vanity of all things, which grows up with the extension and maturity of society, and attracts the mind to more fanciful and less grave considerations. A good contrast between Elizabeth's position, and that of James I. may be seen in the following occurrences. When Henry IV. had given the order of St. Michael to Nicolas Clifford and Anthony Shirley, she commanded them to return it. "I will not," she said, "have my sheep follow the pipe of a strange shepherd;"[56] but when James I. was told that several noblemen of his court and council, received pensions from Spain, the King replied that he knew it well, and only wished the King of Spain would give them ten times as much, as it would render him less able to make war upon him.

James was a man of a very eccentric and grotesque fancy, combined with a considerable amount of intelligence and learning. He was particularly fond of religious controversy, and wrote what he considered to be an important work on "Demonologie." From one passage we might suppose that he thought it sinful to laugh, as he says that man can only laugh, because he can only sin. But he kept two clowns for his amusement, and also appreciated Ben Jonson, to whom he gave the direction of the Court Masques. He occasionally made some caustic remarks, which have come down to us, such as, "Who denys a thing he even now spake, is like him that looks in my face and picks my pocket." "A travelling preacher and a travelling woman never come to any good at all."

Sir Henry Wooton told him how the Prince of Conde sued for the title of Altesse from the Synod of Venice. The King replied, "The Prince had good reason to sue for it, and that the Seigniory had done ill to deny it him, considering that the world knew how well he deserved it; it being his custom to raise himself upon every man's back, and to make himself the higher by every man's tail he could get upon. And for that cause he hoped to see him elevated by the just Justice of God to as high a dignity as the gallows at last."

James the First's writings were mostly of a religious character, and some of them were sufficiently ludicrous. But in his "Counterblaste to Tobacco," his indignation is often mixed with humour. He observes that smoking came from the Indians, and continues—

"And now, good countreymen let vs (I pray you) consider what honour or policy can move vs to imitate the barbarous and beastly maneres of the wilde, Godlesse and slavish Indians, especially in so vile and stinking a custome? Shall wee that disdaine to imitate the manners of our neighbour France.... Shall wee, I say without blushing abase ourselves so farre as to imitate these beastly Indians, slaves to the Spaniards, refuse to the world, and as yet aliens from the Holy Covenant of God? Why doe wee not as well imitate them in walking naked as they doe? in preferring glasses, feathers, and such toyes to gold and precious stones, as they doe? Yea, why do wee not deny God, and adore the divel as they doe?"

He proceeds to combat the theory, "That the braines of all men beeing naturally cold and wet, all drie and hote things should be good for them." "It is," he says, "as if a man, because the liver is hote, and as it were an oven to the stomache, would therefore apply and weare close upon his liver and stomache a cake of lead; he might within a short time (I hope) bee susteined very cheape at an Ordinarie, besides the clearing of his conscience from that dreadful sinne of gluttonie."

Towards the end he gives some medical testimony—

"Surely smoke becomes a kitchin farre better than a dining chamber, and yet it makes a kitchin also oftentimes in the inward parts of men, soyling and infecting them with an vnctuous and oily kind of soote, as hath been found in some great tobacco takers, that after their death, were opened."

Addison, speaking of James' love of jesting, observes:—"The age in which the pun chiefly flourished was in the reign of King James the First. That learned monarch was himself a tolerable punster, and made very few bishops or privy-councillors that had not sometime or other signalized themselves by a clinch or a conundrum. It was therefore in this age that the pun appeared with pomp and dignity. It had been before admitted into merry speeches and ludicrous compositions, but was now delivered with great gravity from the pulpit, or pronounced in the most solemn manner at the council-table." Verbal humour continued to be admired for its ingenuity in the reign of Charles I. The childish taste of the time in this respect is prominently exhibited in the "Fames Roule," written by a Mrs. Mary Fage, in honour of the royal family and principal peers of the realm. It consists of short poems, and each one forms an acrostic, and commences with an anagram of the name.

The following will give specimens of this ridiculous composition:—

"To the high and mighty. Princesse Mary, Eldest Daughter of our Soveraigne Lord King Charles.

MARY STVARTE.

Anagramma.

A MERRY STATV.

"M irth may with Princes very well agree, A Merry Statv then faire Madam be; R ightly 'twill fit your age, your vertues grace; Y eelding A Merry Statv in your face.

"S mile then, high Lady, while of mirth write I, T hat so my Muse may with alacrity, U nto your Highness sing without all feare, A nd a true Statv of your vertues reare: R eaching whereto, that she may higher flee, T hus humbly beg I on my bended knee, E ver A Merry Statv be to me."

GEORGE MANNERS.

Anagramma.

NOR AS GREEN GEM.

"G reat honoured Peere, and Rutland's Noble Earle, E ven in vertue shining like a Pearle O ver all Europe, adding to your birth, R adiant bright beames of your true honoured worth: G em great and precious, see you are remaining E ver the rayes of vertue's beames retaining.

"M aking all Europe stand amazed quite, A nd wonder much at Rutland's glorious light, N or as a green gem let your lustre be, N o, greenness here betokens levity, E ver more as a precious gem remain you, R ed or some orient colour still retaine you; S o nor as green gem, will the world proclaime you."

The jester still remained in office in Charles the First's reign and Archee assumed the old prerogative of the motley in telling home truths to his master. On one occasion he was ordered by the King to say grace, as the chaplain was away, upon which the jester pronounced it, "All glory be to God on high, and little Laud to the devil." At which all the courtiers smiled, because it reflected upon the Archbishop of Canterbury, who was a little man. The King said he would tell Laud, and what would he do then? "Oh!" said Archee, "I will hide me where he will never find me." "Where is that?" asked the King. "In his pulpit," answered Archee, "for I am sure he never goes there."

The rebellion against Charles the First and the success of the Puritans led to a remarkable development of religious feeling. Men seemed for the moment to think more of the next world than of the present, seasoned their language with texts, and from Scripture adopted new names suitable to a new life. Their usual tone of conversation is thus humorously described by Harrison Ainsworth.

Captain Stelfax pays Colonel Maunsel a domiciliary visit, and an old Royalist retainer tells the redoubtable Roundhead that he looks more like a roystering Cavalier than a Puritan, to which the latter replies—

"Go to, knave, and liken me not to a profane follower of Jehoram. Take heed that thou answerest me truthfully. Thou art newly returned from the battle-field whereat the young man Charles Stuart was utterly routed, and where our general, like Pekah the son of Remaliah slew many thousands of men in one day, because they had forsaken the Lord God of their fathers. Didst thou bear arms in the service of Ahaz?"

One Increase Micklegift soon afterwards fell into the captain's bad graces—

"I begin to suspect it was by thy instrumentality that he hath escaped."

"How could that be seeing I was with thee in the closet." Micklegift rejoined.

"It might easily be, since it was by thy devise that I was led into the snare. Bitterly shalt thou rue it, if I find thee leagued with the Amalekites."

All this affords a good idea of the phraseology of these men, some of whom indulged in such names as "Nehemiah, Lift-up-Hand" and "Better-Late-than-Never," and it must be remembered, to their credit, that there never was a more orderly army than that of Cromwell. In accordance with the sentiments then entertained all theatrical exhibitions were prohibited. Such austerity and self-denial could not be of long continuance—it was kept up by an effort, and led to an inevitable reaction, and so we find that the court of the "Merry Monarch" became notorious in history for its dissipation. Humour proportionally changed from what it had been under Charles I., and we read that that the old Earl of Norwich, who had been esteemed the greatest wit, was now quite out of fashion.

Barbarous nations have little idea of delicacy of any kind; and civilisation finds it hard entirely to change nature, so that where-ever the ground is allowed to lie fallow, the old weeds appear in their noisesome rankness. Hence from time to time we find indelicacy springing up, and made to serve the purposes of those who know that the evil plant is not radically extirpated. One of the most offensive men in this respect was Peter Aretinus, an Italian adventurer, who became a great favourite with the Emperor Charles V. He is said to have died from falling back over his chair in a fit of laughter, on hearing some indelicate joke. But modes of death have often been invented to accord with the lives of those who suffered them, just as dithyrambic Anacreon is said to have been choked by a grape stone.

Louis XI. was also addicted to this jesting which is not convenient. We read that he told Edward IV. in a jocose way that he was right glad to see him at Paris, and that if he would come and divert himself with the gay ladies there, he would assign for his confessor, the Cardinal of Bourbon, who, he knew, would grant him easy absolution for peccadilloes of love and gallantry. Edward was much pleased with this raillery, for he knew the Cardinal was a gay man. Louis was afterwards in great alarm upon Edward's acceptance of his invitation.

The humour of Charles II. and his court consisted more of jollity than wit. The king was always ready to laugh outright, even in church at the sermon. He encouraged and led the way in an indelicate kind of jesting, which he seems to have learned during his travels in France. On his telling Lord Shaftesbury, "I believe Shaftesbury, that thou art the wickedest dog in England," the statesman humbly replied, "May it please your Majesty, of a subject, I believe I am." We should not expect too much from the son of Henrietta Maria. It is related that one morning when at Exeter, pressing her hand to her head she said to her physician, "Mayerne, I am afraid I shall go mad some day." "Nay," he replied, "your Majesty need not fear going mad; you have been so some time."

But Charles owed much to his gay and easy manner. Notwithstanding his faults "he was so pleasant a man that no one could be sorrowful under his government." He sometimes dined at the annual civic banquet, and one of the company present on the occasion when Sir Robert Viner was Lord Mayor, refers to it as follows. "Sir Robert was a very loyal man, and if you will allow the expression, very fond of his sovereign, but what with the joy he felt at heart for the honour done him by his prince and through the warmth he was in with continual toasting healths of the royal family, his lordship grew a little fond of His Majesty, and entered into a familiarity not altogether so graceful in so public a place. The king understood very well how to extricate himself in all kinds of difficulties, and with a hint to the company to avoid ceremony, stole off and made towards his coach which stood ready for him in Guildhall yard. But the Mayor liked his company so well, and was grown so intimate, that he pursued him hastily and catching him fast by the hand, cried out with a vehement oath and accent, 'Sir, you shall stay and take t'other bottle.' The airy monarch looked kindly at him over his shoulder, and with a smile and graceful air (for I saw him at the time and do now) repeated this line of the old song 'He that's drunk is as great as a King,' and immediately turned back and complied with his request."

Tom Killegrew was the last of his cloth; forced and constant jesting becoming less and less appreciated. As the jesters approached their end, they had more of the moralist and politician in them than of the mountebank. We may judge of Killegrew's wit, when we read that one day on his appearance Charles said to his gay companions, "Now we shall hear our faults." "No," replied the jester, "I don't care to trouble my head with that which all the town talks of."[57] Killegrew must have had fine scope for his sarcasm. In these times the character of the monarch gave the tone to society, and was reflected in the dramatists. Thus we find the earnestness of Elizabeth in Shakespeare, the whimsicality of James in Jonson, and the licentiousness of Charles II. in the poets of the Restoration. The deterioration of men and of humour in the last reign is marked by the fact that ridicule was mostly directed not against vice as in Roman satire, but against undeserved misfortunes. Even virtue and learning did not afford immunity; Bishop Warburton writes: "This weapon (in the dissolute times of Charles II.) completed the ruin of the best minister of that age. The historians tell us that Chancellor Hyde was brought into his Majesty's contempt by this court argument. They mimicked his walk and gesture with a fire-shovel and bellows for the mace and purse."

The indelicacy of which Charles and his companions was guilty, was not of a primitive and ignorant kind, but always of an amatory character, and at the expense of the fair sex; jests formerly so common as to obtain the name of "japes." The writers of that day are objectionable not merely for coarseness of this kind, but for the large amount of it, as one artiste in complimentary attire might be tolerated where a crowd of seminude performers could not. The poems of Sedley and Rochester are as abundant in indelicacy as they are deficient in humour. The epigram of Sedley to "Julius" gives a more correct idea of his character than of his usual dullness.

"Thou swearest thou'll drink no more; kind Heaven send Me such a cook or coachman, but no friend."

Rochester might have produced something good. His verses have more traces of poetry and humour than we should expect from a man who out of the thirty-four years of his life, was for five of them continually drunk. He nearly always attunes his harp to the old subject, so as to become hopelessly monotonous. Inconstancy has great charms for him, and he consequently imputes it also to the ladies—

"Womankind more joy discovers Making fools, than keeping lovers."

Again:

"Love like other little boys, Cries for hearts as they for toys, Which when gained, in childish play, Wantonly are thrown away."

He seems to have been oppressed by a disbelief in any kind of good in the world. His philosophy, whenever he ventured upon any, was sceptical and irreverent. His best attempt in this direction was a poem "Upon Nothing," which commences:

"Nothing! thou elder brother ev'n to shade, That had'st a being 'ere the world was made, And (well fixt) art alone of ending not afraid. Ere Time and Place were, Time and Place were not, When primitive Nothing, Something straight begot, Then all proceeded from the great united—What?"

Sometimes he amused himself writing libels on the king, and some of his satires contain more or less truth, as—

"His father's foes he does reward, Preserving those that cut off's head, Old Cavaliers, the crown's best guard, He lets them starve for want of bread. Never was a King endued With so much grace and gratitude."

Buckingham does not appear to have agreed with Rochester about Charles, for he writes, "He was an illustrious exception to all the common rules of physiognomy, for with a most saturnine and harsh sort of countenance, he was both of a merry and merciful disposition." Buckingham's humour was of a very poor description, but he wrote a Comedy "The Rehearsal," which was highly approved, mostly, however, because aimed at Dryden, and the heroic drama. From one passage in it, we observe that he noticed the difference between the effect of humour in the plot, and in the dialogue of the play—

Prettyman. Well, Tom, I hope shortly we shall have another coin for thee; for now the wars are coming on, I shall grow to be a man of metal.

Bayes. O, you did not do that half enough.

Johnson. Methinks he does it admirably.

Bayes. I, pretty well, but he does not hit me in't, he does not top his part.

Thimble. That's the way to be stamped yourself, Sir, I shall see you come home like an angel for the king's evil, with a hole bored through you.

Bayes. There he has hit it up to the hilt. How do you like it now, gentlemen? is not this pure wit?

Smith. 'Tis snip snap, Sir, as you say, but methinks not pleasant nor to the purpose, for the play does not go on. The plot stands still.

Bayes. Why, what the devil is the plot good for but to bring in fine things.

Dryden could scarcely be expected to remain silent under the blow here aimed at his plays. An opportunity for revenge soon presented itself, when he undertook to compose a political satire upon Monmouth and his intrigues. Some say that this remarkable poem was written at the command of Charles. It had a great success, five editions being sold within the year—one cause of its popularity being its novel character. The idea of introducing Scriptural impersonations into a poem was new or nearly so, and very successful. Monmouth had already been called Absalom, and as the King (David) was very fond of him, it was desirable to place his shortcomings to the account of his advisers, represented by Achitophel. The way in which Dryden handled his adversaries may be understood from such passages as:—