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THE HISTORY OF COURT FOOLS.

by

DR. DORAN,

Author of ‘Table Traits,’ ‘Habits and Men,’ ‘Life of Young, the Poet,’
‘Queens of the House of Hanover,’ ‘Knights and Their Days,’
‘Monarchs Retired from Business,’ etc.


[Illustration]






London:
Richard Bentley, New Burlington Street,
Publisher in Ordinary to Her Majesty.
1858.

Printed by
John Edward Taylor, Little Queen Street,
Lincoln’S Inn Fields.




  TO

  HEPWORTH DIXON,

  THIS FRIENDLY HOMAGE

  FROM

  THE AUTHOR.




CONTENTS.


                                                                    PAGE
  THE FOOL,--OF LEGEND AND ANTIQUITY                                   1

  THE FOOL BY RIGHT OF OFFICE                                         41

  THE FEMALE FOOLS                                                    62

  THE ORIENTAL “NOODLE”                                               68

  ENGLISH MINSTREL AND JESTER                                         84

  ENGLISH COURT FOOLS, FROM THE REIGN OF EDMUND IRONSIDE              99

  THE COURT FOOLS OF FRANCE                                          239

  JESTERS IN THE NORTHERN COURTS OF EUROPE                           300

  THE SPANISH JESTERS                                                316

  THE FOOLS OF THE IMPERIAL AND MINOR COURTS OF GERMANY              322

  THE JESTERS OF ITALY                                               352

  JESTERS IN PRIESTS’ HOUSES                                         368

  PRINCES WHO HAVE BEEN THEIR OWN FOOLS                              380




THE

HISTORY OF COURT FOOLS.




THE FOOL,--OF LEGEND AND ANTIQUITY.


In the days of old, it happened that all Olympus was dull, and Zeus
complained, yawning the while, that there was not a fool amongst the
gods, with wit enough to keep the divine assembly alive, or to kill the
members of it with laughter.

“Father,” said Mercury, “the sport that is lacking here, may be found
for us all, on earth. Look at that broad tract of land between the
Peneus and Aliacmon. It is all alive with folks in their holiday gear,
enjoying the sunshine, eating sweet melons, singing till they are
hoarse, and dancing till they are weary.”

“What then?” asked Jupiter.

“It would be rare sport, oh king of gods and men, to scatter all these
gaily-robed revellers, and by a shower, spoil their finery.”

“Thou hast lived to little purpose in witty companionship, complacent
son of Maia,” observed the Olympian, “if _that_ be thy idea of sport.
But thy thought is susceptible of improvement. Let that serene priest,
who is fast asleep by the deserted shrine below, announce that a shower
is indeed about to descend, but that it shall wet none but fools.”

A slight sound of thunder was heard, and the aroused servant of the
gods stood in front of the altar, and made the requisite announcement
to the people. There was a philosopher close by, leaning against
the door-post of his modest habitation. He no sooner heard that the
impending storm was to wet only the fools, than he first hastily
covered his head, and next hurriedly entered his dwelling-place and
shut himself up in his study. Not another individual prepared to avoid
the tempest. Each man waited to see the fools drenched, and every man
there was, in two minutes, wet to the very skin.

When the sun re-appeared, the philosopher walked out into the
market-place. The thoroughly-soaked idiots, observing his comfortable
condition, hailed the good man with the epithet of “fool.” They
pelted him with sticks and stones, tore his gown, plucked his beard,
and loaded him with foul terms that would have twisted the jaw of
Aristophanes.

Bruised, battered, deafened, staggering, the philosopher nevertheless
contrived to keep his wits. “Oh, sagacious asses!” said he to the
roaring crowd, who at once sank into silence at the compliment paid to
their wisdom, “have patience but for a single minute, and I will prove
to you that I am not such a fool as I look.” Bending back his head, and
turning the palms of his hands upwards to the sky, “Oh wise father,” he
exclaimed, “of the witty and the witless, vouchsafe to send down upon
me a deluge for my peculiar and individual use. Wet me to the skin even
as these fools are wet. Constitute me, thereby, as great a fool as my
neighbours; and enable me, in consequence, a fool, to live at peace
among fools.”

At these words, the two assemblies,--of idiots below, and of Olympians
above, shook with laughter, at once loud and inextinguishable. Down
came the shower prayed for, upon the person of the philosopher, but
peculiar influences were sent down with it, and the dripping sage rose
from his knees ten times wittier than he was before.

Jupiter’s beard was yet wagging with laughter, and merry tears fell
from the eyelids of Juno, whose head lay in frolicsome helplessness
upon the bosom of her hilarious lord,--when the latter exclaimed,
“We have spoiled that good fellow’s robe, but we will also make his
fortune.”

“That is already accomplished,” remarked Juno. “I have just breathed
into the ear of the chief of the district, and _he_ is now taking the
philosopher home with him, to be at once his diverter and instructor.”

At night, as all Olympus looked down into the court of the prince, near
whom, at the banquet, the wise fool lay, pouring out witty truths as
fast as his lips could utter them, the gods both envied the fun and
admired the wisdom. “That fellow,” cried Jupiter, “shall be the founder
of a race. Henceforward each court shall have its fool; and fools
shall be, for many a long day, the preachers and admonishers of kings.
Children,” he added, to the gods and goddesses, “let us drink his
health!”

The brilliant society thus addressed could neither drink nor speak,
for laughing. “Dear master,” said Hebe, as she took her place behind
the monarch of divinities, who looked at her inquiringly, “they laugh,
because you did not say fools, _such as he_, should henceforward
furnish kings with funny counsel and comic sermons.”

“Let their majesties look to it,” answered Jove, “here’s a health to
the first of fools!”

In the legend of the original jester, we cannot well pass over,
without some brief illustration, the old, yet ever-young and especial
mirth-maker of the court of Olympus itself, where Momus reigned, the
joker of the gods. Perhaps I should rather say there he was tolerated,
than that there he reigned. For there was this difference between the
sublime immortals and weaker mortals,--that the former could never take
a joke from their court fool without wincing, while the latter laughed
the louder as the wit was sharper; for they wisely chose to applaud in
such jesting,

                      “the sportive wit,
    Which healed the folly that it deigned to hit.”

Not so, the irritable gods, with regard to Momus, who was,
significantly enough, the Son of Night. Momus however cared nothing for
the irritability of his august masters and mistresses. His ready wit
pierced them all in turn; and the shafts of his ridicule excited many
an absurd roar of anguish. When Minerva had built the house of which
she was so proud, the Olympian fool at once detected the error made by
the Goddess of Wisdom, and remarked, “Had _I_ turned house-builder, I
would have had a movable mansion.”

“Why so, you intellectual ass?” asked the lady, who was somewhat
rough-tongued, and loved antithesis.

“Because,” answered the son of Nox, “I could then get away from bad
neighbourhoods, and the vicinity of foolish women who consort with
owls!”

Venus, clad in her usual attire, and proud in the conviction of her
faultlessness, passed by Sir Momus, and turning gracefully in his
presence, like Mademoiselle Rosati before a box-full of her admirers,
defied him to detect a flaw in her unequalled and dazzling form.

Momus clapped his hands to his eyes, half-blinded by the lustre, and
said, “It is true enough, Ourania,--you are not to be looked at without
blinking; but before you executed that charming pirouette, I heard your
foot-fall on the clouds. Now, a heavy-heeled beauty is not a vessel
without a flaw.”

Save Venus herself, there was not a goddess within hearing, who did not
laugh more or less loudly, at the fool’s censure. Vulcan, to draw off
attention from the queen of love, and to gain a compliment for himself,
directed the notice of Momus to the clay figure of a man which he had
just executed. The critic looked at it for a moment, and turned away
with a curl on his lip. “My man,” said he, “should have had a window
in his chest. Through such a lattice, I could have looked in, not only
upon his ailments, but his thoughts.”

“My bull here,” said Neptune, touching Momus with his trident, which at
will he could extend from his own watery plain to the topmost point of
Olympus,--“My bull here, of which _I_ am the artist, is more perfect
than our limping brother’s man.”

“The beast would have been more perfect still,” cried Momus, from his
cradle in the clouds, “if he had had eyes nearer his horns. He would
strike more surely than he can now. Leave making bulls, oh son of Ops,
to your children in Ierne,--though, even _their_ bulls shall be as
laughable as your own.”

In this way the Fool of the Olympian Court treated without reserve
the illustrious company, whom he fearlessly mocked and censured. They
never bore the censure well; and, ultimately, they rose and ejected him
from Heaven. With a mask in one hand, and a small carved figure in the
other, he lightly fell to Earth. “You see I come from the skies,” said
the crafty fellow to the staring crowds that gathered round him, “and
therefore am worthy of welcome and worship.”

How could the poor people know that he had been kicked out from
Olympus? They raised an altar, hoisted the celestial exile above it,
danced round it like fools, and went home shouting, “_Vive la Folie!_”

To pretend to show the moral of my story, would be to insult the good
sense of my readers.

It is singular that the successor of Momus, as brewer of laughter to
the gods, was Vulcan, and that _he_ also was kicked out from Olympus.
On the ninth day of his descent he came in sight of Lemnos, where the
people, without stopping to think whether they were about to receive a
precious gift or a rejected waif from Heaven, stretched out their arms
to catch him. It is not everything that seems to come from above, that
is divine.

And mark!--Since Momus fell, Folly has never left the Earth. But Vulcan
taught men to labour; and the founder of industry, the great doer of
a good work, was reconciled with Heaven. And Olympus did not continue
without its fools, near or afar. The dances of Silenus, the lumbering
grace of Polyphemus, and the coarse jokes of Pan, were provocatives
of the empty laughter of the gods; and roystering dances, lumbering
graces, and coarse jokes became the stock in trade of fools of later
years and of more mortal mould.

They who will take the trouble to recall the incidents in the personal
history of many of the philosophers of old, will not fail to perceive
that, in many cases, they fulfilled the duties which were performed,
much less efficiently, perhaps, by the official fools at modern courts.
They appear to have exercised, generally with impunity, a marvellous
license of speech, and to have communicated disagreeable truths to
tyrants who would not have accepted an unpleasant inuendo from an
ordinary courtier, without rewarding it with torture or death. This
very rudeness of speech, on the part of many philosophers, to princes
who were their patrons, was the distinguishing feature of the modern
jester. In this respect they were sometimes imitated by the poets, who
occasionally indulged in the criminal folly of making execrable puns;
so early do we find an illustration of the remark of Ménage, that in
all times the court poet was accounted as being also the court fool.
Indeed, we shall see, under the head of French Jesters, a whole flock
of royal poets vying with each other to receive the patent of King’s
Fool, on the death of the official who had just departed full of
honours and “_doubles entendres_.”

I believe that a volume might be very respectably filled with
illustrations of the identity of philosopher, or poet, and fool,--in
the sense of licensed court wit. My readers will probably be satisfied
with a few rather than with a volume-full of proofs. Thus, it will
be remembered that it was rather a perilous matter to joke with or
to convey rough truths to the mind of the great Alexander. But his
favourite philosopher, the light-hearted Anaxarchus, was able to do
both, with impunity. What a necessary but disagreeable truth did he
impress on his royal master, when the latter was bleeding from a
recently received wound. “Ah!” exclaimed the philosopher, pointing to
the place, “that shows that, after all, you are only a man, and not a
god, as people call you, and as you would like to believe.”

Alexander only smiled at this very sufficient little sermon, and
did not resent what perhaps he considered as amusing ignorance. It
is remarkable, however, that as in less remote days we meet with
potentates who could not tolerate the free-spoken court fool, so in
those earlier times we find “tyranni,” who were utterly unable to
digest a joke or a reproach. Now the speech of Anaxarchus was utterly
disgusting to the mind and feelings of Nicocreon of Salamis, who
happened to be present when it was uttered. What the philosopher’s
especial patron chose to take without discerning offence in it, it
was not for Nicocreon to resent; but he never forgot or forgave it.
Alexander was hardly dead when Nicocreon contrived to get Anaxarchus
into his power, and he ordered that the philosopher should be pounded
to death in a mortar, “Pound away! pound away!” exclaimed the heroic
fellow, as the iron hammers were reducing him to pulp, “it’s only my
body! you cannot pound my soul!” Nicocreon told him that if he were not
more silent and less saucy, his tongue should be cut out. To show how
little Anaxarchus cared for the threat, he bit his tongue in two, and
spat the mangled piece into the face of the tyrant.

There, indeed, his wit may be said to have failed him, and he acted
with less presence of mind than the philosopher Zeno, when the latter
was in a precisely similar situation. When the inventor of dialectics
lay nearly bruised to death under the pestles of the executioners
employed by Nearchus, he called the latter to him as if he had
something of importance to communicate. Nearchus bent over the lip of
the mortar to listen, and Zeno, availing himself of his opportunity and
his excellent teeth, bit off the ear of the tyrant close to his head.
Hence “a biting remark, like that of Zeno,” passed into a proverb.

In a later page, it will be seen how the famous jester, Gonella, had
the boldness of speech, but lacked the boldness of soul, of Anaxarchus
and Zeno. There was a saying of Gonella’s that very nearly resembles
one of Hippias, a free-spoken philosopher of Elis, who pleasantly
made virtue consist in the entire freedom of man from all and every
sort of dependence upon his fellow-men. Again, in Anaximenes,--not
that philosopher who maintained that the stars were the heads of
bright nails driven into the solid concave of the sky, but the pupil
of Diogenes,--we find a parallel with Chicot, the celebrated jester
of the French Kings Henry III., the last Valois, and Henry IV., the
first Bourbon. Both were occasionally engaged in affairs of political
importance, and Anaximenes, on one of these occasions, did capital
service to his employers. Lampsacus was being besieged by Alexander. It
had nobly resisted; but, unable to hold out any longer, the authorities
deputed the philosopher to make terms with the besieger. As soon as
the latter beheld Anaximenes, guessing his errand, he exclaimed, in a
burst of foolish rage, “I entirely refuse, beforehand, to grant what
you are about to ask.” Chicot used to call Henry III. a “simpleton,”
but Anaximenes only laughed pleasantly in the face of Alexander, as he
said, “May it please your irresistible godship, the favour then which
I have to ask is, that you will destroy the city of Lampsacus, enslave
the citizens, and ruin their delegate who stands before you.” The
conqueror laughed in his turn, and well rewarded the ready wit of a man
who was for some years attached to his person.

The poets were not less free than the philosophers. When King Antigonus
once caught his favourite Rhodian poet, Antagoras, cooking fish, he
asked the bard whether Homer condescended to dress meals while he
aspired to register the deeds of Agamemnon. “I cannot say,” answered
the Rhodian, “but I very strongly believe this, that the king did not
trouble himself as to whether any man in his army boiled fish or left
it alone!”

The boldness of some of the old poets was quite on a par with their
wit. Their absolute freedom of speech, like that of their official
successors, the fools, was as useful and fearless as the modern freedom
of the press. There were very few of the parasites and jesters of
Dionysius who would venture to tell that disagreeable person beneficial
truths. Antiphon, his poet, was an exception. The monarch once asked
him, “What brass was the best?” and Antiphon answered, “That of which
the statues of Aristogiton and Harmodius were made.” Considering that
these were two patriots who rescued Athens from the tyranny of the
Pisistratidæ, the answer was as daring as it was witty. Dionysius
disregarded the wit, and resented the audacity;--in a sneaking way,
however, for he put Antiphon to death because he refused to praise the
writings of the despot. In one respect, Dionysius was like Cardinal
Richelieu, he looked with spiteful feelings on every man who ventured
to doubt his ability for writing tragedies. But in another sense, the
“tyrannus” was superior to the cardinal, for he at least wrote his
own tragedies, whereas those of Richelieu were written for him by his
buffoon, Boisrobert, who might well afford to praise them. For a better
reason than that which induced Richelieu to patronize Boisrobert (who,
buffoon as he was, founded the French Academy), Philadelphus patronized
the comic poet Aristonymus, whom the king made Keeper of the Library
at Alexandria, and who kept the king in good humour by his joyous
conversation. Aristonymus did not forget that he held a double office;
and as the Bards censured as well as commended the behaviour of the
people, so he scattered eulogy or blame on the conduct of his patron,
according to the latter’s deserts.

We shall find, in subsequent pages, instances of kings going into
mourning on the death of their fools, and of the royal patrons raising
tombs to them. In ancient times we also have instances of a whole
people cherishing their poets quite as fondly as some monarchs did
their jesters. I will only cite the case of Eupolis, that comic poet
of Athens, whose unlicensed wit was so very little to the taste of
Alcibiades, and who ultimately perished in a naval engagement between
the Athenians and the Lacedemonians. His countrymen were so afflicted
at losing a man whose wit and poetry were as new life to them, that
they passed a decree whereby it was ordered that no poet should ever
afterwards go to war. Artaxerxes did not mourn more truly for his witty
but then deceased slave Tiridates, than the Athenians mourned for
Eupolis. But Artaxerxes did not mourn half so long. He sat weeping,
indeed, for three days, but he found consolation when Aspasia offered
her ivory shoulder to support his aching head. So Henry II., of France,
mourned for his dead jester Thony, even commissioning Ronsard to write
his epitaph, but forgetting poet, fool, and epitaph in contemplating
the mature beauty of Diana of Poictiers.

Less forgetful of a favourite dead wit was the patron of the comic
poet, Timocreon of Rhodes; famous alike for his sharp appetite and
verses, and for his power of pouring out wit and pouring in wine.
It was a brother wit who would not venture to praise him, but who
contrived to make the dead jester censure, by celebrating, himself in
the apparently autograph lines,

    “Multa bibens, et multa vorans, mala denique dicens
        Multis, hîc jaceo Timocreon Rhodius.”

“Having drunk much, eaten much, and spoken much evil, here I lie,
Timocreon of Rhodes.” This heathen jester lived nearly five centuries
before the Christian era; I might perhaps, had I a right to act
“Censor,” suggest that his epitaph would not be unsuitable over many a
serious but defunct gentleman, born since that era commenced.

Let me rather do justice to the wit and independence of the old poets,
generally. While doing so, I cannot but add my conviction that the
philosophers were, on the whole, more independent in their jests than
the poets. When Apollonius repaired from Chalcis to Rome, to become
the tutor of Marcus Antoninus, he refused to go to the palace at all,
saying that it was fitter for the pupil to come to the house of the
instructor than for the latter to go to the dwelling of the pupil. The
imperial hint, good-humouredly conveyed, that he had himself commenced
this latter process by repairing from Chalcis to Rome, could not move
him.

It has been usual, and Flögel[A] has done it, among others, to rank
the elder Aristippus among the ancient court wits. Inasmuch as that he
was the chief flatterer of Dionysius of Sicily, and loved Epicurean
voluptuousness, the founder of the Cyrenaic sect may be allowed to pass
under that title, but he had little in common with the court jester
of more modern times. He was as different from the latter in some
respects, as he was from Crassus, the grandfather of Crassus the Rich,
who according to Pliny was never known to laugh,--not even when his
best friend broke his thigh.

It is certain that Dionysius treated his flatterers as later sovereigns
did their official jesters,--allowing for the difference of manners,
morals, and customs. The poor jester whose head was placed on the
executioner’s block by the sportive order of the ducal sovereign of
Ferrara, proved indeed to be even worse off than the parasite Damocles,
when Dionysius seated him on his throne, beneath an unsheathed sword
suspended from a horse-hair.

Again, the freedom which the court fool subsequently held by right of
office, we find fearlessly exercised by the philosophic Demochares,
the Athenian ambassador, who being asked, by King Philip of Macedonia,
to whom he was sent, what the king could do to most gratify the
Athenians, replied, “The most gratifying thing you could do would be
to hang yourself.” The courtiers murmured with indignation, but Philip
dismissed the envoy, with the remark, that he hoped the Athenians
would perceive he had more wit than their representative, seeing that
he could take with indifference such a joke as that flung at him by
Demochares.

There are two philosophers whose names now occur to me, and of
whom some erroneous notions appear to be entertained by their
posterity;--Heraclitus and Democritus. We picture them as “Jean qui
pleure” and “Jean qui rit,” looking on the first as made up of groans,
and the latter of gaiety. The fact however is, that Heraclitus, though
given, as any man might be, at any period, who thought of the matter,
to weep over the wickedness of the world, made that world laugh
heartily by his rough answers to the polite invitations of Darius, who
would fain have had him at the Persian court. Heraclitus and Darius
remind me of Brusquet and Charles V. Democritus, too, was a different
man from what he is generally thought to have been. He laughed, indeed,
but it was at the follies of mankind; and he did not disdain, like
the weeping Ephesian, to figure at the court of Darius. There is one
sample of his wit there, which is better than anything ever uttered by
Bertholdo, the philosophic buffoon at the court of Alboin, King of the
Lombards. Darius was inconsolable for the loss of his wife, declaring
that he was the only man who had ever known real adversity. “And I
will raise the queen from the dead in a few minutes,” said Democritus,
“if I only----” “If you only, _what_?” impatiently exclaimed Darius,
interrupting him. “If I only can find three individuals who have passed
through life without adversity of some sort, and whose names I will
engrave on the queen’s monument.” Darius knew the case was hopeless,
and mournfully smiled. If he had given a small estate to the witty
philosopher, the latter would have deserved it quite as well as the
Joculatores of our first William and John, whose wit or wisdom was
rewarded by raising them to the very pleasant condition of holders of
land.

It is said of some of the German jesters that they occasionally lived
on the people of the town, with the lord of which they resided in
exercise of their office. A parallel to this may be met with in the
annals of the philosophers, in the person of Demonax, who, leaving
to his patrons to clothe and lodge him, boarded himself in a very
facetious and economical way, by entering the first house, after he
felt himself hungry, and there fully satisfying his appetite. But
Demonax belonged to a lower class of the order of philosophers, as
some later fools did to that of the general order of their profession.
There was as much difference between Demonax and Socrates, as there
was between Sibilot, as described by Huguenot authors, and our own
light and noble-hearted Will Sommers. The happiest idea one can
have of Socrates is that of seeing him in the studio of his father
Sophroniscus, carving that group of the three Graces, the simplicity
and elegance of which excited universal admiration. He was ever the
same,--a rough labourer patiently and certainly creating beauty. In
him we fail to discern anything of the mere unlicensed jester. The
Platonic and the Xenophontic Socrates may be said equally, though
in different ways and measures, to challenge admiration. Leaving
the philosopher, to encounter him again presently, let us look over
antiquity for traces of the fool in people as in individuals.

Among the ancients, perhaps the Tirynthians had the reputation of being
the very merriest of fools. Theophrastus is cited by Athenæus in proof
of this. Those people of Argolis were so continually merry that they at
last got tired of it, and applied to the oracle at Delphos to save them
from being any longer such joyous simpletons.

“You shall be cured,” said the oracular authority, “if after
sacrificing an ox to Neptune, you can throw the carcase into the sea,
without laughing.”

“That will be easy enough,” said the Tirynthians, laughing all the
while, “if we can only keep children away from the sacred fire.”

Of course, however, an _enfant terrible_ managed to be present at the
show. He was no sooner discovered than the now solemn Tirynthians began
to drive him away, lest he should laugh or raise laughter during the
ceremony, by some childish remark or question.

“What are you afraid of?” asked the sprightly lad,--“that I should
upset the dish” (and he pointed to the sea) “that is to hold your beef?”

Poor as the joke was, it so tickled the fancy of the Tirynthians, that
they laughed till their sides ached; and so they remained merry fools
for ever. No jester, at a royal table, was ever so highly esteemed as
an uproariously gay buffoon from this old city of Hercules--roystering
Tirynthia.

The Tirynthians were never excelled, except by the people of Phæstum,
who, by all other Cretans, were reckoned as the first jesters in the
world. In the days of those merry fellows, it may be observed, that
the cleverest of them had to exercise their vocation on melancholy
occasions. When Petronius Arbiter was committing slow suicide by
alternately opening and closing his veins, nothing excited him to more
laughter than the sharply comic epigrams uttered by the jokers who
stood around him.

Under the cloak of folly, good service has been rendered by wise men.
By feigning want of wit, the elder Brutus saved himself to save his
country; revenged a wrong, and converted regal Rome into a republic.
We have another notable instance in the case of Solon, who, when the
Athenian law forbade mention of the subject of Salamis, that island
which gave Athens such an infinite world of trouble, assumed the
bearing of one out of his wits, and, in better verse than a fool could
have indited, told truths that led to great consequences, and exhibited
the patriotic courage and humour of the celebrated sage. Assuredly
Solon was no fool, for he refused to be a king, and he invented
taxation. I will revert for a moment to Aristippus, the lover of Laïs,
and the flatterer of Dionysius,--the rosy philosopher who only cared
for the present moment, but who had of the jester only his liberty of
speech. When thrust into an inferior seat at table, and being asked, if
he liked it as well as his higher place of the day before: “Ay, truly,”
said he to Dionysius; “for the place I held yesterday, I despise today,
since I hold it no longer. I honoured the seat, the seat did not honour
me. So, today’s seat, which, yesterday, was without dignity, because I
was not in it, is now dignified by holding me.” The court laughed; but
the wit and the wisdom of the speech seem to be of the very mildest
nature.

That the ancients carried their idea of “fooling” too far, may be
seen in the fact that, as Sir Thomas Brown observes, “some drew
provocatives of mirth from anatomies, and jugglers showed tricks with
skeletons.” It was not any reverend gentleman or philosopher who
improved the occasion of Egyptian feasts, by showing a model mummy, but
a light-hearted slave who exhibited the ivory effigy to the garlanded
guests with, “Behold what we must all come to!” Antiquity went further
than this in its patronage of the fool. In the funeral train, followed
the arch-mime lately retained by the deceased patrician; and it was
this good fellow’s business to keep the mourners merry, by imitations
of the speech, gesture, and manners of the deceased himself. Of this
custom, the author last-named rightly says, that “it was too light for
such solemnities, contradicting their funeral orations and doleful
rites of the grave.” The mourners must have been sadly in want of
the extract of _Cachunde_ or Liberans, which was once a famous and
highly magnified composition, used in the East Indies, to drive away
melancholy.

How highly mirth was accounted of, even in grave sport, is proved by
one fact,--that Lycurgus raised an image of Laughter, and caused it
to be worshipped as a God. He loved, he said, to see people merry at
feasts and assemblies.

Of the professional wit, we find a trace in a curious custom of Roman
gentlemen. When these discovered that learning and wit began to be
in more general estimation than arms or wealth, the clever fellows
among them got on well enough, and setting their minds to discipline,
became the favoured guests at the most brilliant parties. The dull
millionaires were rather nettled at this, but they fell upon an
exquisite plan to be on an equality with their sparkling rivals. They
had neither wit nor learning themselves, but they purchased slaves,
and especially Greek slaves, who possessed both. Had they to attend
an assembly where philosophy was most in fashion, they took with
them their more learned bondsmen; but was the evening expected to
be mirthful, then the stolid owners ordered the slaves with comic
dispositions and merry turns of thought and expression, to accompany
them. These delightful fellows were ever welcome, and when their
sallies produced explosions of laughter and applause, their masters
stroked their beards complacently, and assumed a modest composure, as
if _they_ had said all the good things uttered by their serfs.

Like the fools of later ages, these jesters were the more acceptable,
because they helped mortal man to kill Time. When society was without
books, it learned what it could, and amused itself as it might, by the
help of philosophers, minstrels, or jesters. Printing, indeed, killed
neither mirth, music, nor philosophy; but the decline of the profession
of the hired fool certainly began at the period of the discovery of
printing.

I might find opportunity here of saying something touching the office
of the parasite, as a jester; but I have treated that subject at such
length, in my “Table Traits,” that I will rather refer my readers to
that little volume than repeat what is said in it, here. I may notice,
however, in addition, that the old classical, professional jesters, in
Athens, had the privilege of entering any company, without invitation.
Plautus, therefore, calls them “_Flies_.” The parasite was of this
profession, and there was not much civility vouchsafed towards him, if
he was of the class that did not wait to be invited. The host would
rudely order him to play the fool for the amusement of the company; to
whom he narrated all the jokes he could remember, and when his memory
ran dry, he would ignobly descend to read them from manuscripts. Maître
Guillaume, a fool at the court of Henri IV., did much the same. The
parasite was interested personally, as well as pecuniarily, in amusing
his hearers, for if he failed to do so, they had no hesitation in
rising, kicking his seat from under him, raining blows upon his body,
breaking the dishes upon his head, and, fixing a rope, or collar, round
his neck, flinging him headlong into the street.

Xenophon, in his account of the banquet at the marine villa of
Callias, affords us an excellent idea of the person and merits of the
professional buffoon. The name of the latter is Philip. This fool by
vocation, when all the gentlemen are at supper, knocks at the door,
and with a rollicking sort of impudence, says to the servant who opens
it, “Here we are! the gentlemen need not deliberate about letting
me in to supper. I am provided with everything necessary for doing
so, for nothing. My bay horse is tired with carrying nothing in his
stomach, and I am quite as weary with running about to see how I can
best fill my own.” And then forcing his way in, he raises a laugh, by
exclaiming--“Gentlemen, you all know me and my professional privilege.
But I have come uninvited, chiefly because I have an aversion from
ceremony, and a disinclination to put you to the trouble of a formal
invitation.”

Callias remarks, “We must not refuse him his dish;” and the host
then welcomes the jester, by bidding him take place; for serious
conversation has made the guests dull, and they will be glad of an
opportunity to indulge in laughter.

Philip cut a thousand jokes without being able to tickle his hearers
into laughter; and it was only when he affected to be broken-hearted
and about to die with shame at his ill-success or their dulness, that
they promised to try and find something risible in his professional
mirth. And this must have been a very sorry joke indeed.

The best, perhaps the only tolerable scintillation of wit struck out
by the “laughter-maker,” is to be found, after the circus-girl who
accompanies the Syracusan showman has leaped through the hoop in
which knives are planted with every point towards the passing leaper.
Philip has then a fling at an Athenian alderman who belonged to the
Peace-party of his day:--“Ah!” he exclaims, “what pleasure should I
enjoy to see Pisander, that grave counsellor, taking lessons from this
girl; he that is ready to swoon away at the sight of a lance, and
says it is a barbarous cruel custom to go to war and kill men!” This
is not extremely lively, but it is at least as good a joke as when he
says to Socrates, on the assertion of the philosopher that he intended
to dance: “Well, I believe your thighs and shoulders are of the same
weight; and that if you put the one into one scale, and the other into
another, just as the constable weighs bread in the market-place, you
will not be in danger of being forfeited, so justly poised will be the
respective weights.” And, therewith, the buffoon expresses a desire
to dance with Socrates, and begins awkwardly imitating the previous
graceful dancing of the girl, raising peals of mirth from the little
company of nobles and sages, and ending, heated and panting, with a sly
look towards the slaves standing in grim repose before the board on
which was placed the wine. With a sly remark, he wishes they were like
coachmen, who are the more prized for being quick in their driving and
dexterous in turning. This remark, of course, sets the wine-bearers
rapidly moving towards Philip and among the company generally.

This professional fool, it is to be observed, is proud of his
profession. “I suppose you value yourself,” says Lycon, “on your power
to make men laugh?”

“Ay, truly,” answers Philip;--“and have I not better reason for being
proud of this, than the finical Callipides of piquing himself at making
men weep at his tragic verses in the theatre?--Proud of my trade!”
he subsequently exclaims, “oh, oh, I should think so; for see you,
when people are in the way of good fortune, they invite me to their
houses; but when misfortune or misery falls upon them, they carefully
avoid meeting me.” Nicerates is struck by the remark, for he is one of
those men whose friends, ruined by their extravagance, expect him to
extricate them from their difficulties. He sighs, when he compares his
own condition with that of the fool, whose vocation at this renowned
banquet terminates by a taste of his craft, when he approvingly winks
to the Syracusan, and, after his fashion, says _Amen_ to that lucky
showman’s prayer, soliciting the gods to send plenty of everything,
wherever he came, save of judgment and good sense.

This is his last joke, for Socrates grows weary of him and of his
chattering. “But it is not proper,” says Philip, a little nettled,
“that we should be silent at a feast.”

“Very true,” replies the philosophic son of a statuary and a midwife,
“but it is also true that it is better to be silent than say what
it were more profitable to leave unsaid.” And this very strong hint
extinguishes the jester.

It is impossible to read the graphic sketch by Xenophon, taking it as
a faithful account of an actual scene, without feeling wonder that
an intellectual party, like the one depicted, should need, or should
tolerate, such aids to enjoyment as those professed to be afforded by
the buffoon and the mountebank with his pretty dancing-girl and ballet
company. The wit and the wisdom are all on the side of the gentlemen,
and of Socrates in particular, who, to do him justice, is quite as
merry as he is wise. His wit sparkles throughout the banquet, and
perhaps a hecatomb of witty fools would never have bethought themselves
of giving a description so graceful, so touching, and so true, of the
rich uses and the vast abuses of wine, as Socrates does at this very
party. Nor is stately Xenophon himself without his joke,--as though
moved by the fact of his dealing here with jesters. “When the little
ballet of ‘Bacchus and Ariadne’ was played out,” says the author,
“the company found it so natural in its pantomime, that they became
convinced of what had not previously entered their minds, namely that
the youth and girl who had represented the chief characters were
actually in love with one another. This,” adds Xenophon, “caused
the guests who were married, and some who were not, to mount their
horses forthwith, and ride full speed to Athens, with the briskest
resolutions imaginable.” But while the husbands went home to greet
their spouses, and lovers to pay homage to their respective Lalages,
some stayed behind--Socrates was of the number--and these “went
a-walking with Lycon, Autolicus, and Callias.” But the fool went not
with the philosopher, the nobles, and the young Autolicus, who had won
a prize at the Olympic Games,--and, consequently, we must keep in the
company with which we are bound to journey.

This species of company was not equally pleasant to all men. Athenæus
tells us that the Scythian Anacharsis was once present at a banquet,
at which a number of professional fools did their office so drolly,
that every one laughed,--save the Scythian. Presently, a monkey
was introduced, and at this animal’s singular tricks, Anacharsis
laughed till the tears ran down his cheeks. As some surprise was
expressed at this, by the company, the Scythian justified himself by
remarking,--“The monkey is comic and risible by nature, and without
effort; but man is so only by art and affectation.” In a similar
sense, Athenæus quotes a passage from Euripides, in which the poet
says:--“There are numerous people who study the art of raising laughter
by witty speeches and sparkling repartees. For my part, I hate these
elaborate buffoons, whose unrestrained tongue spares not the wise, and
whom, indeed, I do not reckon worthy of being accounted among ‘men.’”

In the days of King Philip, the Macedonian, whenever a man told an
extremely witty story, he was pretty sure to be met with the remark,
“Ah, that comes from the Sixty.” It was as much as doubting the
originality of the wit. “The Sixty” was, in fact, a club of wits. They
met in Athens, not at a tavern, but in the temple of Hercules. We
should as soon expect to hear of a convivial body of wits assembling
every Saturday night in “Rowland Hill’s Chapel.” They were fellows
who had the very highest opinion of their own abilities, for they
regularly entered in a book all the witticisms of the evening. This
was, probably, the very first jest-book ever put together. To listen
to it, when the Secretary took it with him to private parties, must
have been an antepast of ‘_Punch_.’ The precious book has perished,
but Athenæus has preserved the names of a few of the members, which,
however, are not worth repeating, though it may be stated, that the
owners had also nicknames; and one tall, clever, nimble fellow,
Callimedes, was familiarly hailed by his fellow-clubbists as “the
Grasshopper.” Philip heard of this merry, social, witty company, and
longing to know more of them, their sayings and doings, he did not
indeed invite them to his distant court, but he sent them a talent
(nearly £200 sterling), and requested the loan of the last volume of
the transactions of the “Sixty Club.” The book was duly despatched;
and perhaps the loan of a volume was never paid for at so high a rate:
the authors thus played the part of court fools by deputy. Their jokes
were stereotyped, and had a long and merry life of it. It was useless
for any man to fire one off as his own, for the source was instantly
discovered, and the company would derisively call out, “An Old Sixty!”
just as dull retailers of faded jests are suppressed, in our own day,
by the cry of, “An Old Joe!”

Philip is said to have possessed his own court fool in Clisophus.
Flögel says, that the latter excited shouts of laughter by his
imitations of his royal master’s style, voice, manner, and even
infirmities. But, according to Athenæus, Clisophus seems to have been
a parasite, who imitated his patron out of flattery, and did not mimic
him in order to excite risibility. At other courts there were mimics
who played the fool before their sovereign lords, by caricatured
imitations of fencers, singers, and even orators,--especially of their
defects. The most celebrated, perhaps, was Herodotus, a burly namesake
of the father of history, who kept the court of Antiochus ever merry by
his mimicry, and who was named, _par excellence_, Logomimus.

The fools and the philosophers were not always identical, and they
often came in contact, as was to be expected. We have an instance in
the buffoon Satyrion, named by Lucian, and the grave Alcidamas, who
wrote a treatise on death. The sage could not tolerate the fun and the
Egyptian accent of the ugly and close-cropped fool; and when the latter
called the man of wisdom a “lap-dog,” the philosopher challenged him to
single combat. Some of the guests were ashamed, and some laughed, to
see sciolist and sage heartily belabouring each other; but the laughter
was universal when the philosopher, beaten to a mummy, confessed
himself vanquished, and afterwards stood as mute as a courtesan in a
Greek play.

Socrates (as I have previously remarked) is said, by more than
one writer, ancient and modern, to have united in his own person
the philosopher and the fool. His ugliness, deformity, and
uncouthness,--his childish play, his extravagant dancing, his
inclination to laugh at everything,--all these and more have been cited
as foundations for reckoning him among the jesters. Zeno, according
to Cicero, especially styled him the “Athenian buffoon,” which was
probably meant for a compliment. The best description of him is that of
Alcibiades, in Plato, who says that Socrates resembled the large images
of Silenus, which were filled with little statuettes of the gods.
Flögel rejects the picture of Socrates, represented by Aristophanes in
the ‘Clouds,’ as “suspicious.” But Socrates has nothing of the fool
in him in that play, except that he is represented as proprietor of
the Thinking-Shop, and deriving powers of humbug and circumlocution,
from the clouds. In this play, the recognized freedom of the fool, as
regards liberty of speech at the expense of the audience, is exercised
by the characters “Just Cause” and “Unjust Cause,” as the following
sample will show:--

“_Unj._ Now, then, tell me: from what class do the lawyers come?

“_Just._ From the blackguards.

“_Unj._ Very good! And the public speakers?

“_Just._ Oh, from the blackguards, also.

“_Unj._ ----And now look; which class most abounds among the audience?

“_Just._ I am looking.

“_Unj._ But what do you see?

“_Just._ By all the gods, I see more blackguards than anything else.
That fellow, I particularly know; and him yonder; and that blackguard
with the long hair.”

The above was the true license of the fool, in the professional use of
the term; and the Athenian blackguards only laughed to hear themselves
thus distinguished.

The above is among the boldest of the personal assaults made by
Aristophanes against the vices or failings of his countrymen. He
claimed the privileges of Comedy, as the Fool did those of his cap and
bells. This he does, especially in ‘The Acharnians,’ when Dicæopolis,
looking straight at the audience, says, “Think nothing the worse of me,
Athenian gentlemen, if, although I am a beggar, I hazard touching on
your affairs of state, in comic verse; for even comedy knows what is
proper, and, if you find me sharp, you shall also find me just.” Still
nearer did the poet come to the license of the jester, when, in ‘The
Knights,’ he himself turns actor as well as author, and so dressed,
looked, and mimicked, without once employing the name of, the great
demagogue whom he was satirizing, that every spectator recognized the
well-known Cleon. The same author’s attack on the litigious spirit
of the Athenians, in his ‘Wasps,’ is another instance of what I am
attempting to illustrate. This is more particularly the case when he
makes his characters address themselves immediately to the audience,
as may be supposed to occur in the Parabasis of the last-named piece.
Here the satirist bids the audience to provide themselves with clearer
understandings, if they would enjoy the poets thoroughly. “Henceforth,
good gentlemen,” are his words, “have more love and regard for such of
your poets as treat you to something original. Preserve their sayings,
and keep them in your chests with your apples. If you do this, there
will be a scent of cleverness from your clothes, that shall last you
through a whole year.” In his ‘Peace,’ the finest touch of satire
is not in what is said, but in what is left unsaid; for the goddess
whose name gives a title to the piece, never once opens her mouth. The
licensed jester appears as broadly in the author’s dealings with the
gods, whose place in Heaven is represented as occupied by the Demon
of War, who is engaged in braying the Greek States in a stupendous
mortar. The daring of the author, as exercised in pelting the gods
themselves with jokes, is still more flagrant in ‘The Birds,’ where
he burlesques the national mythology, in presence of a people whose
jealous fury was just then aroused by suspicion of a conspiracy
existing against the national religion. That the audience should
have tolerated the audacity of their favourite jester, is a proof of
the power he held over them. Nevertheless, they were probably more
delighted with his personalities, and they recognized with shouts of
laughter the brace of gallant military gentlemen thus described by
one of the women in the ‘Lysistrata’:--“By Jove, I saw a man with
long hair, a commander of cavalry, on horseback, who was pouring
into his brazen helmet a lot of pease-soup, which he had just bought
from an old woman. I saw also a Thracian, with shield and javelin,
like Tereus. He went up to the woman who sold figs, and, frightening
her away with his arms, took up her ripe figs and began swallowing
them.” The national satirist is seen again in the recommendation put
in the mouth of the male chorus in the same play, and which is to
this effect:--“If the Athenians would only follow my advice, their
ambassadors should never go upon their missions, except when drunk.
Sobriety and Common Sense do not go together with us. If, for instance,
we send sober legates to Sparta, they only watch for opportunity to
create mischief. If the Spartans speak, we do not heed them; if they
are silent, we wrongly suspect them. Let our envoys get drunk, and
agree in what they hear, and in the reports they send home.” Nor does
Aristophanes spare the women more than the men. How archly, no doubt,
did Mnesilochus look at the audience, when he ungallantly remarked, in
‘The Thesmophoriazusæ,’--“Among all the ladies of the present day, you
would seek in vain to find a Penelope. They are Phædras, every one of
them.” It is not to be supposed that the comic poet ever offended by
his trenchant jests, although a passage delivered by the chorus, in
‘The Ecclesiazusæ’ (that exquisite satire against the ideal republics
of philosophers, with impracticable laws), would seem, perhaps, to
imply something of the sort. Turning to the audience, the Chorus
remarks, “I am going to make a little suggestion to you. I wish the
clever among you to be on my side; for remember how clever I am myself.
They who laugh merrily will prefer me, I know, because of my own
mirthful jesting.” This suggestion sounds as if the dunces and dullards
had been sneering at the satirist for his smartness and sprightliness.
Even if so, he continued to laugh at gods and men. At both, as in
‘Plutus,’ where he ridicules the deities for their many names, by which
they hoped to catch a gift under one appellation, which they lost
under another; and where he illustrates the irreligiousness of men, by
remarking that nowadays they never enter a temple, except for a purpose
which, it will be recollected, was religiously avoided by the Essenes
on the Sabbath. The last illustration is made in the very spirit and
letter which marked the “Fools” of the fifteenth century. _They_
pleaded for such jokes the immunities of their office, and Aristophanes
does something very like this when he makes Xanthias exclaim, in ‘The
Frogs,’ “Oh, they are always carrying baggage in comedy!”

Flögel has been too anxious to increase his list of Fools, by including
among them the _planus_, or impostor. He takes for a joker, the cheat
denounced by Horace in the 17th of the First Book of his Epistles.
That cheat is simply a street vagabond, who deceives the humane by
pretending to have broken his leg, and who laughs at them when they
have passed on, after giving him relief. Even this sorry joke he cannot
often repeat. Then we have, from Athenæus, other comical fellows cited,
whose funny things won the admiration of Greece and Rome, the people
of which countries must have been easily pleased. Among these are the
Alexandrian Matreas, who wrote chapters of a ‘Comic Natural History,’
wherein he discussed such questions as, “Why, when the sun sets at sea,
does he not set off swimming?” “Why do the swans never get drunk with
what they imbibe?” Then we hear of a Cephisodorus,--neither the tragic
poet nor the historian,--whose stock joke consisted in his running
breathless, either from or towards the city honoured by his residence,
and with an air of frantic terror, informing all whom he passed or
encountered, of some awful calamity. It is hardly possible to imagine
that people laughed more than once, _if_ once, at a sorry fool like
this. Not much more risible was that Pantaleon, who was wont to address
strangers in the street in tirades of bombastic nonsense, utterly
meaningless and incomprehensible. The joke was for the standers-by,
who knew Pantaleon, and enjoyed the astounded look of those whom he
addressed. According to Athenæus, the last comicality of Pantaleon
was in imposing on his two sons, whom he called separately to his
side, when dying, and confidentially told each where he would find a
hidden treasure. When they had looked for this in vain, they probably
understood why their respectable sire had died laughing. Many of this
class of fools can only be considered as “hoaxers.” Such was another
Cephisodorus, who disgraced his dignified name by very undignified
tricks,--as when he hired a host of hardy day-labourers, and gave them
rendezvous in such a narrow street that, when all were assembled,
it was impossible to move either backward or forward. The “Berners
Street Hoax,” by Theodore Hook, was entirely after the fashion of
Cephisodorus, and was not the more excusable on that account.

Forcatulus, a learned writer on law, accepts as true a story, very
like one to be found in Rabelais, and which Flögel quotes from another
accomplished jurist, Accursius. It is a story in which ignorance is
made to pass for wisdom, and is therefore, although common, yet not
quite so excellent a joke as it would pretend to be; and is to this
effect:--

The Romans sent an ambassador to Greece, in order to procure a copy of
the Laws of the twelve Tables. The Greeks would make no such costly
gift till they were satisfied that the petitioners had men amongst
them who could comprehend the wisdom of the Laws. They despatched an
envoy to look into the matter; and when the Romans heard of him and
his purpose, they resolved to defeat him by means of a fool. They
clothed the latter in purple, surrounded him with a guard of honour,
and dismissed him to encounter the accomplished ambassador from Greece,
with one single point of instruction,--he was on no account to open his
mouth.

The Athenian commissioner, seeing the representative of Roman wisdom
standing before him, grave and speechless, observed, with a smile, “I
understand. The gentleman is a Pythagorean, and carries on an argument
only by signs. With all my heart!” And, thereupon he raised a single
finger, to imply that there was only one principle of nature in the
universe.

The simpleton sent by Rome, not dreaming that this was the opening
of a philosophical argument, but looking upon it rather as a menace,
extended two fingers and a thumb towards the Greek, as if about to take
him by the nose.

“Good! very good!” murmured the Athenian. “He shows me the Pythagorean
Trias,--the triple God in one. I must intimate that I understand
him;”--and the philosophical envoy approached the stolid Roman, with
the flat of his hand extended towards him. He intended thereby to
imply that the divine Trias was the upholder of all things. The Roman,
however, thinking it an approximation to a box on the ear, drew back a
step, lifted his doubled fist, and awaited the coming of the Greek.

The face of the latter was covered by a radiant smile. He could only
exclaim, “Perfect! charming! divine! The silent sage tells me that the
divine supporter of all things is in himself All-mighty. Admirably
done! a nation with such sages _must_ be worthy of laws enacted by the
leaders of civilization.”

Now if this story be, as Forcatulus will have it, historically true, I
must add that it has been improved in the hands of the story-tellers.
These, of course, have made it a Christian disputation, in which the
hired fool has but one eye. The real metaphysician reads in the signs
of the simpleton the whole Christian revelation, but the story is
improved by the fool’s own description of the matter. “When I saw him
raise one finger, I thought he mocked me, as having but one eye; and
I held out two fingers, meaning that my single eye was as good as his
two. But when he, therefore, held out three fingers, signifying that
there were only three eyes between us, I doubled my fist, to knock him
down for his insolence.”

Among the old class of jesters some writers rank the _Aretalogi_, who
appear to have been improvisers of merry or wonderful stories for the
amusement of a company, by whom they were invited, or hired. Juvenal
says that when Ulysses, at the table of Alcinous, described the person
and deeds of the cannibal Polyphemus, some of the guests turned pale,
while the narrator, to others seemed only a jester:

              “Risum fortasse quibusdam
    Moverat mendax Aretalogus;”

or, as the Jesuit Tarteron translates this passage,--“Les autres
pâmoient de rire, et regardoient Ulysse comme un diseur de contes faits
à plaisir.” Some of the guests, in fact, laughed at Ulysses as they
would have done at a regular romancer.

Again, Suetonius, in the 74th chapter of his Life of Augustus, after
describing the pleasant social customs of the emperor, his agreeable
company, and his courteous and affable manner with them, adds that, to
encourage their mirth and their freedom, “aut acroamata et histriones,
aut etiam triviales ex circo ludios interponebat, ac frequentius
aretalogos.” To show the value of this last word, according to English
writers, I turn to an old translation of Suetonius, published in 1692,
and there I find that, “for mirth’s sake, Augustus would often have
at his table either some to tell stories, or players, or common Merry
Andrews out of the Circus, but more frequently _boasting pedagogues and
maintainers of paradoxes_.”

It might easily be concluded that the Aretalogus was really of the
number of professional jesters, were it not that I find Lampridius
quoted by Flögel as including Ulpian in this class, because he sat at
the table of Alexander Severus, “ut haberet fabulas literales.” But
it is almost impossible to admit of this, for the wise Ulpian was the
solemn president of the Imperial Council of State, a great lawyer, a
great reformer, a moral and a religious man, according to the light
possessed by him. He was, as it seems to me, rather the Mentor than
the Jester of Severus, who was, for a time, the bright example of
men,--of any and every rank. The imperial virtues were held to be the
result of the teaching and practices of Ulpian. To his frugal table the
Emperor invited men of learning and virtue, and Ulpian was invariably
of the number. So far, however, was the profound jurisconsult from
being a mere jester, that, as we are told, the pauses in the pleasing
and instructive conversation of himself and fellow-guests “were
occasionally enlivened by the recital of some pleasing composition,
which,” says Gibbon, “supplied the place of the dancers, comedians, and
even gladiators, so frequently summoned to the tables of the rich and
luxurious Romans.” That there was little or nothing of the conceited
Aretalogus in Ulpian, may be seen in the fact that his virtue was of
too stern a quality, and that he was slain by the Prætorian guards
because he was more wise than merry.

We next come to the _Scurra_, a jester, of whom we find an illustration
in ancient comedy. When the witnesses called by Agorastocles (in the
‘Pœnulus’ of Plautus) pompously order Collybiscus to walk in their
rear, that personage remarks,

    “Faciunt scurræ quod consuerunt; pone sese homines locant.”

“They act exactly like buffoons, who put every man behind them;” in
which we see something of the ordinarily insolent character of these
individuals.

Yet they are themselves said to have been originally the “followers”
in the retinue of great men, and their name, Scurra, or _Sequura_, is
derived by some lexicographers from ‘sequi,’ to follow. Their wit was
sharp but polished, and to be scurrilous, in the olden time, was rather
a credit than a disgrace; and if the enemies of Cicero called him the
_scurra consularis_, it was not that they found his sarcasms coarse,
but that they felt them penetrating and fatal.

The _Scurræ_, however, seem to have sunk to a level with the common
buffoons, as we collect from the letter of Pliny to Genitor (l. ix.
ep. 17). Pliny’s friend had written to him to express his disgust
at a splendid entertainment where he had been a guest, being marred
by the jokes, antics, and wiles of the professional _scurræ_,
_cinædi_, and _moriones_. The difference between the first and the
last who belonged to the profession of fools, consisted in this,--the
Scurra professed the art of exciting his hearers to risibility by
extravagant yet sparkling wit. The Morio worked more quietly, and
as if he joked licentiously by natural disposition thereto. It is
worthy of observation that Pliny rather chides his friend. He writes,
substantially, in reply, “Pray smooth your brow. I do not hire such
fellows myself, but I do not turn up my nose at those who follow a
contrary fashion. There is nothing novel or grateful to me in the
hackneyed gestures of the wanton, the pleasantry of the jester, or the
nonsense of the fool.” And the philosopher adds, with great fairness,
“You see it is not so much my judgment as my taste that is against
them;” and, he says further, “When I have reading, music, or the
company of an actor at my own house, there are some guests who leave
directly, or who, if they stay, look as ‘glumpy’ at the diversions I
provide, as you did at those which lately marred your entertainment.
The truth is,” thus concludes the philosopher, and it is advice as
valuable now as ever, “we should accept, as well-meant, the diversions
provided for us by others, that they, in their turn, may be indulgent
towards those we provide for them.” One thing noteworthy here is, that
the sensible people in Rome did not really care for the “fool.” If
the conquest of Scipio Asiaticus over Antiochus brought in that sort
of entertainment, the _best_ philosophers (for some stooped to folly)
protested against it by both precept and example.

The Scurra, as I have said, was not in every age a polished fool. The
buffoon at the fair who obtained the applause of his audience for
grunting like a pig, and, as the audience thought, more like a pig than
the animal itself, is called by Phædrus a “Scurra.” He probably sank
lower in his practice than any of his class, for he announced that the
entertainment he was about to exhibit had never before been known on
any stage. But even the best of the Scurræ seem to me to justify rather
the censure of Genitor than the praise of Horace. The latter, it will
be remembered, on the famous journey to Brundusium, was present at the
cudgelling of brains between Sarmentus (who had run away from slavery
to set up as a Scurra) and Cicerrus, who was a well-to-do parasite of
his day. Horace asserts that the wit of these two induced them all to
merrily prolong their supper; and yet all the fun perpetrated was of a
dreary cast. The Scurra joked coarsely on the deformity and infirmity
of the parasite, and the latter retorted by reproaching the Scurra with
his condition of slave, and the puny insignificance of his body. If
Sarmentus was the “delight” of Cæsar Augustus, that monarch was very
easily pleased.

Perhaps there was no greater patron of the Scurræ, and all similar and
many more degraded persons, than Sylla. He wasted his colossal fortune
on fools of every description,--some of them monsters of uncleanness.
Flögel, when noticing the criminal liberality of Sylla towards the
crowds of debauched followers who occupied his table and house, and
accompanied him abroad, says that for their sakes and under their
influences, he neglected public business. But the fact is, that Sylla
did not lead this disreputable life until after he had abdicated the
dictatorship, and had gone into his sensual and unhappy retirement at
Puteoli.

Antony was not more choice than Sylla in his “jolly companions,” nor
in his own conduct. He was often indeed his own fool, and few great
men ever played that character so thoroughly, but all were not fools
and jesters and jugglers, whom historians have placed round the table
and at the hearth of Antony. Flögel especially errs in classing among
the jugglers retained by the Triumvir the beautiful Cytheris, or
Lycoris, that slave whom the gentle and gallant Gallus loved, but whose
desertion of him for Antony gained for us the tender eclogue of Virgil.

Juvenal cites with Sarmentus, the name of Galba as a buffoon or
parasite of Augustus, and he does this (Sat. v.) in order to shame a
dissolute friend who saw no harm in allowing his “loins to grow fat by
others’ meat.” “What!” exclaims the Satirist, “are you not yet ashamed
of your course of life? Can you still believe that sovereign happiness
consists in living at another man’s table,--where you support more
insults than were ever heaped on Sarmentus and Galba at the table of
Cæsar?”

Galba was an aristocratic Demonax. He was, moreover, a short
hump-backed fellow, and he seems rather to have been the cause of wit
in others than witty himself. It was in allusion to his deformity that
Augustus remarked, after Galba had maintained some absurd proposition,
“I can tell you what is right, yet I can’t put you straight.” It is of
Galba that is told the story of his feigning to go to sleep at his own
table while Mæcenas was saying very polite things to the host’s wife;
but when another of the guests attempted to filch something from the
board, “Hold there!” cried Galba, “I am asleep for him, but not for
you!”

Martial complains that he himself was less known to his contemporaries,
all witty poet as he was, than Caballus, the buffoon of Tiberius.
This individual is supposed to be the same with the Claudius Gallus
of Suetonius. But Gallus seems to have been as much of a friend as a
man could be, of an Emperor who was accustomed to behead such of his
acquaintances as got the better of him in argument. That Gallus was
hardly a professional fool may be gathered from the words of Suetonius,
according to the quaint translation of the edition of 1692. “Claudius
Gallus, a most notorious old Sir Jolly, who had been formerly branded
for his debauches by Augustus, and severely reprimanded by himself
(Tiberius) in the Senate, inviting him (Tiberius) to supper, he
promised to come, on the terms that nothing were omitted of his usual
way of entertainment,”--which, according to the context, seems to have
been of a terribly licentious character.

Flögel refers, for an example of the impunity of Court Fools, in the
bold wagging of their tongue at the Courts of the Roman Emperors,
to the remark of a jester to Vespasian. The former had been saying
sharp things to all around him, but, observed the Emperor, “you have
addressed no observation to me.” Now Vespasian, whom we are accustomed
to picture to ourselves as a towering personage of heroic carriage,
was a poorly built fellow who went about in a half-sitting posture,
like Mr. Wright in the part of the retired coachman, whose limbs have
stiffened into the posture which he had preserved through a long course
of years, on the box. The jester joked very indecently on this weakness
of the monarch, but I do not think the sorry humourist was a wit by
profession. “Quidam urbanorum,” is the way in which he is described,
but this may mean “one of the men about town,” and the old translation
from which I have already made an extract, renders it “one of the wits
of the time.” Whichever it be, it seems to show that the jokers could
take great liberties with some emperors. Other instances prove that
some emperors took deadly vengeance on the jokers.

Commodus Antoninus may be reckoned among those princes who have been
their own fools, and he played the part rarely; but it was more in the
spirit of insane than witty folly. His fun, like the club of Hercules,
which he for ever carried on his shoulder, was crushing rather than
exhilarating. Gallienus, who resembled him in many respects, and was
as cruel, licentious, depraved, and cold-hearted, kept a second table
for his buffoons; which they occupied like regular gentlemen of the
Imperial household. When this potentate played the fool for his own
amusement, he could be, by caprice at least, less bloodthirsty in his
frolicsomeness than Commodus; as, for instance, when he ordered a knave
of a jeweller to be flung into the arena, and let loose upon him--not a
roaring lion, but a poor capon. The joke, as poor as the bird, was, of
course, received with universal applause.

We have some insight afforded us with regard to the position occupied
by the retained jester, in the account of the strange supper given by
Nasidienus to Mæcenas and others. The guest just named took with him
his two “shadows” uninvited. They were expected to contribute to the
hilarity of the feast, and they occupied the same couch with their
patron, the latter reclining between them. Nasidienus was in the same
way supported by his two parasites, one of whom excited the mirth of
the company by swallowing whole cheesecakes at once, like a clown in
a pantomime; and the other extolled the dishes generally. These two,
however, drank little or nothing; they appear to have been trained to
spare their master’s wine. The guests and _their_ parasites observed no
such temperance, but tippled freely, and one of the latter especially
kept up the laughter of the visitors by mock compliments on the feast,
and mock sentiment on things, generally.

The _Morio_, as I have previously observed, was usually a mis-shapen
creature, a sort of monstrous imbecile, heavy and hideous in body,
and childish in mind; a simpleton, whose naturally foolish remarks
contrasted with his strength and rude shape of body. Ladies in the
olden time kept them, as ladies of a later period kept monkeys, for
their amusement in their own chambers. There was even a market for
them, and at the _Forum Morionum_, a thoroughly frightful and foolish
animal of this species would fetch about eighty pounds sterling.

Many Emperors, too, bought specimens of these monstrosities, a fashion
which was only less hideous than the mania of a later time for china
monsters, who exonerated their stomachs of the liquor required by their
mistresses. Heliogabalus was a prodigal amateur of the former kind of
property; and it has been suggested that an imbecile Morio was kept by
a dull owner, that his own stupidity might seem wit by comparison.

That a noble Roman maintained slaves whose wit should entertain himself
and his friends, we know from several instances. The same slaves were
also employed to lighten the last hours, and to render death easy to
their masters,--if they could. Nay, it must be confessed that it seems
they sometimes succeeded. Witness the case of Petronius Arbiter, that
magnificent Consul, who almost renders vice attractive, like Boccaccio,
by writing of it in choice and elegant (yet mournful) phraseology. When
that very superb gentleman was stretched on his death-couch, he might
have remarked, with the Irish squire, that he died in perfect ease of
mind, for he had never denied himself anything. But Petronius could not
die easily without a little stimulant. He felt himself _ennuyé_, and he
sent for his wittiest friends and his choicest slaves. Of the latter he
freed some and whipped others, and he found a mild pleasure in both.
But the dearest solace of this dying Roman noble was in the amusing
stories and ridiculous epigrams recited to him. With these he amused
his fancy till his jaws suddenly fixed in a fit of laughter, and the
jesters around look down upon a corpse. Thus died an accomplished Roman
gentleman A.D. 66.

But we are departing from the official fool, of whom it is said,
that, with his place and privileges properly marked in a household,
he was not known in Europe till the period of the Lower Empire. It is
certain that the stern Attila brought professional jesters, as well as
irresistible warriors, with him across the Roman frontiers. When the
ambassadors of Theodosius the Younger were entertained at a banquet by
the Hun, the pomp, gravity, and tremendous drinking were accompanied by
an immoderate amount of foolery. “A Moorish and a Scythian buffoon,”
says Gibbon, “successively excited the mirth of the rude spectators,
by their deformed figure, ridiculous dress, antic gestures, absurd
speeches, and the strange unintelligible confusion of the Latin, the
Gothic, and the Hunnic languages; and the hall resounded with loud and
licentious peals of laughter. In the midst of this intemperate riot,
Attila alone, without a change of countenance, maintained his stern
and inflexible gravity.” We hear, too, of the presence of a Harlequin
at the state ceremonies of the great barbarian and dignified chief. It
is, however, indisputable that the professional, though perhaps not
exactly the court fool, was known in Rome nearly two hundred years
before the period of Attila. To do honour to the accession of Gallienus
(when Valerian was alive, but a captive in Persia), numbers of Persian
prisoners were paraded at the festival in Rome. At this festival,
certain buffoons, we are told, committed an act of audacity for which
the common crowd of spectators had not courage. They crossed over among
the prisoners, and curiously and deliberately scanned the features of
every man there. “Gallienus,” as I have noticed in ‘Monarchs Retired
from Business,’ “expected some mirth, but seeing nothing come of it,
and that the buffoons were retiring with a disconsolate look, he
asked the meaning of the episode. ‘Well,’ said they, with a little
hesitation, ‘we went over to these Persians to see if we might discover
among them the great Valerian, your gracious divinity’s father.’
Gallienus thought this a very sorry joke indeed. He ordered the
buffoons to be bound together, and to be burnt alive in one batch. It
was a very serious matter to joke with, and it was a mortal matter to
joke against, this Emperor of Rome.”

We come to a later illustration in the Baron de Reiffenburg’s book
(‘Le Lundi,’ p. 251), where it is stated that Theophilus, Emperor of
Constantinople, found pleasure in witnessing the follies of a jester,
Danderi, whose spirit of curiosity led him to the discovery that the
Empress Theodora had little images in her oratory to which she prayed.
The fool was not cunning in betraying the secret to the Iconoclast
husband of Theodora. The Empress, more crafty, persuaded Theophilus
that the images were only dolls, for the amusement of their children.
So, at least, says the legend, which does discredit to the most
accomplished of Eastern Emperors, though he had a hatred for trade, and
a love for gaudy toys and jewellery.

Before leaving this part of my subject, let me notice another
Court appendage from which ancient monarchs drew incentives to
mirth,--namely, the Dwarfs. These sometimes rank among the _Moriones_,
and as they formed a portion of the Court household, parents often made
dwarfs of their children, by stunting their growth, in order to obtain
profit by them. The most clever exhibited their little prowess, in
full armour, in mimic fights which sometimes terminated seriously to
the combatants, in wounds of certain gravity. Augustus did not disdain
either to converse, or gossip rather, and play at various games with
them;--or to listen to them chattering and see them playing with each
other. By some writers, this taste of Augustus is denied, but it may
be believed, since of one dwarf, Lucius, he had a statue sculptured,
the eyes of which were of precious stones. That these little personages
sometimes exercised great influence may be seen in a passage of the
sixty-first chapter of the Tiberius (in Suetonius’s “Lives”), wherein
it is said:--“A person of Consular dignity, in his Annals, has this
passage, that at a great feast, where he himself was also present, the
question was put suddenly and loudly to Tiberius by a dwarf, who was
standing in waiting near the table among the dirty buffoons (‘_inter
copreas_’), ‘Why Paconius, who had been condemned for treason, was
still living?’” Suetonius adds indeed that the dwarf was sent to
prison for being impertinent, but also that Tiberius, thus reminded
of the existence of an enemy, sent orders to the Senate, that speedy
care might be taken for his execution. Domitian was the Emperor who
especially delighted in putting arms into the hands of his dwarfs, and
setting them to pink out each other’s little lives. From the Court the
fashion reached wealthy people generally, and Dio, in his ‘History of
Rome,’ tells us of these small personages being kept by Roman ladies,
in whose rooms they ran about all day long, and perfectly naked. The
fashion did not cease till after the accession of Alexander Severus,
who drove from his Court the whole tribe of dwarfs, male and female,
and indeed other equally unseemly appendages to the household of a
grave and dignified prince. They became matters of attraction to the
mob, and being vulgar, are no more heard of in the palaces of kings and
the mansions of nobles, till a later period and in highly civilized
Christian courts. Let us do with them as Alexander Severus did, and
consider now the condition of the more modern Court Fool, though in
doing so we may have to look occasionally to a more remote antiquity
than that at which I close this Chapter. It will perhaps be found that
kings and their fools must, for a time, have had a rather pleasant time
of it. “He,” so ran an old proverb quoted by Seneca, “he who thinks to
achieve every object that enters his head, must either be a born king
or a born fool.” Herein, it is supposed, is intimated the proximity in
degrees of happiness of the respective individuals, who could neither
be called to account for things done nor for words uttered.




THE FOOL BY RIGHT OF OFFICE.


When Erasmus praised Folly, it was only by making Folly advocate her
own cause. After all, her pleading neither recommends her cause, nor
says much for the wit of the pleader. Folly, in the abstract, has
been denounced alike by Scripture and ancient heathen sages. “All
men are fools,” was once a received text. Over the text, some have
laughed, some have cried, and upon it, or its equivalent, divines
have preached sermons now mirthful now melancholy. “If I wish to
look at a fool,” says Seneca modestly, “I have not far to go. I have
only to look in a mirror.” A sharper saying still was once uttered
by Rhodius, a physician of Marburg, who had adorned the front of his
house with full-length portraits of all the lawyers and doctors in the
city, himself in the centre, and all in the dress of the professional
buffoon. “You have a large number of thorough fools painted on your
walls,” once remarked a passer-by. “Ay, ay,” rejoined Rhodius, “but
there are still more who pass this way and look at them.” He was
something of the opinion of Schuppius of Hamburg, who used to remark
that in this world, the fools outnumbered the men; and the Emperor
Maximilian II. delicately expressed a similar sentiment when he
observed that every young fellow must be pulled by fools’ strings,
for seven years, and that if, during that time, he forgot himself
for an instant, he had to re-commence his seven years’ service. This
potentate distinguished the dullest of his counsellors by the title of
the King of Fools. On once addressing a prosy adviser by this title,
the gentleman neatly enough replied, “I wish, with all my heart, I
_were_ King of Fools; I should have a glorious kingdom of it, and your
Imperial Majesty would be among my subjects.”

The “Fool” was not the exclusive possession of a Sovereign King. In
course of time, wealthy individuals prided themselves in their own
jesters, as ladies of the last century did in their black foot-boys
and monkeys. Counts, Cardinals, Barons, and even Bishops had their
professional makers of mirth. In France the _Fou du Roi_ was an
official title, and Champagne is thought by some to have enjoyed the
monopoly of furnishing his Gallic Majesty with a new _Fou du Roi en
titre d’office_, when the old one died. The profession, in most Courts,
survived the name; and the office has been exercised by many gentlemen
who, perhaps, little thought of the duty they were performing. The
office has not seldom been filled, as I have before remarked, by the
Court poet; and the well-known epigram on Cibber, the above fact being
considered, has a happy application.

The term itself however has often been mis-applied. Thus Charles the
_Simple_ was no fool, but a man of extraordinary simplicity of mind
and feeling. So Homer, when he called Telemachus, Νἡπιος, a _fool_, or
“silly,” did not employ it as a term of reproach, but one of endearment.

The term “fool,” “fol,” “fou,” is said to be of Northern origin. Every
language, however, or nearly so, has an original word expressive of the
office.

Some French writers deduce the term Fool,--that is their own word _Fol_
or _Fou_,--from the Game of Chess. In the French game, the pieces which
we call _Bishops_, are called “Fous;” and in anciently carved sets are
represented in the fool’s dress;--hence the saying of Regnier in his
14th Satire:--

    “Les Fous sont aux échecs les plus proches des Rois.”

Thomas Hyde, in his ‘De Ludis Orientalibus,’ lib. i. 4, does away with
this derivation by remarking that the chess term _Fou_ or _Fol_ is
derived from the eastern word _Phil_, an “Elephant;”--he adds that two
figures of this animal were always to be seen on the old boards; and
that they had the oblique move of our “bishops.” This is no doubt true.
The line of Regnier, however, indicates the place of the “Fou,” not
only at chess, but at Court--namely, always near the King. The dignity
of the latter, however, was preserved by a simple arrangement, namely,
the ranking as “fool” or of deranged wit, every one who ventured to
utter to his superior a disagreeable truth. As for a closer connection
between kings and fools, it is marked by Rabelais, who observes that
wearers of crown and sceptre are born under the same constellation as
the wearers of cap and bells.

And this office, it is to be observed, was partly in fashion as being
a good sanitary system; “Laugh and grow fat” is a popular saying, with
much philosophy therein. “Laughter,” says the Prussian Professor,
Hufeland, “is one of the most important helps to digestion with which
we are acquainted; and the custom in vogue among our ancestors, of
exciting it by jesters and buffoons, was founded on true medical
principles. Cheerful and joyous companions are invaluable at meals;
obtain such, if possible, for the nourishment received amid mirth and
jollity, is productive of light and healthy blood.”

Walter Scott, when discussing, in a note to ‘Ivanhoe,’ the question
whether Negroes were known in England at the period of that romantic
story, cites an instance, whereby he not only establishes an
affirmative, but proves that the professional jesters were of value
to their patrons in other ways besides exciting their laughter and
improving their digestion. “John of Rampayne,” he tells us, “an
excellent juggler and minstrel” (words implying the professional
jester), “undertook to effect the escape of one Andulf de Bracy by
presenting himself in disguise at the Court of the King where he was
confined.” For this purpose “he stained his hair and his whole body
entirely as black as jet, so that nothing was white but his teeth.
And succeeded in imposing himself on the King, as some Ethiopian
minstrel. He effected by stratagem the escape of the prisoner. Negroes
therefore must have been known in England in the dark ages.” When the
joyous brotherhood could perform services of this nature we need not be
surprised that prelates as well as princes entertained them, and that
the Council of Paris, in 1212, in vain denounced churchmen who were
worldly enough to maintain fools in their households.

The idea that fools were instituted in order to supply the wants of
a free society is, perhaps, not so strictly true as that they were
gradually allowed to go out of fashion because their licensed freedom
of expression was calculated to lead to social liberty. At first, a
sarcasm from an equal may have only been considered as an insult;
“yet conversation,” says Southey, “wanted its pepper and vinegar and
mustard,” and so Fools were allowed to make the seasoning. When freedom
of speech became vulgar (that is, popular or general), the Fool, as
such, began to disappear. The term is sometimes applied in a singular
sense. Thus “Fools’ Pence” was the name given to a tax once levied
on the astrologers of Alexandria, because of the gain of their own
ingenious folly derived from fools.

It is to be observed too that people themselves have been as sovereigns
who possessed their witty fools to teach them lessons of wisdom. Such
servants of the public are to be recognised in Menenius Agrippa, when
he taught the rebellious commons the respective duties of governors
and governed, by repeating to them the apt allegory of “The Belly and
the Members;” and in Themistocles, when, to the over-taxed citizens
who wished to introduce a new element into the government, he wittily
told, how once a fox entangled in a bog, was soon covered by flies
who sucked nearly half the blood out of his body. A hedgehog who came
near, politely offered to drive the flies away. “No, no,” said the
sly yet suffering fox, “if these be driven away who are well-nigh
glutted, there will come a new, hungry set, ten times more greedy
and devouring.” Another sample we have in the case of Sertorius, who
showed how much wit was better than strength, by citing the case of
two men who were set to see who could get off the tail of a horse in
the shortest time. One pulled at the whole tail, and pulled in vain.
The other easily conquered by taking the tail of _his_ horse and
plucking out the hairs, one at a time. There was very much of this
sort of instruction imparted by “fools” to princes, and by enlightened
men to people, when prince and people equally objected to have their
prejudices bruised by the bitter balsam of advice.

In the courts of princes and the houses of wealthy men were to be
found fools of various sorts, according to the taste of the lord.
Some were coarse, rude, licentious fellows. Others were refined of
speech, acute of observation, quick at repartee, of much learning, and
of great memory. Others again were monstrous deformities, or beasts
of stupendous appetite, to contemplate whom was very good mirth to
melancholy lords of evil digestions and twisted minds.

Some princes chose not to be in the fashion at all, and to keep no
retained fool at their Court. Charles Louis, Electoral Prince of the
Rhine, was one of these. “How is it,” asked a friend, “that your serene
greatness does not keep a court fool?” “Well, it’s easily accounted
for,” answered the Prince; “when I am inclined to laugh, I send for a
couple of professors from college, set them at an argument, and laugh
at their folly.”

More than one German prince either feared or despised the “learned
fool.” Flögel tells us of one, near whose castle lived a reverend
pastor who, because he knew a little of the Hebrew grammar, of which
no one in the vicinity knew Aleph from Gimmel, thought himself a
prodigy, and all the rest of the world, asses. He never preached a
sermon without impressing on the bumpkins the advantages of being
acquainted with the Hebrew grammar; and half the lords in the country
went to hear him as fool-general of the district. It happened that, on
one occasion, the chief lord went to the church, to stand godfather to
the schoolmaster’s child; and as the noble gentleman was a bachelor,
it became the duty of the pastor, according to custom, to examine him
as to his religious principles. We have all heard of the too-polite
English vicar, who, churching a countess, said, “Lord, save this
_lady_, thy servant;” and of his equally civil clerk, who, not to be
outdone in politeness, responded, “Who putteth her ladyship’s trust in
thee!” It was some such courtesy that was paid by the pastor to his
lord. He would not, as with common peasants, try him in the Catechism,
but inquired, with a sort of dignified familiarity, “Young Sir, may I
ask you, what you are?”

“Certainly,” said the noble godfather; “I am a fool!”

“Oh fie!” whispered the pastor; adding aloud, “I mean, what is your
belief?”

“Well, my belief is that you are as great a fool as I am.”

“Oh, nonsense!” exclaimed the pastor, who remembered his knowledge of
the Hebrew grammar; “that cannot be.”

“Ay, but it is so,” said the noble catechumen. “The biggest fools are
always the last to acknowledge the fact.”

And thereat, all the grand and the common people present burst into
a loud laugh; and the courteous godfather shook them again by the
observation, that no fool at Court was ever half so pleasant a fool, as
a fool in a cassock!

The Court, however, would seem to have had the advantage, for there, it
was popularly said, were always to be found two fools,--of whom, the
Prince treated one just as he pleased; and the other treated the Prince
just as it pleased him.

Some writer, since Epictetus, who was among the first to call man
the solitary laughing animal, has remarked that “brutes never make
themselves ridiculous; that is the peculiar prerogative of man. The
former, in their strangest vagaries, act according to nature; while
the latter, in trying to go beyond her, render themselves contemptible
in the eyes of others, just in proportion as they excel in their own.”
Notwithstanding this, the practice of Wit and Jesting was once no
unprofitable profession. The profession changed, and the practice was
modified. Professor Miller, in his ‘Historical View of the English
Government,’ comes to the conclusion that jesters and the ludicrous
pastimes of former ages were exploded “by the higher advances of
civilization and refinement,” which contributed also, he thinks, “to
weaken the propensity to every species of humorous exhibition.” But, he
adds, “though the circumstances and manners of a polished nation are
_adverse_ to the cultivation of humour, they are peculiarly calculated
to promote the circulation and improvement of wit.” The full passage
may be found quoted in Sydney Smith’s ‘Lectures on Moral Philosophy,’
in one of which he combats the Professor’s assertion, by maintaining
that as civilization improves the mind, true humour is better
appreciated under a high than under a low degree of civilization. Idle
and illiterate nobles under the latter, could enjoy the coarse jokes
and tumbles of the professional jester, but idle people who are also
intellectual people “must either be amused or expire with gaping.” The
humour that will be acceptable to these civilized yawners must be,
we are told, “of a different complexion from what would pass current
in more barbarous times; it must be the humour of the mind, not the
humour of the body. It must be devoid of every shade of buffoonery
and grimace, and managed with a great degree of delicacy and skill.
Civilization improves the humour, but I can hardly allow that it
diminishes it. I am strongly inclined to think there will be more
humour, more agreeable raillery, and more facetious remark displayed
between seven and ten o’clock this evening, in the innumerable dinners
which are to be eaten by civilized people in this vast city, than
ten months could have produced in the reigns of Queen Elizabeth or
Henry VII.” This is very high authority, and even to express a doubt
of it may seem justly to expose him who entertains the doubt, to a
charge of presumption. Let the great men of the respective periods
be reckoned, and it could hardly be proved that the “Table Talk” of
the age of Elizabeth was not as brilliant as that of her cherished
successor, Victoria. Take, for instance, the reign of Queen Elizabeth,
when “Fools” had not yet disappeared from Court, and I think it will
be conceded that at the Cabinet or general dinners of such Prime
Ministers as Bacon, Burleigh, or Sackville, the company was likely to
be as good, the wit as genial, and the humour as genuine, as at any of
the banquets,--Cabinet, general, or “fish dinner” at Greenwich,--which
have been presided over by the Victoria Premiers, Melbourne, Peel, or
Russell, Derby, Aberdeen, or Palmerston. Then, as for the better taste
of our higher civilization, it is not favourably illustrated in the
national love for Christmas pantomimes, the Fool’s portion of which
has neither wit nor decency, but is dull, dreary, and disgusting; but
which seems, nevertheless, to be as generally venerated by this highly
polished nation, as the horrid Bel and the hideous Dragon were by the
elegant Babylonians.

About the middle of the sixteenth century, the favour which official
jesters enjoyed at Court and in noble houses,--far beyond that granted
to more worthy men,--excited the disapprobation of many observant
commentators. There was then no better way of amusing an aristocratic
company on a dull evening, in a dreary castle, than by having the fool
into the hall, and allowing him full license to attack old and young,
married and single, lovers and enemies. Sir Cockscomb delighted in
scandal, and he sometimes, nay very often, told stories which made the
matrons look down at the keys hanging from their girdles, the maidens
hide their faces as best they could, and the noble gentlemen laugh
loudly and fling commendations at the jester.

Some of this gentry, on whom their uncultivated betters depended
for amusement, appear to have been a species of mountebanks, often
performing tricks which are only now accomplished by parti-coloured
“artists” in equestrian circles. The fool who could most wonderfully
distort his body, squint most horribly, turn his face to his back, and
bend himself as if he were made of nothing but one wonderful series of
joints,--such a fool was accounted next in merit to his witty cousin.

And, if the fool pleased everybody,--on the other hand, it was
necessary that everybody should please the fool, at least if he had
business that he wished should prosper with the fool’s master. Access
to the latter was chiefly to be had through Sir Knave, a word from whom
was often most effective in bringing about conclusions. The fool often
sat near his patron at table when philosophers stood humbly in the
background, and courtiers laughed servilely at the jokes, good or bad,
made by “Cap-and-bells” at their expense.

At Courts where several fools were retained, the master of his company
felt as much above his followers as an old Drury tragedian above a
Dunstable actor. He strutted like a peacock, and thought himself an
elephant, when he was only an ass. There was great diversity, however,
among them. Ordinarily, a clever lord preferred a clever fool, and
the dull lord, who could neither read nor write, found the same sort
of retainer a necessity. Thus the fool of merit, according to his
profession, was the ablest man at Court; and his superiors in rank were
his inferiors in intellect. As Swift remarks, “In Comedy, the best
actor plays the part of the droll, while some second rogue is made the
hero or fine gentleman. So, in this farce of life, wise men pass their
time in mirth, while fools only are serious.”

Greatly respected as was the privilege of the fool to speak the truth
on all occasions, whoever might wince under it, the unrestrained use of
such a privilege often brought the merry speaker in danger of cudgel
or dagger. There is a story of a fool at a continental Court, in early
days, who stirred up all the wrath that could be contained in the
heart of the Lord Chamberlain, by so exact an imitation of his voice,
and so sarcastic a description of his character, as to excite roars
of laughter in every soul in the banqueting room, from the sovereign
beneath the daïs to the scullion at the door, waiting for the dirty
plates. The angry Chamberlain encountered Sir Fool an hour afterwards,
when he communicated to the latter his intention, at fitting
opportunity, to see if a few inches of his poniard could not stop the
loquacious folly of the other for ever. The merry-andrew flew to his
princely master, and sought protection for his life.

“Be of good heart, merry cock!” said the prince; “if the Chamberlain
dares run his dagger into your throat, _his_ throat shall be in a
halter the day after. I will hang him as high as Haman.”

“Ah, father!” cried the jester, “_the day after_ has but promise of
sorry consolation in it. He may thrust his knife between my ribs
tomorrow;--and couldn’t you hang him the day before?”[B]

Some describers of old court manners assure us that there was often
more wise and profitable counsel to be found under the cap and bells
of the jester, than under many a mantle which hung from the neck
of venerable statesmen. Flögel, on the authority of Don Sylvio di
Rosalva, says this was especially the case in Spain. It appears to have
been also the case in other places, for when a Venetian ambassador,
endeavouring to dissuade Louis XII. from making war against Venice,
spoke of the wisdom of the Republic, Louis replied, “J’opposerai un si
grand nombre de fous à vos sages, que toute leur sagesse sera incapable
de les résister.”

Under another method of expression, Erasmus utters a similar sentiment.
He points out that the wisest men have been the worst governors of
states; that the greatest orators were the most easily put out of
countenance; and that the most able statesmen had fools for their sons.
Tully’s son, Marcus, we are told, was a fool, although he was bred at
Athens; and the children of Socrates had more of their mother than of
their father. Pericles was a great man, but his two sons were known by
the unpleasant appellation of Βλιτομἁμαι, or “Boobies.” A similar name,
indeed, used to be applied to the whole people of Brabant, of whom it
was said, “The older they are, the greater fools they are.”

As every fashion has its detractors, so the fashion of fools could
not escape the censure of those who did not care to be in the mode.
The Emperor Henry III., surnamed the Black, could never comprehend
the use of a court fool,--a licensed scoundrel, his Majesty said,
who often obtained for his nonsense rewards that had never properly
been showered on the benefactors of mankind. Frederick Barbarossa
had an insurmountable dislike for court fools and proud courtiers.
Nevertheless he had both about him; and one of the former, on one
occasion, did not hesitate to risk his own life, in order to save that
of his imperial and not over-grateful master. Several other Teutonic
potentates shared in this distaste for the cockscomb wearers,--perhaps,
because they could not tolerate unpalatable truths; and Christian I.
of Denmark once sharply remarked, on a presentation to him of several
court fools, that he was not in want of such things, and if he were,
he had only to give license to his courtiers, who, to his certain
knowledge, were capable of exhibiting themselves as the greatest fools
in Europe.

Fools were free to speak before there was a liberty of the press,
or even a press at all. But it was Frederick William I., King of
Prussia, who placed his fools under censorship. They dared not speak
without thinking, which, time out of mind, has been the privilege of
your fool; and if their wit offended against good manners, they ran
good chance of a whipping. It was probably to hold the freedom of the
sprightly corporation in check that Philander von Sittewald invented
and described the Hell of Fools, which he is supposed to have visited.
The locality, we are told, was like the cellar of a palace, which was
crowded with Zanies, condemned to hear for ever, and to burst with envy
at, each other’s jokes. The retribution and the sarcasm are equally
severe. The severity of the former is only inferior to that developed
in another German idea, whereby, in the next world, all inefficient
clergymen are condemned to read all the bad sermons ever printed in
this.

We are not without instances in which the offices of preacher and fool
have been exercised by the same individual. In the seventeenth century
there was a preacher, named Schwab, at one of the German Courts, who
was as much skilled in laying a cloth for dinner as in the construction
of his sermons. These were never serious, but they were sometimes long.
When the latter was the case, the not too pious Prince would interrupt
the preacher in full career, and without waiting for the blessing,
would roar aloud, “John, John, get ye down and lay the cloth!”--a
command which met with a joke, by way of benediction, and instant
obedience.

John evidently had not the fool’s license of speech, or he might
have improved the occasion. And this reminds me of a passage and an
illustration in Osborn’s Letters to his Son, which have reference to
this very subject, and are well worthy of being quoted. “’Tis not
dutiful,” says Osborn, “nor safe, to drive your prince by a witty
answer beyond all possibility of reply; it being more excusable to
appear rich than wise at the prejudice of one in superlative power,
who have their ears so continually softened by flattery, as they easier
bear diminutions in their treasure, which they look upon as below and
without them, than in wit, handsomeness, horsemanship, etc., which
their parasites have long made them believe are inherent in them. This,
a carver at court, formerly in good esteem with King James (I.), found
to his prejudice, who being laughed at by him for saying the _Wing
of the Rabbit_, maintained it as congruous as the _Fore Leg of the
Capon_, a phrase used in Scotland, and by himself here, which put the
King so out of patience as he never looked on the gentleman more. The
like I have been told of a bishop who, being reproved for preaching
against the papists, during the treaty with Spain, replied, he could
never say more than his Majesty had writ. ‘Go thy way,’ quoth the King,
‘and expect thy new translation in Heaven, not from me’--meaning he
would never better his see. This humour makes these terrestrial gods
more auspicious to fools than those Solomon saith are able to render a
reason.”

There are instances, too, where the remark of the wit, or the
professional jester, has enlightened while it amused the monarch.
We have such an instance in the case of one of the Kings of Persia
who wished his people to enjoy the benefits of instruction. Schools
were established, and amongst others, the court fool commenced to
learn spelling. But we are told that at the very commencement of his
progress, at the first junction of syllables and vowels, he opened the
Koran, and pointed out to his Sovereign the passage in which Mahomet
forbids the payment of impost to the kings of the earth. The fool’s
vigilance kept the people _in_ ignorance and under taxation.

May we not reasonably conclude that there was once considerable dignity
attached to the office of fool, seeing that many ancient families bore
the insignia of fools in their arms? The chief of these was the family
of Briesach, long since extinct; and indeed I only know one house now
existing whose crest seems to intimate some connection with the old
jester, or some love of “short, brilliant folly.” I allude to the House
of Orford (Walpole). The crest is a male bust, on whose head is the old
official fool’s cap, rising from a coronet. The motto also seems to
bear reference to the circumstance; for _Fari quæ sentias_, “Speak what
you think,” was exactly the injunction suited to the court jester.

It must, however, be observed that even the jester, licensed as he
was, could not always do this without watching his opportunity, and
the license at one court was different from that at another. It was
just the same regarding courtiers and their homage to sovereigns. As
Chesterfield reminds his son, it was respectful to bow to the King of
England, but at that time it was rather a rudeness than otherwise to
bow to the King of France.

And now let us contemplate the outward presence of the official fool.
From the oldest period, the jester is represented bald, and wise men,
monks at least, adopted the fashion. They shaved their heads, like
fools, says Agrippa, in his discourse on Vanity. The fashion, however,
was very ancient. The Greek Gelatopoios (laughter-maker), the Mimes,
and the Moriones, are never represented otherwise but bald.

As with the natural, so with the artificial covering of the head,
the fools and the monks followed, or nearly followed, one mode. The
hood attached to the cloak was the covering for a fool, with an
addition signified in a remark of Erasmus, that the Franciscans only
wanted asses’ ears and bells, to look like fools by profession. The
Franciscans would seem to have intended some such profession, for they
called themselves _Mundi Moriones_, or Fools of the World. And it was
not an unusual thing to meet with highly religious persons who styled
themselves, some, “God’s Fools,” others, “Christ’s Fools.” Thus, in
1382, Conrad von Queinfurt, a priest, prays in his epitaph, “Christe,
tuum Mimum salvum facias!” As a jester would address a sovereign to
have mercy on his poor fool, so did Conrad address Christ. This fashion
was adopted by Homagius, in 1609; when that pious personage called
himself, “Fool in the Court of God,” or “God’s Court Fool.”

The ass’s ears further distinguished our ancient and merry friend. The
_Vice_ in old English plays wore a fool’s cap with ears, a long jacket,
and at his side a wooden sword. Learned men have looked into Greek, and
found there the origin of this word _Vice_. But, as far as it signifies
this dramatic fool, Flögel’s derivation of it, from the old Frank word
_Vis_ (phiz), a face, a mask, may be accepted. _Visdase_, another old
word for fool, is derived by Ménage from “_Vis d’âne_” (ass-face), and
Vizard is a known term amongst ourselves for the mask or counterfeit
representation, usually comic, of a face.

This derivation seems more satisfactory than that given by Upton,
who tells us that “Old Vice was a droll character in our old plays,
accoutred with a long coat, a cap, a pair of ass’s ears, and a dagger
of lath. This buffoon character was used _to make fun with the devil_;
and he had several trite expressions, as, ‘I’ll be with you in a trice.
Ah, hah, boy, are you there?’ etc.; and this was great entertainment
to the audience, to see their old enemy so belaboured in effigy. Vice
seems to be an abbreviation of Vice-devil,--as Vice-roy, Vice-doge,
etc., and therefore called, very properly, ‘The Vice.’ He makes very
free with his master, like most other Vice-roys or Prime Ministers, so
that he is the devil’s Vice, or Prime Minister. And,” adds Mr. Upton,
“this it is which makes him so saucy.”

In that dialogue of which Erasmus is the author, called the
‘_Franciscani_,’ Conrad, the monk, asks Pandocheus, “Are not fools
dressed otherwise than wise men?” “Well,” says Pandocheus, “I do not
know which dress would be most suitable for you; but you only lack
long ears and little bells, to look like the fools themselves.” “Ay,”
replied Conrad, “we have not those adornments, and we are plainly fools
as regards the things of this world; if we are what we profess to be.”
“I know nothing about that,” rejoins Pandocheus; “but I do know that
there are many fools, with elongated ears and tinkling bells, who are
far wiser men than they who wear the whole insignia of a doctor.” He
even goes so far as to assert, that there were some who outdid the
University philosophers in their lectures, and who, of course, were
twenty times as amusing;--the cockscomb outdoing the doctoral hat.

The cockscomb which surmounted the headpiece of the fool, is too
familiar to require description. Its antiquity however is undoubted,
since Lucian describes, in his ‘Lapithæ,’ the appearance of a jester
with closely-shorn head, except at the top, where it was left in the
form of the “comb” which decorates the head of the cock.

The fool carried a stick, staff, or club, which, according to Flögel,
was originally nothing more than the plant (_Typha_ Linnæi) which
grows in marshes, and which was commonly known as the fools’ club, or
sceptre. It was afterwards usual to furnish the jester with one made
of leather, something in the shape of Hercules’ club, with a loop to
hang it from the arm. It was such an emblem of his vocation as this
that a fool once received from his lord, with the command never to give
it up except to a greater fool than himself. Some months after, the
donor fell ill, the doctor visited him frequently, and the latter being
asked on one occasion of his leaving the house, what he thought of the
patient, roughly answered, “He’ll be off soon; he won’t stop here long.”

The fool heard the words, ran into the stables, and seeing no
preparation for departure, shook his head as if perplexed. The next
day, he heard a similar remark from the doctor,--again looked into the
stables, and observing all quiet there, went up to the chamber of his
sick master.

“The doctor,” whispered he, “declares that you are going to leave us.
How long will you be away, master mine? a year?”

“Longer, much longer, merry friend,” said the lord. “So long, that
coming back is out of all question.”

“But I see no preparation in the stables--”

“No, nor elsewhere!” groaned the sick man.

“Then I beg to give you my club,” said the jester; “for if you are
setting out on a journey which you know you must make, and from which
you also know you will never come back, and all this without getting
anything ready for it, assuredly, master, you are a greater fool than
I. But, perhaps, it is not too late for remedy.”

It is said that the poor fool’s words touched the rich man’s heart, and
that the latter, by prayer, prepared for his own journey; and by will
provided for the comfort of those of his kin and household who were to
tarry here, till summoned to tread the same inevitable road.

The club and the fool’s whip are supposed by some to have descended
from the old wooden sword of the comic actor. To these two succeeded
the slender staff with the fool’s head delicately carved at the top,
which remained one of the signs of his office till the office itself
had passed away. The broad frill was probably not adopted by the fool
until the exaggeration of fashion had rendered it ridiculous. It still
lingers round the necks of Scaramouch, Pierrot, and others of the
family “Stultorum.”

Lastly, a fool was only half a fool without his bells. To show
whence this ornament was derived, Flögel has ransacked libraries,
and displayed a stupendous amount of learning to remarkably little
purpose;--if that purpose were, to determine why they were worn by
jesters. It is going to a period more than sufficiently remote, to say,
that golden bells hung from the robe of the Jewish High Priest, and
not for ornament only. They told of his presence; they rang man to
thoughts of God; they rang away all the ill words that had fallen from
human tongues; they represented the divine shadow; they warned men of
death;--these and a hundred other significations have been found in the
golden bells of the solemn High Priest.

Further, the Eastern kings, and especially the Persian, were as famous
for the bells they wore as the lady in the ballad about Banbury Cross.
It was but the other day that the ex-Queen of Oude was received by
our own Sovereign Lady, when the head-dress or crown of the former
was remarkable for its number of jingling ornaments, which sounded
like bells. Christian bishops early adopted this mode, and for many
centuries subsequent to this, the pictures of some of the greatest
personages, male and female, royal and noble, represent them with bells
of fine fashion, attached to neck-chains, bracelets, or girdle. Knights
wore them on their armour, ladies on their zones; and people who were
in the very highest of the mode attached them to their shoes. When
this was the custom, the continual jingle at tournament or ball must
have been deafening; and, what was worse, if cavalier and demoiselle
bethought themselves of taking a quiet walk together beneath the oaks
in the woods, every rustic near was made the confidant of the pleasant
matter, as far as bells could do it. The folly of this was so patent,
that we cannot wonder at fools mounting the bells in their caps.

Indeed, they mounted them not only in their caps, but on every part
of the body. This was especially the case in the fifteenth century,
when the fashion of wearing bells was abandoned to the professional
merry-men. The mode itself, too, would seem to have prevailed in
the East. As late as the seventeenth century, Tartar princes seldom
stirred abroad in their barbaric splendour without a little knot of
quaintly-dressed “Chaouls,” or fools, running in front of the gorgeous
company, at whose every step the bells attached to their shoulders,
knees, elbows, ankles, etc., jingled merrily. The Chaouls excited the
mirth of their rather moody masters by satirical songs as they went
along. In this latter custom we find a trace of the old usage of the
Roman imperial soldiery who, at the ovations of Emperors, enjoyed full
license of tongue, and took advantage of the triumph of their lord,
to pelt him in rude songs with sly, rather than censuring, remarks
alluding to his known or supposed vices. Suetonius furnishes us with
more than one example of this sort.

As it was said in the olden time that there was no feast without a
Levite, so, at a later period, there was no festival without a fool.
That the latter custom proved a lack of civilization may perhaps be
seen in the fact, that among savage nations a somewhat similar custom
prevails. In its extreme form we find it among the old Kamtchatkans,
whose gala days were rendered doubly joyous by the performances of the
jesters by vocation. One sample however of the jokes of these gentlemen
may suffice. This consists in harnessing themselves to sledges like
dogs; by their close imitation of which animal in every respect, they
excited roars of laughter from their not too delicate audience.

The fools who bustled about on the tournament ground of our knightly
forefathers, were less gross in their merriment. They were for ever
busy, before, during, and after the contest. While it was raging, they
performed the part of the ancient Chorus, making sharp remarks on the
proceedings, now full of pity, anon exulting; and as ready to help
a favourite knight to victory, as to tender succour to his foe when
fallen.

The year 1480 was, in one sense, the very jubilee year of German fools.
It was then that took place the famous tournament described by Marx
Walther, at which were present not less than fifteen professional
fools, in splendid but grotesque uniform. Two of these were mounted,
and headed the respective companies of opposing knights, playing
lustily the while on screeching bagpipes. It was their delight to raise
the wildest screaming from these instruments, as the adversaries rushed
to the combat. They might not hope to frighten the knights, but they
often succeeded in frightening the horses; at which, loudly laughed the
gentle company. Of the remainder of the grotesque children of folly,
eleven were engaged in racing, leaping, tumbling, and wildly joking.
The remaining two galloped about the arena, sometimes with young
fools, sometimes young nobles, on their backs. These fought their mock
tournaments; and as the fools went prancing to the charge and rolled
over one another in the dust, amid volleys of jokes of every possible
description, the spectators condescended to be amused therewith till
sterner fighters took the scene, and the breath which had been wasted
in laughter, was now held in suspense.

While the combat was proceeding, the most restless of the fools would
perhaps try to seek repose with his head reclining on a tin pot, into
which, as he remarked, he had stuffed a whole sack-full of feathers to
render his pillow softer. When a knight was slain, the fool had at his
service a brief epitaph: “Here you are, gentle Sir, quiet for once in
your lifetime!” These jokes of the old arena descended to the clowns
of the circus; and manuals of wit continue to make mention of their
sallies.

The descent was natural enough. As noble lords and ladies patronized
fools who figured in the lists, so common people welcomed them at
their village festivals. Some districts kept their own fools. There
were others who raised to that distinction any “poor natural” of the
locality, out of whose peculiarities or infirmities it was possible
to extract something to laugh at. In some places, fools were hired on
great occasions, to amuse a company unable to amuse itself. In the
sixteenth century this appears to have been the case at notable Greek
weddings in the Levant. Schweigger describes the nuptial feast (at
which he was present) in 1578, of a patriarchal protonotary with a
certain Irene Moschini, at which all the jollity was produced by a
Jewish fool and other hirelings of the like amusing vocation.

The Jews themselves employed jesters to enliven their own wedding
feasts. This was the case in Silesia as late as the last century. The
company sat gravely enough till the indispensable jokers and tumblers
were introduced, and _then_ the fun was of the oddest, if not most
refined, sort. But the Silesian Jews were a simple people, unacquainted
with the mendacity and dreariness of wedding-breakfast speeches. Their
fools had full license to abuse truth, but not to be dreary.

In passing now to the fools of different courts and localities, I will,
by the way, notice a class which may claim precedence, by right of sex.
I therefore proceed to say a few words of the FEMALE FOOLS.




THE FEMALE FOOLS.


I do not know any earlier instance of a retained female fool than
in the case of the wife of Seneca, who kept in her house one named
Harpaste, and whom the philosopher describes as _fatua_, adding that
he himself found no pleasure in such objects; and (as I have quoted
in another page) that if he found it necessary to take delight in
contemplating a fool, he had not far to go,--having only to look in a
mirror. Harpaste may have been retained out of charity, for she was so
witless that, becoming suddenly blind, she was not conscious of her
calamity; but, remarking how very dark it was in the house, asked the
pædagogus to lead her out-of-doors.

Seneca, it will be remembered, loved folly as little in a philosopher
as in the fool by vocation. “He,” observes the son of the Cordovaner,
“who duly considers the business of life and death, will find that
he has little time to spare from that study. And yet, how we trifle
away our hours upon niceties and cavils! Will Plato’s imaginary ideas
make me an honest man?... _A mouse is a syllable, but a syllable
does not eat cheese; therefore a mouse does not eat cheese?_ Oh,
these childish follies!... We are jesting, when we should help the
miserable,--ourselves, as well as others.”

Jeanne, Queen of Charles I. of France, maintained a female fool of the
name of Artaude du Puy, but of whom we know nothing more than that she
cost her mistress, or rather the royal treasury, a considerable sum,
for dress. There is an unpublished autograph letter of Charles, dated
January 3, 1373, an extract from which, printed by the author of ‘_Les
Monnaies des Évêques_,’ etc., shows that the King orders his treasurers
to pay Jean Mandoli, furrier and citizen of Paris, the sum of 179 gold
francs, for certain gauds and braveries of woman’s dress, furnished “to
Artaude du Puy, Fole to our dear companion, the Queen.”

In 1429, we hear of a _moult gracieuse folle_ (she is so called by
St. Remy), whose name was Madame d’Or, and whose wit kept all the
nobles laughing at the festival in honour of the institution of the
Golden Fleece, at Bruges, in 1429. A _folle_ was also attached to the
household of Margaret, the granddaughter of Charles the Bold. Her
position in the household is clearly ascertained by the fact that, when
moving abroad, she followed her mistress in a chariot, accompanied by
the “_old_ ladies in waiting.”

In the succeeding century, in the year 1561, we find a woman, named La
Jardinière, registered as “Fole de la Royne,” attached to the rather
gloomy household of the Queen Dowager, Catherine de Medicis. Catherine
seems to have patronized this sort of official, for in 1568, and for at
least four subsequent years, there was a certain _Jacquette_, who held
in the Queen’s establishment the office of “Plaisante de la Royne.”

As far, however, as witty license of speech went, Catherine’s court
ladies not unfrequently excelled the court fools, male or female. They
did not, indeed, let their lightly-hung tongues ring out at Majesty
itself; but they observed no such restraint with anybody beneath the
rank, even though the individual might be above the King himself in
power. I may instance, as a case in point, the mighty Cardinal of
Lorraine, who, despite all his puissance, was often the butt of the
lively ladies of the Court of Catherine de Medicis and her royal
sons. Brantôme says of this gay and intellectual priest, that, when
things went well with him, his arrogance was insufferable; but that
no one could be more courteous, or more humble, when his projects met
with obstruction. One of the Queen’s maids-of-honour, Mdlle. de la
Guyonnière, afterwards Madame de Ligneroles, often carried on a fool’s
war with the redoubted Cardinal. Whenever the latter appeared to be
meek and polite with this lady,--she, who, according to Brantôme’s
pleasant compendium, “étoist très habile fille, belle, honneste, et
qui disoit bien le mot,” would, with audacious gaiety, exclaim, “Come,
come, meek Sir, tell us now if you have not met with some check during
the night past? Confess at once that you have been humbled, or we will
have nothing to say to you; for, most assuredly, you have encountered
some defeat. So, let us hear all about it, if you would have us
gracious with you.”

At a later period, we find another lady whose wit was wont to give
mirth to courtly circles, if not to the French Court itself. I allude
to the sister of that younger De Thou who was executed, by Richelieu,
in 1642, for not revealing the conspiracy headed by Cinq-Mars, who had
trusted the secret of it with his friend. In after-years, this lady
attended the funeral service of the Cardinal, or a service held for the
repose of his soul. And there she set the noble persons present into
scarcely suppressed laughter, by exclaiming, as she gazed at the coffin
where Richelieu lay, or was supposed to lie,--in the words of Martha to
Christ, after the death of Lazarus,--“Domine, si fuisses hîc, frater
meus non esset mortuus.” (“Lord, if thou hadst been _here_, my brother
had not died.”) It was very apt, though a little profane.

To return to the official female fool, we must go back to the Court
of the father of the King, under whom this lady lived, namely, the
Court of Henri IV. There was there a Mathurine, who seems to have
held the office of _Plaisante_, not to the Queen exclusively, but for
the benefit and amusement of the Court generally. Of what quality was
the wit of these _plaisantes_, some of whom I think were dwarfs, I am
unable to say; the only certain fact I can tell of them is, that they,
though not more than the male fools, continued to wear out the soles
of their shoes with great rapidity. The registers of accounts show an
extraordinary consumption of shoe leather. In the ‘_Collection de la
Chambre des Comptes_,’ under the year 1319, thirty-two pairs of shoes
are set down as having been supplied _at one time_ to the Queen’s dwarf!

It is said of Mathurine that she employed her wit in laughing people
out of the Huguenot faith into Catholicism. Mathurine was present in
1594 when Jean Chastel wounded Henri, in his attempt on that king’s
life, and she ran great risk of sharing the fate of the would-be
assassin, for the monarch, aware of her frantic zeal for the Roman
Catholic Church, and that she only looked on Henri as half a Romanist,
or believing that she was playing too serious a joke by right of her
office, ordered her under arrest as an accomplice. Mathurine, however,
proved her innocence, and was set free. She died previous to the year
1627.

De Tillot quotes two authors who make mention of this female fool,
Mathurine. The first is the anonymous author of ‘La Lunatique,’ who,
addressing the King’s male jester, “Maître Guillaume,” remarks:
“Thou doest well to have small love for the Reformers. Satan himself
looks on them only with regret; and for a good reason, seeing that
if the Reformers could have their way, there would soon be an end of
court fools and buffoons. Ah, poor Mathurine, and you poor fellows,
Angoulevent, Maître Guillaume, and indeed all you other fools, as
well without hoods as with, where would all your pensions be if the
Reformers had the upper hand?”

It is a significant fact, this, of the Reformers being the opponents
of the expensive follies, and their professors, patronized at Court.
Ogive, the second author cited by De Tillot, speaks also of Mathurine,
as a salaried fool, appointed by the King: “Folle à gages, et appointée
du Roi.” He writes, in 1627, saying, “Truly it is a marvellous thing
that noble personages, who have been brought up all their lives with
the parrots and apes of the Louvre, and who do not less belong to the
Court than Mathurine did, or the Queen-Mother’s dwarfs _do_, should not
have learnt in their cabinets to write reasonably.”

Thirty-four years after this was written, a Spanish _folle_ appeared at
the French Court, and in rather suspicious society; that of Don John
of Austria, who accompanied the famous Pimentel to Paris, to negotiate
the marriage of Maria Theresa of Spain with the young Louis XIV. (a
marriage which, as it was to put an end to the war, was more cared
for by Mazarin than a union which might have taken place between the
Cardinal’s most clever niece, Marie Mancini, and the French king).
Don John had the impudence to present at court this woman, whom he
called his “Folle.” She was full of fun and wit, and every one sought
to excite both. Louis enjoyed her jokes with wonderful zest. Her name
was Capiton, and no party was thought complete without the presence
of the Don’s _Folle_. The cudgelling of brains between her and Marie
Mancini was a gladiatorial fight. Poor Marie had loved Louis, and Louis
was warmly attached to a woman who had awakened in him the only good
qualities he ever possessed, and who saved him from being such a mere
beast as his successor was. Capiton loved to provoke Marie, by singing
the praises of the Spanish Infanta, and Marie, sharp-witted, as well
as sharply wounded by these praises of a rival who was to triumph
over her, replied by sarcasms that were repeated with intense delight
throughout France. The haughty, eccentric, coarse, and sensual Don John
was proud of his Folle Capiton.

The official female fool survived as late as the year 1722, when we
meet with a certain Kathrin Lise. She was the duly-appointed jokeress,
if I may so speak, to the Duchess von Sachsen-Weissenfels-Dahme, who
resided in the castle of Drehna, and depended upon Kathrin for her
mirth. This is all we know of the last of the line of female jesters.

       *       *       *       *       *

Before proceeding to sketch an historical outline of our own English
fools, I propose to treat briefly of the Eastern buffoons. These may
fairly claim precedence, on the ground that in the East the fashion of
maintaining household fools is supposed to have originated, and that it
has not yet expired in that locality. Further, there is, in connection
with barbaric Courts, both in the East and the West, some legendary
matter connected with the Fool, of which it may be as well finally to
dispose, prior to dealing with the English jester as an historical
character.




THE ORIENTAL “NOODLE.”


As I have just stated, the court or household fool probably originated
in the East. The close of this Chapter will show that in the East that
pleasant or pretentious official still survives. In a region where
aberration of mind is taken to be a sort of divine inspiration, we need
not wonder at finding the professional jester still attached to certain
families, and himself and his vocation treated with a certain degree of
respect.

I have already spoken of the buffoons who could not move the gravity
of their own solemn master Attila; and we know that Timour rather kept
these people for the amusement of his guests, than that he experienced
any satisfaction himself in the exercise of their craft. They were
not wanting in the Courts of the Caliphs, and the name of Bahalul
conspicuously figures among the cap-and-bell favourites of Haroon
Al-Raschid. It was to him that the Caliph once said, “Fool, give me a
list of all the blockheads in Bagdad.” To which Bahalul answered, “That
were not so easy, and would take too long; but if you want a list of
the wise men, you shall have it in two minutes.”

It was in jest that Haroon presented him a document, by which he was
constituted governor of all the bears, wolves, foxes, apes, and asses,
in the Caliphate. “It is too much for me,” said the fool; “I am not
ambitious enough to desire to rule all your holiness’s subjects.”

Bahalul one day, finding no one in the throne-room of the sovereign
father of the faithful, seated himself on the cushions of the
priest-monarch. The guards near were horror-stricken at beholding
the jester on the sacred couch of authority, imitating the manners of
Haroon himself; just as Chicot, long after, used to mimic those of
Henri III. They speedily dragged him from the throne of cushions, and
began bastinadoing him with such violence that the Caliph, hearing his
cries, entered the hall and demanded the reason of the outcry. “Uncle,”
said Bahalul, “I am not screaming on my own account, but on yours. I
pity you. I have only tried royalty for five minutes, and I am already
in a fever with pain inflicted by these fellows. What must you endure,
then, who occupy the same distinguished seat every day!”

Bahalul seems to have been a dissipated fellow, and the Caliph enjoined
him to marry and live discreetly, loving his wife, and bringing up his
family in honour. The jester so far obeyed as to go through the nuptial
ceremony; but as he was conducting his wife to her apartment, the
uncourteous bridegroom suddenly paused, looked as if he were petrified,
and declaring that he had never heard such a tumult in his life, took
to his heels, and did not re-appear for months. Meanwhile, the deserted
bride had procured a divorce, and _then_ Bahalul made his _rentrée_ at
Court.

“So!” exclaimed the Caliph, with an inquiring air.

“Ay, ay!” cried the fool, “you would have done as I did. The tumult
scared me away beyond the hills.”

“What tumult?” asked Haroon.

“Why,” said Bahalul, “as my wife was entering her room, there came from
her, sounds as of a thousand voices. Amid them, I could distinguish
the cries of ‘rent! taxes! doctors! sons! daughters! schooling!
dress! silks! satins! muslins! drawers! slippers! money! more money!
debt! imprisonment! and Bahalul has drowned himself in the Caliph’s
bath!--therewith,” added the jester, “terrified at the solemn warning,
and wishing to avoid the profanity of plunging my person into your
brightness’s bath, I fled, till the danger was over, and--here I am;
owing nothing, and disinclined to drown myself.”

Bahalul, however, was not the most favourite jester of this Caliph.
There is no doubt that the most renowned of these was Ebn Oaz. We
have indeed but one sample of his quality, but that is excellent.
Unfortunately, it is also well known; but it must not be omitted in
this record of the fraternity. Haroon, it is said, desired to exhibit
the best qualities of the wit in presence of the young Sultana and her
brilliant court; and he suddenly ordered Ebn Oaz to make some excuse
which should be more offensive than the crime it was to extenuate.
After considerable thought, Oaz slunk away, and the disappointed
spectators were speaking of him as “incapable,” when the Caliph,
suddenly starting up from his seat, with a roar and a look of exquisite
anguish, set the whole court in confusion. The fact was, that Ebn
Oaz had gone behind the curtains of the throne, and, opening them
gently, had given the Caliph so astounding a pinch in the rear, that
he sprang up as if a javelin had pierced him. Looking on the offender
with rage and anguish, he ordered him to be slain for the treasonable
and intolerable assault. “Stay!” said Oaz to the too-ready officials,
who were already fingering their bow-strings. “Hear my excuse,” added
he, turning to the Caliph; “I declare, by way of apology, that when I
pinched your Holiness behind, I thought I was pinching the Sultana,
your wife.” Haroon saw at once that the excuse was worse than the
crime, and that he ought to be delighted; but he only laughed in a
forced way, remarking to the Sultana, before he resumed his seat, that
he felt he should not forget the joke for some time to come.

This story has been made wonderful use of, and has been dished up
in a hundred different ways in a hundred different localities. It
belongs, however, originally to the East, as do so many other of our
most ancient and accepted anecdotes. I believe that all the facetiæ
of Hierocles were old Indian, before they were new Greek stories,
and that the “simpleton” who clung to the anchor when the ship was
sinking,--who stood before a mirror with his eyes closed, to see how he
looked when asleep,--who carried about with him a brick of his house,
as a specimen of the building,--who made the experiment of keeping a
horse alive without food, only failing to succeed by the premature
death of the steed;--all these, and some dozens of others like them,
had all drawn laughter from Eastern potentates before they began to
raise a smile in the fairer faces of the Hellenes. But these stories
only amused; and the jester had the prerogative of being free, as well
as the duty of being entertaining.

This freedom of the jester, and the good use to which he could apply
his joke and his license, is exemplified in the case of the town-fool
who entered the hall where Mahmoud Ghizni was seated in full assembly.
Without appearing to be conscious of the illustrious presence and the
august company, he went prying about into the corners of the hall, as
if in search of some particular object. At length, said he, “Not one!”

“Not one what?” roared the Ghiznian.

“Sheep’s tail!” said the fool, in a tone of voice which set every one
in a roar of laughter.

“It’s no laughing matter,” added he; “I am starving, and all I ask is a
sheep’s tail for my dinner.”

“Nay!” cried Mahmoud, “thou shalt have one;” and whispering to an
official who stood near, the latter personage presently brought in a
raw vegetable, which in its shape somewhat closely resembled the long,
heavy, and unctuous tail of the Eastern sheep. The fool took it without
observation; and, after thanks to the Prophet for excellent mutton, he
began devouring it. Observing that the monarch smiled, the jester asked
him, with the tail in his mouth, if what he was doing reminded his
Majesty of anything.

“Of what should a sheep’s tail in thy mouth remind me,” said Mahmoud,
“except of the proverb that ‘Extremes meet’?” The fool was overwhelmed
for awhile by the laughter duly shouted forth by the subordinates at
their great master’s joke, but he soon recovered himself, and when
Mahmoud asked him what he thought of his joint, he answered, “That the
thing was eatable enough, but that he observed that sheep’s tails were
by no means so fat and well-flavoured as they had been in the days of
his Majesty’s predecessor; but that, as men were more lean, too, now,
than they used to be, perhaps the fact alluded to was of no material
consequence.”

“Thou art not such a fool as thou pretendest to be,” said the
sovereign. “It was but yesterday that one of thy profession told me of
the gratitude the owls felt for me, because of the many ruined villages
in the land; and now thou hintest at the misery of the people. Go thy
way, good fellow, and go thy way with full stomach, and assurance that
both evils shall yet be remedied.”

In the sixteenth century, when Baber was Emperor of Hindostan, the
merry profession was in favour, but the furnishers of amusement for the
monarch comprised others besides jesters. Thus, at state dinners, as
soon as the imperial host and his guests took their places, tumblers,
rope-dancers, and jugglers, whom no other country could equal,
exhibited their feats. The highest point of fun was when the scattering
of coin among the performers, excited a huge uproar. In earlier times,
the wordy contests of two fools used to beguile the half-hour before
dinner; but in Baber’s days, he and similar potentates were wont to be
exceedingly well amused by witnessing a couple of rams butting at each
other. It was perhaps as rational for royalty so to do, as to listen to
Ethiopian serenaders chanting harmonized nonsense.

Some writers have classed the “Mutes” among the professional fools
of the Eastern courts. This would seem to be an error not easily
accounted for. The duty of that official was of a rather severe cast.
The fool, however, was well known among the Turks, and perhaps the most
celebrated was that Nasur ed Deen Chodscha, who was in the service
of the first Bajazet, and who joked to such excellent effect that he
once tickled Timour Leng into such good humour that the latter paid
the fool the high compliment of saving from plunder his native town
Jengi-Scheher (Neapolis). It was done after this wise:--

The inhabitants of the city, hearing of the approach of the conqueror,
prepared to defend themselves with vigour. Nasur counselled them to
do nothing of the sort, but to trust to him alone, and his mediation
with Timour. The people were doubtful of his success, but they yielded.
Before proceeding to the camp of the besieger, Nasur, who knew it was
useless to approach the great chief without a present, considered what
gift was likely to be most acceptable. He resolved it should be fruit,
but he hesitated between figs and quinces. “I will consult with my
wife,” said Nasur ed Deen, and he according did so. The lady advised
him to take quinces, as the larger fruit. “Very good,” said Nasur,
“that being your opinion, I will take figs.” When he reached the foot
of the throne of Tamerlane, he announced himself as the ambassador
from the beleaguered citizens, and presented, as an offering of their
homage, his trumpery basket of figs. The chief burst into a rage, and
ordered them to be flung at the head of the representative of the
people of Jengi-Scheher. The courtiers pelted him with right good will;
and each time he was struck, Nasur, who stood patient and immovable,
gently exclaimed, “Now Allah be praised!” or, “Oh, the Prophet be
thanked!” or, “Oh, admirable! how can I be sufficiently grateful?”

“What dost thou mean, fellow?” asked Timour; “we pelt you with figs,
and you seem to enjoy it!”

“Ay, truly, great Sir,” replied Nasur; “I gratefully enjoy the
consequence of my own wit. My wife counselled me to bring quinces, but
I chose to bring figs; and well that I did, for with figs you have only
bruised me, but had I brought quinces, you would have beaten my brains
out.”

The stern conqueror laughed aloud, and declared that, for the sake of
one fool, he would spare all the asses in the city, male and female,
them and their property.

“Then,” cried Nasur, “the entire population is safe!” and he ran
homewards to communicate the joyful intelligence.

Nasur, indeed, ranks among the most useful, as well as the most witty,
of his ancient vocation. On one occasion, Bajazet had condemned many
scores of his officers to death, for some trifling offence, in time of
war. “Ay, indeed,” exclaimed the fool, “hang the knaves! hang them!
what use are they? kill them for small offences, and rogues will fear
to commit greater! excellent wisdom! Timour is at hand; away with
them before he comes! The army can do without leaders. You take the
standard; I will beat the drum; and we will thus meet that troublesome
individual at the head of the forces. We will see how we can handle the
Tartars, without such knaves as these to help us!” Bajazet comprehended
the implied reproof, and spared the well-proved and lightly-offending
leaders of his host.

On another occasion, Nasur, having succeeded so well with his figs,
acknowledged the clemency of Timour, by presenting him with a few
fresh gherkins, for the great warrior’s supper. The chief ordered
him a reward of ten gold crowns, and Nasur went home rejoiced. When
the season came that other gherkins had grown into cucumbers, Nasur,
expecting commensurate recompense, carried to the residence of Timour
a basket full of the refreshing vegetable. The door-keeper, however,
refused to allow him to pass until he had agreed to give him half the
reward that might be paid to Nasur by order of the chief. It happened
that the latter was “not i’ the vein,” and instead of commanding a
recompense of gold crowns, he sentenced the unfortunate gift-bearer to
receive a hundred blows from the stick. Nasur took fifty patiently;
but _then_ he cried to the unpleasant official to hold his hand; and
he explained how the other half of the acknowledgment belonged to the
door-keeper. Timour swore that the stipulation should be observed, and
the remaining half-hundred blows were paid where they were justly due.

A whole Encyclopædia might be written of the sayings and doings of
the Eastern “simpletons,” alone. My space is too limited to allow of
my doing much more than to offer a few illustrations; but, to those
who have much curiosity in the matter, and who may not be disinclined
to spend whole hours with a single class of the Oriental Fools, I
recommend the well-known book, which contains the birth, parentage,
and education, life, character, and behaviour, lively sayings, last
dying speech and confession of the Gooroo Noodle. From that tempting
chronicle, I return to the “Toorke” jester, with the remark that, great
as was his freedom of speech, it was not every witty fellow at Court
who was so licensed. The courtier who ventured to take a liberty with
a Turkish potentate was as uncertain, as to the effect, as the Roman
wits were when bold enough to joke with the Emperor. Selim, the son of
Bajazet, was one with whom the most favoured of his followers could
not with impunity venture on freedom of speech. When engaged on his
Egyptian expedition, one of his officials the most closely attached to
his person, hazarded the question as to when his Majesty expected to be
at Cairo. “_We_ shall be there,” said Selim, “when it may please God.
As for thy arrival there, it rather pleases me that thou shalt stay
here.” And therewith, on a sign from the Sultan, the unlucky querist
was instantly put to death.

Murad the Third, though as savage by nature as Selim, could take a
joke better than his predecessor could a simple question. There was
one thing, however, which he could _not_ tolerate--tobacco; the use
of which he punished with death. But among the few members of his
court was a man renowned for his wit, and for his power of raising
the spirits of the Sultan, even when these had been depressed by a
three days’ fit of drunkenness. Now this court-wit loved smoking, and
was resolved, not only to have his pipe, but to escape the penalty
of death attached to the enjoyment of it. Accordingly, he caused a
deep pit to be dug in his tent, and when he desired to give himself
up to his dearest indulgence, he would descend into it, sitting there
concealed by a sieve-like construction drawn over the top, and lightly
covered with turf. One evening, Murad became sagacious of the hookah
from afar, and, tracing the offender to the very pit in which he was
quietly smoking, threatened him with instant death. The offender,
however, coolly thrusting his head upward, as he provokingly drew
another mouthful of reeking luxury, exclaimed, “Go to, thou son of a
bond-woman! Thy edicts extend _over_ the earth, certainly; but they
do not extend under it.” “Take thy life for thy joke,” said Murad,
laughing and coughing,--the first at the jest, and the second at the
odour and vapour, which he detested,--“I only wish thy pipe were as
enjoyable as thy wit.”

Many samples of this sort I could continue to place before my readers;
but, having regard to the patience of those who have so often borne
patiently with me, I will only trace the Eastern jester down to modern
times. Till after the commencement of the present century, the courts
of the Hospodars of Moldavia and Wallachia were never without the
mirthful official. The latter was usually an Armenian. Indeed, there
were, ordinarily, several at each court. Their duty was to amuse their
lord when he was at table, by every means in their power, by strange
remarks, by droll stories, or by burlesques more or less extravagant.
In processions, they walked before their masters, and carried long
staves covered with silver bells. Since they fell into disuse, the
Gipsies succeeded to the exercise of one part of their office,
and these are admitted to the palaces of the great, on particular
festivals, to amuse their illustrious hearers with national and comic
songs.

From a very early period, the public and private buffoons of the
East seem to have been selected from among the Armenians. Joinville
introduces to us some very sprightly professionals of this sort, in his
‘History of St. Louis.’ “There came with the Prince,” he says, “three
minstrels from Armenia (trois ménestriers de la Grande Hyrménie). They
carried three horns, and when they began to perform on them, you might
have taken the sound for that of swans. They produced the softest
melody....” He then informs us how, having fulfilled their office of
minstrels, they performed that of buffoons, for the amusement of the
illustrious personages present. “They made three marvellous leaps
(_sauts_); ... a cloth (_touaille_) being placed beneath their feet,
they threw a somersault upon it, without any spring, and two of them
leaped in this way, head backwards.”

The old fashion in the East did not altogether expire till a very
recent period, for we find a jester at the court of the father of the
present Sultan of Turkey. It was said of some eminent individual,
that he had made two centuries illustrious; and something like it
may be said of this oriental jester, who flourished at the court
of Constantinople at the close of the last, and above a quarter of
the present century. In 1836 died Abdi Bey, who, for nearly half a
century previous, had been the favourite jester of successive Sultans.
He worked hard and reaped a large fortune. In the early part of his
career, his masters treated him as a mere brutish buffoon, on whom they
might play any trick. Sometimes they set him off in a gallop, mounted
on a giraffe, or tumbled him headlong into a pond, to the danger of
his life. The late Sultan Mahmoud had no stomach for such sorry jokes,
and Abdi Bey devoted his capacity to keep his patron in good spirits by
amusing him with smart sayings and pleasant stories. He must have been
an incomparable fool in his time, or his masters must have been greater
fools than he, for out of their imperial bounty, he contrived to save
£150,000, which he left to his grateful and deeply-resigned heirs. It
was nearly as much as the late Mr. Greenough made by the manufacture of
lozenges--“ten a penny!”

Abdi Bey has been called the last of the household buffoons. But this
is not the case; for though the official fool has disappeared from
Court, he is still to be found attached to families, or heads of
families. We even meet with this rather impudent than merry fellow in
the household of Christian Patriarchs. Only a few years ago, when the
Nestorian Patriarch was flying, with a large number of his followers,
from their would-be murderers in the mountains, they found refuge at
Mosul, in the houses of the English Consul and the Rev. Mr. Fletcher.
The latter gentleman, in his ‘Notes from Nineveh,’ so describes his
reverence’s buffoon as to induce us to believe that to have much to
do with him was really “no joke at all.” “My new guests,” he says,
“were very orderly in their manners, though wild in their appearance.
Only one decided quarrel broke out among them during their abode with
me; and this was occasioned by a half-crazy old man who served the
Patriarch in the double capacity of a domestic and buffoon. This worthy
was addicted, like many of his countrymen, to the vice of intoxication;
and having on one occasion partaken rather freely of the juice of the
grape, he grew riotous, and addressed a reproachful epithet to one
of his companions. The fiery nature of the mountaineer was excited,
and he retorted in no complimentary terms. The old buffoon drew his
dagger, and made a rush at his antagonist, who retreated into an
inner apartment and shut the door. Nothing could equal the rage of old
Yohanan at being thus baulked of his vengeance. Two or three times he
burst from those who were restraining him, and drove his knife into the
hard wood of the door. At length he was quieted, and after sleeping-off
his drunkenness, appeared the next morning with a sober and abashed
countenance.” I suppose old Yohanan was past being amusing, for we are
subsequently told, that to raise the drooping spirits of the Patriarch,
an itinerant Italian juggler was hired. At _his_ tricks and witticisms
the pious head of the Nestorian Church forgot the slaughter of his
friends and the devastation of their and his homesteads. The saintly
and sympathetic man laughed till he could hardly sit upright on his
cushions, and only ceased then because some wonderful stroke of the
juggler’s art induced him suddenly to suspect that such marvellous
proficiency was only an inspiration of the devil.

       *       *       *       *       *

By way of supplement to this Chapter, I will add a few short
illustrations of the jester at other barbarous courts than those of the
East;--and first, of “that beyond the Atlantic.”

When Cortez first visited the court of Montezuma, he found there
various instances of high civilization:--among others, light ladies,
strong drinks, court fools, and a spirit of infidelity against the
established church, inspired by an influence called the “Rational
Owl.” The Aztec monarch resembled Heliogabalus in one respect;--“he
had a museum,” says Brantz Mayer, in his excellent work, ‘Mexico,
Aztec, Spanish, and Republican,’ “in which, with an oddity of taste
unparalleled in history, there had been collected a vast number of
human monsters, cripples, dwarfs, albinos, and other freaks and
caprices of nature.” Bernal Diaz saw the monarch at dinner, and among
the incidents recorded by the old Spaniard, is, that, “at different
intervals during the time of dinner, there entered certain Indians,
hump-backed, very deformed and ugly, who played tricks of buffoonery;
and others, who they said were jesters.” The fashion of maintaining the
latter was followed by the nobles. “The principal men,” says Acoste,
quoted by Prescott, “had also buffoons and jugglers in their service,
who amused them, and astonished the Spaniards by their feats of
dexterity and strength.”

Montezuma patronized rather the witty buffoons than the skilful
jugglers. “Indeed, he used to say, that more instruction was to be
gathered from them than from wiser men, for they dared to tell the
truth.” Prescott adds in a note, founded on Clavigero, that “the Aztec
mountebanks had such repute, that Cortez sent two of them to Rome,
to amuse his Holiness, Clement VII.” This was only an exchange of
personages of similar profession, for the European official house fool
had already been imported into America. In 1519, at St. Jago, when
Velasquez the governor was beginning to be suspicious of the designs of
Cortez to supplant him, the two great men were walking together towards
the port. As they passed on, the fool of the former called aloud, “Have
a care, Master Velasquez, or we shall have to go a-hunting, some day or
other, after this same captain of ours.” “Do you hear what the rogue
says?” exclaimed the Governor to his companion. “Do not heed him,” said
Cortez, “he is a saucy knave, and deserves a good whipping.” The hint
of the fool, however, heightened the suspicions of his master; but how
the latter was too slow of wit and action to profit thereby, is known
to all who have read the graphic pages which tell of the conquest of
Mexico.

But neither Aztec nor Spanish monarch rivalled their less civilized
brother of Monomotapa in this peculiar department of his household.
Gallienus alone deserves to be mentioned, in this respect, with the
African potentate, who never stirred abroad with less than five
hundred official fools in his vast and noisy retinue!

There were, as late as the last century, and there probably still
linger on the Gold Coast, traditions of the mythological jester of
Africa, Nanni, son of the Spider. His busy parent had spun all the
human race from the thread of his bowels, and found no gratitude from
the living produce of his labours. The Fetis seduced all creation to
sin, and the Spider bethought him how to annoy the Fetis. With what
little material he had left, he spun the last man, and educated him at
his own paternal feet, on the edge of the domestic web. The tricks the
father taught his boy were long the delight of polished and perspiring
African tribes. Nanni was the ebony Owlglas of the land of Ham. He
served the Fetis, but only as Jocrisse did his master, to his great
vexation. Was Nanni commissioned to provide a chicken for dinner,
he knew how, after devouring the bird himself, to replace bones and
skin, and place it before his employer, the very model of a plump
pullet. Was an egg ordered for breakfast, Nanni first sucked out the
contents through a minute orifice, and filled up the shell with the
finest sand. Nanni, too, was a married man, with numberless children,
and more wives than “that Sardanapalus of Snobs,” Brigham Young. In a
time of scarcity, when even a bean was worth more than its weight in
gold, the hungry wives and offspring of Nanni drove him forth by their
importunity, to seek food. He came upon a company of boys and girls who
had been left by their father in charge of a quantity of beans, to dry
and turn them in the air. Nanni leaped in among them, made them shriek
with laughter at his jokes, and stamp with delight at his dancing.
The latter exercise he concluded by rolling his well-oiled body among
the beans, with which, sticking to him as he rose, he made off, after
bidding the children look at his hands, to see that he carried nothing
away with him. By repeating this feat, he nourished his household
for days; and the alarmed owner of the precious vegetables could not
account for their diminution from any account rendered by the young
guardians. But detecting Nanni in the fact, the owner chopped off both
his hands, as he lay rolling his greased body among the beans. The wit
of the national jester had been grievously at fault, and his household
becoming more hungry and angry than ever, his wives broke into open
revolt, and eloped in a body, in search of another mate. But Nanni
was beforehand with them in every respect; for taking the guise of a
woodman, and having recovered his lost members, he met them in their
flight, without being recognized by them. They told him of the fate
of their husband, and of their intentions, concluding with a gentle
hint that they were well enough inclined to accept a well-built young
wood-cutter for their common husband. “No! no!” cried Nanni, “times
are so very hard, that I have been obliged to dismiss forty-nine of
my wives, and to live as well as I can with one!” This speech alarmed
the ladies, who forthwith hurried homeward; but the active Nanni
encountered them at the threshold, over which he would not allow them
to pass till they had entered into stipulations whereby he was secured
in full and despotic authority over his entire family.

The jokes of Nanni, son of the Spider, for a long time formed all the
history, literature, and amusement of Negro circles. A thousand times
over have his tricks been told and acted, in a semi-dramatic way, to
delighted groups of swarthy listeners beneath the African moon. I
may notice that the story-teller has always been a greater favourite
in Africa than the mere jester. I remember, indeed, having read of
one potentate, the Kaffir chief Tshaka, or Chaka, who would tolerate
neither, at his horridly solemn court. On one occasion, however, and
in full council, a merry fellow gave utterance to a frolicsome thought
which he could not repress. It succeeded admirably,--gloomy king and
grave counsellors were thrown into the most convulsive hilarity. When
they had all recovered, the chief, pointing towards the jester, showed
his grateful sense of a rare delight, by exclaiming, “Take that dog
out, and kill him; he has _made me laugh_!”

To make his patron laugh was the especial and variously-rewarded
vocation of the jester whom I now proceed to introduce to my readers.
The English Court Fool was a very peculiar fellow, and in the history
of some members of the order of Motley, in this country, there are
incidents unparalleled in the history of the official jesters of any
other nation. Let us see whence they came, as well as who they were.




ENGLISH MINSTREL AND JESTER.


All writers who have taken the ancient English minstrels for a subject,
agree in stating that the old Saxon invaders of our land brought with
them bards, and a profound reverence for the bards themselves and the
art they professed. These highly-esteemed personages were rhyming
historians, chroniclers, theologians, and philosophers. They held the
key, or, what was the same thing to them, men believed that they held
the key, of many secrets appertaining, not only to earth, but heaven.
They were mighty personages in their day; but they could not withstand
a ray from the Star of Bethlehem. When the Saxons became Christians, or
at least professed Christianity, the vocation of the old, mysterious,
rapt, inspired bard, with his eternal memory of the past, and his
prophetic view into a long future, was entirely gone. He had been a
sort of god, and he became a mortal who sang for hire. The Jupiter
of yesterday was now, in most cases, and in most men’s eyes, only a
Jupiter Scapin.

In _most_ cases, but not in all; for, such as were scholars among
the bards devoted themselves to the cultivation of poetry. There
were others, like the early German jester who remarked that he did
not know the Lord’s Prayer, but only the tune of it. They had more
music in their souls,--such as the music was, and such as their souls
were,--than religion. These turned minstrels, and sang and played for a
reward.

With the superior class above noticed, I have nothing further to
do; but have to keep companionship with the hired minstrel,--or the
itinerating minstrel, who exercised his vocation for bread. The latter
was not altogether wanting to the Anglo-Saxon, previous to the period
of their conversion. The native gleeman who then exercised his welcome
office, is described by Dr. Lingard, in his ‘History and Antiquities of
the Anglo-Saxon Church,’ as being a minstrel who was “either attached
to the service of a particular chieftain, or wandering from place to
place, and subsisting on the bounty of his hearers.” Mr. Eccleston,
in his ‘Introduction to English Antiquities,’ describes the gleeman
as all-important to the in-door life of the Anglo-Saxons, before whom
he “sang, played, danced, and performed sleight-of-hand tricks for
the pleasure of the company.” This would hardly seem to show that the
gleeman was, as some have asserted, of a higher grade than the common
minstrel of later years. It is certain that he was the popular minstrel
of his day; his songs were sung in castle and farmyard; and when the
great St. Adhelm was sensible of a call to preaching, and was desirous
of getting together a congregation, he knew no better method than to
assume the character of the gleeman. Thus accoutred, harp in hand, he
would station himself at some cross-road, or at the corner of a bridge,
and rattle forth a series of popular songs on passing and popular
subjects. He soon drew an audience around him; and when he had fairly
got them into a train of attention, he would gradually slip away from
his comic songs and lively airs on the harp, and fulfil his office of
Christian missionary, with as much success as he had played that of the
vivacious gleeman.

There is another legend, showing how the guise of the minstrel was
assumed for a different purpose. The legend to which I allude is that
of Alfred entering the Danish camp in this false character, and spying
out the weakness of his enemies, while he amused them with his songs to
the harp. The story is altogether apocryphal, and was never heard of
in Alfred’s time, nor till two centuries had elapsed since his death.
It is certain that Alfred could not have safely entered the camp as
a Saxon; and if he found admission as a Dane, his accent would have
betrayed him as a spy. It has been suggested, that if he ever went at
all, he went as a _mimus_, or buffoon (a word which had already been
applied to minstrels), and that he amused his fierce enemies by the
ordinary tricks, tumblings, and other performances of the jester.

For, in course of time, _minstrel_ and _buffoon_ came to be terms of
much the same signification. This we find by another popular legend,
which is supposed to have very little truth for a basis;--namely, the
legend which tells of the faithful Blondel de Nesle, minstrel to King
Richard I., seeking for his captured master, and discovering him by
means of a song, sung outside the prison, to which the royal captive
answered from within. Whether this story be true or not, it was
accepted as truth at an early period, and in ‘Les Soirées de Guillaume
Bouchet,’ we find, as a comment upon it, the following query:--“I
just beg to ask you, if the wisest man in the world could have done
more for his master; and if this buffoon of a minstrel (_ce boufon de
ménestrier_) was not of more profit to King Richard, his lord, than the
wisest scholars at court.”

For a long period, the minstrel seems to have been very well paid
for the exercise of his art, at least in presence of royalty. At
the marriage of the Countess of Holland, daughter of Edward I.,
every king-minstrel present received forty shillings! This guerdon,
represented in modern money, would be not much under as many pounds
sterling in value. The above was, perhaps, an exceptional occasion;
but even the ordinary guerdon, of twenty and thirty shillings for a
single night’s attendance, shows at what an early period the musical
profession was exorbitantly remunerated;--for the individuals here
alluded to were actual _cantatores_, and not mere _joculatores_.

The Court always thought better of them than the Church. “Actors and
jesters,” says John of Salisbury (1160 _circ._), “may not be admitted
to the Sacrament.--_Histriones et mimi non possunt recipere sacram
Communionem._” And forty years later, there were some people who as
much objected to marry their daughters to the King’s jesters, as the
coachman of George II. did to his son marrying a maid-of-honour. One
of the Pipe Rolls, supposed to be of the date of 1200, informs us
that “Nicola, wife of Girard of Canville, accounts to the King for
one hundred marks, for the privilege of marrying her daughter Maud to
whatever person she pleases,--the King’s jester excepted--_exceptis
mimicis Regis_. The _mimici_, whatever their exact office was, had
as part of their duty, evidently, to amuse the King (John), and
they would appear, from the reference made to them, to have been
but a disreputable set of fellows. They were probably a sort of
actors,--pantomimic, if not altogether dramatic;--for the descent of
the ancient minstrel through poet and player to mere jester, is easy to
be traced in the history of the profession in nearly every nation.

As I have but recently remarked, however, the minstrel proper, as well
as he who joined _gestas_ and _joculatoria_ to his minstrelsy, was
very much better paid than the clergy. Just so in the present day:
we pay a _tenore robusto_ a higher salary than the State awards to a
general-in-chief or an admiral of the fleet, while a curate is more
shabbily rewarded than the handicraftsman who makes his garments. To
be sure, the “tenore robusto” _can_ sing, while not one in ten of our
curates knows how to read with effect. Perhaps, for some such reason,
the minstrels of old had the advantage of the priest. Warton, in his
second volume, notices the presence, in 1430, of a dozen priests and a
dozen minstrels, at the festival of the Holy Cross at Abingdon. Both
parties sang their best; but the clerics only received fourpence apiece
for their pains, while the more lucky minstrels, who probably had some
good jests for the Prior’s table, afterwards, received two shillings
and fourpence each, and food for man and horse. Eleven years later,
we are told of a feast held at the Priory of Maxtoke, near Coventry.
Eight priests from Coventry were present, and half-a-dozen _Mimi_. The
latter were players and jesters belonging to Lord Clinton, of Maxtoke.
Well, priests and mimes sang, harped, and played, or sported,--the
latter doubtless being the additional work of the “Mimi,” while the
monks enjoyed themselves in the refectory. The Mimes received four
shillings each, but the priests were supposed to be sufficiently
well paid with just half the sum. Some such difference will be found
by future examiners of court account-rolls regarding the payment of
foreign and English singers of a very much later period. But, to return
to the festival at Maxtoke, it is further to be observed, that the poor
priests had no further compliment paid them, whereas the Sub-Prior
invited Lord Clinton’s _Mimi_ to sup with him “in the painted chamber,”
and the chamberlain did honour to the occasion by putting eight massy
wax tapers on the board. The incidents of this convent supper have
not been recorded, but we may, without being uncharitable, judge
them to have been of the jolliest aspect, with the Sub-Prior in the
chair! At what time Lord Clinton saw his _Mimi_ return to his castle,
is not stated. The only further incident we hear of the conventual
body at Maxtoke is, that for a sermon preached before its members by
a travelling “Doctor Prædicans,” the Prior paid the preacher with
sixpence! But, on consideration, that may have been as much as the
sermon was worth.

If any doubt could exist of the identity of the minstrel and the
jester, it might be removed by remembering that the jester alone had
free access to the King, at any hour of the day or night, without
let or hindrance, and without his being required to make previous
application for permission. I believe no other official could enter the
King’s chamber uninvited, unlicensed, or unannounced. Now I find the
Serjeant Minstrel of King Edward IV. doing this, and on a very critical
occasion. The King was in the North. The year was 1470; Edward had
just quelled, or checked, the Lincolnshire insurrection, and he was
passing his time in York, in gallantries and amusements, while Warwick
was proclaiming Henry VI. One night his Serjeant Minstrel, Alexander
Carlisle, rushed into the room where the monarch lay in bed, and bade
him instantly arise, for enemies were abroad, and it would be well for
him to be on the alert. We shall find a similar bold service enacted
by the jester of William of Normandy, when we come to make record of
the individual jesters, rather than of their profession generally. The
above incident will help to show the identity of minstrel and jester;
and the fact that Richard II., when he went to Ireland, had not only
_minstrels_, but _harpers_, in his train, will serve to prove that the
former was _not_ identical with the latter. The minstrel, indeed, sang
or acted, or did both, some _Gest_ or story, from Scripture or romance.
Hence probably the English term Jester,--originally the reciter and
actor of some made-up poetical legend, with incidents added according
to the taste of the hearers. The harper probably only accompanied the
reciter of the Gest on his instrument.

It is not my province to narrate the history of the professional
minstrel. It must suffice here to say, that they who commenced like
gods, sank in course of time to a very degraded condition. The
minstrels certainly belonged to the class of poor jokers about the time
the law began to treat them as vagabonds. I can adduce an instance in
the case of Richard Sheale, the author of one of the versions of the
ballad of ‘Chevy Chace.’ Sheale was a minstrel by profession, and his
home was at Tamworth, on the borders of Staffordshire and Warwickshire.
Mr. R. White, in his Appendix to his ‘History of the Battle of
Otterburn,’ affords us the following glimpse into the private and
public life of this minstrel. “His wife was a ‘sylke woman,’ who sold
shirts, head-clothes, laces, etc., at the fairs of Lichfield and other
neighbouring towns. Being once in possession of above threescore
pounds,--a large amount in those days,--and intending probably to
settle various accounts contracted by his wife in her business, he
left Tamworth on horseback, having his harp with him, and had the
misfortune to be robbed by four villains who had lain in wait for him
near Dunsmore Heath. The grief of his wife and himself at his loss--the
coldness of worldly friends--the kindness of his patrons--the exertions
of his loving neighbours at Tamworth, who induced him to brew a bushel
of malt, and sell the ale for his benefit--and his appeal to the public
for assistance, that he might clear off encumbrances, are all related
in his ‘Chaunt,’ and show him to have been a simple, harmless man. But
both this poem and the ‘Farewell’ afford humiliating evidence of the
sorry life to which the poor minstrels were subjected in the early part
of Queen Elizabeth’s reign.”

But leaving the descent of the English jester from the minstrel, or the
question of their identity, to be decided upon by my readers, let us
turn to the English poets for such information as they can afford us.
The incidents there to be found in connection with this question, have
doubtless reference to the English “fool” alone, in whatever country
the poet may have located him. We meet with him however in England,
in the tragedy of King Lear. The relation of fool and master, not a
relation of the period of the play, but of a much later age, is very
distinctly marked. Lear strikes a gentleman, only for chiding Lear’s
fool; but the King keeps a whip for the latter, to be used when the
jester’s truths smacked rudely, or were thrust forward unnecessarily.
And these truths are occasionally of the very roughest quality, as, for
instance, when the fool tells Lear, that he had given away all his
titles save “fool,”--the one he was born with.

It is perhaps more by the comment of the jester than by the conduct of
the King’s daughters, that Lear has fully revealed to him his state of
terrible destitution; and if it be not an old traditionary saying of
some jester, the advice is admirably in the jester’s way, which shows
that if a man would rise in the world, it were better for him to let go
a descending wheel, and to hang to one going up-hill.

The Yorick of _Hamlet_ is probably a reminiscence of an English jester.
He had carried the young prince on his back a thousand times, and the
childish cavalier had kissed the merriest of fellows often. These were
common incidents in a family where there was a household fool. Yorick
however poured a flagon of Rhenish on the head of the gravedigger; but
an English joculator would have drunk off the wine, and broken the
gravedigger’s head with the flagon.

The whip was certainly ever present in the house that held an official
Motley, in spite of the boasted license of speech supposed to be
enjoyed by the latter. Touchstone is told that he shall be whipped for
taxation. His qualities are, being able to string rhymes together in a
butter-woman’s jog-trot pace to market; he has a memory for old verses;
is full of smart sayings against the corrupt in fine linen, and has the
faculty of making an honest calling seem uncleanly. He is a droll sort
of philosopher, with a taste of the knave in him; and so far imitates
the vices of his patrons, by being marvellously ready to seduce and
betray. Rosalind tells him that he speaks wiser than he is aware,
which a fool only seemed to do: it was part of his office. One of his
happiest expressions has often been uttered by travellers who have gone
abroad only to be disappointed: “Here am I in Arden. The more fool I!
When I was at home, I was in a better place!”

The Duke admirably describes a first-rate jester when he notices
Touchstone as “swift and sententious,” and that he “wore his folly as
a stalking-horse, and, under presentation of that, shoots his wit.”
Touchstone too is a gentleman in his way, seeing that he has “undone
three tailors!”

The cynicism of the English fool is no doubt alluded to in _Timon
of Athens_, where he is looked upon as a form of the old cynic
philosopher, as indeed he was everywhere. To a sharp sentence of
the fool, the churlish sage remarks, “That answer might have become
Apemantas.”

Perhaps the truest likeness of Shakespeare’s fools to the actual
Motleys, is the Clown in _Twelfth Night_. He preaches and quotes
Latin with the facility of Chicot, and as if he had been much with
the parson. The threat to hang him or turn him away, may show that
loss of service was held to be a disaster; while the way in which
(upon permission) he shows his mistress to be a fool, is an excellent
illustration of the liberty arrogated by the professor of wit. Malvolio
saw him put down in contention with an ordinary fool. These trials of
wit were not uncommon when the household buffoon was common also; but
it was all in jest. Nothing the jester uttered, however he meant it,
was ever taken for serious. “There is no slander,” says Olivia, “in an
allowed fool.” This shows the worth attached to Motley’s sayings; the
clown, too, very accurately defines his own standing, when he says, “I
am not her fool, but her corruptor of words;” and Viola exquisitely and
perfectly portrays all that the fool should be, in the words:--

   “This fellow’s wise enough to play the fool;
    And to do that well craves a kind of wit:
    He must observe their mood on whom he jests,
    The quality of persons and the time;
    And, like the haggard, check at ev’ry feather
    That comes before his eye. This is a practice,
    As full of labour as a wise man’s art:
    For folly, that he wisely shows, is fit;
    But wise men, folly fallen, taint their wit.”

It is impossible that any pen could better describe the requirements of
the jester, his qualifications, the duty to be performed, and the way
to perform it. No court fool of Shakespeare’s time or memory could have
sat for the portrait. Neither Patch, nor Pace, nor Chester, nor Clod
could have done so; perhaps Heywood comes nearest to it, but he was
probably not in Shakespeare’s mind, when he imagined a more brilliant
fool than ever sat at the hearth of a prince and railed at his patron.

Beaumont and Fletcher, in the _Mad Lover_, cannot be said to be nearly
so successful in their description of the fool and his quality, though
there is allusion in it to the would-be professors, worth noticing.

   “Every idle knave that shows his teeth,
    Wants and would live, can juggle, tumble, fiddle,
    Make a dog-face, or can abuse his fellow,
    Is not a fool at first dash. You shall find, Sir,
    Strange turnings in this trade.”

In the _Wit Without Money_ of these authors, we have a glimpse of a
sort of household joker of those times, in the person of Shorthose,
the widow’s fool, who grows dull in the country, brightens up by town
associations, loves good living, dislikes morning prayers, and has
a turn for clever similes and smart sayings, in the style of stage
valets. He is superior, after all, to Tony, in _A Wife for a Month_,
who is a mere low-comedy fool, with a wit to which Shakespeare’s
jesters would scorn to condescend. In this piece, however, we again
trace the presence of the whip, as a permanent menace against offending
Motley, in English houses. The usurping Frederick, indeed, says to him,
“Thou art a fool, and may’st do mischief lawfully;”--nevertheless,
not only the fool’s master, but others of less authority, frequently
threaten to chastise this official with an undefined position.

Geta, in the _Prophetess_, is described as a “jester,” but he is
little more than a stage servant, who alludes to “turn-spits,” and
who becomes duller the higher he rises in station. Villio, in the
_Double Marriage_, is a type of the philosophical fool, of whom there
were many; and who, with the wit of common sense, judges content in
a cottage to be better than a throne with a thorn in the side of the
king who sits on it. We have still fewer reflections of the jester
in Penurio and Soto, of _Woman Pleased_, and in Jaques and Pedro of
_Women’s Prize_. Beaumont and Fletcher have more success in painting
the household dwarf than the household fool. The fidelity of Zoilus,
dwarf to a duke’s son, in _Cupid’s Revenge_, is a compliment to his
class. He is as ugly as most of these creatures were, who moreover
lived in constant feud with the more gigantic jester, if there was one
in the house. Zoilus is described as being “an ape’s skin stuffed; with
a pudding in ’s belly;” and yet his lady loves him, for which, however,
he is sent to death. Even Base, the jester to the passionate lord, in
_Nice Valour_, is but a weak representative of our official friend. He
has but one jest, and that is but a poor one. A servant says, “There
comes a Cupid drawn by six fools.” To which Base replies, “That’s
nothing, I ha’ known six hundred fools drawn by one Cupid.” There is a
finer touch of the real Motley in Massinger’s Calandrino (_Great Duke
of Florence_), when he remarks:--

                      “I confess,
    I am not very wise, and yet I find
    A fool, so he be parcel knave, in court
    May flourish and grow rich.”

And his distinction between country and court air is quite in the
fool’s vein:--

   “As this court air taught me knavish wit,
    By which I am grown rich, if that again
    Should turn me fool and honest, vain hopes, farewell!
    For I must die a beggar.”

Calandrino, however, is but the “merry servant” to the nephew of the
Great Duke, and has only the attributes of the official jester, without
actually exercising the office.

It will be remembered that against all fools, and especially against
those introduced on the stage, Sir Philip Sidney made eloquent protest;
and all that Puttenham could advance in support of the professional
household jester, was that something amusing was to be found in
listening to the pretended foolishness of a jester, who had the wit to
be wise when he chose so to direct it.

The stage fool expired in 1662, in a prologue spoken by a “fool.”
The play is a long-since forgotten piece called ‘Thorney Abbey,’ and
the motley speaker of the prologue affects to reproach the author
for writing a drama with a king and court in it, and omitting the
time-honoured character of the jester.

Meanwhile, the buffoon was a prominent character, not only at court,
but in corporations, where he measured out gaiety for the mayor and
his guests; and in great households, when, for all his license, he
sometimes got whipped for telling stories rather too coarse, in
presence of ladies who could listen to a great amount of that sort of
thing without blushing. We find him also in taverns, where he amused
the topers by his rude jests and ruder minstrelsy, just as Dionysius,
in his exile, is said to have done, when he enacted buffoon in a
barber’s shop, for his daily bread; and finally, the buffoon was
_that_, and bully too, in other establishments open to the public, but
less favourably considered by the law.

We leave these, to follow more exclusively the court and household
fool. The office of the jester was one which, says Fuller, in his
‘Holy State,’ “none but he that hath wit can perform; and none but he
that wants it, _will_ perform.” There is little doubt of this, for
wit had its miseries, as Lodge graphically pointed out, in 1599, in a
book which, under the title of ‘Wit’s Misery,’ has especial reference
to this subject. The author, after pointing out the immoderate and
inordinate jollity which was the stock-in-trade of the fool,--his
comeliness of person, and his courtliness of dress,--adds that, after
all, he was more of an ape than a man, and that his chief duties were
to study the coining of bitter jests, to practise quaint and antique
motions, to sing immodest songs, to laugh intemperately on very small
occasion for it, and, when the wine was in his head, to mouth and gibe
at all around him. The fool, says Lodge, “dances about the house, leaps
over tables, outskips men’s heads, trips up his companions’ heels,
burns sack with a candle, and hath all the feats of a lord of misrule
in the country; feed him in his humour, you shall have his heart; in
mere kindness, he will hug you in his arms, kiss you on the cheek, and,
rapping out a horrible oath, cry, ‘God’s soul, Tom, I love you; you
know my poor heart; come to my chamber for a pipe of tobacco; there
lives not a man in this world that I more honour.’ In the ceremonies,
you shall know his courting; and it is a special mark of him at the
table, he sits and makes faces. Keep not this fellow company; for in
juggling with him, your wardrobe shall be wasted, your credit cracked,
your crowns consumed, and your time (the most precious riches in the
world) utterly lost.” This was written in 1599; but only thirty-five
years later, 1634, we find that some jesters at least had not a very
miserable time of it; for Stafford tells us, in his _Code of Honour_,
that “he had known a great and competently wise man, who would much
respect any man that was good to his fool.”

In many cases, the latter was as much a household servant as mere
jester, and was equally at home at the master’s board, or in the
kitchen, where he received such whippings as he chanced to earn.
That he was occasionally as much relished by the retainers as by his
patron, there can be no doubt, and his position among these is so
well described by Thornbury, in his rattling ‘Songs of the Cavaliers
and Roundheads,’ that, in place of illustrating that position by
citing old ballads and ballad-makers, I will place before my readers
the lively picture portrayed by a skilful and living artist,--in ‘The
Jester’s Sermon.’--

    “The jester shook his hood and bells and leaped upon a chair;
    The pages laughed, the women screamed, and tossed their scented hair;
    The falcon whistled, stag-hounds bayed, the lap-dog barked without;
    The scullion dropped the pitcher brown,--the cook railed at the lout;
    The steward, counting out his gold, let pouch and money fall:
    And why? Because the jester rose to say grace in the hall!

    “The page played with the heron’s plume, the steward with his chain;
    The butler drummed upon the board, and laughed with might and main;
    The grooms beat on their metal cans, and roared till they turned red;
    But still the jester shut his eyes and rolled his witty head;
    And when they grew a little still, read half a yard of text;
    And waving hand struck on the desk, then frowned, like one perplexed.

    “‘Dear sinners all!’ the fool began, ‘man’s life is but a jest,
    A dream, a shadow, bubbles, air, a vapour, at the best.
    In a thousand pounds of law I find not a single ounce of love.
    A blind man killed the parson’s cow, in shooting at the dove.
    The fool that eats till he is sick must fast till he is well.
    The wooer who can flatter most will bear away the bell.

    “‘Let no man halloo he is safe till he is through the wood.
    He who will not when he may, must tarry when he should.
    He who laughs at crooked men should need walk very straight.
    Oh, he who once has won a name may lie abed till eight.
    Make haste to purchase house and land, be very slow to wed.
    True coral needs no painter’s brush, nor need be daubed with red.

    “‘The friar, preaching, cursed the thief (the pudding in his sleeve).
    To fish for sprats with golden hooks is foolish, by your leave.
    To travel well, an ass’s ears, ape’s face, hog’s mouth, and
          ostrich legs.
    _He_ does not care a pin for thieves, who limps about and begs.
    Be always first man at a feast, and last man at a fray.
    The short way round, in spite of all, is still the longest way.

    “‘When the hungry curate licks the knife, there’s not much for the
          clerk.
    When the pilot, turning pale and sick, looks up, the storm grows
          dark.’
    Then loud they laughed; the fat cook’s tears ran down into the pan;
    The steward shook, that he was forced to drop the brimming can;
    And then again the women screamed and every stag-hound bayed:
    And why? Because the motley fool so wise a sermon made!”

The preacher, in conclusion, probably took the pearl spoon he wore
in his cap, and ate his porridge with it; and, his day’s duties
terminated, turned to the kennel, and slept the night out with the
hounds. He might have been worse lodged. There however we will leave
him, to treat, henceforward, more with the especial individual than
with the order generally.




ENGLISH COURT FOOLS, FROM THE REIGN OF EDMUND IRONSIDE.


It is a singular but incontrovertible fact, that there are many
individuals now living, who are indebted for various benefits, and
even no inconsiderable wealth (in their corporate capacity), to the
liberality of long-departed jesters at our English Courts. The estates
so long held by the Cathedral Church of Canterbury, at Walworth, were
originally the pious gift of the first English jester on record.[C] The
name of this joculator was Hitard, perhaps Hit-hard, from the success
of his sayings. He belonged to Edmund Ironside, who, out of gratitude,
bestowed on him the town of Walworth, in the year 1016. That most
gallant King could have had little leisure to listen to the wit of
Hit-hard, for his entire reign was comprised within seven months of the
year last mentioned, and he was fighting against Canute and his Danes
nearly the whole time. Hit-hard was more fortunate, for he continued
landlord of Walworth during the reigns of Canute, Harold Harefoot,
Hardicanute, and a portion of the reign of Edward the Confessor. In
the latter reign, after a quiet enjoyment of his dignity for about
thirty years, Hit-hard resolved to proceed to Rome, there to live the
remainder of his days, and there to die. Previous to setting out, he
performed a grateful act most gracefully. He drew up a deed by which he
conferred the whole of his possessions at Walworth,--that was, in fact,
the whole of Walworth itself,--upon the Cathedral of Canterbury. He
even went down to the ancient city, and entering the church, placed the
deed of conveyance, with his own hands, upon the high altar. And then
the venerable ex-jester to the gallant Ironside set off to the Holy
City, helped on his way, no doubt, by many a “Pax vobiscum!”

In the stormy times that followed, we have no record of any individual
court jester, though there is no reason to doubt of the presence of
that official at our Courts before the Conquest. William, both as Duke
and King, possessed this ordinary gay appendage to his household. He
loved mirth, as he loved good living; and as we know that he conferred
a manor on his cook, for making an excellent soup, we may be prepared
to find that he was not an indifferent patron to a meritorious fool.

Accordingly, the great Conqueror, solemn man as he sometimes was, did
not think his household complete without the jester. Indeed, we hear
of more than one. They were princely fellows, and had a right princely
master. One of these, Gollet, or Gallet, a native of Bayeux, hearing
of a conspiracy against William’s life, went to his chamber-door, and
roused the great Duke out of his first sleep, by beating against it
with an iron hammer, and crying out at the same time, according to the
rhymed edition of the story, by Robert Waice:

   “Ouvrez, dit-il, ouvrez, ouvrez!
    Jà morrez tout; levez, levez!”

This good turn merited great recompense; but we know not what Gollet
got for his faithful service. On the other hand, we hear of a guerdon
to another of William’s fools, but we are not told of any special
act of which it was the reward. The lucky personage was Berdic, the
_Joculator_, who retired from Court and merry duty, the lord of three
towns, with five carucates of land, and all rent-free; notice of which
will be found in Domesday Book, under the head of “Gloucester.” So
cunning was Berdic in mixing sweet and pungent together, that he died
a sort of Crœsus, but he was neither the first nor last of court fools
who left land and gold-pieces, at his death. It is a pity that the
Norman could not take a joke as readily as he could reward a jester. We
all know how, by resenting the sarcasm of the French King Philip, on
his obesity, he lost his own life.

We hear of no fool of merit at the bachelor and uproarious Court
of William Rufus. That King, indeed, hardly needed one, for he was
accustomed not only to make his own jokes, but to laugh louder at them
than any other person. We know that the fool often combined the office
of servant with that of jester, and it is, perhaps, not unreasonable
to conclude that the chamberlain of Rufus was also his joculator. He
certainly fooled his master. Witness the occasion when Rufus burst into
a fit of fury at the chamberlain bringing him a pair of boots that had
cost but three shillings. “Son of an ass!” exclaimed the ruby-faced and
flaxen-haired monarch, “bring me a pair that costs a silver mark!” The
chamberlain obeyed, after a court fool’s fashion. He changed the boots
for a pair of inferior value, charged Rufus a higher price, and laughed
in his sleeve at seeing the King well pleased, and unconscious that he
had been tricked.

There was one other person at this Court who had something of the
jester in him;--namely, that well-known priest Ralph, whose wit raised
him to an eminence that cost England rather dear. When he was in power,
and the King ordered a tribute to be levied, Ralph ordered one of
double the amount, and exacted it with stringent severity. At this
process Rufus would laugh heartily; and he had little cause to pay a
fool, when he possessed a witty follower like Ralph, whose tricks were
so much to the taste and so greatly to the profit of this rude but
discriminating monarch.

The court of his brother and successor, Henry I., was less riotous, but
not less luxurious or licentious, than his own. Henry was naturally
prodigal, and in his Queen, Matilda, he possessed a partner who helped
him pleasantly on the road to ruin. Matilda cared less for the jester
than for the minstrel, and accordingly, she wasted much of her wealth,
her husband’s, and that of the public, on melodious clerks, foreign
joculators who could chant a merry stave, and “singing scholars,” who
crowded to a Court where they found, in return, as good entertainment
as they could give.

Among these gay fellows, or minstrels, was an individual of some
celebrity, a Picard or Norman, it is not exactly known which, and who
is sometimes described as a “barber.” His name was Rahere, and of
all court minstrels or jesters he is the one above all others whose
memory hundreds of living people have good reason to bless daily. Stow
speaks of Rahere as “a pleasant-witted gentleman, and therefore, in his
time, called the King’s Minstrel.” There have been writers who have
questioned the correctness of this description, but it is, in a very
great measure, supported by the author of a paper in the Cottonian
Manuscripts.[D]

According to this valuable record, the writer of which relies on the
authority of men who “saw Rahere, heard him, and were present in his
works and deeds, of the which,” adds the writer, “some have taken
their sleep in Christ, and some of them be yet alive, and witnesseth
of that that we shall after say.” According, then, to the manuscripts
above-named, “this man, Rahere, springing or born of low lineage, when
he attained the flower of youth, he began to haunt the households of
noble men and the palaces of princes.” The writer goes on to state
that Rahere spared neither tricks, nor flattery, nor pleasant deceits,
in order to draw towards him the friendship of those above him. Nor
was he content with all this, says the chronicler, “but often haunted
the King’s palace, and among the noiseful press of that tumultuous
court, enforced himself with polite and carnal suavity, by the which
he might draw to him the hearts of many one there; in spectacles,
masks, and other courtly mockeries and devilish intendings, he led
forth the business of all the day.” Rahere was constantly, we are told,
in attendance on the King, or in the suite of noblemen; “proffering
service that might please them, he busily so occupied his time that he
might obtain the rather the petitions that he might desire of them.
Thiswise, to King and great men, gentle and courteous, and knowing and
familiar, he was.” In short, according to the manuscript writer, Rahere
was an exceedingly joyous and cunning fellow, who, having played the
fool at Court for great men’s pleasure and his own profit, was soon
after made wise through Grace, by the intervention of Bartholomew the
Apostle. He had spent half his days in harping and dancing and jesting,
and then, growing weary of it, hurried to Rome, there to repent of his
sins and be converted from his fiddling, dancing, drinking, jesting,
and philandering ways. And this was so effectually accomplished, that
on his road homeward he had a vision “full of dread and of sweetness.”
The chief figure therein was the apostolic Bartholomew, who, intimating
that Rahere had been taken from the foolery of an earthly to be an
agent of a celestial Court, added with great topographic and indeed
general lucidity, that he (the Apostle) “had chosen a place in the
‘Subburbs’ of London, at ‘Smythfeld,’ where in my name,” said he to
the ex-jester, “thou shalt found a church, and it shall be the house
of God, where there shall be the Tabernacle of the Lamb, the Temple of
the Holy Ghost.” Rahere woke from his dream, and was inclined at first
to take it all for a mere fantasy; but weighing the matter well, he
ultimately, after long consideration, resolved to devote his fool’s
gains to pious ends; and he founded, not without some little opposition
on the part of those who

                  “Preferred, no doubt,
    A rogue with venison, to a saint without,”

and who hoped he had come back rather a merry sinner than a solemn
saint, a church and priory, of which he was, as was due to him,
appointed the first Prior. Kings of England, in after-time, learned to
respect the holy place; but there was a world of trouble before the
entire object was carried out. Rahere had adversaries of every sort;
but he had not lost his wit for having acquired a sense of piety,
and so he bent himself to every humour, still played the fool awhile
in various forms, when he could draw help towards the attainment of
his end, and had merry words for everybody, in order that everybody
might in return lend him ready succour. He, of course, overcame all
opposition; holy men assembled around him; he preached sermons of
varied character, to suit his audiences; he worked pretty little
miracles, wrought wonderful cures, and, if he was occasionally in a
difficulty, and seemed for a moment no wiser than an ordinary mortal,
St. Bartholomew stepped in and helped him through triumphantly. Nothing
at last became too difficult for him to surmount, and a hidden thief or
a secret sin could no more escape his bodily or mental eye, than the
seat of disease can be concealed from the sight of Mr. Luther Holden,
who now demonstrates anatomy on the spot where the ex-court-jester
changed his mirth and motley for prayers, cassock, and good works.

The successors of old Rahere in the Priory had much of the spirit of
their founder. They were at the head of a high-spirited corporation,
full of zeal, cheerfulness, and indomitable independence. They enjoyed
separate jurisdiction, and resisted all interference on the part of
prying prelates who endeavoured to force-in the wedge of episcopal
authority. When this was the case, the brotherhood cried, “Rahere to
the rescue!” and defied the whole membership of bishops. One result
was that they were let alone, and this immunity they purchased by
their gallantry, having successfully resisted an attempt to meddle
with their affairs, by sorely thrashing the offending bishop and
terribly mauling his body of followers. The time came, however,
when the downfall of their house was inevitable. It shared in the
general dissolution of religious houses, and Henry VIII. founded it
anew, out of the old prior-minstrel’s funds, as an hospital “for the
combined relief and help of a hundred sore and diseased.” Much more
than this is now effected in the establishment of St. Bartholomew,
which has grown out of the pious foundation of Rahere. There is no
disease or suffering that medical care can assuage, which is turned
away from this great temple of charity. Let the call be made at any
hour of the day or night, there is ready answer, and as ready help at
hand. The sufferer has but to knock, or those who act for him in his
helplessness, and “it is opened to him.” He has no need of a letter of
recommendation to entitle him to receive balm for his wounds. There
is now accommodation for about 600 in-door patients, of whom there
are ten times that annual number, and among them a mortality of about
one a day. The out-door patients amount to nearly twenty thousand;
the casualty patients to some thousands more. It is a pleasing sight,
to see the wards where anguish is soothed, and the mutilated made
whole. It is almost a mirthful sight, to witness the busy crowd at
the dispensary bar, carrying off their bottles of variously coloured
liquids,--the _elixir_, and not the _aqua vitæ_, which is to pour
strength into their veins and infuse it into their muscles. Let me add
that it is a touching, solemn, and instructive sight, which may be
looked upon silently and reverently, in that little dead-house, with
its cover over it, as if it would be less obtrusive on the eye of idle
passers by. There may be seen many a stalwart form that possessed, a
few days since, the strength of giants, and which, crushed beyond the
reach of science or art to repair, lie there prematurely ready for the
inevitable grave.

In speaking of St. Bartholomew’s, it would be ungrateful to pass
over the name of Dr. Radcliffe, the most munificent of its modern
benefactors. But the establishment itself would probably never have
existed, certainly would not have existed here, but for the King’s
minstrel, the “pleasant-witted gentleman,” who was the gayest at the
gay court of Henry Beauclerc, and whose bones lie in the adjacent
church of St. Bartholomew the Great. The tomb is worth visiting, for it
covers the dust of a noble man. His effigy, watched by an angel, and
prayed for by two canons, lies under a canopy of great richness and
elaborate workmanship. It was probably erected by his admirers of much
later times than that which immediately followed his decease, for the
shields upon it are those of England and France united, a combination
that was not known for many years subsequent to the decease of the
founder of the old priory. One can hardly stand altogether unmoved in
presence of such a memento. There is great temptation, when looking at
the effigy, and remembering the self-denial and charity, of the man, to
fall into the pleasantest bit of Popery, on turning away, and to pray
with all one’s heart that God may have mercy on the soul of the King’s
minstrel, Rahere!

The reign of Stephen does not furnish us with the names of any fool
of distinguished quality; though Stephen himself, and particularly
previous to his accession to the throne, was remarkable for the
affability with which he associated with men of every condition.
This was more especially the case when he was keeping house with his
bride in the Tower-Royal. But neither in court or castle was there
much patronage of the jester during the nearly nineteen years of the
calamitous reign of Stephen. The court of his successor saw the joyous
brotherhood fully restored, and its members seem even, not merely to
have practised before him at home, but to have accompanied him abroad.
“When King Henry sets out of a morning,” says his secretary, Peter of
Blois, “you see multitudes of people running up and down, as if they
were distracted; horses rushing against horses, carriages overturning
carriages, players, gamesters, cooks, confectioners, morris-dancers,
barbers, courtesans, and parasites, making so much noise and, in a
word, such an intolerable tumultuous jumble of horse and foot, that you
imagine the great abyss hath opened, and that hell hath poured forth
all its inhabitants.” The court of Henry’s consort, Eleanor of gay
Guienne, was a not less joyous one than her husband’s; but the joy was
only empty noise and outward show, and beneath all the glittering were
grief and settled gloom.

During the reign of their lion-hearted successor, we meet with an
illustration, showing how fools could be employed in order to support
a vicious political system. Richard the First’s Chancellor, William
Longchamp, may with propriety be called, the “proud,” for he sealed
public acts, says Lord Campbell, “with his own signet seal, instead of
the Great Seal of England.” Proud as he was, this Picard prelate (who
was Bishop of Ely) was of very mean extraction. To him Richard left,
conjointly with the Bishop of Durham, the guardianship of the realm,
during the King’s absence in the Holy Land. Longchamp however clapped
his colleague into prison, and ruled England by his sole authority.
He maintained the state of the most ostentatious of sovereigns, and
set such an example of arrogance and want of principle, that his
body-guard became terrible for their rapine and licentiousness; and his
servants, even when their master lodged for a night in a monastery,
devoured in that one night the revenue of several years. The people at
large suffered in proportion, and suffering was followed by grumbling,
and that was succeeded by wrath. But, says the author of ‘The Lives of
the Chancellors,’ (apparently translating a passage from Roger Hoveden
_in Ricardo I._, p. 340,) “to drown the curses of the natives, he
brought over from France, at a great expense, singers and jesters, who
sang verses in places of public resort, declaring that the Chancellor
never had his equal in the world.” The above, it will have been seen,
is an example of jesters being employed, not with license to speak bold
and droll truths to their master, but with commission to utter sorry
jokes and dreary falsehoods, for the purpose of deceiving a nation.

I have previously noticed that Blondel, whom tradition makes the
discoverer of his captive master, by means of a song, is called,
by Bouchez, “that buffoon of a minstrel.” By others he is styled a
“troubadour knight.” However much or little of the character of the
jester may have entered into the character of the minstrel Blondel, it
would not be easy to say. We may speak with more certainty of another
of Richard’s minstrels, Anselme Fayditt, whose poetry the Provençal
critics eulogized for its wit and good sense, “poésie à bons mots et de
bon sens.” A third minstrel, Fouquet de Marseilles, is also celebrated
for his ready wit, which made him the “delight of the court.” There
probably was some difference of quality in the latter minstrels, for
while Fayditt ultimately travelled about the country, on foot, in
search of a livelihood, singing songs, and accompanied by a runaway nun
who sang as well as Fayditt himself, Fouquet, in strong contrast with
such a vagabond, abandoned minstrelsy, turned monk, and became Bishop
of Toulouse.

Of the above quality were the most favoured _plaisants_ at the Court
of Richard. The private households had their jesters of a less refined
quality, and the following graphic description of one attached to a
Saxon master, is probably as faithful a portrait as could be drawn of a
Saxon nobleman’s fool in the days of King Richard the First.

“Beside the swineherd was seated, on one of the fallen Druidical
monuments, a person about ten years younger in appearance, and whose
dress was of a fantastic appearance. His jacket had been stained of a
bright purple hue, upon which there had been some attempts to paint
grotesque ornaments of different colours. To the jacket he added a
short cloak, which scarcely reached halfway down his thigh. It was of
crimson cloth, though a good deal soiled, lined with bright yellow;
and as he could transfer it from one shoulder to the other, or at his
pleasure throw it all around him, its width contrasted with its want
of longitude, formed a fantastic piece of drapery. He had thin silver
bracelets on his arms; and on his neck a collar of the same metal;
bearing the inscription, ‘Wamba, the son of Witless, is the Thrall
of Cedric of Rotherwood.’ This personage had sandals, and his legs
were encased in a sort of gaiters, of which one was red and the other
yellow. He was provided also with a cap having around it more than
one bell, about the size of those attached to hawks, which jingled
as he turned his head from one side to the other. And, as he seldom
remained a minute in the same posture, the sound might be considered
as incessant. Around the edge of this cap was a stiff bandeau of
leather, cut at the top into open work, resembling a coronet, while a
prolonged bag arose from within it, and fell down on one shoulder, like
an old-fashioned night-cap or jelly-bag, or the head-gear of a modern
hussar. It was to this part of the cap that the bells were attached,
which circumstance, as well as the shape of his head-dress, and his own
half-crazed, half-cunning, expression of countenance, sufficiently
pointed him out as belonging to the race of domestic clowns or jesters
maintained in the houses of the wealthy, to help away the tedium of
those lingering hours which they were obliged to spend within-doors.
He bore a scrip attached to his belt, but had neither horn nor knife,
being probably considered as belonging to a class whom it is esteemed
dangerous to entrust with edge-tools. In place of these he was equipped
with a sword of lath, resembling that with which Harlequin operates his
wonders upon the modern stage.”

Of what quality was the wit of Wamba, may be seen in the romance of
‘Ivanhoe,’ from which, it is hardly necessary to say, the above extract
is made. We come now to the successor of Richard, whom we shall find a
liberal master to his fool.

King John was a very lugubrious joker himself; but he not only kept a
merry jester,--he also knew how to be exceedingly liberal to him. Of
the King’s deadly practical joking we have an instance in his conduct
to Geoffrey, Archdeacon of Norwich, who had retired from his office in
the Exchequer in obedience to the terms of the Papal edict. The King
shut him up in prison, and, making him wear a ponderous sacerdotal
cope of lead, which covered him from the head to the heels, left him
thus helpless, to die of famine. It was after another fashion that
John rewarded his fool. The name of this official was William Piculph
(or Picol), and he received from the monarch who possessed so little
land of his own, a landed estate. This fool by feudal tenure held his
territory and its dependencies at Fons Ossane, in Mortain, of John,
under an easy quit-rent; namely, that during his life he should act as
jester to the King, providing his Grace with as much fun as could make
him smile. After the death of Piculph, the domain was to descend to his
heirs, on condition of their presenting the sovereign annually with a
pair of gilt spurs. A copy of the original deed is to be found in the
‘Monnaies Inconnues des Évêques, des Innocents, et des Fous.’

It is just twenty years ago, since M. Rigollet, under the modest
appellation of “M. J. R. D’Amiens,” published in his work on the then
hitherto unknown coins and tokens of various Brotherhoods of the olden
time who took Folly for their patron, a copy of the document by which
our King John may be said to have ennobled his fool. This document has
not escaped the acute vision of Mr. W. J. Thoms, who has cited it, in
his selections from the L’Estrange papers; but as its singularity is
fully equal to its brevity, my readers will, I hope, approve of my
venturing to place it before them. It is to this effect:--“Joannes,
D. G., etc. Sciatis nos dedisse et presenti chartâ confirmasse WILL.
PICOL, _Follo_ nostro, Fontem Ossane (Menil-Ozenne, pays de Mortain),
cum omnibus pertinenciis suis, habend. et tenend. sibi et heredibus
suis, faciendo inde nobis annuatim servitium _unius Folli_ quoad
vixerit; et post ejus decessum heredes sui eam de nobis tenebunt,
et per servitium unius paris calcarium deauratorum nobis annuatim
reddendo. Quare volumus et firmiter precipimus quod predict. Piculphus
et heredes sui habeant et teneant in perpetuum, bene et in pace, libere
et quiete, predictam terram.”

The substance of this document, the original of which was found in the
then Royal Library of France, is given in my description of it, above;
I will only add, therefore, that ample pains seem to have been taken
to settle this estate upon Picol the fool. It may be doubted, however,
whether the fools of Edmund Ironside, William the Conqueror and John
were the only merry officials who held land. The celebrated Baldwin
Lepetteur (in another reign) must have belonged to the profession, and
we know that, in return for some royal grace, he was bound on every
Christmas-day to execute before his lord the King, at Hemmingston
Manor, a _saltus_, a _sufflatus_, and a _bumbulus_. At no time, indeed,
do our Kings seem to have been reluctant to pay for mirth. Henry
III. once gave a crown to a witty fellow who had caused him to laugh;
but we are not told what the jest was that earned so great a guerdon.
Edward II. was even more liberal, for he gave _four_ crowns for the
same cause. It does not appear that wit was always the provocation to
royal laughter, a fool’s trick would do as well. We see as much by an
entry in one of the last King’s accounts, cited in the ‘Antiquary’s
Repertory.’ “Item--When the King was at Woolmer, to Morris, then clerk
of the kitchen, who, when the King was hunting, did ride before the
King, and often fall down from his horse, whereat the King laughed
greatly: 20_s._”

To return, however, to the reign of Henry III., the successor of John,
I may notice as an incident of the social history of the period, that
there were few places where the itinerant jester was more warmly
welcomed than at the lonely cells of the Friars. We have an instance
of this in a story told by Wood, and quoted by Warton, to this effect.
A couple of strangers applied one night at the gates of a cell of
Benedictines near Oxford, for admission. The itinerants were taken for
jesters, and gained a ready admission under that supposition. Cellarer,
sacrist, and the whole of the confraternity looked forward to having
a merry night of it with the _gesticulatoriis ludicrisque artibus_ of
their guests. But these proved to be grave men of long prayers and
short meals; very poor in purse, but rich in saving knowledge; without
power or taste to make a joke, but with will and ability to enjoin
their hosts to live cleanly and soberly and religiously, to serve God
faithfully, honour the King loyally, and to put away from themselves
all naughtiness. The Benedictines did not care a fig for such serious
persons, or their admonitions. They had admitted the wayfarers,
supposing them to be jesters; and illogically concluding, because the
supposed jesters were monks, they themselves had been deceived by them,
they set upon the poor fellows, thrashed them soundly, and turned them
out-of-doors.

Of a _joculator_ at the court of Henry III. we probably obtain a
glimpse in the personage of a certain Master Henry, who is called the
“versificator,” a term which was sometimes given to the _joculator_.
“In one of the Tower Rolls,” says Miss Strickland, “dated, Woodstock,
April 30, in the thirty-second year of Henry III.’s reign, that
monarch directs his treasurer and chamberlain to pay Master Henry, the
poet, whom he affectionately styles, ‘Our beloved Master Henry, the
versificator, one hundred shillings, due to him for the arrears of his
salary, enjoining them to pay it without delay, though the Exchequer
was then shut.”

This Master Henry was, doubtless, Henry of Avranches, who is sometimes
designated as poet laureate to the King, and of whose works some
specimens yet remain. We must not forget the assertion of Ménage,
that court poet and court fool were sometimes one and the same; and
that Master Henry was qualified for the latter, we may gather from
the description given of him in a satirical poem by an angry Cornish
writer, Michael Blaunpayne, who thus depicts the royal versificator,
enjoying a salary of a hundred shillings a year: “You have the legs
of a goat, the thighs of a sparrow, and the sides of a boar. You have
a hare’s mouth, a dog’s nose, the teeth and cheeks of a mule. Your
face is a calf’s, your head is a bull’s, and from top to toe you are
as swarthy as a Moor.” It must be acknowledged, if this _signalement_
may be accepted, that, in outward appearance, Master Henry was well
qualified to enact the buffoon at the court of his royal namesake.

The next King, the crusading Edward I., is known to have had a
minstrel, harper, or _joculator_ in constant attendance upon him.
This official rendered his master good service on that occasion, at
Ptolemais, when an assassin wounded Edward with a poisoned knife. It
is said that the faithful fellow, hearing the struggle, rushed in and
slew the assassin. We detect more of the professional jester in another
account by Ritson, which says that the _citharœda_, as he is called,
did not interfere till Edward himself had killed his assailant; and
that then the minstrel, or whatever may be his proper designation,
snatching up a trivet, tripod, or three-legged stool, began beating
the dead man’s brains out. The joke seemed of so unworthy a quality to
the King, that he rated the valiant coward soundly. The name of the
joculator is not given; but we are more fortunate in the succeeding
reign, for there we not only meet with an undoubted court fool, but we
learn his name, and are introduced to a member of his family.

First, let me observe that in the ‘Liber Quotidianus,’ the daily
wardrobe account of the fourteenth of Edward II. (1320–21), there are
entries of rewards to several noblemen’s minstrels, or _joculatores_,
who performed before the King in his own chamber. The singing and
the jests were probably rude enough, for Edward II. was a roystering
fellow, addicted to getting drunk in as roystering company abroad, and
accustomed to pay the people who picked him up and saw him safe home.
There is an entry in this very account to that effect,--of recompense
to persons who thus looked after him, “in itineribus suis noctanter.”

We get too, as I have just intimated, at the name of the King’s fool,
who was probably often abroad with him on these occasions, by an entry
in some accounts, quoted in the ‘Archæologia’ (vol. ii. p. 6); and not
only of the fool, but of his mother, by whose surname indeed we arrive
at that of the jester. The entry runs thus: “To Dulcian Withastaf,
mother of Robert, the King’s fool, coming to the King, at Baldock, of
the King’s gift, 10_s._” “_Wit-has-staff_,” or “_Witty-staff_,” or
“_With-a-staff_,” sounds very like a sobriquet for Robert himself; and
perhaps Dame Dulcian derived the surname from her son’s occupation. At
all events, it is pleasant to see Edward acting generously towards the
old lady, when she hurried over to the court, at Baldock, to behold
her son in all the glory of cap, bells, cock’s-comb, and run of the
larder.

I might have included among my “Female Jesters” a nameless
_Joculatrix_, or _Ministralissa_, who, if not attached to the household
of Edward II., yet played her part before him for the amusement of
himself and a noble company. It was on occasion of the festival of
Whitsuntide, which the King was celebrating in the great Hall at
Westminster, in the year 1316. While the royal host and his illustrious
guests were seated at the banquet, this joculatrix rode into the
Hall on a closely-clipped horse, and caracolled round about the
tables, jesting the while, to the great amusement of the company. The
joculatrix terminated her performance by placing a letter in the King’s
hand; after which she gracefully rode away, with countless greetings,
to the right and left. The letter contained a remonstrance against
the unbounded favour exhibited by the King to unworthy persons, while
he neglected his faithful knights and trusty servants. Not one of the
latter, probably, would have dared to present the remonstrance; but the
license allowed to the jester, or mime, ensured free access, and other
immunities, to an agent chosen from among the joyous brotherhood, and
still more to a sister of the gay profession. The gates of royal houses
were always open to them: “Non esse mores,” is the remark quoted by
Percy, “domus regiæ histriones ab ingressu quomodolibet prohibere.”

Edward II. not only admired a joculatrix who could ride, but still more
a joculator who could not, or who feigned to be unable to keep in the
saddle. I have, in a previous page, cited from the roll of expenses of
this King, an entry of twenty shillings to a jester who rode before
him, who kept continually tumbling off, and who thereby raised an
amount of hilarity in the sovereign, that was set down as being worth
twenty shillings. Just double the amount, and ten shillings over, were
also paid to a jester who, dancing on a table in the King’s presence,
caused him to laugh immoderately.

The great Scottish contemporary of Edward--Bruce--could also, like
other heroic men, stoop to find amusement in the sallies of an official
fool. Of this individual, we know indeed only the name, and are not
acquainted with his quality. Mr. Irving, the author of a recently
published ‘History of Dumbartonshire,’ informs us that Bruce, in his
retirement at Cardross, kept for his solace, or his sport, a fool and
a lion. The same author quotes the chamberlain’s book of accounts,
in which there is an item containing the record of one shilling and
sixpence having been expended for the conveyance of Patrick, the fool,
to Tarbut, on Loch Fyne: “In expensis hominum transeuntium cum Patricio
stulto veniente de Angliâ usque Le Tarbutt, 18 denarii;” by which it
would seem that Bruce’s fool at Cardross was probably an Englishman. He
is sometimes called Peter; and this, and the fact of his being in the
household of Bruce, constitute all that we know touching this fool to a
hero.

Of the minstrels and jesters of Edward III. we know even less than
we do of that of Bruce, for we are unacquainted with any of their
names. During the long reign of half a century, the chivalrous Edward
was either exulting in glory acquired, or mourning at impending
or overwhelming calamity. In the mere official jester he took no
delight; but there was a peculiar court amusement of his own devising,
which pleased others as highly as it pleased himself,--namely, the
tournaments, at which he would tilt in disguise, revealing himself to
the delighted spectators only when he had achieved victory. In the
shape of a good court jest, too, were the appearances of himself and
family at tournaments in the City. At these, Edward would appear in
the bustling character of Lord Mayor, fulfilling all its functions.
Two of his sons, on these occasions, represented the sheriffs, and the
other two, with several noblemen, enacted the parts of aldermen. At
these festivals, the royal family seemed to have turned into jesters
and players, for the entertainment of a public who witnessed the
performance with hilarity and admiration.

At the court of Edward’s grandson and successor, Richard II., the
ordinary official joculators were doubtless to be found; but we are
unacquainted with the name of any especial or favourite individual.
They formed part of a very gay and extravagant household, as long as
Richard could maintain such an establishment. The very idea of the
outlay of this rollicking court even frightened the Commons into a
respectful remonstrance; but the King reminded them that, as long as he
did not ask them to pay for his pleasures, their interference was only
an impertinence. The epoch was undoubtedly one of vast extravagance.
It was the period when ladies in England first wore trains,--a fashion
which elicited a biting satire from a merry divine. He entitled his
work, ‘Contra caudas dominarum,’ _Against the tails of the ladies_, and
it was productive of more mirth at court than a whole year’s wit of a
whole household of jesters.

What little gaiety there was at the court of Henry IV. was to be
found at Eltham; but even there it was of a very indifferent quality.
If kings could not be merry but by the aid of a jester, no monarch
more needed a joculator than the once handsome Bolingbroke, whose
face became so ugly by eruptions, that even a jester could hardly
have looked at it with a smile. Henry, too, was one of those men who
are satisfied in their own minds that success in an enterprise is
warrant of the approbation of Heaven! He required some of the rough
homilies of the court fool to drive him out of a belief which he did
not surrender till he ceased to enjoy his usual triumphs. His son
kept court apart, and it may fairly be said, that if there was ever
Prince or King at whose court we might have expected to meet a more
than ordinary number of the licensed mirth-makers to royalty, it was
that of Harry of Monmouth, who has been poetically, popularly, and
historically represented to us as, from his youth upwards, addicted to
associate with dissipated and facetious companions; and who, according
to tradition, thought as little of smiting the heart of his father as
he did of striking his father’s representative, solemn Judge Gascoyne.
But all these matters are proved to have been myths, and the son of
Bonligbroke neither drank deep with Falstaff, nor fooled it with the
philosophic fool Pistol, nor sang staves with Bardolph, nor bandied
nonsense with Poins. The Boar’s Head, Eastcheap, is a picture, but
it represents no historical fact. The dying father was not robbed of
his crown by his son; and they who look upon the tomb of Gascoyne in
Harewood Church, Yorkshire, waste all their sympathy, if they give
any there to the sleeping judge, on the ground of his having been
insulted by a lawless prince. All this, however, will continue to be
believed, for Shakespeare, who has set Mark Antony down to whist, has
said it; and Rapin, dull, pompous, and obstinate, has declared that
Prince Henry’s court was the receptacle of libertines, debauchees,
buffoons, parasites, and the like. Carte, on the other hand, asserts
that Henry of Monmouth’s court was crowded by the nobles and great men
of the land, when his father’s court was comparatively deserted. But
no one has so perfectly sifted the many tales touching the inclination
of this prince for buffoons and roysterers as Tyler, in his ‘Life of
Henry V.’ This writer, whose patient and painstaking spirit I envy,
tells us that if Prince Henry was often in the city, and in Eastcheap
in particular, it was not for dissipation, but for serious business. It
is from this reverend author we learn, that in March 1410, the father
of much-abused Prince Harry signed a deed in which it is said, “Know ye
that, by our especial grace, we have granted to our dearest son Henry,
Prince of Wales, a certain house or place, called Coldharbour, in our
city of London, with its appurtenances, to hold for the term of his
life, without any payment to us for the same.” In this right fair and
stately house, which was not far from Eastcheap, councils were held, at
which the Prince himself presided. Mr. Tyler not only proves that Henry
did not resort to what he calls “a low and vulgar part of London,”
for the purposes of riot and revelry with unworthy and dissolute
companions; but he shows how the charge of being guilty of such offence
may have arisen. “History,” he says, “records nothing of the Prince
derogatory to his princely and Christian character during his residence
at Coldharbour: it does indeed charge two of the King’s sons with a
riot there; but they are stated by name to have been Thomas and John.
Henry’s name does not occur at all in connection with any disturbance
or misdoing.” Henry’s father, however, seems to have provided for the
good cheer of the Prince of Wales; for in the same year that he gave
his son the house at “Coldehabergh,” he also gave him an order on the
Collector of the Customs for twenty casks and one pipe of the red wine
of Gascony, to be delivered free of duty. This, as Pennant says, was
“to stock his cellars;” and it was not likely that, thus provided, he
would have resorted to neighbouring taverns at Eastcheap. One might
as soon expect to hear of the Prince Consort at the Cider-cellars.
If the assertion of the chroniclers, that Henry, on his accession,
became altogether a reformed man, seems irreconcilable with his modest
bearing when heir-apparent, we must remember, on the other hand,
that there is no _contemporary_ record of his having committed any
act of wildness, riot, and dishonour, while there are many bearing
testimony to his virtues; namely, the records of Parliament, which bear
witness to his rectitude, modesty, and steadiness; the despatches of
Hotspur; the people of Wales; the gentlemen of various counties; and
contemporary chroniclers, generally. Of the extravagant expenditure of
his father’s household there are very numerous complaints; but none
of that of his own household, either when he was Prince or King. In
the latter capacity, Henry V. patronized the sacred minstrels rather
than the laughing fools. He loved minstrelsy, psalms, and decent
songs; and he made this love, as Mr. Tyler tells us, “contribute to
the gratification of himself and the partner of his joys and cares....
Whether in their home at Windsor, or during their happy progress
through England, in the halls of York and Chester, or in the tented
ground on the banks of the Seine, before Melun, our imagination has
solid foundation to build upon, when we picture to ourselves Henry and
his beloved Princess passing innocently and happily, in minstrelsy
and song, some of the hours spared from the appeals of justice, the
exigencies of the State, or the marshalling of the battle-field.” For
Henry’s other good qualities, and for his defects also, I must refer
my readers to Mr. Tyler’s volumes, resting content with showing here,
that Henry was not a patron of court fools. It may indeed be said that
the jester and the minstrel were often to be found in the same person,
in England, from the time that the Saxons hovered in the land, or since
Canute, his _thingmen_, and his bards, all sang joyously together,
when they celebrated a conquest, than which that of the Norman was
not more wonderful. But it is clear that Henry’s minstrels were of
a better character than those alluded to above, and that buffoonery
was not encouraged at his court. Warton, in his ‘History of English
Poetry,’ supports this assertion by saying, that the number of harpers
in Westminster Hall at Henry’s coronation was innumerable. “They
undoubtedly accompanied their instruments with heroic rhymes. The
King, however,” adds Warton, “was no great encourager of the popular
minstrelsy, which seems at this time to have flourished in the highest
degree of perfection.” For all secular vanities his disgust was great;
and he even forbade his triumph at Agincourt to be chanted by the
harpers or others. Lingard indeed says, that “success gave a tinge of
arrogance to his character;” and I may add, that although Henry V.
loved books more than court fools, he set an example for the now common
and detestable practice, of borrowing books and not returning them to
their owners; he had better learned wisdom from fools, than committed
this miserable sort of petty larceny.

It is difficult to conclude that the official fool was altogether
absent from court in these days, when we remember an incident connected
with Henry’s widow, Katherine of Valois. There is some reason to
believe that Owen Tudor, when he danced awkwardly before Katherine, and
ended by falling into her lap, only played one of those tricks which,
by exciting laughter, acquired favour for the performer. The widow
of Henry V. resolved to marry the handsome clown; but a deputation
was sent to Anglesea to report on the condition of the lady-mother of
Owen, and the style of her living. This was a deputation of lords; but
they appear to have had the court fool with them, if we may judge from
the report they rendered on their return. Such an official was not an
uncommon appendage to legations of any sort, and I think he could not
have been lacking here. The English envoys found the mother of Owen
sitting on a bank in a field, surrounded by her perpendicularly-horned
goats, and eating a fried herring, with her knees for a table. What
report could be made to a Queen-Dowager resolved upon marrying this
same lady’s son? The court wit hit upon one which exactly met the
contingency; and when the deputation returned to London, their report
was, “that they had found the lady seated in state, surrounded by her
javelin men, in a spacious palace, and eating her repast from a table
of such great value, that she would not take hundreds of pounds for it!”

In the next reign, that of Henry VI., we find that monarch opening
a commission, in 1454, for procuring minstrels for his service,
by _force_. A press-gang, as it were, went forth and carried off
any likely fellow that suited them, with a good voice, just as
the gentleman in the Trench Opera carries off the “Postillon de
Longjumeau.” The levy was made _de ministraliis propter solatium Regis
providendis_,--for procuring minstrels, even by force, for the solace
or entertainment of the King. The commission enjoins that these shall
not only be skilled in their art, as minstrels, but also handsome and
elegantly shaped. A reference to the matter will be found in the fourth
volume of Warton’s ‘History of English Poetry;’ the author of which,
perplexed with the different meanings attached to the word _minstrel_,
would have been inclined to have taken the persons here designated, as
singers only, or singers for the Royal Chapel exclusively, but for the
directions as to their good looks and comely shapes. These directions
seem to him to point to jesters, “tumblers or posture-masters.” It is
certain that about a century later, in the reign of Edward VI., it was
lawful, when the Chapel Royal lacked young choristers, to carry off
duly qualified children from their homes, wherever they might be found.

There is proof that the household jester, as well as minstrel--the
two characters often under one hood--was a very common and a
liberally-patronized professor of his respective arts, in the days of
Henry VI. Warton, in his first volume, cites the Prior’s accounts of
Maxtoke, in Warwickshire (to which I have before alluded), under one
of its general heads, “De Joculatoribus et Mimis.” Under this head,
and having reference only to various years in the reign of Henry
VI., we find several sums expended by the brotherhood for itinerant
entertainers who have different names, but whose shades of professional
difference it is not so easy to determine. Thus we find, “To a
_joculator_, in the Michaelmas week, the sum of fourpence.” Again, “At
Christmas, to a _cithariste_ and other joculators, 4_d._” The following
entries are further illustrations:--“To the mimes of Solihull, 6_d._”
“To the mimes of Coventry, 20_d._” “To Lord Ferrers’ mimes, 6_d._” “To
the _lusores_ from Eton, 8_d._” “Ditto, from Coventry, 8_d._” “To those
from Daventry, 12_d._” “To the mimes from Coventry, 12_d._” “To Lord
Astley’s mimes, 12_d._” “To four of Lord Warwick’s mimes, 10_d._” “To
a blind mime, 2_d._” “To six mimes of the household of Lord Clinton.”
... “To two mimes from Rugby, 10_d._” “To a certain cithariste, 6_d._”
“To another from Coventry, 6_d._” “To two others from Coventry, 8_d._”
“To the mimes of Rugby, 8_d._” “To Lord Buckridge’s mimes, 20_d._” “To
the mimes of Lord Stafford, 2_s._” “To the lusores from Coleshill,
8_d._” “It is here to be observed,” says Warton, “that the minstrels,”
or jesters, “of the nobility, in whose families they were constantly
retained, travelled about the country to the neighbouring monasteries;
and that they generally received better gratuities for these occasional
performances, than the others.”

After the death of Henry VI., there appears on the stage a court jester
who is said to have made half England merry with his jests. I allude
to the famous Scogan (or Scoggin, or Scogin), who was attached to the
household of Edward IV., and whose name is not forgotten in these later
days.

Oriel College, Oxford, counted about a century and a half from the
time of its foundation, in the reign of Edward II. (1326), when, if
credit may be attached to the story told by merry Andrew Borde, of
Pevensey, Scogan became a student in that college. The young student is
said to have been of a good family; and tradition, to be more or less
trusted as the reader pleaseth, has preserved a few incidents of his
life there, and in other localities. We have a hint of his roystering
career in the little incident of Falstaff in his salad days, who “broke
Scogan’s head at the court gate.” Ben Jonson alludes to him, in the
Masque of ‘The Fortunate Isles,’ as--

            “A fine gentleman, and a Master of Arts,
    Of _Henry the Fourth’s time_, who made disguises
    For the King’s sons, and writ in ballad royal
    Daintily well....
    In rhyme, fine tinkling rhyme, and flowing verse,
    With now and then some sense; and he was paid for ’t,
    Regarded and rewarded, which few poets
    Are, nowadays.”

The specimens we have of Scogan’s poetry do not warrant the praise
above given; and we know, from some of his rhymes, that he held the
University graduates in very absolute contempt. What he said of the
M.A.’s, is not to be repeated. The substance was, that they were mere
dolts, beyond the schools; and Scogan did not rank the B.A.’s much
higher, as may be seen in the succeeding couplet, which says,--

   “A B.A. is not worth a straw,
    Except he be among fools.”

The joyous Suffolk student--for Scogan, it is believed, came from
Bury--became, in time, a very merry and not very scrupulous tutor.
Every sage has his maxim, and Scogan’s was, that “A merry heart doeth
good, like a medicine.” With such a lecturer, the pupils must have
conferred on Oriel a reputation something resembling that which Merton
once derived from its students; of which college an old warden used to
say, that there could be little doubt of the learning it possessed,
seeing that every pupil brought a little with him, and took none away.
But even Oriel, in Scogan’s time, had its solemn seasons; and when
the plague of 1471 broke out at Oxford, which ultimately caused more
devastation in England than the fifteen years of war through which the
country had recently passed, Scogan followed the University fugitives
who took refuge, and found safety, in the rural hospital of St.
Bartholomew.

If the season of trial rendered other men serious, it had no such
effect upon Scogan. His irregularities were numerous, and not the least
offensive of them was the irreligious spirit, combined with avarice,
which induced him to help an unworthy candidate into the priesthood,
for the bribe of a horse, presented to him by the candidate’s father.
Even Oxford grew at last weary of Scogan’s want of decorum; and under
compulsion, or following his inclination, the merry Suffolk Punch
withdrew from the University, but did not long lack employment. He
presented himself to Sir William Neville, a country gentleman, and
requested to be engaged by him as his household fool. This negotiation
was happily carried out; and some time after, Sir William introduced
Scogan to Edward IV. The knight took his jester to court, probably
out of vanity; for it was not every household fool that had the wit,
talent, and education of this gentleman-joculator. The King was so
pleased with his gossip that there was nothing left for the loyal
knight, but to offer to make over his joyous retainer to a royal
patron. Henceforward, Scogan became the court buffoon of Edward; but,
as far as I can judge from the sorry or dirty five dozen of “jests”
of which Andrew Borde makes him the hero, he assumed the office of
buffoon and dropped that of wit. The choicest story told of him, is
that wherein he is described as standing, for a long period, beneath a
water-spout, under heavy rain, for a reward, (or for a wager, by which
he may not have profited in the same degree,) of twenty pounds,--a
large sum in those days, but not too large for the fool who thus risked
his life.

It was the characteristic of our English kings, to be liberal to their
buffoons,--more liberal, indeed, than they were to more valuable
servants,--as I shall more especially show, presently. Edward was so
well satisfied with Scogan, that he conferred upon him a town-house
in Cheapside, and, still greater mark of the Royal consideration, a
country mansion at Bury. At the latter place, he and the princely
Abbot were on the most intimate terms, and those of a very joyous
complexion:--

   “They’d haunch and ham; they’d cheek and chine;
    They’d cream and custard, peach and pine.
    And they gurgled their throats with right good wine,
        Till the Abbot his nose grew red.
    No _De Profundis_ there they sang,
    But a roystering catch to the rafters rang;
    And the bell for matins, it went ‘ting tang,’
        Ere the last of them rolled to bed.”

Scogan, it would seem, was married at this period; and it would also
appear that his wife was a fine lady in her way, who, among other
matters connected with the fine-ladyism of her times, was very desirous
of having a page who might precede her, as she went humbly, in state,
to church. In fact, she intimated that it would be impossible for
her to find her way to church, without a page. “Poor lass!” said the
jester, one Saturday night, “you shall have a guide to church, before
the bells ring tomorrow morning.” Accordingly, on the Sunday morning,
Scogan arose early, and chalked the road which lay between his house
and the church-door; he either strewed the chalk, or drew lines with
it. When church-time came, he led his wife to the thresh-hold of their
dwelling, to see her new page. When the extremely fastidious lady
beheld the practical trick played her by her husband, she waxed so
wroth that all his wit could hardly pacify her.

Among the practical jokes of this court fool I recognize many that
really belong to a much earlier period, and which must have been
current as “stories” at the time they are narrated as having been
performed by Scogan himself. The following, however, is said to be
properly assigned to him. He had borrowed a large sum of money of
the King. Some stories say the Queen, and Flögel even names _Queen
Elizabeth_ as the patroness of this jester! The sum is set down at
£500, which is extremely doubtful. Be this as it may, a day for payment
had been named; and when that day had arrived, Scogan was not prepared
to pay the debt. After ranch thought upon the matter, he fell sick
and died, and requested his friends to bury him in such a way that the
Sovereign should encounter the funeral. They entered into the joke
with great alacrity, put on the trappings of mitigated affliction,
and in due time carried Scogan forth on a comfortably-arranged bier,
when they contrived, as directed, to encounter Edward. When Louis XV.
saw the funeral of his old favourite, Madame de Pompadour, he had the
bad taste to cut a sorry joke. When Edward met the funeral procession
of Scogan, he regretted the loss of his merry follower; and among
other kind things to which he gave utterance, remarked, that he freely
forgave Scogan and his representatives the sum for which the jester was
indebted to him. The buffoon, who had expected this act of release,
immediately jumped up, thanked his illustrious creditor, and prudently
called all present to bear witness to the Royal act of grace: “It is so
revivifying,” said Scogan, “that it has called me to life again.” If
this incident be true, we may also believe, as we are requested to do,
that great mirth followed thereupon.

Perhaps Scogan presumed upon the liberties allowed him by the King;
for we are told that his pranks at court became so boisterously
intolerable, that he was at last exiled, and forbidden to return on
English soil, upon pain of death. He went to France, thence came back
with his shoes full of the soil of Picardy, and he claimed impunity, on
the ground that he was not standing on English land. This sort of story
is told of so many jesters, that I leave its acceptance or rejection to
the decision of my readers. We come again to facts, when we encounter
Scogan dwelling for awhile at Jesus College, Cambridge; and there is,
probably, foundation for the story which represents him travelling in
Normandy.

In the collection of ‘Scogan’s Jests,’ to which I have before alluded,
as being collected by merry Andrew Borde, of Pevensey--that learned
and mirthful doctor who Latinized his name into “Perforatus,” we are
informed,--“How Scogan made the country-people of Normandy offer their
money to a dead man’s head.”

“Upon a time when Scogan lacked maintenance, and had gotten the
displeasure of his former acquaintance by reason of his crafty dealing
and unhappy tricks, he bethought himself in what manner he might
get money with a little labour. So, travelling up into Normandy, he
got him a priest’s gown, and clothed himself like a scholar, and
afterwards went into a certain churchyard, where he found the skull
of a dead man’s head, the which he took up and made very clean, and
after bore it to a goldsmith, and hired him to set it in a stud of
silver. Which being done, he departed to a village there by, and came
to the parson of the church, and saluted him, and then told him, that
he had a relic, and desired him to do so much for him as to show it
unto the parish, that they might offer to it; and withal promised the
parson that he should have one-half of the offerings. The parson,
moved with covetousness, granted his request, and so, upon the Sunday
following, told his parishioners thereof, saying, that there was a
certain religious scholar come to the town, that had brought with him
a precious relic; and that he that would offer thereunto should have a
general pardon for all his forepassed sins; and that the scholar was
there present himself, to show it to them. With that, Scogan went up
into the pulpit, and showed them the relic that he had; and said to
them that the head spoke to him, and bade him that he should build a
church over it; and that the money that the church should be builded
withal should be well-gotten. But when the people came to offer unto
it, Scogan said unto them, ‘All you women who have been faithless to
your husbands, I pray you sit still, and come not to offer, for the
head bade me that I should not receive your offerings.’ Whereupon, the
poor men and their wives came thick and threefold to this offering;
and there was not a woman but she offered liberally, because that he
had said so; and he gave them the blessing with the head. And there
were some that had no money, that offered their rings; and some of them
that offered twice or thrice, because they would be seen. Thus received
he the offerings both of the good and the bad, and by this practice got
a great sum of money.”

That he subsequently came again to England, may be gathered from
stories of a later date. One legend tells us of the King condemning
him to be hanged, but allowing him the privilege of choosing a tree
from which he was to be suspended. Scogan avoided the penalty by being
unable to fix on a tree exactly to his mind. The story, however, is
related of earlier jesters than Scogan, and seems to have originally
belonged to the buffoon of Alboin, King of the Lombards.

There is nothing more left worth telling, though there is much more
that might be told, of Scogan, the gentleman-buffoon of Edward IV.
His last expressed desire was characteristic of his vocation and
his humour:--“Bury me,” said he, “under one of the water-spouts of
Westminster Abbey; for I have ever loved good drink, all the days of
my life.” It was a fool’s wish; but for the grave of him who made it,
no less an author than Cardinal Pole composed in his younger days, an
epitaph which may be worthy the jester, but is certainly less worth
citing than that composed by Swift for one of the last of our household
fools, and which will be found in a subsequent page of this volume.

The stupid book, edited by Borde of Pevensey, and known to many an
antiquary whose patience is not stout enough to hold out to the end of
the dirt, dullness, and dreariness which mark what is called ‘Scoggin’s
Jests,’ reminds me of a saying of Balzac, with reference to two of
the wittiest Frenchmen of the great revolutionary era,--Chamfort and
Rivarol. “Those good fellows,” remarks Balzac, “put a whole volume
into one of their witty sayings; but now-a-days, it is difficult to
find one witty saying in a whole volume.” The last part of this remark
is most applicable to collections of jests to which the name of some
court fool was appended in order to give them currency and an air of
authenticity. Even if Scogan’s so-called “Jests” were authentic, they
would not be worth citing. They offend in every possible way, and it is
impossible to read them and believe them to be genuine, without feeling
surprise at an Oxford student becoming such a buffoon, and at such a
buffoon as their hero being so liberally recompensed as he was, by the
royal Edward.

Let us pass, then, from Scogan and from a King who, with all his
patronage of the fool, could least of all the Kings of England bear a
political joke, to one who had scant time to listen to jesting. But
I will here remind the reader that out of Edward IV.’s barbarity, in
executing a merry tradesman in Cheapside, merely for saying that he
would make his son heir to the _Crown_,--meaning his house of business,
distinguished by that sign,--Fuller, in his ‘Holy State,’ draws an
argument against profane jesting which might have profited all, court
fools as well as others, could they only have heard the arguer. Fuller
upheld harmless mirth as a cordial for restoring wasted spirits; and
he only pronounced jesting unlawful when it trespassed in quantity,
quality, or season. When speaking against jesting with God’s word,
he asks, “Will nothing please thee to wash thy hands in, but the
font? or to drink healths in, but the church chalice?” With earthly
monarchs, fools may have their privilege; but then Fuller remembers
the poor mercer’s joke which so angered Edward IV., and he exclaims,
“More dangerous still is it to wit-wanton it with the majesty of God.”
Finally, he gives these rules against profane jesting,--rules which,
when he wrote, while fools were yet in remembrance, if not in favour at
court, he knew had been daily transgressed. “If,” he says, “without
thy will, and by chance-medley, thou hittest Scripture in ordinary
discourse, yet fly to the city of refuge, and pray God to forgive thee.
Scoff not at the natural defects of any which are not in their power to
mend. Oh! ’tis cruel to beat a cripple with his own crutches. Neither
scorn any for his profession, if honest, though poor and painful. He
that relates another man’s wicked jest, adopts it for his own. He
that will lose his friend for a jest, deserveth to die a beggar by
the bargain. We read that all those who were born in England the year
after the beginning of the great mortality, in 1349, wanted their four
cheek-teeth. Such let thy jests be,” adds the humorous commentator,
“that they may not grind the credit of thy friend; and make not jests
so long till thou becomest one.” Such was the comment of a moralist on
jesting, suggested by the consequence of non-professional joking on
royalty.

From the young King Edward V., no jester had opportunity to draw a
smile, except at the banquet at Hornsey Park, the only festival which
young Edward held between his accession and his death. His uncle
Richard lacked leisure to be “i’ the vein” for these follies; but his
wife, Lady Anne, and the young Princess Elizabeth (afterwards Queen of
Henry VII.) kept, for a brief season, such joyous court at Greenwich,
such minstreling, and dancing, and witnessing or playing jests, that
the oppressed and impoverished people looked on grimly, and murmured
rather above their breath. Henry VII., again, was too mean or too wise
to lavish money on any mere court gauds, though he was not ungenerous
in other respects. He was, at all events, the first English King
who lived within his income; and he was better pleased by lending
money to fit out the first European expedition that ever reached the
American continent than he could have been by any jest, good, bad, or
indifferent, that he might have to pay for. Nevertheless, in the days
of the Tudors, court fools abounded, and indeed, till the fall of
the monarchy under the Stuarts, the nest of ninnies was filled with a
chirruping brood.

Among these was Patch, who is said to have been jester to Henry VIII.
By some, this name is supposed to stand for “fool” generally. Others,
with better reason, believe that Patch was the cant-name of Williams
and Saxton, fools of Cardinal Wolsey. However this may be, we may
be sure that a jester alone could have dared to make such a King as
Henry VIII. look ridiculous, as a fool called by this name, “Patch,”
is said to have done when he besought the King to grant him a warrant
authorizing him to exact an egg from every husband who had serious
reasons to be dissatisfied with the conduct of his wife. The King
thought it a fair joke, and the warrant being drawn up in sportiveness,
he signed the document in full gaiety of spirit. The ink was scarcely
dry when the jester, bowing with mock gravity, demanded the first egg
from the King. “Your Grace,” said he, “belongs to the class of husbands
on whom I am entitled to make levy.” The joke was not very well
relished, and the warrant was cancelled.

John Heywood, himself a “King’s Jester” and a poet, has made Cardinal
Wolsey’s fool the subject of an epigram, which serves, with its title,
to show both the real and the nick-name of the merry retainer. The
former, according to Heywood, was Sexton and not _Saxton_. The epigram
is entitled, ‘A Saying of Patch, my Lord Cardinal’s Fool,’ and runs
thus:--

    Master Sexton, a person of unknowen wit,
    As he at my Lord Cardinal’s board did sit,
    Greedily caught at a goblet of wine.
    “Drink none!” said my lord, “for that sore leg of thine.”
    “I warrant, your Grace,” quoth Sexton, “I provide
    For my leg; for I drinke on the tother side.”

That Patch was the name of a fool retained by the Cardinal, we have
further evidence in the touching biography of Wolsey by Cavendish,
his “gentleman-usher.” And that Patch had merit of a superior quality,
may also be seen in the same little work. When the fallen statesman
was proceeding up the hill near Putney, on his way to Esher, having
been just before compelled to retire from York House, he was overtaken
by Norris, a gentleman of the Royal bed-chamber, who brought with him
a gold ring and a letter from the King, with assurances of his own
that the Cardinal would soon recover both favour and power. Wolsey,
in sudden ecstasy, slipped from his mule; went on his knees in the
mud; poured forth very unheroic phrases, ringing of gratitude, but the
key-note of which was struck by self-gratulation. The Cardinal was for
giving anything he possessed to the bearer of such good news; but then
he had so little left to bestow! At length, he rewarded Norris with a
gold chain, to the end of which was attached a relic of the True Cross,
“which,” said Wolsey, “when I was in prosperity, I would not have
parted with for a thousand pounds.” Norris having been thus rewarded,
the downfallen but hopeful dignitary looked around for a fitting
messenger to convey the expressions of his thankfulness to Henry,--“To
that good master whom I have loved more than myself, and whom I have
well served. And to say that I have no one now to convey to him the
expression of my gratitude!” At this moment, his eye fell upon poor
faithful Motley, and the Cardinal immediately exclaimed, “But Patch, my
fool, who is with me, will be my interpreter to his Majesty, with you,
my good Norris. I give him to his Majesty: Patch is _worth a thousand
pounds_.”

The jester, who was thus set at as high a value as a relic of the True
Cross, had no inclination at all to become a _court_ fool. Cavendish
describes the unwillingness of Patch in an almost pathetic manner. The
jester refused to leave his old master, but six stout men bound him to
a horse, not without great difficulty, according to Mr. Tytler; but
having accomplished the task, the steed was set off at full gallop, and
Patch was thus promoted to a court jestership, in spite of himself.

Patch seems to have been bold enough, when he got used to his new
service, if the anecdote I have told of him and the King be well
founded; but the best known of the jesters who fooled courtiers to
the very top of their bent, at the court of Henry VIII., and did not
spare the King himself, was Will Sommers, whose alleged portrait
at Hampton Court is familiar to all who have resorted to that most
pleasant locality. Armin, in his ‘Nest of Ninnies,’ has given another
portraiture of Will,--one that may be relied on, for Armin gave it when
many persons were alive, well able to judge of its correctness; and
this portrait I proceed to place before my readers.

   “Will Sommers, born in Shropshire, as some say,
    Was brought to Greenwich, on a holiday,--
    Presented to the King;--which fool disdain’d
    To shake him by the hand, or was ashamed.
    Howe’er it was; as ancient people say,
    With much ado was won to it that day.
    Lean he was, hollow-eyed, as all report,
    And stoop he did too; yet in all the court,
    Few men were more beloved than was this fool,
    Whose merry prate kept with the King much rule.
    When he was sad the King with him would rhyme;
    Thus Will exilëd sadness many a time.
    I could describe him, as I did the rest,
    But in my mind, I do not think it best;
    My reason this, howe’er I do descry him,
    So many knew him, that I may belie him;
    Therefore, to please all people, one by one,
    I hold it best to let that pains alone;
    Only this much:--He was a poor man’s friend,
    And help’d the widow often in her end.
    The King would ever grant what he did crave,
    For well he knew Will no exacting knave;
    But wish’d the King to do good deeds great store,
    Which caused the court to love him more and more.”

Will seems to have been contemporary with Saxton, or Sexton, a fool
of some notoriety at the Tudor’s Court, from the circumstance of his
being the first jester who wore a wig. There is an entry from the
accounts of the Treasurer of the Chambers, quoted in the Archæologia,
to the following effect:--“Paid for Saxton, the King’s fool, for a wig,
20_s._” Is it not possible that this jester may have assumed this mode
in order to ridicule the new fashion of the ladies, who had now, for
the first time in England, adopted the wig--which English lords had
begun to wear as early as the reign of Stephen? However this may be,
the above is all we know of Saxton in his capacity of fool to Henry.
How Sommers looked at Court, the following entry will sufficiently
show:--“For making a doublet of worsted, lined with canvass and cotton,
for William Som’ers, our fool. Item, for making of a coat and a cap of
green cloth, fringed with red crape and lined with frieze, for our said
fool. Item, for making of a doublet of fustian, lined with cotton and
canvass, for our said fool. For making of a coat of green cloth, with
hood to the same, fringed with white and lined with frieze and buckram,
for our fool aforesaid.”

In this suit and office, Will’s reputation so stirred Shropshire, that
his old uncle trudged up to town to visit him at court. The uncle
was no ill man to look at, for when the “kinde old man,” as Armin
calls him, entered Greenwich, and on asking the way to the palace,
was laughed at by saucy pages, who directed him across the water to
Blackwall, others pitied his simplicity, and had respect for a man
“with a buttoned cap, a lockram falling band (coarse but clean), a
russet coat, a white belt of a horse-hide (right horse-collar, white
leather), a close round breech of russet sheep’s-wool, with a long
stock of white kersey, a high shoe with yellow buckles, all white
with dust,--for that day, the good old man had come three-and-twenty
miles on foot.” Lusty old yeoman! How much more respectable than
the flaunting “gard and gentlewomen in their windows,” who “had
much sport” to see him pass on his way. But the old man thought his
nephew as good as any of them, and, with dignified self-possession,
inquires,--“if there be not a gentleman in the court dwelling, called
by the name of Master Will Sommers.” This was giving Will a high
position, but it was recognized; and the old uncle was led to Will,
who was taking an afternoon sleep in the park, with his head on a
cushion supplied by a woman whose son, addicted to the gentle pursuit
of piracy, Will saved from the hangman and the gallows at Blackwall.
After a little fooling and much hearty greeting, Will took his uncle
by the hand: “Come,” says he, “thou shalt see Harry, Cockle,--the only
Harry in England;” so he led him to the chamber of presence, and ever
and anon cries out, “Awere! room for me and my uncle! and, knaves, bid
him welcome!” This was done, perhaps, with a little mock gravity, but
Armin tells us that “the old man thought himself no earthly man, they
honoured him so much.”

Will, however, paused awhile, for he saw his uncle’s country suit,
pronounced it unfit for the King’s presence, and, telling the old
man that he must first don a full court-dress, Will takes him to his
chamber, and attires him in his best fool’s suit, cap and all. The
simple old man simply wore the costume, and when the two stood before
the King, Harry laughed at the ridiculous spectacle. The old man, and
Will too, seem to have had some purpose in the whole affair, for when
the King encouraged them to talk, the uncle bade Will tell him all
about Tirrell’s Frith,--a common, of the use of which the Shropshire
poor had been deprived by Master Tirrell, who had enclosed it. The King
was so interested that he gave orders that the common should be thrown
open again; and thereby the sturdy old uncle had not his long walk for
nothing, seeing also that, when he returned to his native county, “he,
while he lived, for that deed was allowed bayly of the common, which
place was worth twenty pound a year.”

Of Will’s power to please the King in his moody moments, we have
specimens in certain questions put, and indeed answered, by the fool.
He put them, as the fool of the play does, “with an anticke look, to
please the beholders;” for example, “What is it, that the lesser it is,
the more it is to be feared?”--which proves to be, “a little bridge
over a deep river,” at which the King “_smiled_.” At more foolish
riddles, the King “_laught_;” and at others, which cannot possibly
be set down here, we are told that “the King laught _heartily, and
was exceeding merry_.” For being made so merry, Harry promised Will
any favour he might ask; Will undertook to apply when he had grace to
petition. “One day I _shall_,” said he, “for every man sees his latter
end, but knows not his beginning.” And with this jester’s quip, Will
took his leave and went away, “and laid him down among the spaniels to
sleep.”

Will was but scantily in favour with Cardinal Wolsey, whom he once
mulcted of ten pounds. He had entered the King’s private apartment
when the Sovereign and the Cardinal were together; and Will apologized
for the intrusion by saying, that some of his Eminence’s creditors
were at the door, and wanted to be paid their due. Wolsey declared he
would forfeit his head if he owed a man a penny; but he gave Will ten
pounds, on his promise to pay it where it was due. When Will returned,
he exclaimed, “To whom dost thou owe thy soul, Cardinal?” “To God,” was
the reply. “And thy wealth?” “To the poor.” At which, Will declared the
Cardinal’s head forfeit to the King. “For,” said he, “to the poor at
the gate I paid the debt, which he yields is due.” The King laughed,
and the Cardinal feigned to be merry, “but it grieved him to give away
ten pounds so; yet worse tricks than this Will Sommers served him
after, for indeed he (the Cardinal) could never abide him.”

Will was not above human infirmities; he was jealous, like greater
men at court, and especially when a rival fool vied with him to gain
smiles and moidores from the King. We have an instance in the case
when “a jester, a big man, of a great voice, long black locks, and a
very big round beard,” was juggling and jesting before the King. Armin
tells us, that “lightly one fool cannot endure the sight of another;”
and Will, angry at his huge rival, sought to recover his supremacy by
dashing a bowl of bread and milk over the head, eyes, and beard of his
titanic rival. “This lusty jester, forgetting himself in fury, draws
his dagger, and begins to protest. ‘Nay,’ says the King, ‘are ye so
hot?’ claps him fast; and though he draws his dagger here, makes him
put it up in another place. The poor abused jester was jested out of
countenance, and lay in durance a great while, till Will Sommers was
fain (after he broke his head, to give him a plaister,) to get him out
again. But never after came my juggler in the Court more so near the
King, being such a man to draw in the presence of the King;” who (after
all) could not have been mortally stricken, seeing that jesters carried
only daggers of lath; but probably the act itself was considered a bad
example and a serious offence.

Of the generous feeling of Will, there is a well-known instance recited
in Grainger; according to which it would appear, that in early life
Will had been a servant in the family of a Northamptonshire gentleman
named Richard Farmor or Fermor. This gentleman was of a compassionate
spirit, and hearing of a destitute priest incarcerated in the gaol
at Buckingham for denying the King’s supremacy, the kind gentleman
sent him a couple of shirts and eightpence. This small but acceptable
and praiseworthy charity entirely ruined the donor. It laid him open
to a charge of _præmunire_; and for giving a change of linen and
the price of a meal to a captive Papist, the King confiscated this
Fermor’s estates, and reduced him to beggary and starvation. Will found
opportunity to serve his old master, but not till death was pressing
hard upon the King, and making his heart also something less tough and
obdurate than it was wont to be. The fool improved his opportunity, and
leaving to others to bid the sick monarch repent of his sins, hinted
that it would be a better joke if he were to make reparation for them.
The fool’s divinity was not so contemptible, for it worked on the dying
King, “who,” says Mr. Thoms, in a note to Mr. Collier’s reprint of the
‘Nest of Ninnies,’ “caused the remains of Fermor’s estate, which had
been dismembered, to be restored to him.”

The tracts and plays of succeeding years found purchasers or spectators
because they reproduced Sommers in his jests, gait, dress, and manners.
Rowland has him in his ‘Good and Bad News;’ Rowley, in his chronicle
play, ‘When you see me you know me;’ and Nash, in his ‘Summers’ Last
Will and Testament.’ From these sources, no indifferent idea may
be gained of the once famous Will. The incidents of Rowland’s poem
are to be found in Rowley’s play. The latter, printed in 1605, is a
chronicle play, including the years 1537–1546, the last year being
the one before Henry’s death. It abounds with anachronisms, but also
with illustrations of the manner in which Sommers lived at court, how
he joked with the King, capped rhymes with their Majesties, and was
sometimes anything but decent in his jokes. At his first appearance,
Will enters the presence “at Whitehall,” booted and spurred, upon which
the following dialogue takes place:--

“_K._ Why, where hast thou been?

_W._ Marry, I rise early, and ride post to London, to know what news
was here at Court.

_K._ Was that your nearest way, William?

_W._ Oh, ay, the very foot-path, but yet I rid the horse-way to hear
it. I warrant there is ne’er a Cundid-head keeper in London, but knows
what is done in all the courts in Christendom.

_Wols._ And what is the best news there, William?

_W._ Good news for you, my Lord Cardinal, for one of the old women
water-bearers told me for certain, that last Friday, all the bells
in Rome rang backward; there was a thousand dirges sung; six hundred
Ave-Marias said; every man washed his face in holy water; the people
crossing and blessing themselves to send them a new Pope, for the old
is gone to purgatory.... The news,” adds Will, “after leaving Rome last
Friday, was at Billingsgate by Saturday morning; ’twas a full moon, and
came up in a spring-tide.”

Queen Jane is represented as looking “bigger” upon the jester; “But I
care not,” says Will to the King, “an she bring thee a young prince,
Will Sommers mayhaps be his fool when you two are both dead and
rotten.” “Do you hear, wenches?” he subsequently says to the maids of
honour, likely to be anxious to announce the issue of the event alluded
to. “She that brings the first tidings, however it fall out, let her be
sure to say that the child’s like the father, or else she shall have no
reward.”

Will is described as extravagantly free, not only to the maids of
honour, but to the King’s sister. Patch, in this piece, is not the
King’s fool, but Wolsey’s. “All the fools follow you, my lord,” he
says to the Cardinal, when the latter observes the two fools near him:
“I come to bid my cousin Patch welcome to court; and when I come to
York House, he’ll do as much for me.” To which Patch, who seems here a
natural rather then an artificial fool, replies, “Yes, cousin; hey, da,
darry, diddel, day, day.” Will’s attempts to make the King merry are
sometimes roughly recompensed. “He gave me such a box on the ear,” says
the fool, “that strake me clean through three chambers, down four pair
of stairs. I fell over five barrels in the bottom of the cellar, and
if I had not well liquored myself there, I had never lived after it.”
Patch, too, declares that the King had almost killed him “_with his
countenance_.” This sort of fool’s flattery has been very acceptable,
it may be observed, to all despotic princes, from Augustus down to
the Czar Nicholas. The most amusing of Roman historians tells us that
Augustus was always well pleased with those persons who, in addressing
him, looked upon the ground, as though there were a divine splendour
in his eyes, too dazzling for them to gaze upon. “Gaudiebatque,” says
Suetonius, “si quis sibi acrius contuenti, quasi ad fulgorem solis,
vultum submitteret.” His eyes nevertheless grew dim as he grew old,
when the lustre of the left one, in particular, went out in a most
ungodlike fashion.

The Czar Nicholas had a similar weakness, and he used his eyes
to frighten or fascinate people. Playing them mildly, he subdued
Lieutenant Royer into ecstatic admiration; and, according to Mr.
Turnerelli, Nicholas once, with one of his terrible glances, terrified
a Swedish Admiral into the Russian service. On another occasion,
happening to encounter a poor fellow who had strolled into a private
part of the Imperial park, the Czar gazed at him with such lightning
in his glance, that the intruder was stricken with brain fever;--an
amount of flattery which even Patch never piled up as tribute to the
withering power of the terrible looks of Henry VIII. Patch indeed had
cause to be afraid of Henry, for his rude essay to make the melancholy
Monarch merry, is rewarded by a kicking; for which, however, the
King makes compensation. Patch gets an angel, to buy him points; but
Will, who contrived that his cousin fool should incur the punishment,
obtains a new cap and suit for his pains; for, sayeth he, “so long as
the King lives, the Cardinal’s fool must give way to the King’s fool.”
But in the latter there is some sound sense, as, for instance, when he
exclaims: “Dost hear, old Harry, I am sure the true faith is able to
defend itself, without thee!” For some such remark, Wolsey styles him
“a shrewd fool.” Will is ready to do anything but flatter, which is
against his vocation; and get drunk, which is against his health; but
he no sooner declines to follow Patch to the cellar, when he foregoes
his resolution, and foolishly drinks away his wit, but sleeps it back
again.

Its awakening is first tried on the new Queen Catherine; and it
is in the accomplished jester’s vein. “Look to thy husband, Kate,
lest he cozen thee; provide civil oranges enough, or he’ll have a
lemon, shortly.” This play upon the word _leman_, or “mistress,” was
subsequently employed by Heywood, the “King’s Jester,” to point a jest
made in the hearing of Queen Mary. Will, however, is much more addicted
to uttering bitter sentences against Wolsey, than jokes on the King,
Queen, or little Prince Edward. He is especially severe on the “Smoake
pence,” a most unpopular tax levied by the priest, and turned, as Will
implies, to the Cardinal’s especial profit. The jester proposes to
the King, that Wolsey shall be permitted to take the chimneys, since
there were bricks enough in the land, or materials for them, to build
others. But he protests against the coin of the realm being carried
away, seeing, as he says, that there is no mint whence new money can be
issued. Indeed nothing can exceed the boldness of Will’s jokes against
the Cardinal, except the nastiness of those levelled at the ladies.
Both are doubtless traditional, and we may believe that they were
uttered with impunity, from the stereotyped speech of the King, “Well,
William, your tongue is privileged.”

Sommers was also brought upon the stage by Nash, in his ‘Summers’ Last
Will and Testament.’ This piece was written in 1593, and printed some
years later. There were then persons living who may have remembered
Will, as having seen him in their youth; and what is said of him
personally in this piece, may be accepted, I think, as having some
foundation in fact. The incidents spoken of connected with his life
at court, may also rest upon a basis of truth, and are therefore
worth noticing. Nash’s play is more like a masque than a comedy, and
Rowley’s chronicle-drama abounds in anachronisms. The probable facts,
however, are only mistimed, and both dramatists agree, in the main, in
the character of Will, “who,” says Mr. Thoms, in the reprint of the
‘Nest of Ninnies,’ “in all probability owes his reputation rather to
the uniform kindness with which he used his influence over bluff Harry,
than to his wit or folly.”

In the dramatic portrait, then, of this once famous court fool, as
limned by Nash, we find Will describing himself as “used to go without
money, without garters, without girdle, without a hatband, without
points to my hose, and without a knife to my dinner.” As in Rowley, so
here, Will quotes Latin; he is also apt at old proverbs, and verbose
with old classical stories and tales, in which there are more words,
however, than wit. His Latin, indeed, is not always to the point,
for he translates _memento mori_, “Remember to rise betimes in the
morning;” nor are his classical stories true to historical tradition,
nor his tales remarkable for delicacy of illustration. He has a
simpleton’s philosophy, and talks little matters of science very much
after the fashion of ‘Conversations at Home.’ He has, too, a fool’s
contempt for learning, as may be seen in the following passage, which
contains some allusions to his early life:--

“Who would be a scholar? not I, I promise you! My mind always gave me
this learning was such a filthy thing, which made me hate it so as
I did. When I should have been at school construing _Batte mi fili,
mi fili mi Batte_, I was close under a hedge, or under a barn wall,
playing at span-counter or Jack-in-a-box. My master beat me, my father
beat me, my mother gave me bread and butter, yet all this would not
make me a squitter-book. It was my destiny. I thank her as a most
courteous goddess, that she hath not cast me away upon gibberish;” and
so on, with a diatribe against the divisions of grammar, and parts of
speech generally, as forming a portion of “the devil’s Pater-noster.”
And yet, out of the accidence, he coins almost his only fragment of wit
throughout a play in which he enacts the character of “Chorus.” “Verba
dandi et reddendi,” says Will, “go together in the grammar rule; there
is no giving but with condition of restoring.” Altogether we obtain
fewer ideas of what Will may have been, from Nash, than from Rowley.
The former makes him less attractive, and when the jester closes
the piece with a “_Valete spectatores_, pay for this sport with a
_Plaudite_, and the next time the wind blows from this corner, we will
make you ten times as merry,”--we are glad to rejoin, _vale et tu_,
and to get away without paying the price asked for sport which, had it
been ten times as merry as is vouched for the next play, would not have
sinned with excess of mirthfulness.

It only remains for me to add, that Will survived to hold office under
Edward VI. How he sustained his reputation during a portion of the six
years’ reign of that young monarch, I am unable to inform my readers.
The only trace I have found of him is in a paper by Bray, in the
eighteenth volume of the ‘Archæologia,’ from which we learn, according
to a citation from the household expenses, that the sum of twelvepence
was paid “for painting Will Somers’ garments.”

Before proceeding to the next reign, I will take this opportunity to
narrate an anecdote of the learned and skilful diplomatist, Pace,--not
because he was the namesake of Pace, the “bitter fool” of Queen
Elizabeth’s days, but because the anecdote itself has reference to
subjects from which Henry could draw amusement, and that there is an
illustration in it, in connection with the court jesters.

Pace, we are told, in the collection of letters to and from Erasmus
(Basle, 1558), was once in the church at Woodstock, with the King and
court, when the Franciscan monk who preached, confined himself in his
sermon to denouncing the Greek language, and devoting to destruction
all who studied it. The choice of such a subject, and the manner in
which it was treated, were the more remarkable, as, a short time
previously, a Franciscan monk had been silenced for preaching in the
same sense. The Oxford students had hooted him in his cell, and the
authorities had to interfere. The King had written to the heads of
colleges in favour of the study of Greek; and his amazement was all the
more unbounded at the audacity of the new monk, who went even further
in his wrath against Greek than the Jewish Rabbis, who were wont to
solemnly pronounce accursed the man who allowed his children to learn
that language. If the King was enraged, the grave and learned Pace,
who sat near him, was delighted. He did not dare exhibit his ecstasy;
but he was so overcome with a propensity to burst out laughing, that
he was compelled to bury his face in both hands, to conceal his strong
and risible emotion. He was rather bolder when Henry subsequently
ordered the monk to attend him in his closet, where the king pelted
him with questions and menaces, and nearly frightened him out of his
senses. The poor preacher had been abusing Erasmus without having read
his works. He had, however, as he tremblingly remarked, “cast his eye
over some pages of the ‘Eulogy of Folly.’” “Ah,” said Pace, “I really
believe that the work was especially written with a view to your
reverence.” The monk meekly smiled. He had not heart enough to confront
the scholar, but he had sense enough to creep out of the difficulty
into which he had fallen. He confessed himself to be reconciled with
Greek from the sudden conviction which had descended upon him, that
it was derived from the Hebrew. King and courtiers present burst into
loud laughter at this sapient observation, under shelter of which the
speaker was allowed to withdraw in safety. Pace declared that the monk
had wit enough to make the fortune of a court jester; for if it did
not save him from getting into a scrape, it certainly was strong enough
to draw him out of one.

Having mentioned the faithful fool of Cardinal Wolsey,--Patch,--I
cannot pass over the simpleton, or Morio, Patteson, retained in the
household of Wolsey’s successor in the Chancellorship, Sir Thomas
More. All persons who are familiar with the biography of the latter
eminent individual, will remember how heartily Sir Thomas, from his
youth upwards, was addicted to jesting. When he was a page, being then
fifteen years of age, in the family of Cardinal Morton, Archbishop of
Canterbury, he kept the octogenarian prelate and all his guests in
roars of laughter, as he waited on them at table. Morton was delighted
with the frolicsome boy, who, especially at Christmas and other joyous
seasons, was worth any number of ordinary household fools, seeing that
his improvised jests were superior to anything done or uttered by the
professional joker. More’s manner on these occasions was, however,
quite after the fashion of “cousin Motley.” Thus, when the players were
representing some comic drama, for the entertainment of their reverend
patron, “young More,” as Roper relates in his Life, “would suddenly
step up among the players, and, never studying before upon the matter,
make often a part of his own invention which was so witty, and so full
of jests, that he alone made more sport than all the players besides;
for which, his towardliness, the Cardinal much delighted in him, and
would often say of him to divers of the nobility who at sundry times
dined with him, ‘This child here, waiting at the table, whosoever shall
live to see it, will prove a marvellous rare man.’” As More, in his
youth, gratified Cardinal Morton by his wit, so, in his manhood, by
his wit as well as his wisdom, he afforded amusement to his capricious
Sovereign. When Henry had had enough of the outpouring of knowledge
from More (who was yet but Under-Sheriff of London _and_ Master of the
Requests) on astronomy, geometry, and divinity; then, “because,” says
his biographer, “he was of a very pleasant disposition, it pleased His
Majesty and the Queen, after the Council had supped, commonly to call
for him to hear his pleasant jests.” These latter must have been of a
very different quality from those which the King had been wont to make
merry with from the lips of Will Sommers, and we cannot be surprised
at their exciting such admiration in the Sovereign that he detained
the illustrious jester whole weeks at Court, away from his home and
domestic enjoyments. Sir Thomas beheld himself in great peril of
descending to the vocation of joker in ordinary, and he devised a witty
remedy in order to escape the uncoveted distinction. “When Sir Thomas
perceived his pleasant conceits so much to delight them that he could
scarce once in a month get leave to go home to his wife and children,
and that he could not be two days absent from the Court, but he must
be sent for again; he, much misliking this restraint of his liberty,
began therefore to dissemble his mirth, and so, little by little, to
disuse himself, that he from henceforth, in such seasons, was no more
so ordinarily sent for.” In short, he feigned heaviness of humour, that
he might escape the honours paid to, and the services expected from, a
court jester. Had any friend expressed astonishment at the change in
his bearing, More might have excused himself nearly in the words of the
essayist, who said:--“If my readers should at any time remark that I am
particularly dull, they may be assured there is a design under it.”

So More contrived for awhile to be more at home, where he had a wife
who missed all the points of his puns, and a household fool who had
about as much wit as his mistress. The latter was one Patteson, an
ex-mummer, half crazed by a fall from a church-steeple, who had lost
his old itinerant vocation, and whom More took into his family, poor,
shabby, droll fellow as he was, and amused himself, after application
to high subjects, by listening to his small wit, even as a man may take
now and then to small-beer after too hot and long an acquaintance with
ruddy Vin de Beaune.

Patteson founded his desire to be a household fool, on the very
sufficient ground that, as he was already laughed at for one, he
thought he might as well be hired in a great family, where he should
be paid, fed, and lodged for being thus the object of risibility. Sir
Thomas answered, that he had had little thought of employing such a
retainer, being rather inclined to do all the fooling in his family,
himself. The great negotiation, however, was brought to a conclusion
by a compromise; the business was to be divided, Sir Thomas continuing
unlicensed joker, and Patteson being paid full salary for inoffensive
small wit, cleanliness of life, and restraint of his tongue before
ladies.

Patteson was not an educated jester, like Scogan and other great
wearers of the cap and bells under the roofs of kings. He could not
read. “But what of that?” he is said to have asked; “there never was
but one that I ever heard of, that never having learned, knew his
letters, and well _he_ might, for he made them that made them.” The
witty remark deserved to procure for Patteson his desired engagement;
and this he had no sooner procured, than he affected to take precedence
of his master, in his own house; “for,” said he, “you, brother, are but
jester to King Harry, whereas _I_ am jester to Sir Thomas More; and I
leave you to determine which is the greater man of the two.”

Patteson occasionally went abroad with his master, probably attending
him as his servant, which was often one of the offices of fools. The
license of the latter also went abroad with the service of the former,
and we are told that once, after he had been many years in More’s
service, he attended his master, or at all events was present, at a
dinner given in Guildhall, when the conversation fell upon More’s
refusal to take the oath of supremacy. The conversation of the guests
was interrupted by a query of the fool:--“Why, what aileth him,” cried
Patteson, “that he will not swear? Wherefore should he stick to swear?
I have sworn the oath myself.”

Lord Campbell quotes another illustration of the license of this
jester, from ‘Il Moro’, an Italian account of Sir Thomas More,
printed at Florence, and dedicated to Cardinal Pole. The incident is
supposed to be narrated by the Chancellor himself, and Lord Campbell
is of opinion that it does not give us “a very exalted notion of the
merriment caused by these simpletons.” Perhaps we might more correctly
say, that the incident fails to convey a very elevated idea of the wit
that raised the merriment. However this may be, here is the _trait_ in
question:--

“Yesterday, while we were dining, Pattison” (so is the name here spelt)
“seeing a guest with a very large nose, said, there was one at table
who had been trading to the _Promontory of Noses_. All eyes were turned
to the great nose, though we discreetly preserved silence, that the
good man might not be abashed. Pattison, perceiving the mistake he
had made, tried to set himself right, and said, ‘He lies who says the
gentleman’s nose is large, for, on the faith of a true knight, it is
rather a small one.’ At this, all being inclined to laugh, I made signs
for the fool to be turned out of the room; but Pattison, who boasted
that he brought every affair that he commenced to a happy conclusion,
resisted, and, placing himself in my seat at the head of the table,
said aloud, with my tone and gesture, ‘There is one thing I would have
you to know,--that gentleman there has not the least bit of nose on his
face.’”

This sort of sparring between patron and jester was commonly indulged
in with considerable satisfaction by both parties. It was safer for
More to do so, by way of relaxation, with Patteson, than with the King;
whose humour might take a deadly turn against an unwelcome joke,
and particularly against an unlicensed joker. The authoress of ‘The
Household of Sir Thomas More,’ following the tradition, describes the
banter of Sir Thomas and Sir Witless, as never exceeding the bounds
of good-humoured pleasantry; “but Patteson,” it is added, “is never
without an answer, and although, it may be, each amuses himself now
and then with thinking, I’ll put him up with such a question; yet,
once begun, the skein runs off the reel without a knot, and shows
the excellent nature of both, so free are they alike from malice and
over-license.” It is true that the sayings put in the mouth of More’s
“_Morio_” by the authoress whose words I have just quoted, are for
the most part as apocryphal as Borde’s compiled jests to which he has
prefixed the name of “Scoggin,” to make them sell. The character of the
fool is, however, described according to tradition, in the pleasant
addition to the Romance of History, in the work last named. There we
see Patteson, with a peacock’s feather in his hand, sitting astride
on a balustrade, and exchanging sharp question and answer, and lively
comment and reflection, on peacocks themselves and their vanity; and
on the advantages of not having as many eyes in their heads as they
have in their tails, as they are in consequence less vain-glorious, and
see not what passes behind their backs. Patteson, according to this
authoress, chopped logic with the young daughters of More; touched
a little on sentimental matters; could speak feelingly of religion,
death, and the equality of the grave; spoke prophetically on political
subjects; and jested with them, or rather at them, on their several
lovers.

Lord Campbell naturally suggests, that More’s fool ought to have been
a great proficient at jesting, since he practised under so great a
master. However this may be, when the Lord Chancellor had commenced to
decline from power and dignity, he provided for the future well-being
of his fool as carefully as he did for that of any greater officer of
his household. Wolsey, at _his_ fall, sent Patch as an acceptable gift
to the King. More made over Patteson to a less exalted sovereign,--the
Lord Mayor of the City of London, “with a stipulation,” says Lord
Campbell, “that he should continue to serve the office of fool to the
Lord Mayor for the time being.” This rather loosely-worded phrase
probably points at the origin of the office of “Lord Mayor’s Fool,” a
title which was, however, given to the clubmen in provincial mayoral
processions from the year 1444. Whether Patteson was, or was not, the
original Lord Mayor’s Fool, by right of nomination to the office, he
had as little respect for the dignity of chief magistrate of the city,
as any modern merchant prince who, being too lazy or too unpatriotic to
perform the onerous duty of the office, affects to despise the dignity
which accompanies, and the titles which often follow, a distinguished
fulfilment of that duty. So this first official corporation jester
flouted his sublime chief. His humour in this respect is well hinted
at by the authoress of ‘The Household of Sir Thomas More,’ who depicts
Patteson as saying, on one first of April, “I told my Lord Mayor
overnight, that if he looked for a fool this morning, he must look
in the glass.... I should by rights wear the gold chain, and he the
motley; and a proper fool he is, and I shall be glad when his year’s
service to me is out. The worst of these Lord Mayors is, that we can’t
part with them till their time’s up. Why, now, this present one hath
not so much understanding as would foot an old stocking; ’twas but
yesterday when, in quality of my Taster, he civilly enough makes over
to me a half-eaten plate of gurnet, which I wave aside thus, saying,--I
eat no fish of which I cannot affirm, ‘_rari sunt boni_,’ few are the
bones, ... and I protest to you, he knew it not for fool’s Latin.”
Patteson himself had a veneration for his old master which he could not
entertain for the new, from whose chattering propensity at table, the
jester picked out views of politics that foreboded evil to his former
and now disgraced patron. “For the love of safety, then, Mistress Meg,”
says Patteson, in a passage founded on this stray scrap of history,
“bid thy good father e’en take a fool’s advice, and eat humble-pie
betimes; for doubt not this proud madame (Anne Boleyn) to be as
vindictive as Herodias, and one that, unless he appease her full early,
will have his head set before her in a charger. I’ve said my say.”

We may take Patteson at his last word, and, leaving him, proceed to
greater names than his on the register of Motley in the service of
kings.

       *       *       *       *       *

We now come to a personage of some celebrity, who seems to have been
a court jester, without being exactly a court fool. I allude to John
Heywood, of North Mimms, in Hertfordshire, whom Sir Thomas More
introduced to the King as Sir William Neville did Scogan, and whose
introduction was followed by similar circumstances,--his appointment as
“jester” to the sovereign.

More had known Heywood early. The latter was a student at what was then
called Broadgate, Oxford, now Pembroke. Heywood’s spirit of fun, his
humour, and his readiness at repartee made him a favourite with More,
who was fond of spending leisure hours with him,--a man of whom it was
said that “he had wit at will, and art was all he missed.” Heywood,
moreover, was a good vocalist, and no mean instrumental player.
Previous to his introduction to the King, More presented him to the
lady (afterwards Queen) Mary, who found his merriment so irresistible
“that it moved even her rigid muscles,” says Warton; “and her sullen
solemnity was not proof against his songs, his rhymes, and his jests.”
Mary, however, was more easily moved to mirth than Warton and those
whose opinions were followed by him, suspected. Even in her womanhood,
when we are accustomed to think of her as one solemnly severe, she
could (albeit moody and melancholy at times) laugh heartily at a
mountebank. In 1556, Strype speaks of her as holding a grand military
review in Greenwich Park, at which “came a tumbler, and played many
pretty feats, the Queen and Cardinal (Pole) looking on; whereat she was
observed to laugh heartily.” Long ere she had ascended the throne, she
had learned to laugh at, with, or through John Heywood. Of the latter,
Warton says that “he was beloved and rewarded by Henry VIII. for his
buffooneries;” and, indeed, that monarch was so satisfied with the
quips of his daughter’s favourite, that, as previously stated, he named
John “King’s Jester.” He seems to have been a favourite also in the
mansions and at the tables of the nobility; and a specimen of his wit
there is offered us by Puttenham.

“The following happened,” he says, “on a time, at the Duke of
Northumberland’s board, where merry John Heywood was allowed to sit at
the board’s end. The Duke had a very noble and honourable mind to pay
his debts well, and when he lacked money, would not stick to sell the
greatest part of his plate. So had he done some few days before.

“Heywood being loath to call for his drink as often as he was dry,
turned his eyes towards the cupboard, and said, ‘I find a great miss
of your Grace’s standing-cups.’ The Duke, thinking that he had spoken
it of some knowledge that his plate was lately sold, said somewhat
sharply, ‘Why, Sir, will not _these_ cups serve so good a man as
yourself?’ Heywood readily replied, ‘Yes, if it please your Grace, but
I would have one of them stand still at my elbow, full of drink, that I
might not be driven to trouble your man so often to call for it.’

“This pleasant and speedy reverse of the former words, helped all the
matter again, whereby the Duke became very pleasant, and drank a
bottle of wine to Heywood, and bade a cup should always be standing by
him.”

His boldness with the Queen was quite that of the privileged jester,
and he was recompensed for his puns and conceits when men more
meritorious were neglected. The following contains good proof of his
license. When the Queen once remarked to him that the priests must
forego their wives, John exclaimed (and he was a very strict Catholic
too), “Then your Grace must allow them _lemmans_ [sweethearts], for
the clergy cannot live without _sauce_.” This epigrammatic turn was
very strong upon him; and indeed many of his epigrams, of which he was
the author of hundreds, are said to have been versifications of his
own jokes. I have already noticed the audacity of his jests with the
sovereign, a further instance of which we have in an incident connected
with one of his visits to the palace.

“Now, Master Heywood,” said Mary on the occasion in question, “what
wind blew you to court?” “There were two,” answered audacious John;
“one, that I might see your Majesty, and the other, that your Majesty
might see me.” When he was told that a certain Master of Arts had
assumed the ordinary attire of the court fool, “There is no great
harm in that,” remarked Heywood, “he is merely a wise man in a fool’s
coat; the evil is, when the fool puts over his motley the wise man’s
gown.”--“How do you like my beer?” asked a host of him, “is it not
well hopped?” “So well,” said Heywood, “that had it hopped a little
further, it would have hopped into water.” This reminds me of a far
wittier saying by a brighter English wit than Heywood--the late Douglas
Jerrold; and which is better worth recording. At an hotel at Hastings,
Jerrold was dining with two friends, one of whom, after dinner, ordered
among other pleasant things, “a bottle of _old_ port.” “Waiter,” said
Douglas, with that twinkle of the eye which was always a promise of
wit, “Mind, now; a bottle of your _old_ port, not your _elder_ port.”
Heywood never equalled _that_, though he gave utterance to as many
witty thoughts as the wittiest man of his time. Among them was his
remark, to a person complaining that the great number of lawyers would
spoil the profession. “Not so,” exclaimed John; “for the more spaniels,
the more game!”

His familiarity with Mary, was doubtless founded on his long service.
When she was a mere little girl at Greenwich, Heywood officiated as
manager of the troop of child actors who performed in her presence. On
one occasion he appears to have received six and eightpence for his
pains. Later, he wrote ballads for her, sometimes making herself the
subject of them. When her coronation procession passed St. Paul’s,
_there_ was mirthful John, seated beneath a vine; and, as the Queen
approached, he arose and delivered an oration. When Mary was ill, he
went to her chamber and recited verses or read plays to her; and when
she was dying, says Flögel, he stood by her death-bed, and solaced her
with music; “Er war auch ein berühmter Musikus, und musste der Königin
Maria von England, auf ihrem Todbette, mit seiner Musik aufwarten.”
This could not have been, however, when her death was very near.
Lingard simply says, that “on the morning of her death, Mass was
celebrated in her chamber; she was perfectly sensible, and expired a
few minutes before the conclusion.”

With the reputation of having been “King’s Jester,” Heywood is also
known to us as a poet, a dramatist, and a writer of epigrams. In the
first capacity, his most laboured piece is the least successful. I have
tried in vain to read through his ninety-eight chapters, in octave
stanzas, devoted to the subject of “The Spider and the Fly,” in the
gaily-bound copy in the British Museum. I quite agree with Harrison’s
description of it (quoted by Warton), that “neither he himself that
made it, neither any one that readeth it, can read unto the meaning
thereof.” It is far less amusing than the comic song, with the same
title, by the old free-and-easy poet, Tom Hudson.

As a dramatist, Heywood was among the earliest of English writers of
comedy. He was not among the best for delicacy, humour, or decency.
All these are of the roughest and dirtiest, such as might have been
expected from Will Sommers. I must however differ in some degree from
Warton, unassailable as his judgments generally are, when he describes
Heywood’s plays as “altogether void of plot, humour, and character.”
Yet, I confess, detestable as I hold idleness to be, a man were better
occupied in doing nothing than in reading these productions. They
hardly repay the curiosity of the student of literature, and even _he_
must rise from the perusal sorely in need of civet wherewith to sweeten
his imagination.

It is as an epigrammatist that this honorary jester was most
celebrated, and continues to be best known to the few who care to
cultivate acquaintance with him. Of the epigrams I will select a few
specimens. Bearing in mind that they are often the versification of his
jests, and that the latter must frequently have had allusion to passing
subjects, the following probably points at a then living prince. It is
entitled:--

OF AN ILL GOVERNOR CALLED JUDE.

    A ruler there was in a country afar,
    And of the people a great executioner,
    Who by name, I understand, was called Jude.
    One gave him an ass, which gift when he had view’d,
    He asked the giver, for what intent
    He brought him that ass. “For a present
    I bring, Master Jude,” quoth he, “this ass hither;
    To join Master Jude and this ass together,
    Which two joined in one, this is brought to pass,
    I may bid you good even, Master Jude--ass.”
    “Maccabee or Iscariot, thou knave?” quoth he;--
    “Whom it pleaseth your mastership, him let it be!”

The following, too, is very much after the fashion of the French “_fous
à titre d’office_” when they repelled the unwelcome familiarity of
certain courtiers.

TWO, ARM-IN-ARM.

    One said to another, on taking his arm,
    “By license, friend, and take this for no harm.”
    “No, Sir,” (quoth the other,) “I give you full leave
    To hang on my arm, Sir, but not on my sleeve.”

Here is a jester’s definition of

WIT, WILL, AND WISDOM.

    Where will is good, and wit is ill,
    There wisdom can no manner skill.
    Where wit is good, and will is ill,
    There wisdom sitteth silent still.
    Where wit and will are both too ill,
    There wisdom no way meddle will.
    Where wit and will well-ordered be,
    There wisdom maketh a trinity.

And the following is not a bad specimen of the ordinary fool’s mock
sermon put into rhyme, with the title of

CERTAIN FOLLIES.

    To cast fair white salt into wise man’s meat,
    To make them count salt, sugar, when they eat,--
                                                  A folly.
    To bear a man in hand he itcheth in each part,
    When the man feeleth an universal smart,--
                                                  A folly.
    To speak always well and do always ill,
    And tell men those deeds are done of good will,--
                                                  A folly.
    Thy lusty-limbed horse to lead in thy hand,
    When on thy lame limbs thou canst scanty stand,--
                                                  A folly.
    Of sticks for cage-work to build thy house high,
    And cover it with lead, to keep thy house dry,--
                                                  A folly!

From a sermon, to those who needed the instruction that ought to
be afforded by one, is not going wide apart. Such a person Heywood
seems to have met, and to have reproved by a Latin pun which was
unintelligible to this

MERRY WOMAN.

    There came by chance to a good company,
    A lady, a wanton, and eke a merry.
    And though ev’ry word of her own show’d her light,
    Yet no man’s words _that_ to her might recite.
    She had all the words, which she babbled so fast,
    That they being weary, one said, at last,
    “Madam, you make my heart light as a ‘kix,’
    To see you thus full of your _meretrix_.”
    This trick thus well trick’d out in good Latin phrase,
    Brought to this tricker neither muse nor mase.
    She nought perceiving was no whit offended,
    Nor her light behaviour no whit amended;
    But still her tongue was clapping like a patten.
    “Well,” said the said man, in language of Latin,
    “I never told woman any fault before,
    Nor never, in Latin, will tell them fault more.”

It would be hard to say whether Queen Mary laughed or not, when “John,
the King’s Jester,” either read to her the following epigram, or
recounted the story, by way of joke; but it is worth quoting here,
though not so much as a specimen of the royal favourite’s wit, as
another proof that in the old pronunciation of the word _ache_, the
latter had the _ch_ soft.

OF THE LETTER H.

    H is worst among letters in all the cross row,
    For if thou find him either in thine elbow,
    In thine arm or leg, in any degree,
    In thy head or teeth, in thy toe or knee;--
    Into what place soever H may pyke him,
    Wherever thou find _ache_ thou shalt not like him.

Heywood has a few epigrams touching fools. The following will show
that what Selden said of evil-speaking, in reference to James’s court
fool, Stone, in courtly prose, had been uttered before him by Mary’s
court wit in shambling verse.

A FOOL’S TONGUE.

    Upon a fool’s provocation,
      A wise will not talk,
    But ev’ry light instigation,
      Will make a fool’s tongue walk.

And again, on a fool whose foolish wit was called wisdom, Heywood said
and sang:--

    Wisdom and folly in thee (as men scan)
      Is, as it were, a thing by itself; fool,
    Among fools, thou art taken a wise man;
      And among wise men thou art known a fool.

In the same strain is this quatrain:--

OF EARS AND WITS.

    Thin ears and thin wits be dainty;
    Thick ears and thick wits be plenty.
    Thick ears and thick wits be scant;
    Thin ears and thin wits none want.

The following belongs to the satirist:--

OF THE WIFE’S AND HER HUSBAND’S WAIST.

    “Where am I least, husband?” Quoth he, “In the waist;
    Which cometh of this, thou art vengeable strait-laced.”--
    “Where am _I_ biggest, wife?” “In the waist too,” quoth she,
    “For all is waste in you, as far as I can see.”

Finally, here is a fling at farthingales, for which any modern
epigrammatist might do what Pope effected for Donne, smooth the
versification, and, in addition, turn the point against crinoline.

    “Alas! poor verdingales must lie in the street;
    To house them no door in the City’s made meet.
    Since at our doors they in cannot win,
    Send them to Oxford, at Broadgate to get in.”

Soon after the death of Queen Mary, in 1558, her orthodox jester, who
hated and ridiculed Protestantism as vigorously as any French court
fool launched his little quips against the faith of the Huguenots,
withdrew from England, and took refuge in the fair Flemish city of
Mechlin. It was a likely place of refuge for a lively and “orthodox”
voluntary exile. Mechlin, like Troyes in Champagne, was worthy of
supplying any Court with fools, for it was the wise men of that city
who once tried to put out the moon! It was a jovial place also. Near
the gate of St. Catherine, on the Antwerp side, stood the church and
monastery of St. Alexis. This monastery contained fifteen hundred
nuns, and full as many lady boarders. The good sisters enjoyed the
very merriest of privileges. They were not only permitted to receive
all sorts of visitors within the monastery, but to return the visit
when and wheresoever they pleased. They might, if they chose, live
unrestrained in the city; and might either marry or leave it alone,
just as their humour prompted. The old and anonymous author of ‘Les
Païs Bas’ (Bruxelles, 1692, p. 123), assures his readers that the
old-established custom had never been followed by ill effect; and
that the pious and pretty sisters had even employed themselves in
respectable and praiseworthy matters, to the edification of the
population which had before them so excellent an example.

One would have liked to have had a dozen of epigrams from merry John
Heywood, on these lively ladies, who, to quote a proverb of his
own, were “As nice as nuns’ hens;” but he may have been saddened by
the aspect of the city itself, which had not yet recovered from the
calamity which had fallen upon it in 1546. In the month of August of
that year (near midnight of the 17th), a flash of lightning pierced
the powder magazine, and the explosion levelled a fourth of the city,
and blew hundreds of its inhabitants into the air. The ruins long
encumbered the place; and it was among the remaining wrecks caused
by this catastrophe, and the cheerful nuns of St. Alexis, ever busy
and mirthful, that orthodox John Heywood passed the closing years of
his life. The Papal favour, which had selected Mechlin as the scene
of the jubilee of 1452, had gained for the city the title of “Mechlin
the Happy.” Heywood could not go to Rome, as King Edmund’s joculator
did, and as one at least of his own sons did subsequently; but, for
religion’s sake, he pitched his tabernacle in a city that had been
blessed by a Pope, blasted by lightning, and was kept merry by the
most vivacious nuns that had ever been heard of, except at Farmoutier.
Antony Wood (in his ‘Athenæ Oxon.’ vol. i. p. 150) sneers at the idea
of a member of the ordinarily unprincipled profession of poets, going
into voluntary banishment for the sake of religion. Perhaps, as far
as regards Heywood’s case, Antony was not very much mistaken, if it
be true that, when Heywood’s last hour arrived, in 1589, he spent it
in laughter, jokes, gibes, and fearful jesting with that King Death
who was summoning him to his court. Further towards that court we will
not follow him; but will rather take leave of him with a glance at the
portraiture of the living jester at the courts of Henry VIII. and Queen
Mary.

The portrait of Heywood, prefixed to his poem of ‘The Spider and the
Fly’ (edition 1556), has nothing in it of the appearance of the court
fool. It represents, at full length, a very respectable, middle-aged,
and not particularly good-humoured gentleman, with smooth shaven cheeks
and chin. He is attired in a close-fitting coat, reaching to the middle
of the thigh, surmounted by a long loose-sleeved cloak; the ends of
what appears to be trunk-hose appear just below the kirtle portion of
the coat; and up to the hose reach long, tight stockings, gartered
both above and below knee. A flat cap with a protecting fall to keep
the back of the head warm, is fixed tight upon that head, which seems
as closely shaven as the cheeks and chin; at all events, there is no
appearance of hair from beneath it. A dagger, suspended from a girdle,
hangs across the thighs in front, and in this girdle John the Jester
has passed the thumb of either hand; and he stands resting chiefly on
the right leg, the left being slightly bent, and the owner of them
having altogether something of the look of a man who would be “jolly”
if he could, but who is disgusted at his ill success.

As there is no doubt of Heywood having been named by Mary’s father,
“King’s Jester,” we may fairly conclude, assuming this portrait to be a
true effigy, that the jester was now a higher personage than the fool.
This was not the case in the time of Scogan, who, though a member of
the University (as Heywood also was), hired himself out, according to
Andrew Borde, as a household fool. We shall also find, in the reign of
Elizabeth, that a difference was made between _jester_ and _fool_; that
is, between a clever individual retained or invited to make good jests,
without being always obliged to wear motley, and the ordinary fool who
had his wages, his privilege of speech, his whipping occasionally,
his cumbersome jokes, his freedom of the pantry, and his bed with the
spaniels. Tarleton, for instance, was court jester to Elizabeth; but
he was not always a wearer of cap and bells. He was not of such good
condition by birth as either Scogan or Heywood; he was, what may often
be found now in the same person, a tavern-keeper and a low comedian.
But he was also “Gentleman of the Chamber” to the Queen; and by that
title, he stood near Elizabeth’s chair and wagged his tongue boldly,
though not always without rebuke.

It will have been noticed that it was not every King of England who
cared to be moved to laughter by the exhibitions of comic minstrels or
joculators. Some princes have indeed accounted laughter thus raised,
as beneath the dignity of men of their rank. Thus Philip, son of the
Christian Emperor Philip the Arabian, rebuked his own sire openly,
for laughing at the jokes and sports of hired jesters who were doing
their best to amuse the sovereign and an august body of spectators. The
younger Philip read the elder Philip a severe lecture on his unseemly
conduct, which seems to me to have been a greater offence against
propriety, than his father’s merriment. The son’s contemporaries
gave him the name of Philip Agelastos; and he has come down to us as
Philip the Laughless. Old Puttenham, who wrote when court fools were
flourishing, praises this impertinent and overstarched young prince.
For, says he (in his ‘Arte of English Poesie’, p. 244, edit. 1589),
“though at all absurdities we may decently laugh, and when they be
no absurdities, not decently; yet in laughing is there an undecency
in other respects, sometime, than of the matter itself.” The old man
had in his memory, probably, some incidents of uncomely laughter at
unseemly court jests of the days of the Tudors.

The dynasty of jesters was not yet overthrown; but I may observe
that there were three things which helped to overthrow that dynasty,
and to render the vocation a matter of history. When intense gravity
of deportment ceased to be considered as warrant for aristocratic
breeding, fashionable people, if I may so speak, did not require
mirth to be provided for them; they manufactured a better article
for themselves. Again, when reading and writing began to be common
and yet dearly-prized luxuries, the readers found a richer enjoyment
in old authors than in young jesters; and they who held the pen,
discovered that occasionally they could be as witty as if they
had been bred to the calling. Lastly, came freedom of thought and
freedom of expression,--the latter sometimes exercised only with
considerable daring; but against these, which symbolize an extending
of civilization, the poor fool, his cap, bells, official stick, his
quips, and his quirps, his whole freight of fun, made utter and
irretrievable shipwreck. I find authority for some portion at least
of what is advanced above, in a passage from Puttenham, the author,
among other things, of the ‘Parthenaide.’ In that work he compliments
Queen Elizabeth on her maidenly qualities. the subjoined paragraphs he
commends her behaviour at court, while he treats of a court deportment
generally. And he pays Elizabeth this compliment at the expense of
the Emperor Ferdinand, whom he roundly scolds for “running up and
down stairs with so swift and nimble a pace as almost had not become
a very mean man who had not gone on some hasty business.” In mean men
and fools, hurry is not very censurable. “But,” says Puttenham, “in a
prince, it is decent to go slow, and to march with leisure and with
a certain grandity rather than gravity, as our sovereign lady and
mistress, the very image of majesty and magnificence, is accustomed to
go generally; unless it be when she walketh apace for her pleasure,
or to catch her a heat in the cold mornings. Nevertheless, it is not
so decent in a meaner person, as I have discerned in some counterfeit
ladies in the country, which use it much to their own derision. This
comeliness was wanting in Queen Mary, otherwise a very good and
honourable princess.” It was a “comeliness” which, when enforced,
weighed heavily; and when it vanished, the heart enjoyed its own
impulses, and was no longer attracted by the fool and his “marottes.”

It is certain, that with all Elizabeth’s refinement and taste, she had
coarser men about her, as jesters, than her sister Mary. The uses to
which some of them were put, is sufficiently remarkable. If Catholic
Mary had her orthodox jester, the Reformed court of Elizabeth was not
without its ultra-Protestant fool.

As we shall find a French jester employed to laugh down the Reformed
religion and its professors in France, so in England, Pace, “the bitter
fool,” is said to have been engaged in a particular way to support it,
in England, by destroying certain outward and visible signs supposed
to savour too strongly of Popery. According to this story, Pace was
employed by Sir Francis Knollys, to break down a crucifix and remove
the lighted tapers which Queen Elizabeth persisted in having in her
private chapel, in spite even of the friendly and urgent remonstrance
of Archbishop Parker, offered repeatedly, but without success. I do not
know that there is any reliable authority for this story. Certainly,
a jester might dare to do what a Lord Primate would only respectfully
insinuate; and, perhaps, Parker remembers the improvement effected in
the Queen’s chapel by the court fool, Pace, when, in his letter to Sir
William Cecil (October, 1560), after recommending certain personages
for church preferment, he says: “Now, if either of them, or any of us
all, should be feared to hurt the state of our churches, by exercising
any extraordinary _patesing_, for packing and purchasing, this fear
might sure be prevented. We have old precedents in law, practised in
times past for such parties suspected, to be bound at their entry,
to _have the churches in no worse case, by their defaults, than they
found them_; and then what would you have more of us?” Now Pace, if
he destroyed the cross and tapers in the Queen’s chapel, may be said
to have left the edifice in a worse condition than it was in when he
entered it. It is quite certain that Sir Francis Knollys was violently
eager for the destruction of these ornaments. Just a year previous
to Parker alluding to “patesing” in churches, Knollys writes to that
prelate: “Wishing you prosperity in all godliness, namely in your good
enterprise against the enormities yet in the Queen’s closet retained
(although without the Queen’s express commandment these toys were laid
aside, till now a-late), I shall, with my hearty commendations, commit
you and us all to the mighty protection of the living God.” A gentleman
who could so boldly write of the “enormities in the Queen’s closet,”
may well have ventured to employ a licensed jester to remove them. The
editors of the Parker correspondence, John Bruce, Esq., and the Rev. T.
Perowne, suggest that the word “patesing” refers to the _Pates_, Bishop
of Worcester, in Mary’s time. This indeed is probable enough; but if it
be true that, in 1559, Knollys employed Pace to disfigure the Queen’s
closet, the term _may_ have reference to the act committed by her
Majesty’s fool.

Pass we on now from Pace, and the question connected with him, to one
of those fools who were rather hangers-on about court, than actually,
exclusively and officially, engaged in the Royal service. Such a one
seems to have been that Charles Chester, who resembled those official
French jesters who found more delight in annoying the courtiers by his
sarcasms, than amusing them, or his Sovereign, by his wit. Chester was
especially severe in addressing coarse strictures on Raleigh and Lord
Knollys, in their own hearing. Sir Walter resolved to be revenged; and
to accomplish it, they invited Chester to supper. The buffoon accepted
the invitation without any suspicion, and the two noble gentlemen made
him exceedingly drunk at a repast at which he had eaten like Gargantua.
Taking him in this condition, with the help of several servants, they
fastened him up in a corner of a court-yard, and then some masons,
engaged for the occasion, built a brick wall close round his person,
and right up to his chin. They kept him there many hours, under a
threat of building him in altogether. The jester was sobered by his
terror, and begged piteously to be liberated. When ready to die with
fear, indigestion, and other fatal influences, the frolicsome gentlemen
exacted from him a solemn oath, that he would never again cut a joke or
make a sarcasm at their expense; and the fool kept his word, if not out
of a sense of honour, certainly out of a sense of terror.

Chester survived to be known to Ben Jonson, who has immortalized him
as Carlo Buffone, in ‘Every Man Out of His Humour.’ In the character
of the persons prefixed to that piece, this buffoon is described as
scurrilous and profane; rich in absurd similes and audacious lies; a
“good feast-hound or banquet-beagle;” a thorough parasite and glutton,
and a stupendous swiller of sack. “His religion is railing, and his
discourse ribaldry;” and it is added of this perverse fellow, that he
loaded those with the heaviest reproaches whom he had the greatest
reason to respect. Such a character accords well with the noisy,
evil-tempered fellow depicted by Aubrey (Lives, ii. p. 14), who tells
us that the fool so offended a knight at a tavern by his impertinence,
that the angry gentleman beat him, and stopped his mouth by sealing his
beard and moustachios together with wax!

It is, however, to be noted, that Carlo in the play is superior to
Carlo as described in the persons of the drama. If Jonson’s picture
be a veritable portrait, how exquisitely could this buffoon prattle
of the advantage of being in debt--advantage so dear to fools of all
classes in this present time! How admirably could he hit off an old
over-scented lover, “who has his skin tanned in civet, to make his
complexion strong, and the sweetness of his youth lasting in the smell
of his sweet lady.” How dashingly he hits off a city gentleman; how
frolicsomely he exposes the city wives! He alludes to “standing by the
fire in the presence,” as if the ways of Court were familiar to him;
and to taking tobacco with nobles, “over the stage in the lords’ room,”
as if he had right of entry there. Some of his similes are drawn from
his profession, for he describes a man’s shield of arms as being “of
as many colours as ever you saw any fool’s coat in your life.” What a
_vade mecum_ for asses is his instruction to dolts to show how they may
pass for sensible fellows in society! How happily, yet briefly, does he
paint a student learning to smoke! With what true fool’s satire does
he exclaim, “_Friend!_ is there any such foolish thing in the world?”
and what fool’s philosophy is there in the assertion that “Swaggering
is a good argument of resolution!” We probably have something of the
look of Chester afforded us in the remark of Macilente, “Pork! I think
thou dost varnish thy face with the fat on’t, it looks so like a
glue-pot.” And what a sharp touch of the jester’s fence is the reply,
“True, my raw-boned rogue, and if thou wouldst farce thy lean ribs with
it, too, they would not, like ragged laths, rub out so many doublets as
they do.” When Puntarvolo seals up his mouth, as Aubrey’s knight did
that of the real Chester, we feel that it could not be for the same
reason; and when the vain-glorious cavalier tells us that “Carlo comes
not at Court,” we are apt to think, that if Chester was of the times
and not also of the household of Queen Elizabeth, she lacked a jester
fit to rank with Clod.

This fool, who was an official court fool, must have been a fellow of
as much humour as Yoric himself, if we may judge from one sample of
his wit, which is no bad sample of his license also, and which is good
warrant for his acuteness and discrimination, to boot.

At the court of Elizabeth there was many a cleric of the Vicar of Bray
school, and among them Dean Perne, who had oscillated from one faith to
another three or four times in about a dozen years, and who never felt
in a state of finality anywhere. Perne, with Archbishop Whitgift, was
in attendance on the Queen one wet day, when her Majesty was desirous
of going out for a walk. The desire was an unwise one, for Elizabeth
was in ill health; but the divines were not bold enough to dissuade
her. But Clod, the Queen’s fool, was also present, and _he_ had the
courage which the others lacked. “Madam,” said he, “Heaven dissuades
you, for it is cold and wet; and earth dissuades you, for it is damp
and dirty. Heaven dissuades you, too, by this heavenly man, Archbishop
Whitgift; and earth dissuades you, by me, your fool, Clod, lump of
clay as I am. But if neither can prevail you, here is the Dean Perne,
who is neither of heaven nor of earth, but hangs between the two, and
he too dissuades you.”

The above was witty license at the expense of a courtier; but Clod
could exercise wit and audacity at the expense of the Queen. Elizabeth
once reproached him with not altogether fulfilling the duties of his
office. “How so?” asked Clod; “in what have I failed?” “In this,”
answered the Queen, “you are ready enough to point your sharp satire
at the faults of other people, but you never say a word of mine.”
“Ah!” exclaimed the jester, “that is because I am saved the trouble
by so many deputies. Why should I remind your Majesty of your faults,
seeing that these are in everybody’s mouth, and you may hear of them
hourly?” After all, this was not near so bold as the answers which
(years after) Whiston used to fling at Queen Caroline, consort of
George II. Whiston, if not kept at Court like the jester of earlier
times, was so frequent a sojourner there, that George II. got weary of
this heterodox divine, who did not hesitate to tell him, when the King
was inveighing against freedom of inquiry in religious matters, that
if Luther had been of that opinion, his Majesty would never have been
King of England! But where I find Queen Caroline and Whiston nearly
resembling Queen Elizabeth and Clod, is on that well-known occasion at
Hampton Court, when Caroline said to the eccentric divine, that, bold
speaker as he was, he was, perhaps, not bold enough to tell her of her
faults. Whiston proved that her Majesty was mistaken, by denouncing
her very unseemly behaviour at divine service. Caroline laid part of
the blame on the King, acknowledged her fault, promised amendment, and
asked what was her next offence. “Nay, Madam,” said Whiston, “it will
be time enough to go to the second fault when you have fairly amended
the first!” The eccentric character of Whiston procured for him from
Caroline just that impunity which Clod and Chester and others found at
the hands of Elizabeth.

Having had occasion to mention these two Queens in the same paragraph,
I will take the opportunity of adding, that if the time had passed by
when official fools had place at court, it was not because Caroline
was more refined than Elizabeth. The contrary was the fact, if we may
believe the following passage, in the ‘Reliquiæ Hearnianæ:’--“The
present Duchess of Brunswick, commonly called Queen Caroline, is a
very proud woman, and pretends to great subtlety and cunning. She
drinks so hard, that her spirits are continually inflamed, and she is
often drunk. The last summer, she went away from Orkney House, near
Maidenhead (at which she had dined), so drunk, that she was sick in
the coach all her journey, as she went along; _a thing much noted_.”
In spite of the words in italics, the story must be taken with some
allowance, for old Hearne was a furious Jacobite, and was likely to
“embroider” a story to make it tell against a Hanoverian princess. One
fact, however, is undisputed, namely, that no jester and king of the
very coarsest times ever sat together and exchanged more licentious
stories than Caroline and Sir Robert Walpole. The published life of the
latter will support this assertion, though I need not make, in such a
case, an especial reference. A study of the two reigns will, at least,
serve to show that Elizabeth and her court fools were quite as refined
as Caroline and her fine gentlemen.

The refinement of Elizabeth seems to have been justly appreciated
by those who had to cater for her amusements. For instance, in the
“Extracts from the Accounts of the Revels at Court,” edited for the
Shakespeare Society, by Mr. P. Cunningham, there is an entry, in
October 1573, to the following effect, made by the Master of the
Revels:--“Item: sundry times for calling together of sundry players,
and for perusing, fitting, and reforming their matters otherwise not
convenient to be showen before her Majesty.” And again, in 1574, an
entry of 40_s._ occurs, as the sum paid to a court official “for his
pains in perusing and reforming of plays sundry times, as need required
for her Majesty.”

We have seen Will Sommers sleeping among the spaniels, and there are
not wanting instances to show how sharp was the toil and poor the rest
of many of those who laboured to amuse the leisure hours of Elizabeth.
The following are examples. An entertainment is about to be given in
the metropolitan palace, and the properties have to be brought from
Richmond or Hampton Court; the passage by water seems to have been slow
and uncertain, as is shown in an entry:--“To the porters that watched
all night at the Blackfriars Bridge, for the coming of the stuff from
court, 2_s._” This “bridge” was doubtless a landing stage. To this same
Blackfriars “bridge” are brought a number of children, who had been
down to Hampton Court to perform in a masque before her Majesty. The
little Cupids had looked warm and plump and rosy enough in the presence
of the Queen; but they were all sent back (nine of them) in an open
boat, in the winter of 1573, and in consequence, there is an entry
which has little of the spirit of “Revels” in it, to this effect:--“To
Thomas Totnall, for fire, and victuals for the children, when they
landed, some of them being cold and sick and hungry, 6_s._ 6_d._”

Not to digress further from the taste of the Queen, as exhibited by
her in connection with her court pleasures, I may further state that
we have good evidence that Elizabeth was neither unrefined herself
nor admired lack of refinement in those who were about her, whether
friends, attendants, or jesters, in the frequently-printed account
given by Bohun, in his ‘Character of Queen Elizabeth.’ “At supper she
would divert herself with her friends and attendants; and if they made
her no answer, she would put them upon mirth and pleasant discourse,
with great civility. She would then also admit Tarleton, a famous
comedian and a pleasant talker, and other such-like men, to divert
her with the stories of the town and the common jests or accidents,
but so that they kept within the bounds of modesty and chastity. In
the winter-time, after supper, she would sometimes hear a song or a
lesson or two played upon the lute; but she would be much offended
if there was any rudeness to any person, any reproach, or licentious
reflection used. Tarleton, who was then the best comedian in England,
had made a pleasant play, and when it was acting before the Queen,
he pointed at Sir Walter Raleigh, and said, ‘See, the Knave commands
the Queen!’--for which he was corrected by a frown from the Queen;
yet he had the confidence to add that he (Raleigh) was of too much
and too intolerable a power. And going on with the same liberty, he
reflected on the over-great power and riches of the Earl of Leicester;
which was so universally applauded by all that were present, that
she thought fit, for the present, to bear these reflections with a
seeming unconcernedness. But yet she was so offended that she forbade
Tarleton and all her jesters from coming near her table, being inwardly
displeased with this impudent and unreasonable liberty.”

The maids of honour and the ladies in waiting seem to have been more
inclined to follow the example set by their royal mistress than the
male courtiers. There was one of these fine gentlemen who _would_
address himself to Mistress Mary Ratcliffe, one of Elizabeth’s maidens
of honour, in such a tone that she relished neither his conversation
nor discourse. At length, she told him “that his wit was like a
custard, nothing good in it but the sop, and when that was eaten you
may throw away the rest.”

The maids of honour were not at all disinclined to be frolicsome; but
this was with no ill purpose. Observe, however, how this humour was
indecently corrected by that same Knollys who was offended with the
cross in the Queen’s chapel, and employed Pace, the court fool, to pull
it down. Knollys “had his lodgings at court, where some of the ladies
and maids of honour used to frisk and hey about, in the next room, to
his extreme disquiet o’ nights, though he had often warned them of it;
at last, he gets one to bolt their own back door, when they were all
in, one night, at their revels, strips off [to] his shirt, and so,
with a pair of spectacles on his nose, and Aretino in his hand, comes
marching in at a postern door of his own chamber, reading very gravely,
full upon the faces of them. Now let the reader judge what a sad
spectacle and pitiful fright these poor creatures endured, for he faced
them, and often traversed the room, in this posture, above an hour.”

I cite the above illustration of a court jest from the L’Estrange
manuscripts, edited by Mr. Thoms. My esteemed and modest friend has
supplied a word in brackets, for which, I fear, there is no warrant.
I have no doubt that the MS. as it stands is correct, and Knollys was
not the last courtier who thought it an excellent court jest to appear
in the condition described. One of the greatest wits at the court of
Vienna, the Prince de Ligne, is thus described by the Countess de Bohm
in ‘Les Prisons de 1793:’--“Je l’ai trouvé le matin _entièrement nu_,
recevant des visites, parlant à des fournisseurs. Il me présenta même
à sa belle-fille logée près de lui.” If the court wit of Vienna could
do this, and a lady not be startled thereby, in the last century, what
may not a courtier have dared a century earlier? However this may be,
we have seen that Elizabeth would not tolerate forwardness even in
Richard Tarleton, who was, perhaps, the most celebrated of the court
jesters to that Queen, and one of the most perfect low comedians that
ever trod the stage. To the Leicester above-named he is said to have
owed his introduction to Elizabeth. Tarleton was a Shropshire boy, and
was keeping his father’s swine, near Condover, when an officer of the
Earl’s household, on his way to the Earl’s estates in Denbigh, entered
into conversation with the young swineherd, and was so struck by his
“happy unhappy answers,” that he took the merry lout, nothing loath,
with him,” and Tarleton seems to have passed thence to a higher court.

But, not immediately. It is, indeed, somewhat difficult to trace the
early part of the career of this jester before he took office under
the Queen. It is not, however, altogether impossible, since Mr.
Halliwell edited a purified edition of Tarleton’s jests, prefaced it
by a biographical sketch, and added elucidatory notes and confirmatory
extracts from contemporary and other authors. From all these sources we
make out that Tarleton served some sort of apprenticeship in London,
and must have had a very fair education for one of his class, seeing
that he is described as being “superficially seen in learning,” and
having so much as “a bare insight into the Latin tongue.” Not so bad
for a young swineherd,--whose wit stood him in good stead for what he
lacked in book-learning. To what calling he was bound apprentice is not
known: he is said to have been for some time a water carrier; and it
was, perhaps, disgust at the drudgery, added to inclination for other
liquids, that made of him a tavern-keeper. His grosser sense led him
to tippling; but he had intellect enough to qualify him for writing
ballads and composing historical pantomimes. Like many modern actors,
he united the parts of player and vintner; starred on many stages,
sometimes played more than one part in the same piece, and he shifted
from inn to inn, as landlord, as he did from stage to stage, as an
actor. He was Boniface respectively of three taverns, at least; at
Colchester, and in London, in Gracechurch-street and Paternoster-row.

He had probably been for some years a player, slowly rising, by dint
of his wit, his squint, and his flat nose, to pre-eminence, when in
1583 he was appointed one of the Queen’s players, and one of the grooms
of her chamber. Stowe remarks, that till the year just mentioned,
Elizabeth had no company of actors of her own, but that at the date
named, and at the request of Sir Francis Walsingham, twelve of the best
players were chosen from among the companies in the service of divers
great lords; and that these were “sworn the Queen’s servants, and were
allowed wages and liveries as grooms of the chamber.” Stowe notices
“two rare men” among this selected troop, “viz. Thomas Wilson, for a
quick, delicate, refined, extemporal wit; and Richard Tarleton,--for a
wondrous, plentiful, pleasant, extemporal wit, he was the wonder of his
time.”

As court jester, Tarleton became as famous and as influential as any
official who ever wore clown’s suit. Fuller calls him a master of his
faculty, who, “when Queen Elizabeth was serious, I dare not say sullen,
and out of good humour, he could _undumpish_ her at his pleasure.”
As in other courts, suitors to the Sovereign not unfrequently first
presented themselves to the jester. “He was their usher to prepare
their advantageous access to her.” He doubtless lined his pockets with
pistoles thereby; and for his royal pay he also gave good measure of
wholesome severities. “He told the Queen,” says Fuller, “more of her
faults than most of her chaplains; and cured her melancholy better than
all of her physicians.”

If the Queen admired Dick, the latter had a great measure of reverence
for his mistress. He could compare her, he said, to nothing more fitly
than a sculler; for, he added, “neither the Queen nor the sculler hath
a fellow.” He nevertheless, and as a matter of course, could take great
liberties with her. The very first of the ‘court witty jests,’ tells
us of his attempting to draw the Queen out of a fit of discontent by
“a quaint jest,” in which he pretended to be a thirsty drunkard, and
called aloud for beer. The liquor was duly supplied to him, and that so
liberally, that Elizabeth gave orders that he should have no more, lest
he should turn beast, and shame himself. “Fear you not,” said Tarleton,
“for your beer is small enough.” So, perhaps, was the jester’s wit, but
the Queen thought well of it, for “her Majesty laughed heartily, and
commanded that he should have enough.”

Elizabeth probably enjoyed fully as much the jests which her chartered
buffoon made at the expense of her courtiers. Some of these were sorry
enough; and he would be no less savage on the personal defects and
deformities of ladies as well as lords, than the most unscrupulous of
the “Fous du Roi” at the court of France. To a lady, suffering from an
eruption on the face, and who consequently declined to drink wine with
the rest, he exclaimed, “A murrain of that face which makes all the
body fare the worse for it.” This rudeness, which drove the poor lady
from table, was only rewarded by a shout of laughter.

Tarleton wore his fool’s attire when the Queen dined; and even attended
her thus attired when she dined abroad, “in his clown’s apparel; being
all dinner-while in the presence with her, to make her merry.” There
seems to have been a distrust of the power of the host and the guests
to make themselves agreeable, and so the Queen took her fool with her,
even when she dined at the Lord Treasurer’s, at Burleigh House, in the
Strand. It was to the gate of that house that Tarleton gave the name of
“his Lordship’s alms-gate,” because, he said, it was for ever closed.

On one occasion, the noble owner of this mansion having thus
entertained the Queen, besought her Majesty to remain all night; a
request to which she would not for a moment listen. The lords present
applied to Tarleton, offering him any reward if he could succeed in
inducing the Queen to sleep at Burleigh House. The rest of the story
is so strange, that I prefer leaving it to my readers as it is given
in the Shakespeare Society’s reprint of the old jest-book.--“Quoth
he, ‘Procure me the parsonage of Sherd.’ They caused the patent to
be drawn presently. He got on a parson’s gown and a corner cap, and
standing upon the stairs where the Queen should descend, he repeated
these words:--‘A parson or no parson? A parson or no parson?’ but after
she knew his meaning, she not only stayed all night, but the next day
willed that he should have possession of the benefice. A madder parson
was never; for he threatened to turn the bell-metal into lining for his
purse, which he did, the parsonage and all, into ready money.”

Among his best similes, perhaps, was the one he made when asked by a
lord what soldiers were like in time of peace. “They are like chimneys
in summer,” said Tarleton, whose neat jest on this occasion seems to
have passed off without laughter. But perhaps this was not said by
him. Not all the jests set down to him were uttered by him. That which
describes him as replying to a courtier who saluted him with a “Good
morrow, fool and knave,”--“I can’t bear both; I’ll take the first, you
are welcome to the other,”--is attributed to an Italian jester.

At this period the court jester was not bound to reside within the
precincts of the court, and to wear no suit but his clown’s apparel,
without permission to the contrary. This custom had even fallen into
disuse in France, where it had prevailed for a very lengthened period.
Tarleton’s official duties, however, kept him late at court. We find
him on one occasion wending homeward at one in the morning, when it
was unlawful for the lieges to be abroad after ten o’clock at night.
He accordingly fell into the hands of the watch, to whom, on being
challenged, he had announced himself as “a woman;” for what is the
use, he asked, of my telling you what you know? The watch declared he
must be committed for being out-of-doors after ten o’clock. “It is
now past one!” cried the watch, emphasizing the enormity. “Good!” said
Tarleton; “if it be past one o’clock, it will not be ten these eight
hours. Watchmen had wont to have more wit; but for want of sleep they
have turned fools.” The guardians of the night recognized the Queen’s
jester, and they let him pass, rejoiced at being entertained for a
moment by an official whose duty it was to entertain her Majesty’s
sacred self.

On another occasion, when challenged in company with two others, he
announced his companions as being makers of eyes and light. The pious
custodes solemnly laid hold of him for flat blasphemy; but when he
explained that one of his companions made spectacles and the other
candles, of course the watch fell into uncontrollable laughter, as
watchmen will do, even at smaller jests than this.

He was not always in such seemly society as the above; for we meet with
him angering a certain huffing Kate, at a tavern; running up a score
for sixteen dozen pots of ale at a country ale-house; bandying wit, at
his own inn-door, with beggars, whom he sometimes found a match for
him; and, after living for days at other hostelries, getting himself
arrested as a Jesuit in disguise, and then refusing to discharge his
account, because of the false arrest. At ordinaries he would expose the
first he could find to his rascally purpose, to the ridicule of the
company; and a finely-dressed gentleman passing down Fleet-street, was
sure to have an unpleasant time of it, if he happened to be espied by
Tarleton. His wife was as often the victim of his wit as any one else;
but she was often as sharp as he, and the smart things said were, like
Lady Mary Montague at a “Twitnam Assembly,” more smart than clean. When
he was keeping an ordinary in Paternoster-row, he and Mistress Richard
were invited out to supper, “and because he was a man noted, she would
not go out with him into the street, but entreats him to keep on one
side, and she another; which he consented to. But as he went, he would
cry out to her and say, ‘Turn this way, wife;’ and anon, ‘On this side,
wife,’--so the people flocked the more to laugh at them. But his wife,
more than mad angry, goes back again, and almost forswore his company.”
They kept together, nevertheless, at the ordinary, where his customers
not only found wit in the royal jester, but wit in his mustard, as he
proved, to his own satisfaction at least, when he said that mustard and
the person dining, resembled “a witty scold meeting another scold; and
knowing this scold will scold, begins to scold first: so the mustard,
being licked up, and knowing that you will bite it, begins to bite you
first!” It must surely have been brighter jokes than this that procured
for him invitations to dinner at the houses of aldermen and justices,
who thought it well to treat a Queen’s jester, and laugh at jokes that
might have been dished up for their liege lady.

As a stage-player, Tarleton was the favourite clown of the people at
large. They roared at the coarse extemporary songs which he rattled
forth for their amusement and his profit. They shouted at his admirable
“gagging,” his improvised speeches, his interlarded jokes with the
audience, and his allusions even to religious controversies then
raging. Learned physicians praised the voice which uttered, the comical
face which heightened, the wit, and the head which was the very temple
and head-quarters of facetiousness. It mattered little whether he was
in or out of the vein, he was comic in spite of himself; in spite of
themselves, people would laugh, and all essayers in his line were
frightened out of their specialty, out of sheer despair of being able
to be tolerated while he lived or was remembered. No wonder the Queen
liked to see him act, as well as listen to his jests at court. The very
rudest as well as the highest, could appreciate him as an actor--all
but the county justice immortalized, although not named, by Nash, and
in whose presence, as also that of the whole township over which this
justice presided, Tarleton and his fellow-comedians were playing. The
jester had scarcely made his head visible on the stage when the country
auditory burst into fits of laughter. “Whereat,” says Nash, “the
justice, not a little moved, and seeing, with his becks and nods, he
could not make them cease, he went with his staff and beat them round
about unmercifully on the bare pates, in that they, being but farmers
and poor country hinds, could presume to laugh at the Queen’s man, and
make no more account of her cloth in his presence.”

Metropolitan magistrates gave more license, and London audiences were
not charged with disrespect of her Majesty, because they laughed
immoderately at her jester. Tarleton was one night playing at the Bull,
in Bishopsgate-street. The play was an old one, touching Henry V.; he,
of course, played the clown, but the actor of Judge Gascoyne being
absent, Tarleton good-naturedly undertook to play the Judge also. The
actor who performed the part of the Prince, dealt the Judge such a box
of the ear, when that pseudo-historical incident came on, that Gascoyne
shook again, but he did not forget his dignity. He re-appeared as
Clown, to whom is told the unseemly scene in court. “Strike a judge!”
cried Tarleton. “It could not be but terrible to him, when the report
so terrifies me that methinks the blow remains still on my cheek; that
it burns again!” “The people,” adds the narrator, “laughed at this
mightily;” and we may well fancy a clever and a favourite low comedian
turning such an incident to capital account.

It was not exactly a time for jests when

   “In the year 1588,” cried Philip, “the English I’ll humble.
    I’ve taken it into my Majesty’s pate, and their lion, oh down he
          shall tumble!”

We do not suppose, however, that the Queen’s jester fell sick at
his lodgings in Haliwel-street, Shoreditch, because of the Spanish
Armada. He is supposed to have been seized by the plague. On the 3rd
of September, in the year just named, he, at all events, fell mortally
ill; and he at once made his will: in this document he is described as
“one of the Gromes of the Quene’s Majestie’s chamber.” He leaves all
his goods and “cattells,” etc. etc., to his son Philip; but there is
nothing to show that they exist anywhere. Nevertheless, he appoints
guardians to his son, delivers to them “one penny of the good and
lawful money of England,”--“to the use of the said Philipp Tarleton, by
waye of possession and seisin of all my said goodes and cattells,” and
having duly executed this deed, which is of some length, the Queen’s
jester turned his face to the wall and died, on the evening of the day
on which he had fallen ill. Before night had come on, he was lying in
a grave of the parish churchyard; where many of the Elizabethan actors
lie around him.

People reckoned from his time as from an era. “The year of Tarleton’s
death” was as common a saying as “the year of the Armada.” His portrait
was to be seen in every house; and in some residences, above the altar
of Cloacina was suspended the _effigies_ of joyous Dick Tarleton.

At this period, the household fool was still, and he continued to be so
for many subsequent years, to be found on most establishments of any
consequence. Some of the best specimens of this class are to be found
in Armin’s “Nest of Ninnies.” Before turning to the pages of the old
literary actor, it may be as well to state that the ordinary dress of
the jester of this period, is depicted by Mr. Douce, as consisting of
a motley coat, with a girdle, bells at the skirt and, sometimes, at
the elbows. The breeches and hose fitted close to the body, the colour
on each leg being different. The hood covered not only the head, but
the shoulders, and was crowned by the usual cock’s-comb. Some jesters
carried a staff with a fool’s head at the end of it; others a staff
suspended from which was a blown bladder with a few peas in it. This
was the costume of the artificial fool. The natural fool was mostly
attired in a long gown-like dress, occasionally of costly velvet, and
adorned with yellow fringe,--_yellow_ being then commonly known as the
“fool’s colour,” as dark blue was that of the serving man.

The first of the household fools named by Armin, “Jack Oates,” carried
a small black-jack quart at his girdle, for Jack’s delight was in
beer. He was tall, unwieldly, misshapen. He was given to sport, was
quite as much given to swear, was conceited, gamesome, gleesome,
“apt to joys,”--but “nastie.” He was the servant, or jester, of Sir
William Hollis, whom he called “Willy,” and otherwise used with great
familiarity. When strange servants came to the house, he was addicted
to setting them at loggerheads; and once, when an earl, arriving on
a visit, greeted Lady Hollis, at her husband’s side, by a kiss, Jack
Oates gave him a box of the ear, for which Sir William gave the jester
a whipping. He deserved as much, for his sorry excuse for giving a
cuff to the Earl. “He asked the Earl where his hand was. ‘Here,’ quoth
he. With that Jack shakes him by it, and says:--‘I mistook it before,
not knowing your ear from your hand; being so like one another.’” The
compliment was so ill-turned that Oates was scourged for this also.

This fool could not bear to be in the hall, like him in Mr. Thornbury’s
ballad. “He was a little proud-minded, and was therefore altogether in
the great chamber, at my lady’s or Sir William’s elbow. Sir William
could arouse him to wrath, if not to wit, by threatening to hire a new
jester, and yet he loved the fool above all, and that the household
knew.” But the threat would sometimes cause Oates to run a muck through
the hall, beating all in his way, and crying “Hang Sir Willy! Hang Sir
Willy!”

It is difficult to fancy how such nuisances could be tolerated, much
less loved; and indeed even Sir William Hollis, who loved his fool
above all, seems, or pretended, to have got weary of him. There was
at least a feigned hiring of a new jester, and the noble company at
dinner, on hearing it, “ting’d with a knife at the bottom of a glass,
as tolling the bell for the fool,” whose colour, we are told, came and
went, “like a wise man ready to make a good end.” Jack, however, had
more of the brute than the sage, and he so fell upon his rival that he
nearly killed him, and did actually put out one of the poor fellow’s
eyes. We can credit what follows, that “ever after Jack Oates would not
endure to hear any talk of any other fool, to be there,” but one can
hardly credit what is added, viz.--“that the Knight durst not make such
a motion.” The influence of these fellows must have been great, if they
were all like Oates, and the subserviency of their masters must have
been on a par with their egregious folly.

As the fool ruled in the hall, so also would he try to establish
a despotism in the kitchen; but the sovereign cook there could
successfully banish him the territory by flinging over him a ladle of
scalding soup. Such feuds were there in the Lincolnshire household
of Sir William Hollis, who, on one occasion, had invited a number of
friends to a repast, the chief feature of which was a magnificent
quince-pie made of fruit “ready preserved at pothecaries,” in the
county town. The cook expected to derive great honour from the dish,
and Oates determined to foil his expectations. Jack feigned to be ill,
and Sir William kindly led him by the hand to the kitchen fire-side,
where the Knight left him seated, with charge to the cook to look to
his comforts. Cook and fool, of course, speedily fell out, and Oates,
to avenge himself, watched his opportunity, seized on the quince-pie
as it was about to be taken out of the oven, and, hiding it beneath
his long gown, ran off with it. The pie burnt him so terribly that he
could think of no better place to eat it in, than the moat. Into this
he plunged up to the shoulders, and, cooling the dish in the water,
greedily devoured the whole of the contents. The cook, meanwhile,
rushed to the dining-hall to make complaint to the host and his
expectant guests. “They laught and ran to the windows to see the jest.
Jack fed, and feeding greedily, ever as he burnt his mouth, with haste,
dipt the pie into the water to cool it. ‘Oh!’ says the cook; ‘it is
Sir William’s own pie, sirrah!’--‘Oh!’ says Jack, ‘hang thee and Sir
Willie too.’... ‘Save Sir William some,’ says one. ‘Save my lady some!’
says another. ‘By James! not a bit,’ says Jack, and ate up all, to the
wonder of the beholders.” Such was the amusement of nobles and gentles,
in the days when fools were flourishing, a long time ago!

Armin gives other instances, in the case of “lean Leonard,” fool “to a
kind gentleman who dwells in the merry forest of Sherwood,” and whose
name Armin omits, “fearing I too much offend by meddling with his
fool.” Leonard was a flaxen, curly-haired fellow, who

    “Plays on thoughts, as girls with beads,
        When their mass they stamber.”

He seems, moreover, to have been slightly deaf, long-necked,
hook-nosed, thickly bearded, and sullen of visage. He was remarkable
for a very expensive sort of boisterousness. He would play games of
chance with imaginary adversaries, with whom he would fall out, and in
fighting with which shadowy antagonists, he would injure or destroy the
furniture of a whole room. When his appetite prompted, he would break
open the dairy, swallow the new cheese-curds, destroy those he could
not devour, overthrow the cream-bowls, and then abscond for awhile to
Mansfield in Sherwood, till the short-lived anger of his master had
passed away. On hearing his patron praise a hawk which he possessed,
lean Leonard, taking the praise in a gastronomic sense, went and wrung
the hawk’s neck, and nearly choked himself by trying to devour it,
feathers and all. He seems to have been, at other times, employed in
carrying manure from the stables to the garden, in a barrow in which
he made his bed by night. One winter time, he showed his professional
wit by lighting a fire in his barrow, to warm himself by. The fire
seized on the barrow, and this, all in flames, he trundled into the
hall, among the men and maids, severely burning several of the latter,
and thence into the barn, which was filled with hay and straw, and
which was with difficulty saved from destruction. “The world laughed a
good deal at these jests,” says Robin,--which shows how mischief could
tickle it. The only anecdote I can find of Leonard which may be fairly
smiled at, is the one which tells us of a “country plow-jogger who,
coming behind Leonard with a lump of shoemaker’s wax in his hand, clapt
him on the head, and asked him how he did.” The fool felt the pitch
ball, and enraged at not being able to get rid of it, fell to furious
fight with the “plow-jogger,” who “belaboured the fool cunningly, and
got the fool’s head under his arm, and bobbed his nose. The fool,
remembering how his head was, strikes it up, and hits the fellow’s
mouth with the pitched place, so that the hair of his beard and the
hair of the clown’s head were glued together. The fellow cried, the
fool exclaimed, and could not suddenly part. In the end, the people,
after much laughing at the jest, let them part fair.”

Armin also notices a contemporary fool named Jack Miller, “one that was
more beloved among ladies than thought can hatch or opinion produce.”
His principal merit seems to have been in imitating players who dressed
in the kitchens and played in the halls of gentlemen’s houses, and who
led him into various mishaps, by practising on his simplicity. He was
famous also for singing a song called Deryes Fair, and for speaking
sentences full of the letters _b_ and _p_, which he could not pronounce
without a world of stammering and stuttering, which was a wonderful
provocative of mirth to noble lords and ladies who hired him on
purpose. Armin saw and heard Miller once exhibit at “a gentleman’s not
far from Upton upon Seuerne in Gloxestershire.” At the table were “many
gallants and gentlewomen, almost the state of the country.” Well, this
state company roared lustily at the fool; one elderly gentlewoman even
fainted with exhaustion from immoderate hilarity, and “one proper young
gentlewoman among the rest, because she would not seem too immodest
with laughter,” confined herself to making a remark which caused ten
times more mirth than the fool’s stammering, and which was received
with an indulgence which a Roman Emperor especially extended to such
comments, by imperial decree.

The last fool in Armin’s ‘Nest,’ is “Blue John.” There is nothing of
him however worth narrating. He was an idiot, protected, lodged, and
boarded at Christ’s Hospital. He joined in the processions of the boys,
imitated the preachers who held forth before them, ran on many messages
and made more mistakes, was void of wit, and yet was sufficiently
esteemed to induce his patrons to have his portrait taken. They who are
curious to see the counterfeit presentment of this species of fool, may
gratify their desire by a visit to the “Hospital,” where the boys still
wear the colour that was worn by “Blue John.”

I may perhaps fittingly notice here, that, during the reign of the
Tudor and Stuart dynasties especially, there was a species of “fool” to
be found in great households, who was there for the profit rather than
the amusement of the master of the house. “It is very strange,” said
Charles II. to some of his courtiers, “that every one of my friends
keeps a tame knave.” The _tame knaves_ thus spoken of (in the ‘Lives
of the Norths,’ ch. ii. p. 247), were persons who had been pronounced
each _Fatuus purus et idiota_, by a jury; and it was a common practice
to beg such a man for a fool, that is to apply to the crown, for the
applicant to have custody of the lands and person of the so-called
“fool.” In illustration of this practice there are several anecdotes
cited by Mr. W. J. Thoms in his ‘Anecdotes and Traditions derived from
MS. Sources,’ and edited by him for the Camden Society. The following
illustration is from the manuscript papers of Sir Nicholas L’Estrange,
and has reference to the reign of which I am now treating.

“Lord North held old Bladwell in his custody as a lunatic, and carried
the poor fellow about with him. His lordship was desirous of having and
holding Bladwell as his fool, but the obstacle was, not that Bladwell
wanted wit, but that he could not be proved to be a fool at all. He
had some spirit of mischief in him, of the fool’s quality; as, for
instance, when Lord North, taking Bladwell with him to a gentleman’s
house, left his lunatic companion in the dining-room, while lord and
gentleman conferred together in another room. Bladwell, left alone,
amused himself with looking at the figures on the tapestry, and
happening to espy that of a jester among them, he quickly cut the
figure from the costly arras, and laid it flat on the ground. When
the gentlemen returned to the dining room, the owner of the house,
observing the damage done to his tapestry, was very indignant; but
Bladwell sought to appease his wrath by remarking, “Pray be content,
Sir, I have saved your property, and not injured it; for if my lord
there had seen the fool, he would have wanted to have and hold him in
his own household; and you would have lost that which you may now keep.
I have done you a service, Sir.”

During the reign of James I., Sir Christopher Paston was pronounced
by a jury, to be in the same condition as “old Bladwell” (who was a
wealthy Norfolk gentleman). The knight’s family seem to have had
charge of their kinsman, whose infirmity was made the ground for a
retort, as will be seen by the following incident, recorded also by Sir
Nicholas L’Estrange. “Jack Paston began one time to jest upon Capon
(who sat very silent and replied nothing), and told him merrily, that
he never met with such a dull, clay-pated fool, that could not answer a
word, and bade him remember he out-fooled him once. ‘No, faith,’ says
Capon, ‘I were a fool indeed, to deal with you at that weapon. I know
the strain of the Pastons too well, and you must needs be right bred
for it; for I am sure your race has not been without a good fool these
fifty years and upwards.’”

It would seem, too, that ambassadors carried in their train individuals
who represented the jesters at the court from which the envoys were
despatched, even as the latter represented the sovereigns by whom they
were commissioned. Thus, when the Earl of Carlisle repaired to the
court of France, in 1616, deputed by James I., he went thither at the
head of an extraordinary retinue. “The Lady Haddington,” says Mr. John
Chamberlain, in a contemporary letter, quoted in Nichols’s ‘Progresses
of James I.,’ “hath bestowed a favour upon him that will not easily
fall to the ground, for she says, the flower and beauty of his embassy
consists in three mignards, three dancers, and three fools or buffoons.
The mignards are himself, Sir Harry Rich, and Sir George Goring. The
dancers, Sir Gilbert Hoghton, Auchmuty, and Abercromby. The fools,
or buffoons, are Sir Thomas Jermyn,[E] Sir Ralph Sheldon, and Thomas
Badger.”

These knights were not the only individuals of the court of James I,
who might aspire to fill the office of fool, either in foreign palaces
or at home. Sir George Fitz-Jeffrey might have ranked with any of
the above. L’Estrange (quoted by Mr. Thoms) says, he might have been
“begged for a fool;” and in proof of the good ground he has for the
assertion, tells the following incident, which occurred at Royston in
1607. “Fitz-Jeffrey being brought up a backstair to the King, to be
knighted, was turned out another way, to pass through the presence
chamber, which he entered, with his cap on his head, and many of the
nobility of the court being there bare, and he, like the Egyptian Apis,
thinking they did ‘Sir reverence’ to the new knight, he came to them
very courteously, and desired them to be covered, for truly it was more
than he expected at their hands, though his Majesty had conferred a
great honour upon him. They thanked him very kindly, and desired to be
excused, for they knew their duties, and so long as he was in the room
they would not be covered. Upon that, away goes the fool, so puffed
and swollen with his new honour, as when he comes home, he stuffs the
clothes he was knighted in, and hangs them up in his hall for ensigns
and monuments of an incomparable coxcomb, worthy to be begged by his
respective gentleman of the presence-chamber.”

When such “tame knaves” might be had for nothing, it is almost a matter
of surprise that the Sovereign cared for other buffoons about him.
But, at the court of James I. both King and Queen found pleasure in
maintaining official fools upon their household. Of the fool of Anne of
Denmark, that sovereign lady who purchased precious stones so liberally
of the father of Herrick the poet--old Herrick, the jeweller--we know
little but the name. In the accounts of John Lord Harrington, of Exton,
as Treasurer of the Chambers to the wife of James I., Horace Walpole
found an item--“Paid to T. Mawe, for the diet and lodging of Tom Derry,
her Majesty’s jester, thirteen weeks, 10_l._ 18_s._ 6_d._” At between
sixteen and seventeen shillings per week, Tom Derry cannot be said to
have been a very expensive toy to her Majesty. He was of importance
enough to have his name given to a gallery at Somerset House, in which
he used to loiter and exchange jokes with lords and ladies. An entry in
the weekly accounts of the time of Charles I. proves this, inasmuch as
mention is there made of an order “for colouring Tom Derry’s gallery
at Somerset House.” Tom is also incidentally mentioned in the extracts
from the accounts of revels at court, edited for the Shakespeare
Society by Mr. P. Cunningham; and to this extract my attention was
kindly directed by Mr. Cunningham himself;--“To Thomas Derry, her
Majesty’s jester, upon a warrant signed by the Lord Chamberlain, dated
at Whitehall, 16th July, 1612, for the diet of the said Thomas Derry,
and John Mawe his man, from the 25th day of December, 1611, to the 24th
of June following, being 26 weeks, at 7_s._ the week, 9_l._ 2_s._” It
is curious that the sum put down for the weekly diet of two persons
is less than half of that named in the former entry for the diet and
lodging of _one_. The first entry may have applied to two persons; and
in calculating cost, it is necessary to multiply the sum by five, to
obtain an idea of its real value as represented in modern currency.

Before Anne possessed Tom Derry to find her in mirth, she used to tax
her own ladies in waiting, with whom, when at Winchester palace, she
would wile away long winter evenings by playing with them at ‘Rise,
pig, and go,’ ‘Come, penny, follow me,’ ‘Fire!’ and, ‘I pray, my lord,
give me a course in your park.’ I only regret that Nichols, who tells
us thus much in the Appendix to his Progresses of James I., does not
add instructions for the playing these games.

The half-year included in the table of the above entries was one in
which Tom Derry must have had to draw largely on his wits, to amuse the
Queen; for it was then she was most savagely possessed by implacable
hatred of “that fellow,” as she called him, poor Sir Thomas Overbury;
and Prince Henry was sickening. But both their Majesties were as fond
of indulging their taste for dissipation as they were of yielding to
their strong prejudices. I find the _Merry Wives of Windsor_ played
on a Sunday night at Whitehall; and Tom Derry was probably present
in October, 1611, when “The Sunday following, att Grinwidg,” before
the Queen and the Prince was played ‘The Silver Aiedg,’ and the next
night following, ‘Lucrecia.’ With jester, sports, and plays on Sunday
as well as other nights, the Queen was not much the happier; and this
may be accounted for,--she was the most amiable person possible when
she was not put out; she never uttered an angry word except upon some
provocation, yet often with little; she was seldom obstinate except in
resolutely maintaining her own will, and, like Croaker in the Comedy,
was very easily led whenever she had her own way. Tom Derry himself
must have hardly earned all he obtained, from so gracious a mistress as
Anne of Denmark. A subsequent page will show that one at least of her
old and faithful servants could envy the condition of Derry the Jester.

James I. of England only continued a fashion which his grandfather,
James V. of Scotland, adopted during the few years of his majority.
We learn this incident from Dr. Irving, who informs us that it was
the duty of the Scottish court fools, like those in other royal
households, to amuse their patrons by their wit and humour, by bold
and startling remarks on passing occurrences of importance, and by
ludicrous representations of incidents and characters. In Scotland,
too, as elsewhere, the jesters were compelled to take as rough jokes
as they gave, and these were sometimes of the very rudest sort. They
were of the same quality in England, where the King set the example
of coarse jesting. An assertion which no one will require me to prove
who remembers what James added to his laugh when he took leave of his
hospitable entertainer, Fortescue, in the porch at Cornbury. Those who
are curious to know, will find the gracious pleasantry detailed in
Osborn.

One sample of the Scottish court fool, as narrated by Dr. Irving,--will
perhaps suffice to give some notion of the wit,--or the want of
it,--patronized in the North. The name of the jester was John Low, and
this John was once rebuked by a courtier for not having unbonneted and
bowed to a number of lords and fine gentlemen who had passed him. “I
did not know they were lords,” said John; “by what token do you know a
lord?” “Well,” said the courtier, “outwardly, at all events, by their
dress; you see them decked in velvet, and with gold about their necks.”
“Very good,” said John; “I’ll not forget to be civil to the first I
meet,” And thereupon, a short time after, Low was seen bowing and
scraping obsequiously to the mules in the court-yard, to the amazement
of the King and his courtiers, “Why are you crying ‘good day,’ and
making your leg to those beasts?” asked a Chamberlain. “Beasts!”
exclaimed Low, in feigned surprise; “I thought they were lords! Look at
their velvet coverings, and the gold trimmings about their necks. I was
told these were outward tokens of noble lords and gallant gentlemen.
What could a courteous fool do but bid them _good day_! Sure, I shall
never learn the difference between a lord and a beast.”

Our James I. may have heard of, but he probably never saw, his
grandfather’s fool, Jemmy Camber, “who, being but young, was for the
King _caught up_.” He barely exceeded three feet in height; but at the
age of forty years he measured above sis feet in girth, and “would
never be but a St. Vincent’s turnip, thick and round.” He was smooth
of face, fair of speech, but malicious in his acts. For his further
portraiture, here it is limned by Armin:--

   “His head was small, his hair long on the same;
    One ear was bigger than the other, far;
    His forehead full, his eyes shone like a flame,
    His nose flat, and his beard small, yet grew square.
    His lips but little, and his wit was less.
    But wide of mouth, for truth, I must confess.
    His middle thick. as I have said before;
    Indifferent thighs and knees, but very short,
    His legs be square, a foot long and no more;
    Whose very presence made the King much sport.
    And a pearl spoon he still wore in his cap,
    To eat his meat he loved and got by hap.
    A pretty little foot; but a big hand,
    On which he ever wore rings rich and good.
    Backward, well made as any in that land,
    Though thick; _and he did come of gentle blood_.”

Of as gentle blood as Jamie was, he was “caught up” for the King’s
sport. This fool Camber, with no wit of his own, yet gave rise to the
well-known proverb, “Hit or miss.” King James, to cure the fool’s
obesity, sent him to sea, under the illustrious guardianship of the
Earl of Huntley, “at whose departure,” says Armin, “they discharged
ordinance, as one that departed from the land with the King’s favour.
Jamie, hearing the ordinance go off, would ask, ‘What do they now?’
‘Marry!’ says the Earl, ‘they shoot at our enemies.’ ‘Oh!’ says Camber;
‘hit, I pray God!’ Again they discharge. ‘What do they now?’ quoth
he. ‘Marry, now the enemy shoot at us.’ ‘Oh, miss, I pray God!’ says
Jemmy Camber. So ever after it was a jest in the Scottish court, ‘Hit
or miss, quoth Jemmy Camber.’... And long time after, this jest was in
memory; yea I heard it myself, and some will talk of it at this day,”
says Armin, whose book was published in 1608.

Camber was a natural fool who was cheated out of his French crowns,
and sometimes of other things, by sharp-witted lasses. He prattled of
the sun blowing cold and the wind shining hot; ran mock races with
gigantic footmen, the King laying a thousand marks on the fool, and
Lady Carmichael backing the flunkey; and he had extremely dirty tricks
played upon him, which highly amused those august personages, but the
telling of which would not tend to either profit or pleasure. There
is something better worth narrating in the account of Camber’s death;
which I borrow from Armin. “The King’s chamberlain bid him arise and
come to the King, ‘I will not,’ quoth he, ‘I will go make my grave.’
See how things chanced. He spake truer than he was aware. Jemmy arose,
made him ready, takes his horse, and rides to the churchyard in the
high town, where he found the sexton, _as the custom is there, making
nine graves, three for men, three for women, and three for children;
and whoso dies next, first come, first served_.

“‘Lend me thy spade,’ says Jemmy; and with that digs a hole, which
hole he bids the sexton make for his grave, and doth give him a French
crown. The man, willing to please him (more for his gold than his
pleasure), did so; and the fool gets on his horse, and rides to a
gentleman of the town, and, on the sudden, within two hours after, he
died; of whom the sexton telling, Jemmy was buried there indeed. Thus
you see,” adds Robin Armin, moralizing, “fools have a guess at wit
sometimes; and the wisest could have done no more, not so much. But
this fat fool fills a lean, grave with his carcase; upon which grave
the King caused a stone of marble to be put, on which the poet writ
these lines in remembrance of him:--

   “He that gar’d all men till jeare,
    Jemy a Camber, he ligges here:
    Pray for his soll, for he is geane,
    And here a ligges beneath this steane.”

And now let us follow Motley to the English court of the Stuarts,
observing by the way, that, in the words of Mr. Thoms, in a note to Mr.
Collier’s edition of Armin’s ‘Nest of Ninnies,’ “the custom of keeping
a fool appears to have prevailed in the Scotch as generally as in any
other of the European courts, and, it may be presumed, was retained
for a long time among the nobility; since among the curiosities shown
at Glammis Castle, was, within these few years, the dress worn by the
domestic fool belonging to the family.”

Returning to the court of James the Unwise, I will venture upon the
remark, that that British Solomon played the fool, or was played to,
more frequently than most monarchs. Not only did the professional
jester exercise his vocation to please the King, but astute ambassadors
acted folly in order to obtain certain ends, and courtiers turned
amateur fools to win his favour.

Gondomar, the Spanish ambassador, used to say of James that “his most
intrinsic desires were legible on his countenance.” Gondomar acted with
him accordingly. The Spaniard’s manner, we are told by Osborn, was
first to disturb the King’s passions, “and after, to appease them by
some facetious drollery, before he embarked himself in what he intended
to make the employment of the present audience.”

The same author narrates a scene which took place at New Barnet, and
which is illustrative at least of the courtier-fool. James was the
guest there of a Mr. John West, in whose garden he was one day walking,
after dinner, when he stumbled over a mole-hill, and fell heels above
head, in so ridiculous a position that all the courtiers present burst
into a fit of laughter. They hastened, however, to assist him; but his
Majesty repulsed them, with sundry savoury epithets, in the use and
application of which, James was wonderfully expert. The royal rage
waxed fiercely; but it was softened down by a touch of humour on the
part of the host, which was characteristic of the court fool of an
older period. “Ah,” so ran the wittily conceited apology of Mr. West,
“it is not possible for any good subject to refrain from rejoicing at
your Majesty’s activity in tumbling over and over at a mole-hill.” And
with this fool’s compliment, the monarch was satisfied.

James undoubtedly enjoyed wit in others besides his professional
court jesters, from whom, to tell the truth, he obtained it of a very
inferior quality. There was Dean Field, who was one of the first
fellows nominated by the King for the projected Chelsea College; he
owed much of his promotion to his wit, and the same may be said of
Dr. Collins. L’Estrange narrates an incident exhibiting the punning
inclination of their wits in a disputation held by them in the
delighted King’s presence. They had “promised one another,” says Sir
Nicholas, “to lay aside all extravagance of wit, and to buckle to a
serious argumentation; but they soon violated their own law, for Field
began thus--‘Sic disputas, Colendissime Collins,’ and Collins again to
him, afterwards--‘Sic disputas, Ager Colende.’

At the court, at which learned men thus trifled, the professional fool
often gave offence that was not worth taking, and which indeed the
wiser spirits of the court passed by with contempt. We have an instance
of this in the case of Stone, whose name has come down to us, through
Selden, as a court fool of this reign. The incident shows, too, that
the fool’s privilege of speech did not always avail him; and that
it was the thin-skinned and thick-headed who were the first to take
offence, and to call for punishment on the offender. Selden exemplifies
this in his ‘Table Talk,’ with reference to this court fool, Stone. “A
gallant man is above ill words, an example we have in the old Lord of
Salisbury, who was a great, wise man. Stone had called some Lord about
court, ‘Fool.’ The Lord complains, and has Stone whipt. Stone cries, ‘I
might have called my Lord of Salisbury, _Fool_, often enough, before
_he_ would have had me whipt.’” This shows, that if Stone had small
wit, he at least possessed some discernment, and could distinguish
between a grave, wise Lord, and one who had more sensitiveness than
sense. And this is all we know of Stone, whose reputation has been
obscured by the brighter and more lasting renown of the celebrated
jester, Archie Armstrong.

Archibald Armstrong was a native of Arthuret, in Cumberland, and is
supposed to have been “caught up” at an early age, and attached to
the household of King James. Our British King Arthur has left many a
memorial of himself in the vicinity of our northern lakes; and the name
of the birth-place of the Court fool, is one that carries the thoughts
back to the most brilliant of legendary sovereigns.

When first we encounter Archy Armstrong at the English court of James,
it is rather in the character of buffoon amid fools of nobility, than
of witty court jester. Taken altogether, it may be said of him as old
Puttenham said of Thersites, that he was “a glorious noddie;” and he
was, commonly, in very glorious company.

I have noticed in a previous page that Sir Thomas Jermyn, Sir Ralph
Sheldon, and Thomas Badger were spoken of as “fools or buffoons” at
the court of James. But Sir Anthony Weldon names three others,--Sir
Edward Zouch, Sir George Goring, and Sir John Finett,--as “the chief
and master fools; and surely,” adds Sir Anthony, “this fooling got them
more than any other’s wisdom, far above them in desert. There were a
set of fiddlers brought up on purpose for this fooling; and Goring was
master of the game for fooleries, sometimes presenting David Droman and
Archie Armstrong on the backs of the other fools, to tilt one at the
other, till they fell together by the ears. But Sir John Millisent, who
was never known before, was commended for notable fooling; and he was
indeed the best extemporary fool of them all.”

Archie was often ill-treated, favourite as he was with James himself.
At one time, the friends of Prince Charles, whenever they could catch
him, used to toss him, “like a dog,” as Armstrong himself said, in
a blanket. Osborn asserts that the reason for this treatment was
told him by Archie himself. The King and his son, with a gallant
company, had been witnessing the sports at Newmarket. When these were
concluded, they bade each other farewell, and rode off different ways.
The company, almost universally, turned and accompanied the Prince.
Archie remained by his master, to whom he pointed out a circumstance
which disagreeably, but conclusively, proved that the popularity of the
heir-apparent exceeded that of the reigning Sovereign. The knowledge of
this bitter truth, as irrefutable as any told to Lear by _his_ fool,
moved James to tears. Archie joked at it, but the King wept. The latter
was probably also moved to an extensive demonstration of ill-humour,
to the great discomfort of the Prince and his friends, otherwise they
would not have so repeatedly satisfied their wrath by tossing the court
jester in a blanket.

This jester was himself a good-tempered fellow, by no means lacking
sense, especially the sense to grow rich by the exercise of his
vocation, however contemptible it may have been. His recorded jests,
like Scogan’s, are poor, unauthenticated, and, except on one or two
solitary occasions, do not exhibit him in his character of court fool
at all. There is, however, one incident which has been highly praised
for its wit, is vouched for by Coke, and repeated by Neale, and which
may be told, if it be only to show that it is very apocryphal. It
refers to the circumstance of the secret expedition of Charles into
Spain. Conversing on this matter with the King, Archie said, “I must
change caps with your Majesty.” “Why?” asked the King. “Why, who
sent the Prince into Spain?” asked Armstrong, in his turn. James,
comprehending the fool, said, “But suppose the Prince should come
safely back again?” “In that case,” replied the jester, “I will take my
cap from my head, and send it to the King of Spain.”

Now there are several objections to the truth of this incident. One
is, that similar stories are told of fools of much earlier times; but
objections of far greater weight exist in the fact, that Armstrong
himself accompanied the Prince and Buckingham, and Endymion Porter, on
their celebrated mad-cap expedition. We have double proof of this in a
letter from Howell, who saw him there, and in one from Archie himself,
or written under his dictation, dated from Madrid, and which will be
found below, for the first time in print. “Our cousin Archie,” thus
writes Howell, “hath more privilege than any; for he often goes with
his fool’s coat when the Infanta is with her _meninas_ and ladies of
honour, and keeps a blowing and a blustering among them, and flirts out
what he lists.” The jester was wonderfully bold, it must be confessed,
as may be seen by his comment, when the Spanish Dons and Doñas were
discussing the gallantry of the Duke of Bavaria, who, with a small
force, had routed the much larger army of James’s son-in-law, Frederick
the Pfalzgraf. “Oh!” cried the patriotic fool, “I will tell you a
stranger circumstance. Is it not more singular that one hundred and
forty ships should have sailed from Spain to attack England, and that
not ten of them should have returned to tell what became of the rest?”

This is very good; but, as I have previously noticed, there is a
much more interesting letter from Spain than Howell’s,--one from
Archie himself. The original (which was kindly pointed out to me by
Mr. Hepworth Dixon,) will be found at the British Museum (Additional
Manuscripts, 19,402, fol. 79); it is addressed to James I., and is to
this effect:--“Most great and gracious King. To let your Majesty know,
never was fool better accepted on by the King of Spain, except his own
fool; and to tell your Majesty secretly, I am better accepted on than
he is. To let your Majesty know, I am sent for by this King when none
of your own nor your son’s men can come near him,--to the glory of God
and praise of you. I shall think myself better and more fool than all
the fools here, for aught I see; yet I thank God and Christ my Saviour,
and you, for it. Whoever could think that your Majesty kept a gull and
an ass in me,--he is a gull and an ass himself. To let your Majesty
know, that I cannot tell you the thoughts of kings’ hearts; but this
King is of the bravest colour I ever saw, yourself except. And this
King will not let me have a _trunchman_. I desire your Majesty’s help
in all need, for I cannot understand him; but I think myself as wise
as he or any in his Court, as grave as you think the Spaniard is. You
will write to your son and Buckingham, and charge them to provide me a
_trunchman_[F] and then you shall know from your fool, by God’s help
and Christ’s help, and the Virgin Mary’s, more secret business than
from all your wise men here. My Lord Aston,--your Majesty shall give
him thanks,--writes to you and to your son; do give him thanks, for
never kinder friend I found in this world; his house is at my command,
and besides he gave me white boots when my own trunk was not come up.
I think every day of yourself, and of your Majesty’s gracious favour;
for you will never be missed till you are gone, and the child that is
unborn will say a praise for you. But I hope in God, for my own part,
never to see it. The further I go, the more I see, for all that I see
here are foolery to you. For toys and such noise as I see, with God’s
grace, my Saviour’s, and your leave, I will let you know more whenever
I come to you; and no more, with grief in my eyes and tears in my
heart, and praying for your Majesty’s happy and gracious continuance
among us. Your Majesty’s Servant, Archibald Armstrong, your X best fool
of state, both here and there. Court of Spain, 28th April, 1623.”

The above letter, with its mixture of blustering familiarity, small
wit, and profanity, was probably taken down from the dictation of
Archie. The fool, it will be observed, appends his _mark_; and the
original is entirely in the handwriting of Buckingham. There is in it
good illustration of the position occupied by Armstrong; and the letter
will, I hope, be considered not superfluous here, for this and other
social traits which it contains.

Armstrong returned to England with Prince Charles, into whose regular
service he passed, after the death of James. I have said in a previous
page, that there were faithful servants of Anne of Denmark who lived
to envy her fool; and I may here add that there was one especially
who envied him, and who was still more angry when he compared the
well-cared-for condition of Archie with his own neglected, despised,
and unmerited situation.

The individual to whom I allude is William Belou. According to
unpublished documents in the State Paper office relating to the
domestic affairs of Charles I., under the dates 1625 and 1626, Belou
was a Dane, who, at the age of ten years, was placed in the household
of Anne of Denmark by the King of that country, and he accompanied
that princess to Scotland. Belou remained in her service till, as he
says, “it pleased Almighty God to translate her to a better kingdom.” He
subsequently was an attendant on the person of James I., who granted
him an annuity of £150 for life; which, of course, was not paid. “This
pension,” says Belou, in a memorial to Charles, “being the only mark
or testimony of my good behaviour in the late Queen’s service, I would
not have sold it for £1000 in times past.” But the poor pensionary had
entered the service of the Duke of Holstein, afterwards of the King of
Denmark. He must have been ill requited, for he adds, “I have not only
spent my readiest means, but run myself a thousand pounds in debt.”
Belou then offers to surrender the patent for his annuity, if Charles
will “cause my Lord Treasurer give to Charles de Bowsie and Abraham
Decks that they shall receive the moneys above specified that I owe
them, at a certain day.”

The old servant could get no attention paid to his intercessions; and
he came to England, to endeavour to procure by his personal address
what he could not obtain by missive, What he did and how he sped, is
shown in the subjoined honest, hearty, graphic letter to Mr. Secretary
Conway. It is the outpouring of an indignant, but not a disrespectful,
discarded servant, “broken in body and mind, and totally ruined in
estate.” The picture is admirably drawn, and we find in it our old
friends Tom Derry and Archie Armstrong, in such conditions of comfort
and well-being, as to show that old fools had more substantial respect
at the hands of Charles, than old servants, defrauded of their income.

“May it please your Lordship, according to your direction, I have
essayed to you a petition, but find neither matter nor reason for it.
I have been worse treated than a natural fool, witness Tom Duri,[G]
who, for aught I know, is better used, according to his estate and
quality, than any servant the late Queen left behind her; at least a
great deal better than I. I have been worse used than a counterfeit,
witness Archie Armstrong, who shows me that the King has given so
special direction for payment of his entertainment, that he is better
than he was in the late King’s time; when I, having a pension for
which I served, toiled, and travelled the space of thirty-seven years,
cannot receive one penny, till I have spent three in seeking of it. I
have been worse used than a Turk, witness a Turkish ambassador, whom I
have seen get audience of the late King; who had his despatch in three
weeks, when I, in three winters’ attendance, cannot obtain means or
leave to return to my native country, but am constrained to forget and
expose my wife and only daughter to rapt and desolation; that bloody
inquisition army of Wallenstein being within three or four days’
march of a country-house where I left them. All this I have endured
patiently, or at least with a forced and seeming senselessness. But
now, my honourable Lord, I am worse used than a dog; for having moved
a poor humble petition to the King, verbally, at Hampton Court, that
if his Majesty will give me no money, he would let me have a pass or
a warrant, that I might go out to put my wife and daughter in a surer
place, he went away silently, without one word speaking; and I am sure
he will speak to his dogs. Since, then, my Lord, I have fallen beneath
the degree of a dog, I can petition no more, for fear I fall a-howling
when I would complain. Wherefore, I have enclosed within this letter
the copy of two petitions given to his Majesty heretofore. I beseech
your Lordship to peruse them again, and consider what I can offer more
or demand less than I have done in the said two petitions; and, only by
procuring me his Majesty’s pass, save me from this last of evils, that
it be not saddled on my back as a hedshef of my other wrongs endured,
that I have slipped away, like a knotless thread, without his Majesty’s
knowledge. If I can obtain this, I rest

“Yours, to serve your Lordship with the best thoughts of my heart and
the best report my hard fortune can bring forth,

                        “WILLIAM BELOU.

  “_To my very honourable Lord, my Lord Connoway,
  Secretary of Estate to the King his Majesty of
  Great Britain, give these._”

I feel confident that I need not offer any apology for citing the whole
of a letter which contains such a graphic sketching of the author’s
wrongs, of his attempts to redress them, his feelings at his own
condition, and his own anxiety for the safety of his wife and only
daughter. Charles will “speak to his dogs,” but will not vouchsafe a
word to the old servant of his mother, and of his uncle, Ulric of
Holstein. The King provides liberally for his mother’s jester, Tom
Derry, and more than liberally, it would seem, for his father’s jester
and his own, Archibald Armstrong. When poor Belou is about to open
the touching Jeremiad of his afflictions, it is the contrast between
the happy positions of the two court fools and his own desolate and
destitute situation, which first strikes him. The fools are better off
than ever they were, whereas the old attendant of nearly forty years’
standing cannot obtain a penny of his due, though he spend three in the
seeking of it.

But the day for the fall of Archie Armstrong came too. The fool had not
always jested with impunity when he had princes for his subject; and
he now fared worse by venturing to tilt against an archbishop. That
Archie hated Laud, is sufficiently apparent. It is even said that he
once volunteered a _grace_ at a dinner where the prelate was present,
and that the court fool, trusting in his privilege of speech, gave it
forth in the shape of “Great praise be to God, and little _laud_ to the
Devil!” The Archbishop had good ground for offence; but Archie thrusted
at him more sharply than this. What he had told Mr. Belou was no
exaggeration; he grew rich at court, but his arrogance brought him low.

   “Archie, by kings and princes graced of late,
    Jested himself into a fair estate;”--

and joked himself out of his enviable position. The attempt to force
the English Liturgy upon the Scottish congregations was food for his
saucy wit; and when he heard of the orthodox Lizzie, who had flung a
stool at the head of the liturgical Dean, in St. Giles’s, Edinburgh,
he called it “the stool of repentance.” The dissensions in the North
began to assume a very serious aspect; and much uneasiness, with a
corresponding amount of obstinacy, was experienced at court. Laud was,
right or wrong in intention, the cause of all, and as Archie one day
met the Archbishop, on his way to the Council Chamber, he could not
forbear wagging his rude tongue with the query, “Wha’s fool noo?”

For this offence the jester was immediately taken before the King in
Council, where the prelate named his grounds of offence, and the fool
pleaded the privilege of his coat. He pleaded in vain, as the following
order, dated Whitehall, 11th March, 1637, will show:--

“It is this day ordered by his Majesty, with the advice of the board,
that Archibald Armstrong, the King’s fool, for certain scandalous
words of a high nature, spoken by him against the Lord Archbishop
of Canterbury, his Grace, and proved to be uttered by him, by two
witnesses, shall have his coat pulled over his head, and be discharged
of the King’s service, and banished the court, for which the Lord
Chamberlain of the King’s household is prayed and required to give
order to be executed. And immediately the same was put in execution.”

The provocation had been long, and had often driven Laud into fits
of unseemly passion, which, indeed, drove the prelate to an attempt
to bring the wretched jester before that dreaded tribunal, the Star
Chamber. On this quarrel and Laud’s vindictiveness, Osborn has a
striking passage.

“I shall instance as a blot in the greatest rochet that did in my time
appear in the court of England, or indeed any I ever heard of since
the Reformation, who managed a quarrel with Archy the King’s fool, and
by endeavouring to explode him the court, rendered him, at last, so
considerable, by calling the Prelate’s enemies (which were not a few)
to his rescue, as the fellow was not only able to continue the dispute
for divers years, but received such encouragement from standers-by as
he hath oft, in my hearing, belched in his face such miscarriages as
he was really guilty of, and might, but for this foul-mouthed Scot,
have been forgotten; adding such other reproaches of his own as the
dignity of his calling and greatness of his parts could not in reason
or manners admit; though so far hoodwinked with passion as not to
discern that all the fool did was but a symptom, of the strong and
inveterate distemper raised long before in the hearts of his countrymen
against the calling of bishops, out of whose former ruins, the major
part of the Scottish nobility had feathered, if not built, their nests.
Nor did this too low-placed anger lead him into a less absurdity
than an endeavour to bring him into the Star Chamber, till the Lord
Coventry had, by acquainting him with the privilege of a fool, shown
the ridiculousness of the attempt; yet, not satisfied, he, through the
mediation of the Queen, got him at last discharged the court.”[H]

There were present, on this occasion, when the Council met to strip
a coat from a fool, “the King’s most excellent Majesty,” in person;
the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Duke of Lennox, the Marquis of
Hamilton, the Earl Marshal, and the Earls of Northumberland and Dorset,
Salisbury and Holland, the Lord-Keeper (Finch), the Lord Treasurer,
the Lord Privy Seal, and the Lord Chamberlain; Baron Newburgh, and
Mr. Treasurer, Mr. Comptroller, Mr. Vice-Chamberlain, Mr. Secretary
Cook, and Mr. Secretary Wincebanke.” What an august tribunal for the
deposition of a fool!

Archy survived long enough to see himself avenged (if he were
sufficiently of evil nature to consider himself to require to be
avenged) of many of these his noble enemies. Meanwhile, his crime seems
to have sat lightly on his conscience, however heavy the retribution
with which it was visited. The discarded jester did not attempt to deny
his offence. How he was punished and how he spoke openly of it, is
shown in the paragraph here subjoined.

“Archye,” writes Mr. Garrard to Lord Strafford (Strafford Papers,
vol. ii.), “is fallen into a great misfortune; a fool he would be,
but a foul-mouthed knave he hath proved himself; being at a tavern
in Westminster, drunk, as he saith himself, he was speaking of the
Scottish business, he fell a railing of my Lord of Canterbury, said
he was a monk, a rogue, and a traitor. Of this, his Grace complained
at Council, and the King being present, it was ordered he should be
carried to the porter’s lodge, his coat pulled over his ears, and
kicked out of the Court, never to enter within the gates, and to be
called into the Star Chamber. The first part is done, but my Lord of
Canterbury hath interceded for the King that there it should end.”

Laud would have had more vengeance, if he could, but, says the author
of the ‘Scout’s Discovery,’--“albeit Archie found favour in his lash,
he lost both his coat and his place.” Laud ruined the jester; but he
could not subdue his spirit, nor curb his tongue. Archie assumed a suit
of sables, and hung about the dead Kings in Westminster Abbey, since
he no longer held office in the palace of a living sovereign. “I met
Archie,” says a writer in Morgan’s ‘Phœnix Britannicus,’ referring to
a week or two after the dismissal,--“I met Archie at the Abbey, all in
black. Alas! poor fool, thought I, he mourns for his country. I asked
him about his (fool’s) coat. ‘Oh,’ quoth he, ‘my Lord of Canterbury
hath taken it from me, because either he or some of the Scots bishops
may have the use of it themselves. But he hath given me a black coat
for it; and now I may speak what I please, so it be not against the
prelates, for this coat hath a greater privilege than the other had.’”
The hint that he could exercise the privilege of a jester’s liberty
under the clerical black more freely than he could beneath his motley
jerkin, was a Parthian dart thrown by a practised though a retreating
soldier. It is certainly not the worst saying ever uttered by Archibald
Armstrong.

It will be seen, too, that Archie, whether in or out of office, had
the wit to thrive. Dr. Octavius Gilchrist, in the ‘London Magazine’
for August and September, 1824, at the conclusion of a review of the
old jest book which bore Armstrong’s name on the title-page; but with
which the “fool” had no other connection, states that Archie derived
considerable wealth from the new year’s gifts presented him by the
courtiers. It even seems that the ex-jester became a landed proprietor.
“To prove,” says Dr. Gilchrist, “that he saved money and laid it out
in the purchase of landed property, we have met with a contemporary
authority, in an uncommonly rare tract, printed in 12mo, 1636, and
entitled ‘The Fatal Nuptials, or Mournful Marriage.’ This is a metrical
account of a lamentable accident that occurred in the preceding year,
on Windermere Water, when forty-seven persons (among them a young
married couple, with their friends and relations going to keep their
wedding) were drowned. The anonymous poet (a very bad one, by the way),
meaning to enforce the uncertainty of life, and the liability of all
ranks to a similar disaster, introduces Archie, who was probably well
known in the neighbourhood of the accident.

   “Is’t so, that we in hourly danger stand,
    Whether we sail by sea, or go by land?
    That we to this world but one entrance have,
    But thousand means of passage to the grave?
    And that the wise shall no more fruit receive
    Of all his labours than the fool shall have.
    For the politick Hum must yield to swelling Humber,
    As well as the least of his inferior number,
    _And Archie, that rich fool, when he least dreams.
    For purchased lands must be possessed of streams._”

It is tolerably clear, from this, that Armstrong, like Osric, that
combination of fool and lord in Hamlet, was of those enviable and
respectable people who may be described, as Osric is, in the same
tragedy, as being “spacious in the possession of dirt;” or, as the
Latin author said it long before, “multâ dives tellure.”

In short, Archie, saving his disgrace, did not fare so ill. He was in
the happy financial condition of the gentleman in Horace, who, let the
world rail at him as it might, could point to his money-box, and hug
himself complacently on his destiny. He had noble companionship, too,
in his retirement. Armstrong repaired to Arthuret, his native place,
in Cumberland, and thither also retired, after the cause of Archie’s
royal ex-master had become desperate, that Dick Graham who had been
master of the horse to Buckingham, and who had accompanied his patron
in that expedition to the Spanish Court where the Jester had played
as prominent a part as any of his betters. Had the ex-jester been of
the quality of mind of illogical persons who see in every disaster
that befalls those with whom they are in antagonism, a divine justice
descending on the head of their enemy, Archie might have solemnly
declared that the monarchy fell because it had ceased to respect the
privileges of fools.

But it was not Armstrong’s disposition to be solemn. While institutions
decayed, he survived. The Monarchy went down, and the Commonwealth
went over it, and went down too, and Archie still found himself upon
his legs. The church-register of Arthuret, as quoted by Lysons, in his
Magna Britannia, shows that the jester could find damsels too ready
to be fooled by him. But let us hope that the joculator of old turned
honest man at last. One thing is certain, that in 1646 he made an
honest woman, as the old phrase goes, of confiding Sibella Bell. The
church-register makes record of the marriage of this pair; but neither
in that nor any other register is record made of the lives led by
this wedded couple. The only further, and _that_ an important, entry,
containing a notice of our once lively friend of the cap and bells,
is the duly-registered circumstance of his death. The date of his
burial alone is given, and that ceremony took place, characteristically
enough, (in the year above-mentioned) on April 1, All-fools’ day!

To Archie Armstrong succeeded Muckle John, the last, perhaps, of the
official court fools in England. In the Strafford Papers (vol. ii. p.
154) there is a letter from Mr. Garrard to Lord Strafford, in which
the latter is informed, “There is now a fool in his (Archie’s) place,
Muckle John, but he will never be so rich, for he cannot abide money.”
Love of the precious metals was, indeed, a passion with Armstrong,
whose avarice, however, was sometimes disappointed. It was especially
so on an occasion when a nobleman placed in Archie’s hand some pieces
of money which the jester thought too little for his merits; he
expressed his discontent, and the donor, seeming willing to change
the silver coin for gold, received it from Archie, but put it into
his own pocket. Instead of giving a gold Carolus or two in return,
the courtier only bestowed on Armstrong the remark, that whatever wit
he might possess as fool, he certainly had not the wit to know how to
keep money when it was given to him. Muckle John was of a different
quality, inasmuch that he cared nothing at all for money; of which,
nevertheless, considerable sums were spent upon him, to make him look
like a fool of quality. For the following items of expenses in this
respect, extracted from an account-book of the period, I am indebted to
Mr. Peter Cunningham, whose ready kindness enables me to show Muckle
John equipped from head to foot.

“A long coat and suit of scarlet-colour serge for Muckle John, 10_l._
10_s._ 6_d._

“One pair of crimson silk hose, and one pair of gaiters and roses for
Muckle John, 61_s._

“For a pair of silk and silver garters, and roses and gloves suitable
for Muckle John, 110_s._

“For a hat covered with scarlet, and a band suitable; and for two rich
feathers, one red, the other white, for Muckle John, 50_s._

“Stags’-leather gloves, fringed with gold and silver.

“A hat-band for Muckle John.

“One pair of perfumed gloves, lined with sables, 5_s._”

At the court at which Armstrong and Muckle John practised their
vocation, there were other personages of some notoriety, who exercised
their talents for the mirth or admiration of their royal patron.
While the above-named jesters, for instance, were more particularly
attached to the King, little Jeffrey Hudson, the dwarf, exercised a
calling somewhat similar in the household of Henrietta Maria. Jeffrey
did this both in England and in France. This little fellow, who, when
he entered his teens, was scarcely more than a foot and a half in
height, and who did not ultimately grow much over three feet, was in
his boyhood protected by the Duke of Buckingham. At a banquet given
by the Duke in honour of the Queen, a pie was placed upon the table,
the crust of which being raised, the dwarf stepped forth and bowed to
Henrietta Maria, to whom he was presented by Buckingham. This mode
of presentation was not at all original. It was a common court jest,
when a dwarf was in question. Sometimes the hapless little wretch was
presented in a gilt cage, as a Milan dwarf was to Francis I. Zeiller,
in one of his letters, mentions a dwarf in the household of Ferdinand,
Archduke of Austria, in the year 1568. At a grand festival in honour
of Duke William of Bavaria and the Princess Renata of Lorraine, this
dwarf was served up at table, in a pie. When the crust was raised,
he leaped out, attired in panoply of gilt, and grasping a banner in
his hand, which he waved as he marched round the table, and made
merry compliments to the august and delighted guests. Weber, in his
‘Verändertes Russland,’ notices a similar custom as prevailing at the
Court of Russia, and continuing as late as the beginning of the last
century. No more acceptable joke could be got up for the amusement of
the Czars by their favourite nobles. A couple of pies, from which a
male and female dwarf issued to dance a minuet, procured for the giver
of the entertainment the utmost applause from the sovereign.

The custom, then, was known on the Continent both before and after
the period of Jeffrey Hudson. That the position of the latter in the
household of his royal mistress was not unlike that of a jester, may
be gathered from various sources. Davenant says that he was made to
fight with a turkey-cock, and Walter Scott notices how he was compelled
to endure the teazing of the domestics and courtiers, and the many
squabbles he had with the King’s gigantic porter.

But where Jeffrey Hudson is best seen in his character of jester to
Henrietta Maria, is in the despatches written in 1636, by Panzani
and Corneo, agents of the Romish Church, in London, and addressed to
Cardinal Mazarin. These despatches are quoted by Mrs. Everett Green, in
her ‘Letters of Henrietta Maria,’ and it is there I find a notice of
our little friend, Jeffrey. In the despatch in which mention is made
of Hudson, the writer, Corneo, describes an interview he had with the
Queen at Holmby Palace, near Northampton. He narrates the compliments
exchanged by the principal personages, and proceeds to tell in much
detail, how he presented to Henrietta Maria, as a Papal gift, a shrine
for relics, and how gratefully it was received. Corneo then says,
“that he exhibited to her Majesty a portrait of St. Catherine, with an
intimation that as soon as he had procured a frame for it, he would
offer it for the Queen’s acceptance.” The Queen was too impatient to
wait, and therefore took the picture as it was, and had it fastened to
the curtains of her bed. Nor was this all. On the following day there
were more gifts for presentation, and at this ceremony we find Jeffrey
in waiting, and exercising his licensed vocation. “I presented to her
Majesty,” says the agent, “your Eminence’s rosary of olive wood, with
another of agate, and one of buffalo horn, curiously worked with cameo
medallions. I also took others to the Catholic ladies and maidens,
which were distributed by Father Philip, in her Majesty’s presence; and
the Queen’s dwarf, who is less and better made than that of Criqui,
being present, when all was nearly finished, began to call out, “Madam,
show the father that I also am a Catholic,” with a manner and gesture
that made all laugh. This was evidently the manner and gesture of a
court buffoon; and what would have been resented from a noble as an
impertinence, was laughed at, in the Queen’s dwarf, as a good joke.

Eight years subsequently to the above scene, when Jeffrey (after
cleverly aiding the Queen’s escape from Exeter) was with Henrietta
Maria, in France, occurred his remarkable duel with Will Croft, brother
of the Queen’s favourite, and master of the horse. Will Croft had
bantered the valiant little man, who held a commission as a cavalry
captain; and Jeffrey not only challenged him, but fought Will on
horseback, in the park at Nevers. Croft had brought with him only a
squirt, which he discharged at the enraged dwarf; but Hudson, “running
his horse in full career, shot his antagonist in the head, and left
him dead on the spot.” This affair caused some sensation in the French
court, and it produced from Henrietta Maria a very characteristic note
to Mazarin, whom she honours with a complimentary title. “Cousin,”
she writes from Nevers, in October, 1644, “I wrote to the Queen, my
sister, about a misfortune which has happened to my house, of Geoffrey,
who has killed Croft’s brother. I have written the whole affair to
the commander, in order that you may hear of it. What I wish is, that
as they are both English, and my servants, the Queen, my sister, will
give me authority to dispose of them as I please, in dispensing either
justice or favour, which I was unwilling to do without writing to
you, and asking you to assist me therein, as I shall always do in all
that concerns me, since I profess to be, as I am, Cousin, your very
affectionate cousin, Henrietta Maria, R.”

The Queen’s letter, as given by Mrs. Green, differs from that given by
Miss Strickland in this lady’s life of Henrietta Maria. With regard
to the consequences of the affair noticed in it, there only remains
to be said, that poor Jeffrey lost his post in the Queen’s household.
He recovered some favour at the court of Charles II.; but he fell
under suspicion of treason, and the dwarf, who had been the faithful
messenger of his patroness, had served her well in serious affairs
of business, and made her and her court laugh by his small jests,
ultimately died, a prisoner, in the Gate House, at Westminster.

Poor Jeffrey was less fortunate than two other dwarfs, patronized
by Henrietta previous to her flight to France. They were a male and
female. The former, Richard Gibson, had been in the service of a lady
at Mortlake. She had observed in him a talent for drawing, and she
kindly placed him with De Cleyn, director of the Mortlake tapestry
works. Gibson acquired great reputation as a copier of Sir Peter
Lely’s portraits, whose collection his nephew, William Gibson, was
rich enough to purchase at Lely’s death. The dwarf artist was ever
welcome at court; and when he espoused the dwarf young lady there, the
nuptials of the little couple were honoured by the presence of Charles
I. and Henrietta Maria. No less a bard than Edmund Waller sang their
Epithalamium, or at least verses in commemoration of an event which
made the court hilarious, and from which verses the following lines are
taken:--

   “Design or chance makes others wive,
    But nature did this match contrive....
    Thrice happy is that humble pair,
    Beneath the level of all care!
    Over whose heads those arrows fly,
    Of sad distrust and jealousy;
    Securëd in as high extreme
    As if the world had none but them.
    To him, the fairest nymphs do show
    Like moving mountains topp’d with snow;
    And every man a Polypheme
    Does to his Galatea seem....”

Thus, although this couple did not belong to the fraternity of official
jesters, the sovereigns and their court contrived to extract amusement
from the neat little wedded pair, each of whom measured exactly three
feet two. Richard Gibson was the King’s page, and his wife served the
Queen. When King and Queen had passed away, the dwarf artist found
in his pencil a better property than Charles had found, or lost, in
his sceptre. He had painted his Royal master’s portrait; and when
Oliver Cromwell was in power, he painted the Protector. He was the
drawing-master of the Princesses Mary and Anne, and it may be remarked
that, about the same period, the Muscovite court fool and dwarf, Sotof,
was holding the additional office of writing-master to Peter the Great.
The old page of Charles I. was however a superior man. He died at the
age of seventy-five, A.D. 1690. His little wife lived till 1709, when
she died, in her ninetieth year, at which time the four of their nine
children who had attained to the ordinary stature of mankind survived,
the issue of a marriage which had been honoured by the presence of
royalty and commemorated as a court jest by the banter of Waller.

It is not to be expected that the grave system of the Commonwealth
admitted of such an official as a jester. The house or town fool,
however, did not go out with his brother at court. A portrait of one
of those worthies may be seen at Muncaster Castle, Cumberland. His
name was Thomas Skelton; he appears to have resided at the castle
during the period of the civil wars, as house fool. Jefferson, in his
‘History of Allerdale Ward, above Derwent,’ says, that “of Skelton’s
sayings there are many traditional stories;” but unfortunately he
cites none. From his description of the portrait on the staircase at
the castle, we obtain a good idea of the fool of this period. Skelton
is there represented “in a check gown, blue, yellow, and white; under
his arm is an earthen dish, with ears; in his right hand a white wand;
in his left, a white hat, bound with pink ribbon, and with blue bows;
in front, a paper, on which is written, ‘Mrs. Dorothy Copeland.’” The
picture contains an inscription, headed “Thomas Skelton, late fool of
Muncaster’s last will and testament.” I cite it, not for its poetical
merit, but because it shows that these house and town fools were
sometimes invested with mock offices of a certain dignity.

   “Be it known to ye, O grave and wise men all,
    That I, Tom Fool, am sheriff of the Hall.
    I mean the Hall of Haigh, where I command
    What neither I nor you do understand.
    My under-sheriff is Ralph Wayte, you know;
    As wise as I am, and as witty too.
    Of Egremond I have borough-serjeant been;
    Of Wiggan, bailiff too, as may be seen
    By my white staff of office in my hand,
    Being carried straight as the badge of my command.
    A low high-constable, too, was once my calling,
    Which I enjoy’d under King Henry Rawling.
    And when the Fates a new sheriff send,
    I’m under-sheriff prick’d, world without end.
    He who doth question my authority
    May see the seal and patent here lie by.
    The dish with lugs [_ears_] which I do carry here
    Shows all my living is in good strong beer.
    If scurvy lads to me abuses do,
    I’ll call ’em scurvy rogues, and rascals too.
    Fair Dolly Copeland in my cap is placed;
    Monstrous fair is she, and as good as all the rest.
    Honest Nick Pennington, honest Tom Turner, both
    Will bury me when I this world go forth.
    But let me not be carried o’er the brigg,
    Lest, falling, I in Duggas river ligg.
    Nor let my body by old Charnorth lie,
    But by Will Caddy,--for he’ll lie quietly.
    And when I’m buried, then my friends may drink;
    But each man pay for himself,--that’s best I think.
    This is my will; and this I know will be
    Perform’d by them, as they have promised me.”

This rhapsodic testament has “Thomas Skelton X his mark” affixed to
it, serving to show (as Armstrong’s letter from Madrid does) that this
class of jester, if possessed of wit, was not possessed of learning.
The lines also intimate that the “fool of Muncaster Castle” was, like
most of his profession, fond of drinking. The subscription of his mark
is attested by three witnesses; and the rhymed joke had all the forms
of a serious document.

After the gravity enforced by the Commonwealth, the silencing of the
stage, the suppression of joking, and the introduction of long sermons
and loud psalms, there was a sudden reaction, even before the graceless
King had got what was facetiously called “his own again.” Monk, who
was in some doubt, even as he marched through Gray’s Inn Lane into
London, whether he should join hands with the solemn precisians or the
gay cavaliers, no sooner felt the direction of the popular wind, than
he gave license to jollity. The nearest approach that could be made
to the old professional fool, started on to the stage as “The Citizen
and Soldier,” “Country Tom and City Dick,” and other “pretty antics,”
played in April 1660, before “His Excellency,” when, with the Council
of State, he dined at one of the city halls. He dined at nine of them;
and after dinner on each occasion, besides satirical plays, were
“dancing and singing, many shapes and ghosts, and the like; and all to
please his Excellency, the Lord General.”

If it be true that the official fool was not restored with Monarchy,
at the accession of Charles II., because the Puritan voice and the
religious sentiment of the country generally, were against such
officials and their foolery, foolery itself did not go out. See what
solemn Evelyn says to it, under the date of January 1, 1661–2:--“1st
January. I went to London, invited to the solemn foolery of the
Prince de la Grange, at Lincoln’s Inn, where came the King, Duke,
etc. It began with a grand masque, and a formal pleading before the
mock princes, grandees, nobles, and knights of the Sun. He had his
Lord Chancellor, Chamberlain, Treasurer, and other royal officers,
gloriously clad and attended. It ended in a magnificent banquet. One
Mr. Lort was the young spark who maintained the pageantry.”

A little more than six years later, we meet with an entry in ‘Pepys’
Diary’ which seems to introduce us to an official fool, and which is to
this effect:--“1667–8. Feb. 13. Mr. Brisband tells me, in discourse,
that Tom Killigrew hath a fee out of the Wardrobe for cap and bells,
under the title of the King’s Foole or Jester, and may revile or jeere
anybody, the greatest person, without offence, by the privilege of his
place.”--Pepys, vol. iv. p. 353.

Oldys is quite as explicit. In one of his MS. notes to ‘Langbain’s
Memoirs of Dramatic Authors,’ he says, under the head of Killigrew:
“He was Master of the Revels, and the King’s jester, while Groom of
the Bedchamber.” Various writers, when commenting on these passages,
have suggested that Killigrew never held a patent of official fool, and
that his actual appointment was to the office of Master of the Revels.
According, however, to Chalmers, Tom Killigrew succeeded Herbert as
Master of the Revels in 1673, and was followed therein, on his death,
in 1682–3, by his brother Charles. The office in question was first
instituted in 1546, the last year of Henry VIII. (with a salary of
£10 per annum), and continued till 1725, when the Lord Chamberlain
was empowered to have rule and dominion over the court and public
entertainments; and the Master of the Revels being entirely ignored in
a new Act of Parliament, was snuffed out, and never heard of again.

Supposing Pepys’s informant to have stated the actual truth, Tom
Killigrew had, not a patent, but a warrant under the King’s sign
manual, addressed to the officers of the Wardrobe, directing them to
pay to Killigrew, “our fool or jester,” a certain amount per annum
to enable him to provide the customary official indication of a cap
and bells. Such warrants had nothing in them of the character of
Letters Patent. An entry of the warrant should have been made in some
book kept in the Wardrobe; the warrant or sign manual may have been
preserved, and probably also a docket, or short minute of it, may have
been made and kept by some Master of Requests or other officer who
laid the warrant before the King for his signature. If such a warrant
did actually exist, it ought to be found in some wardrobe book, or
collection of signed bills or warrants, or dockets.

The most careful research has failed to be rewarded by the discovery
of any document confirmatory of the report conveyed to Pepys. All that
I could find in conjunction with Mr. Bruce, or, I should rather say,
all that his antiquarian zeal, patience, curiosity, and unwearied
good-nature could find for me, consisted of several entries which
show that Killigrew was in the receipt of various payments made by
the Crown; but none of these show him to have been an official court
jester. The only approach to a proof is, that he is styled “one of the
Grooms of the Chamber,” a style by which Tarleton was designated when
he was jester to Elizabeth.

On the Issue Roll, 1 March, 1665–6, there is notice of a payment of
£100, being a quarter’s annuity granted to Killigrew and Cecilie, his
wife. In 1666, the same Roll contains notices of payments on account of
two annuities, one of £400 per annum, which he held jointly with his
wife; and one of the annual value of £500. These annuities are duly
ordered to be paid, at later dates, and from various sources. Sometimes
there were no effects in the treasury, and then the Queen’s purse seems
to have been tapped for the payment. In the Pells Enrolments, 1675,
Killigrew receives £200, to be expended by him in support of his office
as Master of the Revels; and, later, we come upon an entry of £1050, to
be paid to him for getting up certain plays during the preceding nine
years. I may add, that in a succeeding year, the 18th of August, 1678,
there was another appointment of greater interest than the above, and
which shows how different, now at least, was the court poet from the
court fool. I allude to the appointment of Dryden as poet laureate. The
letters patent making this appointment are entered on the Pells Book
of Enrolments of the date above mentioned. In this document, Dryden’s
predecessors, Gower and Chaucer, are spoken of as knights; the salary
is fixed at £200 per annum; and directions are given that the butt of
canary, or sack, shall be taken out of the King’s cellars at Whitehall,
“yearly, and once a year.” At the above date, Killigrew was Master of
the Revels; and if he were jester also, it may be said that the court
of England had never seen so accomplished a “fool,” nor so eminent a
laureate, as now figured on the household roll of Charles II.

The position of Tom Killigrew at Court was, however, so closely allied
to that of the official jester, as to forbid its being passed over
without some brief notice. Killigrew was the son of a baronet; and his
earliest vocation and amusement, was that of lingering about the doors
of the theatre till he was invited in to play some imp, or any other
character that a boy could enact. In this way he commenced a career
which ended in his being, with Buckingham and others, one of the “merry
villains” in the household of Charles II.

Killigrew’s first appearance at Court was in the character of page of
honour to Charles I., a part which he seems to have filled creditably.
When the Commonwealth was established, Tom went into the service of
Charles II., then on the Continent; and he is very strongly suspected
of having betrayed his master’s secrets to the republican Government.
This suspicion rests upon a passage in a letter (dated October 1658)
from Downing, Cromwell’s Resident at the Hague, to Thurloe, referring
to a secret visit paid by Charles to the Dutch court. “As for Charles
Stuart,” says the writer, “I had an account from one Killigrew, of
his bed-chamber, of every place where he was, and the time, with his
stay and company, of which also I gave you an account in mine of the
last post. He vowed that it was a journey of pleasure, and that none
of the States General, nor any person of note of Amsterdam, came to
him.” These communications, however, may have been made by Killigrew in
good faith, as explanations, in order to screen his royal master from
molestation.

Of that royal master he was the not unfitting representative at Venice,
whither Killigrew repaired to borrow money, and where he remained long
enough to write some half-dozen verbose and witless plays. He remained
too long for the patience of the Venetians, who, dissolute as they were
themselves, were more disgusted at the profligacy, than charmed by the
accomplishments, of the English envoy; and the Doge, Francis Erizzo,
very unceremoniously ejected him from the Venetian territory. In the
fourth volume of ‘Evelyn’s Diary and Correspondence’ will be found a
letter from Hyde, mildly complaining that Charles was not permitted to
withdraw his ambassador.

Killigrew, at the Restoration, brought back with him an improved taste
in theatrical matters generally; and he introduced the first Italian
opera singers ever heard in this country. He was for a time the most
conspicuous man at court, where he certainly exercised with impunity
all the license of the court fool, which office Oldys and Pepys
ascribe to him. The samples of this license are well known, but some
will bear being reproduced.

On one occasion, this “merry villain” was seated at a window of the
King’s dressing-room, reading one of his licentious plays, while
Charles was engaged at his toilette. The monarch must have been under
the influence of some decency of spirit that morning, for he asked
Killigrew what he would be able to say in the next world, in defence of
the “idle words” of his comedies. Tom replied, that he would be able
to make a better defence for his “idle words” than the King could do
for his idle promises, which were made only to be broken, and which had
caused more ruin than any of the aforesaid idle words in any of his own
comedies.

Of similar boldness, and with more of truth in it, was his satirical
hint to Charles, conveyed publicly to the King, at a moment of great
national distress. Killigrew remarked that the affairs of the kingdom
were in a very ill state; but that nevertheless they were not without
remedy. “There is a good, honest, able man that I could name,” said
he, “that if your Majesty would employ, and command to see all things
well executed, all things would be soon mended; and this is one Charles
Stuart, who now spends his time in employing his lips about the
court, and hath no other employment; but if you would give him this
employment, he were the fittest man in the world to perform it.”

The jester, turned Mentor, was ever more ready with precept than
example; and his own practice of selling places that did not exist,
and taking money from honest and ambitious citizens for creating them
“King’s physic-tasters,” or “royal curtain-drawers,” was thought an
excellent court jest, and was laughed at accordingly.

Sometimes, like Will Sommers before Henry VIII., Killigrew would appear
in the presence of Charles, in disguise. Once he came before the King
in pilgrim’s attire, “cockled hat and shoon.” “Whither away?” asked
Charles. “I am going to hell,” boldly replied the jester, “to ask
the devil to send back Oliver Cromwell to take charge of the affairs
of England; for as to his successor, he is always employed in other
business.” It will be seen from this, that if Killigrew did not wear
the cap and bells, he was in all essentials the bold, witty, and
privileged jester of the court of Charles II.

Tom could bring the latter to attend to his affairs when no one else
had hope of succeeding. We have an instance of this when a Council had
assembled on some highly important matter, but could do nothing for
want of the King’s much-desired presence. When Lauderdale had failed
to induce the King to leave his pleasures for the public business,
Killigrew wagered a hundred pounds with the Duke, that _he_ would bring
Charles to the Council in half-an-hour. Tom succeeded too. He simply
suggested to the King, that as his Majesty hated Lauderdale, he might
now get rid of him for ever. “If I win my wager, the Duke will rather
hang himself than pay the money.” “Well then,” said Charles, “if that
be the case, I positively will go.” And so merry villain and merry
monarch proceeded straight to the Council Chamber.

Pepys calls Killigrew “a merry droll, but a gentleman of great esteem
with the King.” When the immortal diarist was in the Admiralty yacht,
off the coast of Holland, in 1660, among the “persons of honour” also
there, Killigrew is named. “He told us many merry stories,” says Pepys;
“one, how he wrote a letter three or four days ago to the Princess
Royal, about a Queen Dowager of Judea and Palestine, that was at the
Hague _incognita_, that made love to the King, which was Mr. Cary (a
courtier’s) wife, that had been a nun, who are all married to Jesus.”
Two years later, when the clerk met the courtier at the Tower, the
former designates the wit of the jester as consisting of “poor and
frothy discourse.”

In February, 1666–7, Killigrew narrated to Pepys what he had done,
since he was a manager, for the improvement of the stage; rendering
it “a thousand times better and more glorious than ever heretofore.
Now, wax-candles, and many of them; then, not above 3lbs. of tallow.
Now, all things civil, no rudeness anywhere; then, as a bear-garden.
Then, two or three fiddlers; now, nine or ten of the best: then,
nothing but rushes on the ground, and everything else mean; now, all
otherwise.” It was in the following year that Killigrew is said to have
received his fee for the purchase of his cap and bells. What is more
certain is, that in the last year named, he and gentlemen of similar
mirthful quality relieved the depression of their spirits at Sir Thomas
Teddiman’s funeral, by reading aloud, or listening to, a variety of
comic ballads! The respect which Killigrew received at the hands of
Rochester, appears to have been exactly that which an over-bold fool
might win from a courtier equally proud and dissolute. It was for some
fool’s offence given at a banquet at the Dutch Ambassador’s, at which
the King himself was present, that Rochester dealt the saucy wit a
stinging smack on the face. Tom took it as Tom Derry might have taken a
cuff from a Lord; and Rochester lost no favour with the King for having
thus assaulted one of his Majesty’s “merry villains.” Killigrew died in
March 1682. Evelyn records in his Diary, the execution of Vrats, the
murderer, who believed that “God would deal with him like a gentleman;”
but he leaves Tom’s departure from the festive scene unhonoured by a
word of remark.

Shadwell writes, in his ‘Woman Captain,’ anno 1680:--“It is out of
fashion now, for great men to keep fools;” but though princes and
nobles began to prefer the society of witty and intellectual gentlemen
to the paid-for nonsense of hirelings who were said, by periphrasis, to
have been born at Little Witham, the old taste did not entirely expire
either at court or in private households. Anthony à Wood mentions Dr.
John Donne, son of the celebrated Donne, as “an atheistical buffoon, a
banterer, and a person of over-free thought; yet valued by Charles the
Second.” The court of this monarch assuredly little resembled that of
his contemporary sovereign, the King of Siam, touching which, Captain
Erwin told Pepys (17th August, 1666), “how the King of Syam seldom goes
out without thirty or forty thousand people with him, and not a word
spoke, nor a hum or a cough in the whole company to be heard.” In other
respects, the difference does not seem to have been remarkable, for the
Captain was assured by a native interpreter, that “our (the Siamese)
King do not live by meat or drink, but by having great lies told him.”
The reign of James II. is barren, as far as it is in connection with
the subject I pursue; and it is tolerably certain that throughout the
reign of William III., the only official court fool in England was the
one who came over in the suite of the Czar Peter. His presence marked
the distinction then existing between a civilized and intellectual, and
an uncivilized and ignorant court.

I must not omit, however, to relate an incident of this reign in
connection with the subject of the license of the fool. If the
latter official was not to be found at court, his representatives
still lingered in the fairs, and exercised a privilege which the
Royal authority, nevertheless, was not slow to oppose. In 1693, the
magnificent Smyrna fleet set sail from our shores, under convoy of
a squadron of English and Dutch men-of-war, at the head of which
were Killigrew, Delaval, and Rooke. The first two abandoned the last
admiral; and Rooke, left to encounter the whole maritime force of
France in the Bay of Lagos, suffered severe loss, and the rich Smyrna
fleet (with some exceptions) was scattered, sunk, burnt, or otherwise
destroyed. This catastrophe, the return of the first two admirals
to Torbay, and the disaster to “the Turkey fleet,” excited mingled
indignation and grief. As the fool of the French King Philip made use
of the defeat of the French fleet by the navy of Edward, whereon to
exercise his wit and rouse the patriotic anger of his master, so now
the fools and merry-andrews congregated at Bartholomew fair, in the
vicinity of the edifice where Rahere the jester had founded a Priory
in honour of the Apostle, made use of the public dishonour and loss,
in order to keep alive the popular execration against those wretched
and incapable ministers, to whose incapacity and indifference might
be traced the fearful loss of life, property, and good name incurred
by England on the fatal day in question. On Saturday, September 2,
1693, Narcissus Luttrell writes, in his Diary:--“A merry-andrew in
Bartholomew fair is committed for telling the mobb news that our fleet
was come into Torbay, being forced in by some French privateers; and
other words reflecting on the conduct of great Ministers of State.”
Lord Macaulay founds, on a paragraph in L’Hermitage of the same date,
a very graphic description of this attempt of the fool at fairs, to
wag his tongue as boldly as his predecessors used to do at court. Of
all the shows at this period, says the historian, “none proved so
attractive as a dramatic performance which, in conception, though
doubtless not in execution, seems to have borne much resemblance to
those immortal master-pieces of humour, in which Aristophanes held up
Cleon and Lamachus to derision. Two strollers personated Killigrew
and Delaval. The admirals were represented as flying with their whole
fleet before a few French privateers, and taking shelter under the guns
of the Tower. The office of Chorus was performed by a Jack Pudding,
who expressed very freely his opinion of the naval administration.
Immense crowds flocked to see this strange farce. The applauses were
loud; the receipts were great; and the mountebanks, who had at first
ventured to attack only the unlucky and unpopular Board of Admiralty,
now emboldened by impunity and success, and probably prompted and
rewarded by persons of much higher station than their own, began to
cast reflections on other departments of the Government. This attempt
to revive the license of the Attic stage was soon brought to a close
by the appearance of a strong body of constables, who carried off the
actors to prison.”

Thus was suppressed an attempt, less to revive than to continue the
license of the jester. Government had become less tolerant in this
respect than Kings had been to their own fools. A dozen years before,
an essay to joke down the administrative foibles of the day, by a
pamphleteering jester, “Heraclitus Ridens,” was very summarily and
stringently punished. Bartholomew fair, however, struggled hard to
maintain its supposed privileges. It is very possible that if persons
of high station employed the merry-andrews of 1693, to spout their
fun against elevated Ministers of State, that they were also present
to hear how their agents acquitted themselves of the office. Nothing
was more common than the presence of the nobility at the Saturnalia in
Smithfield, except the presence of the “mobile,” with whom the former
frequently came in sanguinary contact. In September, 1690, Luttrell
writes:--“The first instant was a great disorder at Bartholomew fair,
where the mobile got ahead, and quarrelled with some gentlemen,
upon which, swords were drawn, where some were wounded, and one or
two killed.” Even as late as the reign of George II., the fair was
patronized by an august presence. Frederick, Prince of Wales, used to
go there by night, attended by a merry suit of courtiers of either sex.
The theatres were then closed, and “their Majesties’ servants” played
in booths. Princes now went to see the “drolls;” whereas, in former
times the clowns waited on the princes.

Before this last period, Queen Anne may be said to have had some
of the old leaven in her; for she made a Knight of William Read, a
mountebank. Her Majesty, also, offered to knight Beau Nash, a buffoon
too, according to the fashion of the times; but the Beau had declined
the honour at the hands of the great Nassau, and he would not take it
from Anne. His reply was in the bad court-jester style: “I will have
none of it, most gracious Madam,” said Nash, as if he were refusing to
grant a favour; “but there is Sir William Read, the mountebank, whom
your Majesty has knighted,--I shall be very happy to call him Brother.”
At which fool’s sally, “the solemn Anna smiled.”

But if the official fool had gone out, foolish officers still exercised
a silly vocation at court. Perhaps the most silly of these was the
King’s cock-crower, who was still loud and lusty, at the opening of
the Georgian era. This personage crowed at each hour of the night.
On the first Ash-Wednesday which occurred after the accession of the
Hanoverian family, the Prince of Wales (subsequently George II.) supped
at court. Just as ten o’clock struck, his Majesty’s cock-crower, who
happened to be behind the Prince, set up such a chanticleering, that
the Prince started up in indignation at what he deemed a fool’s insult.
The courtiers had some difficulty in assuring him that the crowing and
crower formed part of the ordinary court etiquette. The Prince would
not tolerate such a nuisance, and another fool’s office was annihilated
when he came to the throne.

There were still some wits, however, in whom the popular voice hailed
an arch-jester. I may notice one, whose very grave is likely soon to
be forgotten. In the old cemetery (belonging to St. Clement’s Danes),
in Portugal-street, Lincoln’s Inn Fields, in a grave, the head-stone
of which was during many summers, until recently, regularly embowered
and concealed by sun-flowers, lie the remains of the witty jester,
Joe Miller. There they have been since 1738. The year following,
John Mottley, the author of ‘Peter the Great,’ published a collection
of jests as honest Joe’s, but they were really a collection of
witty things which in his time he had either heard or read, and to
which Mottley appended Miller’s name. The latter died at the age of
fifty-four, the exact age at which departed so recently from among us,
he who held the “consulship of wit,” in England,--Douglas Jerrold. That
Miller was “facetious,” we learn from the inscription above his grave;
that he was witty also, his jest not merely turning on a pun, but on
a chain of ideas, the following will testify. He was once sitting in
the parlour of the Sun Tavern, in Clare-street, or the Black Jack, in
Portsmouth-street, his favourite houses, when a fishwoman passed by,
crying “Buy my soles! buy my maids!”--“Ah, you wicked old creature!”
said Joe to her, “are you not contented to sell your own soul, but you
must sell your maid’s too?”

In the reigns of George II. and his successor, among the men who seem
to have united with other offices, something like the vocation of court
fool, was the son of a Carlisle apothecary, named Bubb, who succeeded
to the estates and adopted the name of his uncle, Doddington; and
who is better known by their conjoined names, than by his subsequent
title of Lord Melcombe. A disappointment in obtaining a peerage, took
him from the ranks of Sir Robert Walpole and George II., to those of
Frederick, Prince of Wales. In the household of the Prince, Bubb,
who lacked neither good qualities nor ability, descended to play the
fool. Horace Walpole tells us that “he submitted to the Prince’s
childish horse-play, being once rolled up in a blanket and trundled
down stairs.” He changed sides more than once; lent and lost money to
the Prince; was laughed at, to his very face, by the King; slept in a
bed canopied with peacocks’ feathers; and kept fools, “a tame booby or
two,” of his own. These were Wyndham, his heir; Sir William Bruton,
keeper of George II.’s privy purse; and Dr. Thompson--“a misanthrope,
a courtier, and a quack,” as Cumberland names them. Thompson appears
to have been the most ignoble of the “monks” who sojourned at “La
Trappe,”--so Doddington called his company and mansion at Hammersmith.
Thompson was ostensibly his medical adviser; but he practised his
profession like a fool, and was treated by his patron as patrons
were wont to treat fools of more audacity than wit. On one occasion,
the Doctor observed Doddington, at breakfast, about to help himself
to muffins. He denounced them as indigestible, and loudly bade the
servant, “Take away those muffins!” “No, no!” said Doddington, pointing
to the Doctor, “take away that ragamuffin!” In this way were “tame
boobies” treated by their patrons, who, themselves, were princes’ fools.

At an earlier period, that, namely, of Louis XIV., we find instances
of noble persons assembling in their houses people of a very inferior
rank, for the purpose of drawing from them something more than
amusement. The Duchess de la Ferté was one of these. This exalted
personage was in the habit of inviting all her tradespeople to her
house. She entertained herself with their peculiarities at table, and
then set them down to play with her at lansquenet, or some similar
game. Madame de Staël, who tells the story in her Memoirs, adds, “The
Duchess would sometimes whisper to me, ‘I am cheating the fellows, but
Lord! serve them right! Don’t I know how they rob me daily?’” So that
the Duchess made her fools pay their expenses, and her own.

In the reign of George III., although the fool did not exist as a
professional man, we have an instance of a professional man enacting
the fool, with good intent and profitable purpose. The person alluded
to is the learned and laughter-loving Dr. William Battie, who was a
well-reputed London physician in portions of the reigns of George II.
and his successor. He was celebrated for his treatment of the insane;
and is thus described in the ‘_Battiad_,’ a poem of which he was the
hero.

   “First Battas came, deep read in worldly art,
    Whose tongue ne’er knew the secrets of his heart.
    In mischief mighty, though but mean of size,
    And, like the Tempter, ever in disguise.
    See him with aspect grave and gentle tread,
    By slow degrees approach the sickly bed;
    Then, at his club, behold him alter’d soon,
    The solemn doctor turns a low buffoon.”

But Battie could play the fool, even to better purpose by the sick
bed, than the buffoon at his club. It is told of him that he had a
young male patient whom obstinate quinsy threatened with almost instant
suffocation. Battie had tried every remedy but his foolery, and at last
he had recourse to _that_. Setting his wig wrong side before, twisting
his face into a compound comic expression, and darting his head
suddenly within the curtains, he cut such antics, poured forth such
delicious folly, and was altogether so irresistible, that his patient,
after gazing at him for a moment in stupefaction, burst into a fit of
laughter which broke the imposthume, and rescued the sufferer from
impending death.

The above, however, is only a sample of how a professional man could
apply folly to a wise end. We have something more resembling the
professional fool or dwarf, in the case of a retainer of the Duke of
Ancaster who died in 1779. Walpole mentions him in a letter to Lady
Ossory. “I hear the Duke of Ancaster has left a legacy to a very small
man that was always his companion, and whom, when he was drunk, he used
to fling at the heads of the company, as others fling a bottle.”

Although, professionally, the vocation had gone, it is still worth
observing, that other patent places which had originated in feudal
times, had not gone with that of the jester. “If my memory does not
deceive me,” says Burke in his speech on the royal household, in
1780, “a person of no slight consideration held the office of patent
hereditary cook to an Earl of Warwick.” The orator rightly conjectured
that the Earl’s soups “were not the better for the dignity of his
kitchen;” and he adds his belief that “an Earl of Gloucester officiated
as steward of the household to the Archbishops of Canterbury.” The
orator found a curious relic of those old times when these practices
were common, in the household of George III. He did not meet with any
witty fellow there patented as fool, but he discovered something akin
to it; namely, that the turnspit in the King’s kitchen was a Member of
Parliament!

The annals of succeeding reigns bear the names of several courtiers
whose office it was to amuse and gratify their Royal patron. How
George III. himself could play the court jester with effect, I will
tell in a chapter devoted to sovereigns who occasionally were their
own fools. How Colonel Haager and others of more recent periods have
played first cousins to the more ancient jokers, it is unnecessary here
to enumerate. I will rather conclude my long, and I fear imperfect,
chapter, by showing also the conclusion of the actual line of hired
fools in noble English households. It is not so very long since the
last of this class died and left no successor. Mr. Douce, in his
pleasant Essay on clowns and fools, gives the names of the last of
them who practised professionally in this country. The household
fool survived the court fool; and after Muckle John closed the line
of the latter, there was still bread to be earned by the profession
of the former. According to Mr. Douce, the favourite Lord Chancellor
of George I., the eminent Lord Talbot, kept a fool, probably at his
country-house, if at all. Mr. Douce tells us that his name was Rees
Pengelding, and that he was a shrewd fellow who rented a farm under his
patron. It happened that Rees was a little backward with his rent, and
he was harshly menaced by the steward, who wound up his objurgations
by exclaiming, “I’ll fit you! I’ll fit you!” Now it happened that the
steward, in his earlier days, had been a tailor, the remembrance of
which caused Rees to call out in return, “Fit me! will you? Well, it
will be the first time in your life you ever did such a thing!”

I feel bound to add, that Lord Campbell, in his life of Chancellor
Talbot, makes no mention of this fool, Pengelding. May not the latter
have been simply favoured, because of the sharpness of his wit? It is
difficult to conceive that the profound scholar in Roman civil law;
the friend and equal of Philip Yorke, the enlightened statesman; the
only Chancellor who had ever sat on the Woolsack without making an
accuser, a detractor, or an enemy; a man, in short, in whom was “joined
the utmost freedom of dispute with the highest good breeding, and the
vivacity of mirth with primitive simplicity of manners,”--it would be
difficult to conceive that such a man, the friend of Butler the divine,
and patron of Thompson, could take delight in a mere household fool,
were we not reminded that even more intellectual Chancellors than he,
in earlier, but not in less refined days, could find relaxation in
listening to the professional joker. In connection with my subject, I
shall be excused if I notice that when Talbot was appointed Chancellor,
a grand “Revel” was given in his honour by the Inner Temple (1734), and
that this was the last festivity of the sort at which royalty attended
at an Inn of Court. There has been a royal entertainment in our own
days, at Lincoln’s Inn, but Talbot’s “Revel” was the last of its class.

Mr. Douce also names a certain Robin Rush as being fool, in the last
century, to Lord Bussy Mansel; and Mr. Douce adds, that in 1807 there
were people living who remembered him. Sir Edward Stradling, of St.
Dorret’s Castle, Glamorganshire, was another of the lords of land who
kept a fool in his house at the same period;--a fool of sharp and
ready wit. We have still more satisfactory proof of the existence of
a household fool in the last century, in the person of Dicky Pearce,
“fool to Lord Suffolk,” for which fool, being dead, Dean Swift did
what Ronsard failed to do for a more witty jester at the court of
France,--namely, write his epitaph. Dicky Pearce lies in Berkeley
churchyard, Gloucestershire, and these are the lines the Dean has
placed above his grave:--

   “Here lies the Earl of Suffolk’s fool,
      Men called him Dicky Pearce;
    His folly served to make folks laugh.
      When wit and mirth were scarce.

   “Poor Dick, alas! is dead and gone;
      What signifies to cry?
    Dickeys enough are still behind
      To laugh at by and by.”

The last recorded instance of a domestic fool being kept in an English
family, is that of the jester retained at Hilton Castle, Durham, by
John Hilton, the descendant of the old barons of that name, who died
1746. Surtees, in his ‘History of Durham,’ notices this fact, and adds
one touch of the wit of this anonymous fool, who seems to have borrowed
a traditionary joke of his great predecessor, Archie Armstrong. His
master, we are told, on one occasion of his returning to his northern
seat from London, left his carriage at the ferry near the castle, and
proceeded towards that building over a foot-bridge, at the end of
which the fool was awaiting his patron. The latter was attired in a
gaily gold-embroidered dress, according to the fashion of the times,
and made in the south, by a fashionable tailor. The fool gazed on
his master with mingled astonishment and vexation, and, in place of
greeting his return with a welcome, boldly looked him in the face, and
inquired, “Who’s the fool now?” This is the last recorded joke of the
last recorded jester; and the long line could not have gone out with
a milder, though it might have done so with a less impertinent, jest.
Hilton’s fool may, I think, fairly rank as the _ultimus stultorum_ (he
was remembered by aged Cumberland people, as late as 1812), though in
point of fact the honour may be disputed by the nameless individual who
figured, though it was only for the nonce, at the Eglinton tournament,
in 1839, where knights tilted in spectacles, and the spectators looked
on at the solemn fun, under rain and from beneath umbrellas.

Thus the fool went out in a rather gorgeous fashion. There was a grand
tableau as the curtain descended which had been up in England for so
many centuries. I am bound to add that the Eglinton fool may find a
rival as to the honour of closing the merry line, in Shemus Anderson,
the fool of Murthley Castle, Perthshire, who died in the year 1833. He
had grown tolerably rich in his vocation; had suffered losses, like
Dogberry; but left behind him some comfortable hundreds of pounds to
his heirs. Shemus, however, never wore the cap and bells, or nursed
the bauble, or whirled the bladder and peas, or shook the clappers, or
carried motley. He was a fool in undress; but in respect of fulness of
character and costume, of circus jokes, and all the accessories of the
part, excepting its indecencies, the Eglinton fool was the last of the
race. He flickered up for a moment, as did the padded knights and the
Queen of Beauty, to afford some idea to the times present of the aspect
of the times past, as far as the latter could be exhibited in one of
its gorgeous follies. The blaze of splendour was great, and the fool’s
fire of conundrums burnt bravely, but the rain extinguished it all; the
umbrellas gave an air of ridicule to the scene; the thing was felt to
be, after all, only a splendid sham; and accordingly the fool and the
pseudo-feudal lords and ladies disappeared for ever. All that remains
of the old reality are rags and shreds and fragments in the mansions of
our nobles and gentles. At Glamis Castle a motley jacket still hangs,
or did recently hang, on a peg in the wall, and at Stourhead is still
preserved a jester’s baldric, which may be devoutly kissed as a relic
by the worshippers of Folly.

Some resemblance may be certainly traced between the conditions of the
English court fool and the ancient parasite, and between the English
household fool and the old Roman slave. With all, there was laughter
excited by liberty of speech, which must have occasionally fallen like
refreshing dew upon the ear of despot or noble, unaccustomed to listen
to aught from others save his own exceeding glorification. The despot
still retained the power of punishing the fool; and in this particular,
the household jester, who was often a menial servant, the drudge of the
family, very closely resembled the Roman slave, with whom his master
would graciously exchange jokes one day, and whom he would scourge
the next. The two, capricious master and servile yet audacious wit,
agreed very well with despotism, and coarse times and manners; but with
liberty and refinement, both expired, or underwent such modifications,
or took such new forms, as to be no longer recognizable. The fool was
for a season, but eccentricity of character, which was his great merit,
naturally survived him.

It has been objected to many of the ancient traits of court jesters,
that they were inventions of writers of fiction, and that they only
illustrated a rude state of society. Thus, the incident of Scogan
chalking the path to be taken by his wife to church, has been
pronounced too farcical to be true. But the degree of humour which
moved King Edward’s jester to this act, has influenced many persons of
later and more refined times than those in which Scogan uttered very
questionable jokes for the amusement of his royal and princely patrons.
We all know how Lord Hardwicke, when he was an attorney’s clerk, and
was ordered by his mistress to purchase a cauliflower, executed this
commission, but sent the vegetable home in a sedan-chair at the lady’s
cost. An instance more striking and closer to the point, is given us
in the person of the wealthy Margaret Wharton, whom Foote introduced
in one of his pieces, as “Peg Pennyworth,” a name which the lady
had acquired when a visitor at Scarborough, by sending every night
for a pennyworth of strawberries and cream, for her supper. In this
dramatic piece, Mrs. Wharton afforded mirth to princes, courtiers,
and citizens, with whom the farce was a great favourite. Ord, in his
‘History of Cleveland,’ narrates several anecdotes of her humour, of
which I select one that may contrast with that of Scogan. “In one of
her visits to Scarborough,” we are told, “she, with her usual economy,
had a family pie for dinner, which she directed the footman to convey
to the bakehouse. This he declined, as not belonging to his place, or
rather derogatory to his consequence. She then moved the question to
the coachman, but found a still stronger objection. To save the pride
of both, she resolved to take it herself, and ordered one to harness,
and bring out the carriage, and the other to mount behind, and they
took the pie, with all honour and ceremony, to the bakehouse. When
baked, coachee was ordered to put to a second time, and the footman to
mount behind; and the pie returned in the same dignified state. ‘Now,’
says she to the coachman, ‘you have kept your place, which is to drive;
and yours,’ to the footman, ‘which is to wait; and I mine, which was
to have my pie for dinner.’” It was just this sort of eccentricity of
character which gave value to the old counterfeit fools, as we shall
see further in subsequent pages.

Meanwhile I take leave of the English portion of my subject with the
comment of Stillingfleet, who says:--

   “Leave to low buffoons by custom bred,
    And form’d by nature to be kicked and fed,
    The vulgar and unenvied task to hit
    All persons, right or wrong, with random wit.
    Our wise forefathers, born in sober days,
    Resigned to fools the tart and witty phrase;
    The motley coat gave warning for the jest,
    Excused the wound and sanctified the pest.
    But we from high to low all strive to sneer,
    Will all be wits, and not the livery wear.”

If my readers have but patience to go forward, they will soon find
themselves in company with the _Fous du Roi_, at the Court of France,
where, for a long period, it was not possible for a fool to appear
_without_ his livery; but to which now the following lines are not less
applicable than they are to other localities:--

   “Why, pray, of late do Europe’s kings
    No jester in their courts admit?
    They’ve grown such stately solemn things;
    To bear a joke, they think not fit.
    But though each court a jester lacks,
    To laugh at monarchs to their face,
    All mankind do behind their backs,
    Supply the honest jester’s place.”




THE COURT FOOLS OF FRANCE.


Under the word _Ministrelli_, a term said to belong to “Monk’s Latin,”
were anciently comprehended in France, not merely Minstrels, but
Buffoons, Mimes, and Jesters generally. They are called in common
parlance, says Du Fresne, in his Glossary, “Menestreux or Menestriers,”
because they belong to the lower order of officers at court--“quod
minoribus aulæ ministris accenserentur.” The same author shows the
early identity of the minstrel with the jester, by quoting an ordinance
regulating the arrangement of a fishermen’s religious festival held
in early times at Toulouse; and which is to this effect. “Also, the
fishermen shall be assembled, who ought to be present in the procession
on that day with the _ministri_ or _joculatores_; because the aforesaid
fishermen are bound to have, on this special occasion, _ministri_ or
_joculatores_, in honour of the cross.... And they should lead the
procession, with the _ministri_ or _joculatores_ beating the drum,
as far as the church of St. Stephen.” From _joculator_, the French
obtain their word _jongleur_, and through the latter we have our own
term _juggler_. The monks made little distinction between different
orders of minstrels, who were usually described by them as minstrels,
or jesters; signifying that the officials designated under those
names were one and the same. There is little doubt, at all events,
of the French jester having ultimately sprung from the profession of
the minstrel, when the latter was in its decline. It is perplexing,
however, to find that although the minstrel or joculator is continually
represented as being something of a musician, yet that Du Fresne,
who frequently so describes him, also quotes a law of 1381, wherein
we read that this worthy was altogether forbidden from playing on
either a stringed or wind instrument: “Nullus ministreys seu jogulator
audeat pinsare vel sonare instrumentum cujuscunque generis.” The law
was evidently not of universal application, as may be gathered from
Aimonius, who, when treating of the miracles of St. Benedict, shows us
a buffoon, both singing and playing, in his vocation of bard. His words
are: “Tanta vero illis securitas, ut scurram se præcedere facerent, qui
musico instrumento res fortiter gestas et priorum bella præcineret,
quatenus his acrius incitarentur.”

Enough, however, has been previously said on this subject; I will
therefore turn from it, to that of the costume of the French “fou.”
Most of the French writers on the subject of court jesters, maintain
that the colours of the native fool were, almost invariably, yellow and
green, striped. Many scores of pages have been written to show that
these colours were selected, because they were in little estimation
by modish people; yellow being generally worn by executioners, or
by criminals, and green signifying jealousy and various other bad
qualities. All this may be ingenious, but it is purely imaginary; for
we find French court buffoons glittering in scarlet and gold, as well
as green and yellow, and sometimes dressed in suits in which were to be
counted the seven hues of Iris herself.

One especial circumstance is remarkable in our neighbours’ fools;
namely, their consumption or waste of shoe-leather. In 1404, I meet,
in the _Collection de la Chambre des Comptes_, with an entry of
forty-seven pairs of shoes to Hancelin Coc, fool of Charles VI., and
of seven pairs for the fool’s “varlet,” showing that Sir Witless was
sometimes thought sufficiently noble or gentle to be worthy of a man to
attend upon him; and yet Hancelin was dressed in a suit of _iraigne_,
a material of which I can find no explanation in any French author, but
which is described as of a reddish brown, and which was also used “pour
garnir la chaière nécessaire pour servir au retrait du dit seigneur, le
roy Charles VI.”

Thus the French fools were not always attired in green and yellow, and
an additional proof is to be found in the fact, that on the occasion
of the marriage, at Abbeville, of Louis XII., with Mary, the sister of
Henry VIII. (subsequently wife of Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk),
among the personages, allegorical or otherwise, that were made to
take part in the rejoicings, was to be seen the figure of Triboulet,
the King’s fool, in a serge dress of red and yellow stripes. In a
succeeding page referring to this jester, another proof will be found
that green and yellow were not the exclusively official colours worn by
the jesters at the court of France.

It is not easy,--I should rather say, it is impossible, to define with
any certainty the period at which the “Plaisans,” as our merry friends
are sometimes called, first held official rank, and were entitled
to assume the appellation of _Fou_ by right of legal appointment to
the office. Flögel simply states, “the custom was so general, that
historians expressed some surprise when they had to speak of a French
court without an official fool in it.” Two such examples we have in
Philip Augustus and Charles VII., neither of whom had any relish for
the antics and humour of the green-and-yellow-striped mirth makers.

The earliest example of a French court fool, given by Dr. Rigollet, is
in the reign of Hugh Capet; but Flögel goes back a full century, and
about the year 894 finds one, named Jean, at the court of Charles the
Simple. This good fellow’s influence was so great, that Charles once
remarked to him, he thought they had better change places. As Jean did
not look well pleased at the proposal, Charles asked him if he were
not content at the idea of being a king. “Oh, content enough,” was the
reply; “but I should be exceedingly ashamed at having such a fool.”
It was this fool who once tried his master’s nerves, by rushing into
his room one morning, with the exclamation, “Oh, Sire, such news! four
thousand men have risen in the city.” “What!” cried the startled King;
“with what intention have they risen?” “Well,” said Jean, placing his
finger on his nose, “probably with the intention of lying down again at
bedtime.”

It is possible that this fool, like his master, was rather German than
French; and we commence quite early enough with the latter, when we
begin from the period of the father of Hugh Capet, whose fool comes
before us in a very solemn and melodramatic way. The celebrated Duke,
in 943, went on an expedition against the Normans, and among his
followers, says the ever lively Ordericus Vitalis, was his buffoon,
_mimus_, or _joculator_, as he is called by the chronicler. One day,
at the Duke’s table, the conversation fell on some holy personages who
had died in the odour of sanctity. The _joculator_, being a fool, was a
freethinker; and he dealt so rudely and sarcastically with these dead
and sanctified individuals, in his ribald remarks, that the avenging
justice of Heaven was aroused, and, says the smart Norman historian, a
violent storm bursting forth from the skies, the lightnings flashed,
and a thunderbolt, tearing down from the clouds, dashed through the
roof, and at one stroke annihilated the jester and all who had moved
him to asperse the Saints, or who had joined in the laugh he had raised
against them.

Taking the _Mimus_ to be a species of court fool who sang to the
accompaniment of some instrument, when required, then Louis VIII. had
such an official at court, though whether this _mimus_ held his post
by patent or not, is not mentioned by Nicholas de Braia, who notices
the fact itself. This chronicler describes a grand banquet given by
the King, shortly after his coronation, and which must have been a very
jovial affair. “While they warm their hearts with the genial gift of
Bacchus,” says the poet historian, “and care is swept away from the
brow of the Prince by draughts of various wines, a mime celebrated for
his skill on the harp, rises, and smiting his instrument, sings the
praises of the King.” These praises were very highly strung indeed;
and we only need to be told that censure, if necessary, or sarcasm, if
opportunity allowed, was scattered amid the laudation, to be assured
that the _mimus_ here spoken of was really something of the official
fool also.

Although examples constantly present themselves of the unlicensed
liberty which the French _plaisants_ took with their masters, instances
are not wanting of their delicacy or timidity. For instance, when the
fleet of Philip was captured or destroyed by that of Edward III.,
there was no one at court bold enough to communicate tidings of the
disaster to the King, except a court fool, whose name has not, however,
been mentioned by any historian. Going into the royal chamber, the
_fou_ began muttering, “Those cowardly Englishmen! The chicken-hearted
Britons!” “How so, Cousin?” asked Philip. “How so? Why, because they
have not courage enough to jump into the sea, like your French sailors,
who went headlong over from their ships, leaving those to the enemy
who did not care to follow them!” And thus the King learned, by a most
unpleasant method, the humiliation that had come upon him as well as
defeat. The sarcasm must have fallen as painfully on the King’s ear as
the assertion of the _Journal des Débats_ on the ear of all England,
with respect to those Indian calamities which included the massacre of
our women and children, namely, that France looked upon it all, “with
curiosity and satisfaction!”

Saintfoix, in his History of Paris, and indeed many other authors
conclude, because Charles V. of France announced to the authorities
at Troyes in Champagne, that his fool was dead, and requested them to
provide him with another, that the town in question monopolized the
provision of this article for the court; but Dr. Rigollet, author of
‘Les Monnaies des Évêques,’ etc., quotes an autograph letter of the
same King, dated February 1364, in which Charles orders the cashier of
his treasury to disburse 200 francs, “to fetch hither a fool for us who
is now in the Bourbonnois.” If this be not conclusive, the fact that
the royal jesters came from parts of France where the municipality of
Troyes could have had neither authority nor influence, would seem to
be more so. Though, after all, the Champagne magistrates _may_ have
procured the jesters where they knew a superior specimen was to be
found, without regard to locality.

Once engaged, the poor slave--for he was little else--could not sleep
out of the palace, unpermitted, without danger of a whipping when he
returned. Neither could he lay aside his dress, without sanction of his
master; and even then, were he to clap a sword on his thigh, and so try
to pass abroad for a gentleman, and this offence came to the ears of
the “King of the Ribalds,” the provost-marshal of the King’s household,
the fool might reckon on being scourged till the blood ran down to his
heels. Further, it does not appear that the fool could at will divest
himself of his office. He was bound to serve, and it was only the royal
word that could set him free from his bonds.

In one or two instances the monarch exhibited some attachment to his
_fou_, by honouring his memory after death. The King Charles V. buried
two of his jesters beneath sumptuous monuments. This King, too, was
called “the Wise.” One _plaisant_ thus honoured was interred in the
church of St. Germain l’Auxerrois, but I can find no account of his
tomb in any description of the church to which I have had access. The
second was a _fou_ of some condition apparently, for he bore a noble
name, and that is not the case with any _fou à titre d’office_ that
I have yet heard of. The one in question was Thevenin de St. Ligier,
whose body was deposited in the church of St. Maurice de Senlis. The
tomb is described as being of stone, ten feet by five, on which lies a
figure of a man in a long robe, whose head and feet are of alabaster.
He wears the fool’s hood, and other insignia of his office, among
which is the long wand, which he grasps in his hand. The scroll of the
tomb is composed of very small figures elaborately carved, and the
inscription tells the reader that “Here lies Thevenin de Saint-Ligier,
_fou_ of the King our Lord, who deceased on the 11th of July, in the
year of Grace 1374. Pray God for his soul.”

We see the _fou_ hardly less honoured when, instead of being splendidly
interred by his master, he follows the body of his patron to the
tomb, amid the esteemed friends and followers especially selected to
fittingly grace the solemn occasion. This was the case in 1416, at
the obsequies of John, Duke de Berri. The funeral of that prince was
a very stately affair; and not the least sincere mourner who was near
the coffin, was the Duke’s favourite _plaisant_, who was attired in
a full suit of sables, and bore himself with as much dignity as any
noble there present. If my readers choose to accompany me any further,
they will find German _narrs_ making a mockery of woe, but no samples
of their honouring departed worth, as may be found among the _fous_ of
France.

It was not every _fou_ who was a _plaisant_ to his master. Louis XI.
must have discovered as much after taking into his service the jester
of his deceased brother, Charles, Duke de Guyenne. The Duke and his
mistress, “the lady of Monsoreau,” in the month of May 1472, being
at dessert, divided between them a peach, presented to them by the
kind Abbot of Saint-Jean d’Angeli. The lady and her lord _par amour_,
speedily died, and their _fou_ passed into the service of the King.
Some time after, Louis XI., then praying in his oratory, his fool
standing by, held a little discourse and bargaining, as was his wont,
with Our Lady of Clery. The staple of the royal discourse with the
Virgin, was to this effect, that he and she being on the most friendly
terms, mutually patronizing each other, she of course would arrange
with Heaven that the King should not suffer for the murder of his
brother; but that the Divine vengeance might very appropriately fall
on the Abbot of Saint-Jean d’Angeli, whom Louis had employed to commit
the deed, and who, as the monarch assured the Virgin, was a very sorry
rascal indeed, fit for nothing better than everlasting perdition. “Just
arrange this little matter for me, as I would have it,” said the King,
“and I have in my eye some very pretty presents that I will offer
at your altar.” According to Brantôme, this pleasant confession and
proposed arrangement were overheard by the _fou_, whom Louis looked
upon as an amusing imbecile without discretion. But the _plaisant_
loved his old master; and he must have as bitterly hated as he little
feared his new patron, if it be true that he accused him of the crime
before an august company at a grand banquet. The fool was probably
soon disposed of, but when the great Duke of Burgundy laid fratricide
to the charge of Louis, the latter met the charge manfully. He shut
up the Abbot of Saint-Jean d’Angeli in a dungeon, and appointed two
commissioners to examine into the accusation. Shortly after, the Abbot
was found strangled in prison, some said, by himself; others declared,
by the devil; while some thought of the King, and said nothing,--which
was what Louis himself did. The examination having proceeded thus far,
the King rewarded the two commissioners. He made Louis d’Amboise,
Bishop of Albi; and to Pierre de Sacierges he gave a sinecure post of
great value. Therewith the examination was at an end, and Louis, at his
next _tête-à-tête_ with the Holy Virgin of Clery, probably talked like
a man who had been wronged by false suspicion, and had come cleverly,
if not triumphantly, out of a trying ordeal.

Having mentioned the great Duke of Burgundy, I may here appropriately
add a word or two of the famous “Le Glorieux,” the French jester to
Charles the Bold. Le Glorieux was a facetious fellow, and as fearless
as facetious. His master, Duke Charles, used to compare himself with
Hannibal. After the overthrow at Granson, Duke and fool were galloping
in search of safety, with many others. The Duke was in gloomy wrath, Le
Glorieux was full of wicked gaiety. “Uncle,” cried he to Charles, “this
is the prettiest way of being like Hannibal that I ever saw.”

So again, subsequently to the defeat sustained by the Duke before
Beauvais, Charles was conducting some ambassadors over his arsenal. In
one of the rooms the host remarked, “This chamber contains the keys of
all the cities in France.” At these words, Le Glorieux began fumbling
in his pockets, and looking about the room with an air of anxiety.
“Now, ass,” cried the Duke, “what are you searching for so anxiously?”
“I am looking,” answered Le Glorieux, with a significant smile,--“I am
looking for the keys of Beauvais.”

A lost battle would seem, indeed, to have always heightened the spirits
of the licensed fool. We have another instance in the case of the
jester of the Marquis del Guasto, a general in the service of Charles
V. While his captors were hauling over his baggage, after the day of
Cerizoles, his fool exclaimed, “Ay, ay, you will find all sorts of
valuable things there, except spurs, of which truly my master has
plenty, but he keeps them all to enable him to get quicker out of the
fray.”

“_Poeta regius_,” to quote the very words of Ménage (in the third
volume, p. 183, of the ‘Ana,’) “en bon François signifie ‘Le Fou du
Roi.’” Otherwise, King’s poet, as royal poet laureate, signifies in
good English, as I may here put it, ‘King’s Fool.’ For this reason
Ménage is inclined to reckon Andrelini, who was the “crowned poet”
of Louis XII. and Anne of Brittany, among the “fous du Roi;” and he
refers us to Bayle upon that subject. The latter, however, does not
bring Andrelini (who styled himself _poeta regius et regineus_) nearer
to the cap and bells than by showing that he poured forth verses in
astonishing abundance, and was paid for them by the hundred. He appears
also to have enjoyed somewhat of the license and privilege of the
jester, for he uttered bitter satires against the theologians at a time
when to attack them was to run the risk of death. And yet Andrelini
shot his bolts with impunity, partly because he reflected lustre on the
University of Paris. He was a jester, probably, only as John Heywood
was with us. He lived as loosely as any titled jester of them all, and
his lax rule of life is sufficiently indicated by Erasmus, in the words
(see the twentieth Letter in the 4th book of the Collected Letters of
Erasmus) addressed to Peter Barbirius, and which imply that the writer
could tell more if he would; that Peter knew a good deal about the
matter himself; that Andrelini was a loose fellow; and that his rule of
life was tolerably notorious. “Quam non casta erat illius professio!
Neque cuiquam obscurum erat qualis esset vita!”

We now come to some renowned names in the register of the _plaisants_.
The first of these is Triboulet. The individual known by this nickname
does not appear to have been in the service of Louis XII., as is
sometimes stated. Indeed, Du Tillot professes to be ignorant of
the names of any official fool in the court of that King or of his
predecessor, Charles VIII. But he has no doubt whatever of the official
presence of jesters at both courts. Such presence was a matter of
strict etiquette, and Du Tillot supposes that Anne of Brittany, the
wife of both the above-mentioned sovereigns, having introduced a very
serious tone at court, the wearers of motley only played a subordinate
part.

With Francis I., two of the most famous of Trench “plaisans” appear
on the stage, Caillette and Triboulet. These names were fictitious,
but they are the only appellations by which this merry pair, who hated
each other heartily, were known in their own time, or are known in
ours. History, too, has dealt confusedly with both jesters, confusing
their biographies, jokes, and adventures, and occasionally forgetting
that there were two Caillettes, father and son, of whom the latter was
appointed fool against his own inclination.

According to popular tradition, Caillette was to Triboulet, what the
simpleton in the _Auberge des Adrets_ was to Robert Macaire,--the
scapegoat for the other’s offences. He was, we are told, idiotic, or
pretended to be so; and when witty, it was more after the fashion of
a clown in a pantomime, than that of a happy low comedian, to which
Triboulet may sometimes be compared; though the latter occasionally
interfered with politics and spoke little brilliant things like a fine
gentleman in a comedy. Jean Marot, however, says of him, that he had as
much wit when he was thirty as when he was three years old. The court
pages, say the biographers, could do as they pleased with Caillette,
and on one occasion they nailed him by the ear to a beam. The poor fool
thought he was condemned to remain there for life. On being discovered
by some police authority, he was questioned; but he only replied that
he did not know who had fixed him there. The pages were confronted with
him, but each declared in turn, “I had nothing to do with it,” and each
time, Caillette added, “And I had nothing to do with it either.” The
alleged offence was, that the fool had cut off a page’s aiguillettes
and attached them to his person in the guise of a tail. A similar
story is told of Triboulet by the “Bibliophile Jacob” (Paul Lacroix)
in his ‘Deux Fous,’ to which volume I am indebted for many antiquarian
details touching the discipline of jesters at French courts, as well
as for various incidents in the lives both of Triboulet and his rival
Caillette.

Tradition, without bringing down to us any samples of the quality of
Caillette, was long inconsistent with itself, by diversely representing
this jester, now as a sorry, and at other times as a very brilliant,
practitioner of his craft. There can be little doubt of the existence
of a father and son of this name and office; and Paul Lacroix has
followed out this idea in his work, noticed above.

According to this writer, who, it is necessary to remember, mingles a
good deal of fiction with his antiquarian facts, the elder Caillette
was a very inferior wit to Triboulet, and hung himself out of vexation
at having been defeated by him at a match of cudgelling of brains. I do
not know how much of reality or how much of merely fanciful is included
in the following details; some portions may be less _vrai_ than
_vraisemblable_, and with this warning, I place before my readers an
outline of the younger Caillette, whose elaborate full-length has been
superbly painted by a master in the romance of history.

While the father was exercising his vocation at the court of France,
the son was sojourning in the château of the Count de St. Vallier,
as a friend rather than a dependant. As a youth, he had attracted
the attention of the famous Constable de Bourbon by his beauty and
intellect. The Constable could not believe him to be of the low origin
commonly assigned to him, and it was at Bourbon’s instigation that the
Count de St. Vallier took the boy into his household, and educated him
in company with the Count’s renowned daughter, Diane de Poictiers.
In such society the younger Caillette remained, happy, loved, and
light-hearted, till the period of the marriage of Diane with M. de
Brézé, Grand Seneschal of Normandy. From this time, his character
became changed. He lost his gaiety and his happy carelessness; studied
more, in order to forget his sorrows, among which the circumstance of
his father holding the office of fool to the King, was by no means the
least.

Francis I. was at Moulins, where he had held the son of the Constable
at the baptismal font, when he heard of the death of the elder
Caillette. This high festival, celebrated at Moulins, had attracted
a noble company, and among them was the Count de Saint-Vallier, with
the younger Caillette, then about nineteen, in attendance on him. The
death of the father, the fool, had more touched Francis than the demise
of any of his ministers could have done; and when he heard and saw
who was in attendance upon the Count de Saint-Vallier, he resolved to
perpetuate the name of the deceased by appointing his son to the vacant
office. The appointment was resisted by the noble patrons of the son,
and by the latter himself with the energy of despair. But all in vain.
The youth, who had looked forward to wield a sword, was compelled to
carry the fool’s bauble. He would have committed suicide, but for the
intervention of his confessor.

This jester against his will, is described as being of noble mien,
perfect in figure, graceful in manner, attractive and spiritual in
physiognomy, and singularly elegant in his expression. He charmed
the King by his admirable reading of poetry, by his happy facility
of improvising rhymes, and by his readiness to compose verses, which
Francis did not disdain sometimes to pass off as his own. This learned,
philosophical, classical, and noble fool, who possessed more natural
qualities than the King himself, was of course loved by many a great
lady at court; but _his_ homage was for one alone, and that _one_ was
Diane de Poictiers.

But here we assuredly get into romance; which continues to run in
this wise. The Count de Saint-Vallier was sentenced to death for
alleged complicity in the treason of the Constable against his country.
Caillette exerted himself with unexampled vigour to procure the release
of his old patron, for he had obtained from Diane a promise that she
would reward him for succeeding in the rescue of her father from a
terrible death, by kissing him in the presence of the whole court of
France. It was into that presence that he proudly brought, at last, the
pardon which his prayers, and still more his ingenuity, had wrested,
from the King; but at that moment poison was slaying him, and it was
only as the dying fool drew his last breath that Diane stooped to kiss
him, and thereby gave sweetness to bitter death. He died in a condition
of ecstasy.

“Holy St. Bagpipe!” exclaimed Triboulet, “pray for the defunct! I am
now first titled fool in the court of France.”

We may dismiss, as unfounded, the legends, and, as unsaid, the wit
touching Triboulet and his remarks on the folly of the Emperor Charles
V. trusting to the honour of Francis I. by passing through France,
and the greater folly of Francis in not taking advantage of the
circumstance to seize upon the Emperor. Triboulet was in his grave
before the last delicate affair was even negotiated (1538), and all the
smart sayings had been uttered previously, under similar circumstances,
by other jesters. Indeed, the best things attributed to Triboulet
are of questionable authority. Thus, we hear of his complaining to
Francis of a nobleman who had threatened to beat him to death for
some impertinent joke. “If he does,” said the King, “I will hang him
a quarter of an hour afterwards.” “Ah, Sire!” exclaimed the _fou_,
“couldn’t you contrive to hang him a quarter of an hour previously?”
Something like this story is told of at least half-a-dozen wearers of
motley.

There is another story told which certainly refers to Triboulet. He was
passing over a bridge in company with a courtier, who observed that the
bridge had no “garde-fou” or “parafool,” as the common term ran for
a _parapet_. “Surely,” remarked Triboulet to the observation, “the
people here did not expect that we two should cross it together.”

There is something more of a joke in this fou’s reply to another
courtier who saw Triboulet galloping or caracoling on a magnificent
horse when Francis made his public entry into Rouen. “You had better
go more quietly, Cousin,” said the courtier, “or you will suffer for
it.” “Alas, Sir,” replied the _plaisant_, “what can I do? I stick my
spurs into my horse’s flanks to keep him quiet; and the more I prick,
the more unruly I find the obstinate beast!” Such sayings as these
were only tricks of vocation. Triboulet did not lack common sense, nor
omit to use it for the benefit of those who appeared to have lacked
their own. This was the case when Francis gave a courier two thousand
crowns, as he mounted his horse, and proceeded on a mission to Rome;
which place he undertook to reach within a space of time in which no
human being could have accomplished the journey. “I will put you down
in my register, Sire, as a fool, for believing a man can do what is
impossible, and for paying him four times what were his due, even if
he could achieve what he undertakes to do.” “But, if he fails,” said
Francis, “he will restore me my money.” “Will he, by my bagpipes!”
exclaimed Triboulet; “then he will be a greater fool than yourself, and
so I shall have two to register instead of one.”

There is another _trait_ illustrative of Triboulet, which has,
nevertheless, been attributed, if I remember rightly, to the jester of
Leopold of Austria, when planning his invasion of Switzerland. Francis
I. summoned a council in 1525, to deliberate on the necessary measures
for the celebrated campaign which ended in the capture of the monarch
at Pavia. The counsellors did not spare their brains; and, at length
having duly and unanimously decided on the most feasible means for
successfully entering Italy, they broke up, and rose to separate.

“A moment, wise Sirs,” said Triboulet, as he lay, supported on his
elbow, at the feet of the King. “I pray your stupendous wisdoms to
tarry an instant, while I intimate that, although you may fancy you
have delivered yourself of the best possible advice to my cousin
Francis, you have really forgotten the most important point of all.”

“Ay! ay! merry cousin,” exclaimed the King, “will your sage worship
inform us how that may be?”

“Just this,” answered Triboulet, with his merry chuckle. “They have
told you how best to get into Italy. Now, you do not intend, I suppose,
to stay there for ever; and your fool thinks they would have done well
if they had counselled your Majesty, not merely how to get into Italy,
but how to get out of it again.”

“Tush! joyous companion,” said Francis; “it is not needful. We shall
return _tambour battant_.”

“Very fine,” rejoined the fool. “Vos tambours seront battus;” and at
this _équivoque_, the council dispersed, laughing.

The “Bibliophile Jacob” says of Triboulet, that he was as truly an
historical personage as any “grand pannetier,” or “bouteiller de la
couronne.” Triboulet was a native of Blois, where he led a wild life in
his youth, but entered early in the service of the Count d’Angoulême,
afterwards Francis I., in the quality of jester. He may have been
called the town jester, for he was for ever in the streets, playing
on the bagpipes, basking in the sun, saying sharp things to all who
passed near him, and impudently importuning everybody for money. It was
in Blois that Triboulet cut the “pourpoint de livrée” of one of the
pages of the Count d’Angoulême, as the young gentleman was hurrying
through the streets on a mission connected with the coming visit of
Louis XII. and Anne of Brittany. The page, unconscious of the trick
played him, whereby he looked like a monkey _without_ his tail, was
hailed by his young fellows at court with shouts of laughter. But when
their laughter was at an end, they resolved to avenge the insult. They
carried Triboulet off beyond the ramparts of the city, and, near the
permanent gallows which was then no uncommon ornament in the vicinity
of great cities, they began tormenting him, by pricking his feet with
their daggers, dragging him by the hair, and burning his moustaches.
This done, one merry and merciful young gentleman, looking at the
fool’s long ears (for which he was remarkable), proposed that he should
be hung by them to the gibbet; and accordingly, they nailed him by the
right ear in such a position that he was only supported by his toes,
and his pitiful beseechings only raised the mirth of the tender-hearted
young pages.

If we may believe the Bibliophile, who is, indeed, as frequently a
romancer as an antiquary, it was as some compensation for this outrage,
that Francis of Angoulême created Triboulet his fool by patent. The
same writer adds, that the pages found the jester’s tongue even longer
than his ears; and, “remarkable fact, from this period, Triboulet,
who was then about four-and-twenty years of age, suddenly ceased to
be idiotic and imbecile, and became a witty, diverting, and crafty
buffoon, and, above all, a perfect courtier.”

In person, Triboulet was small and crooked; his head and ears were
enormously large; his mouth proportionately wide; his nose must have
been three times the size of that of Francis, who had otherwise the
largest nose of any man in France: Rudolph of Hapsburg had not a
larger. The fool’s eyes were protruding; his forehead was low and
narrow. “His flat and hollow chest,” says Jacob, “his bowed back, his
short and twisted legs, his long and hanging arms, amused the ladies,
who contemplated him as if he had been a monkey or a paroquet.”

We find one of the uses to which these official fools were put at this
court, in a remark touching the costume of Triboulet. “His dress was
not less eccentric than his person. In accordance with his secret
occupation of purveyor of pleasures to the King, he adopted the colours
of the reigning mistress, and dressed in something of the fashion of
his master. His _justaucorps_ was of striped blue and white silk,
fitting so tightly as to render his bodily deformity more conspicuous,
and to excite more readily the laughter of all who looked upon him
for the first time. On his back, thighs, and cap, were emblazoned the
royal arms, and from his girdle of gilt leather hung the symbols of his
office,--a club, a wooden sword, and a bagpipe. Another distinguishing
mark of his office might be seen and heard in the little silver bells
attached to his conical cap, his wand with a fool’s head at the end
of it, and his long-toed red morocco slippers. He could not advance a
step, nor turn his body ever so slightly, without setting these bells
in motion, and thereby making a noise louder than that of ten mules
in full trot. Triboulet was proud of functions which placed him near
the King, and which he would not have exchanged for a ducal coronet or
an episcopal mitre. He used to say of himself, that he was ‘the most
noble in France, commencing from the lowest rank.... Keep duchies,
countships, baronies, and marquisates to yourselves, Triboulet is
sovereign lord of all at whom he mocks.’”

The Triboulet of Paul Lacroix is probably more like the original
Triboulet than the half sentimental half savage hero of Victor Hugo’s
play, ‘Le Roi s’amuse.’ In this piece, the “fou” is rendered malicious
by a three-piled misery,--he is infirm, deformed, and an official court
fool. He hates all his superiors because they _are_ his superiors, and
detests those beneath him,--detests men generally, in fact, because
they are not hunchbacked, like himself. He excites rank against rank,
and all against the King, and the King against all. He is the bad
genius of Francis, whom he corrupts, and the scourge of the nobility,
the dishonour of whose families he works through the King. He is
Mephistophiles without superhuman power, for the lack of which he
makes up by the intensity of his devilishness. Victor Hugo himself
compares the buffoon and the King to a man holding a plaything and
mortally wounding those among whom he capers with his toy. The buffoon
is altogether without heart; yet not quite altogether, for there is
one point on which he is as tender-hearted, as ever father could be
who had an only daughter dearer to him far than his own life. Yet he
has no heart for other sires whose love for their daughters is ardent,
but who would rather see them coffined at their feet than crowned and
dishonoured. So, when the Count de Saint-Vallier denounces Francis,
in open court, for having brought disgrace upon his child, Diane de
Poictiers, Triboulet the fool insults the outraged parent; and the old
noble, robbed of his daughter, curses Triboulet the man. On this curse
the whole piece turns, and from the time it is fulminated, there is
little that ensues which is illustrative of the office and pleasantry
of the buffoon, though all is highly dramatic, and Nemesis rules
without restraint. The curse of the old Count smites Triboulet through
his child, whom the King carries off, and whom the father slays by
mistake for the royal seducer. The moral of the piece is defective,
seeing that the buffoon, for a thoughtless trick of his office, is the
only person most terribly punished. The King, who is the gay stage
villain of the piece, escapes scot-free. It is like sending Leporello
_ad inferos_, instead of Don Giovanni. If the Triboulet of Victor Hugo
be full of brilliant inconsistencies and glittering contradictions,
he is in many things what tradition represents him to have been. He
flings smart sayings at marriage, laughs at the King’s pretensions to
write verses, pushes or draws him into vice, and shoots a fool’s bolt
at woman, by styling her, “a highly perfected devil.” His malice is
illustrated by his delight at the opportunity offered him to cruelly
rally the husbands whom his highly perfected devils outrage and
betray. His humour is to comment and criticize, while others, and
especially the King, enjoy life after their fashion. Between his own
condition and that of the master whom he serves, he draws a distinction
of which he might reasonably have been the author, saying to Francis

                               “Vous êtes
    Heureux comme un roi, et moi comme un bossu.”

That Victor Hugo was careful of representing Triboulet in his vocation
of buffoon, according to the way in which the contemporaries of the
“fou” had spoken of him, may be seen in the speech of M. de Pienne to
Marot, who is, and was, fool in all things but the title, with enough
of that wit which our own national poet alluded to as requisite for a
man who aspired to play the character becomingly. De Pienne says to
Marot:--

   “J’ai lu dans votre écrit du siége de Peschière,
    Ces vers sur Triboulet, Fou de tête écornée,
    Aussi sage à trente ans que le jour qu’ il est né.”

It is probable, therefore, that we find other reflections of the
buffoon’s actual character and his bearing towards Francis, in the
best passages connected with him and his vocation. Triboulet certainly
exhibits a turn of his profession when, after drinking with the
monarch, he boasts of possessing two advantages over him, that of not
being drunk, and that of not being King. The well-known freedom which
he invariably took with Francis, is not less pleasantly illustrated by
his satire against scholars, when the King’s sister Margaret counselled
him to surround himself with wise men, since he lacked the love of
ladies.

“C’est bien mal,” says the buffoon,--

                              “C’est bien mal
    De la part d’une sœur. Il n’est pas d’animal,
    Pas de corbeau goulu, pas de loup, pas de chouette,
    Pas d’oison, pas de bœuf, pas même de poët e,
    Pas de Mahométan, pas de théologien,
    Pas d’échevin flamand, pas d’ours et pas de chien,
    Plus laid, plus chevelu, plus repoussant des formes,
    Plus caparaçonné d’absurdités énormes,
    Plus hérissé, plus sale et plus gonflé de vent,
    Que cet âne bâté qu’on appelle un savant.
                          .... Médecine inouïe!
    Conseiller les savants à quelqu’un qui s’ennuie!”

And again, we have a fact put in rhyme, though it be told of other
buffoons, in the passage where Francis, pointing to three courtiers,
tells Triboulet that they are employed in making sport of him. “Not
of me,” says Triboulet, “but of another fool.” “And who is he?” asks
Francis. “The King,” briefly and drily replies the buffoon, who
especially hated the courtiers, who as heartily hated the King’s
jester. Francis, still remarking on the three, observes discontentedly,
“I have made one an admiral, one a grand constable, and of the third,
controller of my household. What more could I do for them?” “Well,”
returns Triboulet, “there is _one_ thing more you might very justly do
for them;--you might hang them!” It may be added, that the _plaisant_
did not at all fear those whom he exasperated by the exercise of his
wit; and his feeling in this respect is well illustrated by his remark
to one of the illustrious gentlemen whom he had offended, and by whom
he was thrashed:--

   “Be assured, my good seigneurs, that Triboulet’s far
    From dreading the nobles ’gainst whom he makes war.
    Dread! I dread nothing; my heart’s calm and cool;
    For I’ve nothing to risk but the head of a fool.”

Triboulet, after his death, was not honoured, like Thevenin de
Saint-Légier, with a magnificent tomb and a superscribed epitaph.
Nevertheless, he did not lack a poet who at least penned an epitaph
which is in very tolerable Latin, and has fool’s wit in its closing
turn. It is by Jean Bouté, was printed in 1538, and is to this
effect:--

   “Vixi _Morio_, Regibus qui gratus
    Solo hoc nomine; viso num futurus
    Regum Morio sim Jovi Supremo.”

Among the frequenters of the court of Francis we occasionally meet
with personages who had too much wit to be official _fous_, but whose
humour was sometimes exercised like theirs, but without license. Their
wit was enjoyed, but it was exercised at their risk and peril. Marot
was one of those; and many are the stories of him that are little worth
relating. Of the best of them, there is one which tells of his feigned
simplicity, when he saw the French Ambassador at Rome kiss the Pope’s
foot. “Merciful powers!” cried Marot, “if the representative of the
King of France kisses his Holiness’s foot, what may a poor fellow like
me be called upon to salute!” Marot, too, is the author of a smart
saying that has been turned and re-turned in many a handbook of wit
since his time. He was walking with a very fine court personage, who
hated wits and poets, and who remarked to Marot, who was to the right
of him, “I cannot bear, Marot, to have a fool on my right-hand.” “Can
you not?” said the wit, slipping round to the left, “I can bear it very
well!” This wit satirized with his pen the hypocritical priests as
stingingly as Triboulet did with his tongue the nobles whom he hated;
and he was, consequently, once menaced with the vengeance of a bishop
on whom he had been particularly severe. “Oh!” remarked Marot, “I am in
no anxiety, I know a place where I can easily escape the research of
the bishop. I will go and sit in his library.”

It is true, that though the especial duty of the _fou_ was to laugh
and make laugh, and that he possessed not the privilege of weeping
if choice or calamity urged him thereto, he had license of speech,
and sometimes used it for the admonition as well as amusement of his
master. In this respect, the _plaisant_ often became a political
personage or agent of considerable importance; and an instance of this
is recounted of Briandas, who was one of the official fools of Francis
I., after the death of Triboulet, about the year 1538.

Francis had so neglected his wife, the gentle, pious, but
grandeur-loving Claude, that their eldest son had little love for his
sire; and the Dauphin, subsequently Henry II., was upon such terms
with his father as the Princes of Wales were, under our Georges. They
had their separate households, courts, and factions, and the feuds
between the two were constant and bitter. It is worth remarking that
Briandas, who was attached to the King’s person, as “Bouffon de Cour,”
had free access to the Prince’s presence at all times. On one of
these occasions, he was present when the Dauphin and a few personal
friends were discussing their future prospects and chances of fortune.
The discussion took the turn of an appeal to the heir-apparent, as
to the distribution of wealth and honours, when the reigning King,
Francis, should be in his grave. The Dauphin did not seem to think
that the matter was in any way delicate or difficult. He felt a joy
in the mere fancy of being King, and joyously notified how he would
deprive certain noblemen of the court of his father of their offices,
and confer them on his followers present. The prince proceeded to
sportively appoint various laughing applicants to divers posts coveted
by them. All found themselves thus provided for, save one--the old
Marshal Vielleville,--who had remained silent. Now there was another
individual in the room, silent also; and he had not escaped the
Marshal’s observation. This was Briandas, the fool. The Marshal, in his
honesty or great discretion, would not take part in the proceedings,
the little decorum of which may have shocked an old-world courtier,
and he remained taciturn, as if he disapproved of the entire comedy.
The _fou_ too was silent; but he was thoughtful also. No one, however,
suspected him of having attended to what had been going forward, or
of his holding long in memory the serious joking of which he had been
a witness. The buffoon, however, was not the man they took him for. He
that night entered the apartment where Francis sat surrounded by his
friends, and approaching his master with solemn gait, addressed him
as solemnly of speech, with, “God greet you, _Francis of Valois_, for
from what I have seen and heard this evening, you are King no longer!”
He did not pause here, but turning to the various great officers of
the crown, he announced to each that he was deprived of his dignity,
to which a successor had been appointed. “God’s death!” he finally
exclaimed, turning sharp round upon the King, “as for you, the grand
constable will soon be upon you, rod in hand, to whip you for your
follies.”

It would be difficult to say whether the wrath or the curiosity of
the King was greater. He had his misgivings, too, as to indulging in
either, for this might only be a fool’s jest after all. His curiosity
however had the mastery, and Briandas, in presence of Francis, the
Cardinal of Lorraine, and the Duchess d’Estampes, was so closely
questioned and cross-questioned, as to induce us to believe that the
querists were more justified in trusting to his intelligence than the
Dauphin and his friends had been in depending on his simplicity or
imbecility. The buffoon succinctly revealed everything, named all the
persons who had leaped into high saddles before their time, but made
especial exception of Vielleville, as having neither applied for a post
nor had one conferred on him by the foolish King _in posse_.

The royal curiosity satisfied, wrath took its place; and at the head
of a body of Scottish and Swiss guards, Francis hastened, with the
“fou,” to arrest his own too hasty son and his adherents. These,
however, had been timely forewarned, and had hurriedly decamped. There
were no persons left in the Dauphin’s chamber, except a few pages and
servants, on whom Francis let his wrath fall, and ordered them to be
soundly horsewhipped. They doubtless deserved it for something or
another, so that it was not altogether thrown away. The King acted less
justifiably, even in the eyes of the buffoon, when he proceeded with
his own hand to destroy the furniture in the Dauphin’s chamber, and to
slash the tapestry with his sword.

Months elapsed before the King and his son became partially reconciled,
through the intervention of mutual friends. As for the Dauphin’s
followers, they were all punished by various measures of disgrace
and severity, excepting Vielleville, who had marked the presence of
Francis’s fool, and in that presence had been too wise or honest to
offend Francis’s self-love. And thus things remained till the death of
Francis and the accession of Henry. _Then_ the long-before discussed
probabilities, and the lavish promises, became realities. Francis’s
friends were swept from their high estate, and the trusty or eager
followers of Henry appointed in their place. Never was the tune of
‘Up go we’ so admirably played out as on this occasion by the husband
of Catherine de Medicis and his partisans. There were however two
personages who did not join in the chorus, namely, the wise or discreet
Marshal Vielleville and the loquacious but trusty fool, Briandas. The
former was passed over for being too silent, and the latter suffered
stripes and imprisonment for being too talkative.

Neither of these lost much by not serving Henry II. (especially as
regards Briandas), for that King and his actual fool could never agree.
The great man could not bear the license of the little one, and the
latter could so indifferently endure the exasperating humour of his
master, that he one day drew his sword upon the King. It could only
have been his wooden sword, for fools could carry no other on their
thigh; but Henry took the act of poor Capuchio as an act of treason,
and the buffoon is said to have paid for it with his life.

Henry had far more regard for the fool Thony, whom he raised to the
rank of patented buffoon, after the death of the jester’s late master,
the Duke of Orleans. The Duke had taken him, at an early age, from his
mother, at Coucy in Picardy. Thony had three brothers, all of whom
were actually out of their wits, and the pious woman desired to see
Thony in priest’s orders, that he might pray for his witless brethren.
“Leave him to me,” said the Duke, “I will look to it.” Therewith his
highness carried him off; and as the aforesaid brothers had received
appointments as house-fools in illustrious but private families, the
Duke made a fool of Thony. He was a coarse, rough fellow at first,
but the society of pages and courtiers improved him. By constant
friction with such materials, he became remarkably polished and jocose.
The constable Anne de Montmorency had an especial regard for Thony.
He invited him to his own table, where the “fou” was served like a
King, and where his chief joke seems to have been in complaining of
the inattention of the pages and lackeys; and his chief enjoyment in
seeing them smartly scourged in his presence for their neglect, real
or alleged. The constable called him the most subtle courtier of a
fool that he had ever seen. Thony exhibited his subtlety by naming the
constable familiarly, his “Papa;” but this was only as long as that
great officer was in favour with the King. When the royal favour had
departed, Thony no longer looked with an eye of affection on him. Only
the King’s friends were _his_ friends, so that, in one respect, the
fool was like any ordinary man.

Indeed, some of the ordinary men were brighter wits than the fools.
After the demise of Francis I. we meet with a personage who, without
being a jester by vocation, probably caused more mirth and laughter at
the court of Henry II. than was ever raised there by courtier or court
fool. The name of this personage was Mendoza, and the first subject
for his wit he found in a solemn circumstance. Henry celebrated the
obsequies of his predecessor in magnificent style. The priest who
pronounced the funeral oration maintained that King Francis had been
of so holy a life, that his soul had gone to Paradise without passing
through Purgatory. The denial of Purgatory was a favourite tenet of
the Reformers. The Sorbonne accused the preacher of heresy, and sent a
deputation to St. Germain, to make known their complaint to the King.
Mendoza, then a chief officer of the court, first received it, and,
by a facetious speech, saved Henry from an act of injustice. “Calm
yourselves, gentlemen,” said he to the deputies of the Sorbonne; “if
you had known the good King Francis as well as I did, you would have
better understood the words of the preacher. Francis was not a man to
tarry long anywhere; and if he did take a turn in Purgatory, believe
me, the devil himself could not persuade him to make anything like a
sojourn.” What could the deputation do, save laugh themselves into good
humour at the wit of this court official?

Indisputably the most celebrated of the French fools by right of
patent, was Brusquet, whose whole career is tolerably well known, and
who was in every respect one of the most singular characters of his
time. He was a native of Provence; of his childhood little is known,
save that he spent it in his native province; and there is some little
uncertainty as to the profession with which he first started on his
more public career. According to some authors, he appeared at Paris
as a pettifogging lawyer, and was in danger of starving for want of
clients. But Brusquet was an original fellow, and the nearer he was
in danger of being famished, the more merrily he met what fate was
preparing for him. Indeed, his mirth, wit, and light-heartedness
procured for him a prosperity unattainable by the practice of the
law, by introducing him to the tables of great men, as a professional
jester.

There is another and a still more amusing version of the early
professional life of Brusquet. According to this, he commenced as a
quack doctor; perhaps he took up physic when he laid down law. However
this may be, it is pretty certain that he was a medical hanger-on to
the camp at Avignon, in 1536. He had of course little or no knowledge
of his profession; but his patients died in greater ignorance than he.
His _impudence and boldness_ were about equal; and he so dosed the
Lanzknechts and Switzers, that he at last became as terrible to them
as the enemy. They perished by scores under his vigorous practice, of
which the modest practitioner seemed to think lightly; for after all,
said he, “What are they? Only Swiss robbers and plundering riders.” But
these robbers and riders were first-rate troops, and their commanders
could not afford to lose them at the rate by which they were despatched
by the gay yet terrific Brusquet. And the quack began to be looked
upon, in some sort, as an assassin. Indeed, the great constable de
Montmorency, exasperated by the results of his peculiar medical skill,
resolved to confer on him an assassin’s reward, and, accordingly,
ordered him to be summarily executed. Brusquet was warned in time,
by friends who could better spare a legion of Lanzknechts than they
could the brilliant-witted quack; and he at once betook himself to the
quarters of the commander-in-chief, the Dauphin, afterwards Henry II.
This prince knew of Brusquet’s better qualities, by report, and he
was so charmed by the fellow’s manner and matter, his quaint address,
his witty illustrations, and his method of making his offences assume
the guise of merits, that he at once took him under his protection,
exempted him from arrest by the camp provost, and appointed him to a
subordinate place in the Dauphin’s household.

If Brusquet really became fool by right of office, which seems to
have been the case, it is certain that he was the object also of
much favour, enjoying privileges seldom if ever granted to the court
buffoon. I have said, in a previous page, that the _plaisant_ could
never lay aside his official costume, nor sleep out of the royal
mansion, nor clap sword on his thigh, except by permission (and that
was rarely given) of his master. With Brusquet the reverse seems to
have been the rule. He did not reside in the palace, although he held
the office of jester to three kings, Henry II., Francis II., and
Charles IX. He was, moreover, a married man, and he filled other posts
besides that of mirth-maker to their Majesties. After being a sort
of gentleman valet to Henry, he was elevated to the responsible and
lucrative situation of “Maître des Postes,” or Posting-master General
of Paris. In this capacity he laid travellers under contribution
without mercy. Very few could undertake a journey without having
recourse to his office, and his fees being fixed by himself, journeying
was found to be a very costly thing, without being in any sense of
the word a luxury. He never had less than a hundred nags in his
stables, ready for hirers, and he used to designate himself, with comic
pomposity, “Brusquet, captain of the hundred light horse.”

As with other jesters, the wit of Brusquet is oftener praised than
cited. Some illustrations of it I will not venture to place before my
readers. They may have excited laughter and applause from princes,
courtiers, and ladies, three centuries ago, but the narration would be
as intolerable now, as if a clergyman were to read to his congregation
one of Mrs. Aphra Behn’s comedies instead of the Gospel. And yet
this buffoon was the especial friend and favourite of the Cardinal
of Lorraine. That princely prelate of the house of Guise, kept a
most brilliant and rather riotous court of his own at his “Hôtel de
Cluny.” It was a locality where the Cardinal loved to assemble round
him philosophers, poets, historians, minstrels, wits, and abundance
of pretty women, with wit or without it. The grossness of Brusquet’s
jokes gave no shadow of offence here. It was a time when not only the
“_gros mots_,” but grossest practical jokes were highly relished; even
when the Cardinal himself was made the object of them. As an instance,
I will only allude to the story told in the Marquis de Bouillé’s great
work, ‘Les Ducs de Guise,’ how the Cardinal’s intention to preach in
the royal chapel, on one particular occasion, was completely frustrated
by some court fools, official or otherwise. The Cardinal had even
reached the pulpit; but on opening the door, he rushed from it in
disgust. The reason for his so doing was long a matter of laughter in
court and city.

Coarse as Brusquet was, he was not an ill-educated man, being well
acquainted with the Spanish and Italian languages as well as his
own; and this accomplishment may have rendered him useful as well as
otherwise agreeable to the Cardinal. It is certain that the jester
accompanied the Cardinal into foreign countries on more than one affair
of State. The two respectively illustrious personages, with other
individuals, more or less noble, were together at Brussels, in April
1559, when the Cardinal negotiated the peace of Cateau-Cambresis, with
Philip II. of Spain. At a banquet in the house of the Duke of Alva,
Brusquet exhibited to the royal and noble guests present a questionable
trick of his calling. At the close of the dessert, he leaped on the
table, laid himself flat, rolled himself up, with plates, spoons,
fruit, etc., in the cloth, and fell off at the other end of the table.
He could scarcely stand for the weight of silver and other table
furniture which he had about him; but, says Brantôme, who tells the
story, “the King, Philip II., ordered that he should be allowed to
leave the room with what he had carried off under the cloth. Philip
laughed so immoderately, and found the joke so exquisite, so humorous,
and so clever, that he wished Brusquet to keep all for himself. It was
a matter of astonishment that the latter did not wound himself with
the knives which were in the cloth with the other articles; but it is
thus that God protects fools and infants.”

It was on the occasion of this political visit to Flanders that
Brusquet met with the Emperor, or ex-Emperor, Charles V., face to
face. The old Emperor was still at the side of the King, his son,
to counsel and guide him. At one of the solemn interviews at court,
Charles recognized the well-known face of the fool among the French
nobles composing the delegation. Charles did not dislike to exchange
smart sayings with any one quick of wit; and after courteous inquiries
touching the health of the fool, the ex-monarch said to him, “Brusquet,
do you remember the day when the constable de Montmorency wanted to
have you hanged?” “Do I remember it?” he replied to the question of
Charles. “Right well do I remember it. It was the day on which your
Majesty purchased those splendid rubies and carbuncles which now adorn
your imperial hand.” He said this in allusion to the inflamed gouty
swellings which paralyzed the Emperor’s fingers.

“Many thanks for your lesson, Brusquet,” rejoined Charles, laughing
good-humouredly. “I will take care to fence no more with a clever
fellow who knows so well how to parry every thrust made at him.” And
the two, fool and monarch, fell to recounting to each other many a good
story, in the art of doing which the sovereign was quite a match for
the jester.

Philip was even more delighted with the _plaisant_ than Charles;
and, perhaps remembering the old adage, “Asinus asinum fricat,” he
despatched his own fool to France, to learn to be more witty than
he was, by association with Brusquet; and to entertain King Henry,
if he could, half as well as Brusquet had entertained Philip. Henry
constituted the Spanish fool the guest of the Paris posting-master, and
the latter contrived to draw profit from the charge, for the Spaniard
had four horses of his own, and these Brusquet let out every night,
for posting purposes, and for his peculiar profit. The owner of the
steeds became singularly puzzled by the worn and wretched condition
into which his stud gradually fell; and for which Brusquet accounted
by laying it to the water of the Seine, as deleterious to foreign
horses. The Spaniard seems to have been an imbecile; but Brusquet was a
felonious rogue. On the return of the former to Philip, the French King
presented him with a gold chain, as a parting gift. Brusquet exchanged
this, almost under the very nose of the fool, for a similar chain of
brass; and then addressed a letter to Philip, informing him of the
fact, and assuring him that his jester deserved to be flogged by the
kitchen scullions, for being such a wretched dullard as to be deceived
by a trick so common. Common as it was, however, Henry compelled his
buffoon to restore the stolen chain, but gave him its value in money,
as a compensation “for his sacrifice to honesty.”

It is the assertion of Brantôme, that if all the witty sayings, tricks,
and traits had been collected, of which Brusquet was the author, they
would have filled a bulky volume. “There was never his like,” adds the
enthusiastic sketcher of characters. “Never had he his equal among
‘plaisants compagnons,’ since these latter ever existed.... He was the
first man for buffoonery that ever lived or ever will live, whether for
speech, gesture, fun, or originality, in short, for everything; and
all without giving offence or exciting displeasure.” This is a fine
eulogium but what Du Tillot said a hundred years ago, with relation
to France, may be still more correctly stated in our own days, with
relation to England, namely, that “our manners (morals) would not
accommodate themselves with the actions of Brusquet, who enchanted
every court and potentate of his time.” Setting aside the incidents
that ought not, and the turns and plays on words that cannot, be
translated, and which hardly raise a smile even in their original
language, I will add a few illustrations of the humour of a jester who
was said to be the delight of every court and prince of his time.

Brusquet had great dread of the water, and one day, his friend the
Cardinal invited him on a boating expedition. The jester promptly
declined, alleging his cowardice by way of excuse. “You need not be
afraid of any danger,” said his Eminence, “for you will be in the
protecting companionship of the Pope’s best friend.” “Ay, truly,”
replied Brusquet, “I have often heard that his Holiness has unlimited
power in earth, heaven, and purgatory; but I never heard that he had
much influence over the water.” This is certainly wit of the very
mildest sort, and we are little more edified by the trait which tells
of his coveting a gold cup with a lid in precious stones, which he saw
on the table of the Count of Benevento. That good-natured nobleman let
him have what he coveted; but retained the movable lid which, with its
sparkling gems, was exceedingly more valuable than the cup itself.
“Count,” said Brusquet, “we are in a cold country here in France, and
it is hardly wise to let me carry my golden friend here home without
his cap.” The Count was liberal; he either esteemed the lid so little
or the wit so much, that he bade the _plaisant_ do as he would; and
Brusquet triumphantly carried off both the cup and the cover.

He could, however, very tartly satirize men as greedy as himself. When
Frenchmen were discussing as to the General most likely to be able to
take Calais, Brusquet named a judge famous for taking bribes, and he
added, “Why don’t you send him to take Calais? he takes everything
before him.”

We get at something of the real life of Brusquet when we view him in
connection with his great enemy, Strozzi, the son of a Princess de
Medicis. The two were in continual antagonism. On one occasion, the
Marshal appeared at court, on a gala day, in a splendid velvet mantle,
magnificently embroidered. Brusquet had long coveted this article
of dress; but being unable to obtain it, he resolved, if possible,
to succeed by spoiling it for the owner’s wear. Accordingly, on the
occasion in question, he stood behind the unconscious Marshal, and with
some pieces of fat and a larding-needle, he larded the mantle all over
the back, in serried and regular rows. The mischievous joker must have
had confederates in most of the spectators; however this may have been,
when he had completed his task, he suddenly turned Strozzi with his
back towards the King, and asked the latter if he had ever seen a more
tastefully embroidered mantle in his life. The owner, seeing the greasy
trick of which he had been made the victim, proudly slipped the mantle
from his neck, flung it to the “fou,” but told him that he should pay
dearly for his bargain.

The Marshal kept his word, but not till a sufficiently long period
had elapsed for Brusquet to forget that it had ever been pledged. It
was therefore not without satisfaction that the jester saw himself
visited by the Marshal in company with an individual whom the Marshal
introduced as a foreign prince. His highness, however, was nothing
more than a locksmith, engaged by Strozzi to plunder Brusquet of his
plate, of which he was known to possess a rather rich collection.
The pseudo-prince was armed with a pick-lock, and when Strozzi had
indicated to him the chest in which the treasure lay, the Marshal
proposed a visit to the stables, while his highness, who was fatigued,
rested awhile in Brusquet’s chamber. This arrangement was immediately
effected; and while the Marshal and the _plaisant_ were discussing
the points of horses, the illustrious stranger quickly operated on
the plate, a valuable portion of which he contrived to conceal about
his person. Shortly after, the three again met, and, after a pleasant
gossip, they separated on the best of terms with one another. A
considerable time elapsed before Brusquet discovered his loss, and even
then he had no suspicion as to the plunderer. He proceeded to court,
however, made such a piteous statement of his loss to the King, that
all who heard him felt compassion for him. Among the audience was
Strozzi, who expressed a conviction that the whole, or best part of the
plate might be recovered under promise of reward. Brusquet hurriedly
declared that he could be content to give up one half for the recovery
of the other. Thereupon Strozzi acknowledged the robbery, adding, “I
will only retain a quarter of the whole, namely five hundred golden
crowns’ worth, and that not for myself, but as a recompense for the
handiwork of my princely friend the locksmith.”

The whole story forms a singular social trait of the times. With
the arrangement made by the Marshal, Brusquet was compelled to be
satisfied, and he received with sour gratification the three quarters
of that of which he had been robbed. But he was resolved upon being
revenged, and he found an early opportunity to realize his resolution.
He one day saw Strozzi dismount from a magnificent horse, superbly
caparisoned, in the court-yard of the Louvre. The steed was left in
charge of a groom who walked it about, bridle in hand. To this man
Brusquet went with a feigned message from his master, to obey which he
was obliged to leave the horse in Brusquet’s charge. When the groom
had disappeared, the _fou_ leaped on to the steed’s back and galloped
home. There, he cut off the whole mane and the half of one ear. He then
changed the costly saddle and adornments of the charger, for a common
saddle and beggarly adjuncts. This done, he clapped a heavy trunk on
the crupper, put a still heavier postilion in the saddle, and set him
off, on a flying gallop from Paris to Longjumeau and back. The horse
was then sent to Strozzi, in a pitiable condition. It had been worth,
that morning, more than five hundred golden crowns, and now Brusquet
intimated that he would give fifty for him. The Marshal accepted the
offer, returned the mutilated steed, and declared that he forgave the
trick, though he only intended to take proper compensation for it.

Strozzi set his compensation at a high price, and compelled Brusquet to
pay a whole stud for a single horse. The Marshal obtained possession of
the horses, by ordering them for the King’s service. He took the whole
of them to Compiègne, where, after riding them nearly to death, except
eight which he kept for his own use, he distributed several among the
troopers who wanted remounting, and he actually sold two to a miller,
who employed them as beasts of burden. These last were identified by
one of Brusquet’s postilions, and the enraged proprietor had recourse
to the law. But the law was almost inoperative against a powerful man
like Strozzi, and was altogether so in this case, since Brusquet found
that it would cost him more to ride after justice, than it would to
resign himself to the loss of his “light horse.”

He found, too, that the Marshal was too serious a joker for him to
contend with, and accordingly, confessing himself defeated, he repaired
to Strozzi’s house, where he proposed measures of reconciliation.
By-gones, he said, should be by-gones; and in future, he suggested,
that all costly and injurious jests should cease between them, and
only harmless trickery be allowed. The Marshal not only accepted the
terms, but congratulated Brusquet and himself on their reconciliation,
to celebrate which, he consented to be the guest of the “fou,” and
dine at the latter’s house. Brusquet promised to entertain him and a
number of courtiers, altogether a dozen, in princely style. At the
appointed time, the guests appeared, and the host ushered them to
table with a world of ceremony. He did not himself presume to sit down
with them, but he displayed unwearied zeal in seeing them gallantly
entertained. As they took their places at table, thirty postilions
in their best dresses, entered the room and blew a post-horn _galop_
as an invitation to begin. The dishes consisted entirely of pies,
but the odour of these was so appetizing, that the courteous guests
abstained from making any remarks on the singularity of this first
course. Brusquet wished them good appetite and happy digestions, and
then left the room, ostensibly to prepare the second course. But with
his dagger in his girdle, and his cap saucily cocked on his head, he
hurried to the palace, and entered the presence of the King, laughing
immoderately. To the inquiries of his patron, the _plaisant_ replied
that he had a dozen noble friends at dinner at his house, and that he
had set them down to a first course of pies, under the pastry of which
there was, in one dish, an assortment of rusty spurs; in another, a
few brass-mounted bits; in a third, stewed stirrup-leathers; in a
fourth, slices of old saddle, and so on. The relation amused the court
much more than the fact itself did the invited courtiers. These, on
discovery of the trick played them, were doubly enraged, for they
were hungry as well as deluded; and they withdrew after overrunning
Brusquet’s house, like hostile soldiers in search of plunder, and
threatening vengeance for the trick put upon them. The vengeance is
said to have been accomplished by the Marshal, not exactly according
to agreement, by which the respective parties were bound to abstain
from actual mutual injury. Strozzi stole one of Brusquet’s mules, which
was converted into several venison pasties, and these, in a circuitous
manner, were sent to the “plaisant,” as a present from a duly-named
friend. The “fou” ate plentifully, and was not informed of the trick
till he had nearly eaten all. _Then_ the Marshal showed him the head
of the mule, informed him that he had devoured the hind quarters, and
inquired how he liked his fare. Brusquet, who was more of an epicure
than a glutton, was so disgusted as to remain ill and almost fasting
for several days; but he did not remain without his _revanche_.

He happened to hear that the Marshal had ridden incognito into Paris,
one Easter Sunday, being desirous of passing the festival quietly in
his own house, and to avoid being summoned to court. A few minutes
after Brusquet had learned the fact, he repaired to a neighbouring
convent of Franciscans, where he required two of the holy brotherhood
to follow him for a particular purpose.

“The fact is,” said the jester, “I come from the family of a nobleman
in the Faubourg St. Germain. He is possessed by an evil spirit; will
hear nothing of God; fears as little touching the devil; scorns to
celebrate the religious festival of Easter, and holds the entire
brotherhood of priestly men in utter detestation.”

Brusquet then crossed the palm of each brother with a crown-piece,
which so inspired the two Franciscans, that they declared if the
patient were possessed by a legion of devils, they would undertake to
drive them all out of him. Therewith the three departed for Strozzi’s
house, where their appearance excited some surprise in the Marshal’s
personal attendant. The latter, however, gave way when Brusquet, after
taking him aside, had informed him that his master had particularly
important business to transact with the two spiritual gentlemen, and
that they might enter the Marshal’s chamber without being announced.
The servant bowed and withdrew; Brusquet showed the Franciscans into
Strozzi’s bedroom, the door of which he immediately closed upon them,
and remained standing on watch outside.

The monks found the Marshal lying on his bed reading. To his stare of
surprise they meekly replied by inquiring how he found himself in soul
and body. “So well, both in strength and spirit,” said Strozzi, “that
if you do not immediately decamp, I will fling the couple of you out of
window.” They concluded that he was very powerfully “possessed” indeed;
and straightway with loud prayer, and some inharmonious singing, they
proceeded to sprinkle him from head to foot with holy water. He
really hissed with rage, as if he had been red-hot. Then, leaping from
his bed, he grasped at his dagger, and flew at the monks. A fearful
struggle ensued, and howling, and stamping, and showers of oaths on one
side, and holy water on the other. When the uproar brought the servants
of the Marshal to his assistance, they found him speechless with rage,
and in the sudden temporary lull, Brusquet beckoned them from the room,
and locked the door upon Strozzi and his attendants. He then paid and
dismissed the Franciscans, and, fresh from this new exploit, he ran
to the palace, and kept the whole royal and august personages there
assembled, in a roar of laughter at the highly seasoned details which
he exultingly recounted,--from the Marshal’s ride into Paris, to the
final exorcism made to relieve him from Satanic possession.

The joke was so exceedingly to the taste of his Majesty, that he
despatched messengers to Strozzi to inquire after his ghostly and
bodily health, and especially if the Franciscans had succeeded or
failed in making a true believer of the most unbelieving man in France.

Strozzi never forgave this trick, which had rendered him ridiculous
in the eyes of his own servants. He exacted a double vengeance, which
fell heavily on the fool. The Cardinal of Lorraine had established
an inquisitorial tribunal in France, and before this body, Brusquet
was charged with heresy, and with open mockery of the religion of
the State. The tribunal found it an easy matter to fling the alleged
offender into confinement, with menace of loss of life. He was a
well-plumed pigeon, whom of course, they did not intend to kill, but
only to greatly terrify and thoroughly pluck. Brusquet was a coward and
avaricious, but he bled freely in pistoles in order to save his life
and purchase freedom.--Strozzi having injured him in purse, proceeded
to assail him in his honour.

The year was 1555. The Cardinal de Lorraine had gone on a mission
to Rome, and in his suite was his favourite Brusquet, who had the
royal sanction to follow his Eminence. The Legation had not been long
within the walls of Rome, when intelligence of the death of the King’s
“plaisant” reached Paris, by especial courier. The latter carried
with him a duly attested document, the jester’s last will. It was the
most singular of deeds, for therein the testator willed or prayed
that the King should permit the wife of Brusquet to retain the office
held previously by her husband,--that of Superintendent-General of
Posting,--on one condition, namely, that she espoused his friend the
courier, who was the bearer of the news and the testamentary paper. It
was thought that nothing could possibly be more appropriate than this
dying act of a court fool. The thing was resolved upon, and the wife of
Brusquet, who had no children, except a married daughter, was forced,
persuaded, or cajoled, till she consented to marry the courier,--in
order that she might preserve a lucrative office.

The wedded pair had already kept house for a month when Brusquet
(who was daily electrifying the Papal Court by his mirthfulness
or impudence) suddenly learned the news of his death, and of the
indecently hasty marriage of his not altogether disconsolate widow.
He was in exceeding wrath, hurried back to Paris, turned the second
husband into the street, chastised his wife, and then publicly
remarried her! Court, camp, and city considered this last act as one
more in the official character of the fool than any he had hitherto
accomplished, and the hilarity was general and unbounded. Brusquet,
however, only showed that his wit had departed, for he attempted to
avenge himself by conveying false information to the Court of Rome as
to alleged traitorous intentions of Strozzi against the states and
property of the Church. He represented the Marshal as having fallen
into disgrace, and, after flying from France, having joined an Algerine
force destined to operate successively against Ostia, Civita Vecchia,
and Ancona, and ultimately to plunder the wealthy shrine of Loretto.
The Roman Government was only needlessly alarmed, and Brusquet only
suffered for his accusation of another.

There can be little doubt that his old personal enemy brought down upon
him the calamity by which he was visited in 1562. In the very midst of
much worldly prosperity, he found himself accused of a very serious
crime, that of being a Huguenot, and, still worse, that of suppressing
or delaying despatches which contained news unfavourable to the
Huguenot cause. The accusation would seem to have been better founded
as regards Brusquet’s son-in-law. The storm, however, fell most heavily
upon the former. He was obliged to fly, and the orthodox populace
plundered the house which the heretical court fool had abandoned with
so much precipitation.

The fugitive jester found a home, first at Nogent, with Madame de
Bouillon, a great friend of the Huguenots, and, subsequently, with
Madame de Valentinois. But to be a concealed, fugitive dependant was
little to the humour of a man who had made three kings laugh, and whose
jokes had for so long a period been accepted as apologies or excuses
for much rascality. He stooped to beseech his adversary, Strozzi, in a
letter shown by the latter to Brantôme, who describes it as very well
expressed, to use his influence with the authorities, to enable him, an
odd man, to end his days in Paris, in peace and quietness. The petition
was unheeded; at all events, the petitioner drew no benefit from it. He
lost all heart, patience, and health, sank into moody despair, and died
at the château of Anet, the guest of Madame de Valentinois, in the year
1563.

If there be any of Brusquet’s descendants living, they belong to their
illustrious ancestor through his daughter. It is popularly said,
that when Thoni (one of the fools of Henry II.) died, the principal
poets of the day applied for the vacant post. This shows, as I have
before remarked, that the suggestion of Ménage, that the court poet
and court fool often consisted of one and the same person, is not to
be summarily rejected. The poets probably were not such fools as to
neglect the present opportunity, which offered them the chance of a
lucrative social appointment, with that of the less richly paid office
of _plaisant_ to the King.

I have in a previous page noticed the sharp wit of some of the ladies
at the court of Catherine de Medicis. I may here add, that such wit
was sometimes very sharply reprehended. Mr. Bayle St. John, in his
biography of Montaigne, affords me an illustration of this fact,
by there recording the circumstance of one of the maids-of-honour,
Mademoiselle de Limeuil, who wrote a laughable satire on the Queen
Catherine; by whom it was accounted but a sorry court jest, and the
sprightly young authoress was well whipped, like any coarse male fool,
for her pains. Mr. St. John records also a fact which proves that the
jest of the “fou” was not always the most acceptable sauce at a royal
banquet. The fact alluded to refers to Duchatel, who was originally in
a printer’s office, was ultimately Grand Almoner of France, and who, as
Mr. St. John tells us, was paid by the King to talk to him during meals.

It is a singular fact, that while Francis I., who had a great affection
for jesters, was mentioned in the funeral oration pronounced over his
remains, as a grave, learned, and philosophic prince, Charles IX., who
cared nothing for those old, joyous appendages to court, and whose name
is associated with everything gloomy and terrible, was celebrated in
the sermon preached at _his_ interment by Father Sorbin, as a prince
at once tender-hearted and gracious, the bulwark of the faith, and
the lover of men of wit: “piteux et débonnaire, propugnateur de la
foy, et amateur des bons esprits.” Charles may be said to have been,
in some measure, his own fool, for we hear of him figuring at a
tournament, with a party of joyous followers, all of whom, King and
courtiers, fought in the lists attired as women. Another of his court
jests consisted in his hiring ten young thieves, whom he brought to the
Louvre, where he set them to rob the guests of their swords, jewellery,
and splendid cloaks, laughing heartily the while, as he witnessed their
success, or saw the unconsciousness of the victims, or beheld their
surprise and indignation, after they had been despoiled. These young
thieves, who were amply rewarded for the exercise of their ability,
rank among the most singular of hirelings paid to excite laughter in a
gloomy king.

Henri III. was an especial patron of the “fou,” and some of the best
specimens of the latter class figured at his court. The most renowned
of these were Sibilot and John (or Sebastian) Chicot. The name of the
former became, for a time, the generic name for a witty fool, and to be
a “Sibilot” was to be a jester of the highest quality. It was even said
of the aspiring and conspiring Duke de Mayenne, that he wanted only
troops and a Sibilot to be as great a man as the King.

It was an act of this turbulent Duke of the house of Lorraine which
first brought Chicot into notice. Cardinal Perron, in his ‘Perroniana,’
published at Cologne, 1694, speaks in high praise of this Gascon
gentleman; for the latter was _De_ Chicot, and proud of the prefix,
before he descended to plain Chicot, and became “fou du Roi.”

Like most Gascons, Chicot was poor; but he seems to have first repaired
to court not so much with the intention of pushing his fortune as
seeking protection against the manners and rough usages of the Duke
de Mayenne, who looked with favour on a lady who was the object also
of the homage of the tall and humorous Gascon. The mirth inspired
by the sallies of Chicot soon attracted the notice of the King, and
the quaint fellow speedily discovered that he might turn his wit to
more profitable use at the Louvre and at Fontainebleau than he could
his industry devoted to any professional pursuit in Paris. The last
biographer of Chicot, in the ‘Nouvelle Dictionnaire Biographique,’
refers to the portrait of the celebrated buffoon drawn by Dumas, in
his ‘Dame de Monsoreau,’ as preserving the traditionary features of
Chicot’s manners, aspect, and character. In the work just named, the
author adopts the tradition of the love-affair, in which the Lorrainer
and the Gascon were rivals; and M. Dumas further intimates that when
Chicot became official jester he found solace for his disappointment,
in mimicking the manners of his master. To the buffoon who would stand
with his cheeks puffed out, and his hand on his side, the nobles would
pay court as to the true King, while Chicot feigned to treat the latter
as his jester. If the nobles winced under the sarcastic speeches of
the “fou,” and threatened vengeance, Henri would protect him, in his
character alike of fool and gentleman; and in return, Chicot took
an infinite delight in countermanding orders issued by Henri; and,
standing at the King’s toilette, thought nothing of dipping his fingers
into the monarch’s perfumed cream, and tearing the royal combs through
his rough beard. It was only when Henri was religiously scourging
himself, and when Chicot was consequently most inclined to jest, that
the sovereign would tolerate no ribaldry. At those times, the buffoon
might, if he liked, go and fight duels, whips being the weapons, with
gentlemen who had too much leisure and too little pastime. Or he would
resort to some tavern outside the barrier, swallow delicious teal with
crab-sauce, address himself to joyous drinking, and return to court
when it suited his caprice; for Chicot seems to have been exempt from
the rule by which the French official fool was bound to remain within
the precincts of the palace.

At times, the King would appeal to Chicot, not as his jester, but as
a man of sense, and his friend. Chicot, on the other hand, would
make suggestions worth adopting, and quote from books in support of
his advice or opinions. The familiarity of the two was so great, that
they often slept in the same room; and by day travelled in the same
litter, drawn by half-a-dozen mules, or where the roads were difficult,
by as many oxen. The state in which King and fool journeyed is thus
admirably sketched by Dumas, in the work mentioned above. “The litter
contained Henri, his physician, his chaplain, the jester, four of the
King’s ‘minions,’ a couple of huge hounds, and a basketful of puppies,
which rested on the King’s knees, but which was upheld from his neck
by a gold chain. From the roof hung a gilded cage, in which were white
turtle-doves, the plumage of their necks marked by a sable circlet
of feathers. Occasionally, two or three apes were to be seen in this
‘Noah’s Ark,’ as it was called,” some of the inmates of which used to
amuse themselves by plaiting ribbons, while Chicot made anagrams on the
names of the courtiers.

Able as Chicot was in this respect, and expert in quoting Marco
Polo, Galen, and sentences from the Breviary, it may, of course,
be questioned whether he was so skilful in his dramatic plottings
and counter-plottings against the traitorous Guises as M. Dumas has
represented him to be. He probably did not meddle in such serious
affairs; and I think the ability of the jester is set too high when he
is exhibited in positions that would puzzle a Machiavelli, in disguises
that have a very melodramatic tone and aspect, and in situations of
peril from which he releases himself as dexterously as the virtuous
hero of a transpontine semi-tragedy. Chicot, indeed, was well qualified
to effect his release from any peril where odds were not very strongly
against him, for the jester was in the habit of daily fencing with the
King, and bore the reputation of being one of the best swordsmen in
the kingdom. He could apply his cunning of fence to excellent purpose;
and if, half in sport, he would engage with noble courtiers in a
fight with whips, there was no man, at once insulted, vindictive, and
self-possessed, who could more politely and fatally pass his sword
through the body of the individual from whom he had suffered wrong.
The tongue of Chicot could be as sharp as his sword, and it inflicted,
perhaps, more exquisite torture on the nobles whom he hated or the
courtiers whom he despised, than if he had passed his blade between
the ribs, which he would “poke” with as much audacity as he used when,
seating himself on the same royal chair with the King, he would call
him _Henriquet_, and greedily devour the dainties presented to his
master. At the council-board too Chicot was often present, where his
wit worked as profitably as that of any grave-looking member present;
albeit, while he enunciated his profound political maxims, he was
perhaps engaged in making paper boats, and arranging them into a fleet.
On the most serious occasions, a sally from Chicot at the head of the
table, would cause the King to laugh. Solemn statesmen would then look
grave, and while the royal laughter was yet pealing, Chicot would utter
a stentorian “_Silence there!_” which would cause the King to suddenly
close his mouth, and the councillors to open theirs, moved, in spite of
themselves, to lively hilarity.

By way of sample of what was then probably considered a rather neat
joke, and showing how Henri profited by being constantly in company
with Chicot, I may cite the traditionary incident of the monk preaching
from the back of an ass. “Which is the preacher?” said the King,
“for they both speak at the same time.” “The one beneath is the
most eloquent,” replied Chicot, “but the uppermost one speaks the
best French.” The power wielded by this influential buffoon is also
indicated by M. Dumas, in the observation made by the former when he
learns a most important State secret which he resolves to keep to
himself. “Why should I communicate it to any one else?” said he,
“Is it not I who am King of France?” He had mimicked his master so
often, that he almost thought himself king;--like Elliston when, in
tipsy majesty, he represented George IV. at the Drury Lane coronation,
and hiccupped benedictions on the heads of his laughing subjects in
the pit. With Chicot, however, the case was less imaginary; for when
Henri was about to take a fatal step, a sign from the jester would set
him right, and the gentleman buffoon might then have been justified
in exclaiming, “Did I not say rightly, that _I_ was the real King
in France?” We may fancy him, on his long legs, saying this, and by
raising himself, looking longer than ever.

Here is not quite an imaginary picture of the wisdom of the “_fou_,” as
he looks over a chess-board at which he is sitting alone, meditating
the while on the dangers threatening Henri III. To one who questions
him, he replies, “I am disquieted about the King. At chess, you see,
the King is but an insignificant personage. He has no will of his own;
can only move one step forward or back; one step to the right or to the
left, while he is surrounded by foes on the alert; by knights who jump
three squares at a time; by a mob of pawns, who close round him; and if
he be only ill-advised, he is a lost and ruined king in no time.”

It is the great merit of Chicot, if Dumas has painted him faithfully,
that he was not merely the “plaisant” of the King, but his protector.
He could be, and ordinarily was, indifferent and sarcastic in look,
speech, and general demeanour; but this gentleman-jester, with a
sword on his thigh, and a duty to perform to Henri, could also be as
eloquent, and put on an air as noble as any great man with countless
quarterings on his shield. We may conclude, from the limning of the
traditionary portrait in the ‘Dame de Monsoreau,’ that if Chicot loved
his jest well, he loved his king (worthless as he was) even better.

Again, if we turn to ‘Les Quarante-Cinq,’ in search of further
information touching the qualities of this famous _plaisant_, we find
him brave and careless, and yet fully appreciating life generally,
which came to him in a very enjoyable form. In this latter work, we
find him loving wine, and eccentric in act and speech. He was not close
cropped, or shaven, like the earlier jesters. His hair was black and
curled, but his brow was bald long before the period of middle age.
He brought to perfection, says the author of ‘Les Quarante-Cinq,’
“that art dear to the ancient mimes, which consists in changing, by
scientific contractions, the natural play of the muscles, and the
habitual play of the physiognomy.”

Chicot cannot be said to have been a graceful fellow. His arms and
legs were immoderately long. He was all nerves, muscle, and bone;
active, addicted to raillery, ingenious in contrivances, and he
laughed silently like an Indian. After having been prodigal, he became
parsimonious, and saved a little fortune. He ordinarily spoke with a
Gascon accent, but he could change that at will, and it was as easy
for him to assume any other as it was for him to assume any rank. He
maintained a superiority over his royal master through the fears of
the latter, and the author of ‘Les Quarante-Cinq’ represents Henri as
having a superstitious dread of his jester, who was occasionally a
sort of phantom-buffoon, suddenly appearing and disappearing in a way
which perplexed Henri, but which admitted of very natural explanations.
We see him in the last-mentioned work, as a scholar and a man of
taste, a purist in classical knowledge, able to construe Latin, Greek,
and Hebrew, and reading, and sometimes sleeping over, the Essays of
Montaigne.

Had this jester not been a man of singular ability, the King would
not have employed him on diplomatic missions of some delicacy and
difficulty. He went on such missions to Henri of Navarre; and Dumas
represents him to us as saving the life of the Béarnais, in his first
fight at Cahors, where Henri’s bold soul carried his then cowardly
body into the very thickest of the _mêlée_. It is said to have been
on this occasion that the King of Navarre induced Chicot to promise
to enter his service whenever his old master, Henri III., should die.
Flögel, Cardinal Perron, and Sully, only mention Chicot as the court
jester of Henri IV.; he was however in the service of both Kings.
He was as familiar with his new master as with the old one, and the
Bourbon King was as indulgent to him as the old Valois monarch had
been. His boldness was especially exhibited in satirical allusions to
the King of Navarre being of the reformed religion, and to suggestions
touching political matters generally. In the ‘Mémoires pour l’Histoire
de France’ (vol. ii. 72), it is stated that when the Duke of Parma
came to France, Chicot said to the King, before all the courtiers, “My
friend, I see very well that all you do will signify nothing, unless
you either turn Catholic, or pretend you are one.” Another time, Chicot
said to him, “I am convinced that to be peaceably King of France, you
would give both Papists and Huguenots to Lucifer’s clerk.” “I am not
surprised,” said he another time to his Majesty, “that so many persons
desire to be Kings. It is a good trade, and by working at it only an
hour in a day, one may make sufficient provision for the rest of the
week, without being obliged to one’s neighbours. But, for Heaven’s
sake! my friend, take care, and keep out of the hands of the Leaguers,
for if you should fall into them, they would hang you up like a hog’s
pudding, and write upon your gibbet--‘Good lodgings to let, at the
Crown of France and Navarre.’”

Of such quality was the bold humour of Chicot. Of his bravery, we have
an instance in his conduct at the siege of Rouen, where he behaved so
gallantly that he made Henri of Lorraine, Count of Chaligny, prisoner
with his own hand. He led his captive to the King, saying to the
latter, “Here, I make you a present of the Count; keep what I took,
and now give you.” The Count was so enraged at being captured by a
court fool, that he smote poor Chicot on the head, so violently, with
the hilt of his sword, that the jester died of the cruel blow, after
lingering for a fortnight. During this latter period, a dying Huguenot
soldier shared his room. A priest visited the Huguenot, but, at the
moment of his dying, refused to administer consolation, on the ground
of his being a heretic. The orthodox Chicot could not witness this with
patience. Weak as he was, he arose to chastise the priest for his lack
of charity; but he was too feeble for the achievement, and he returned
to bed, only to die. The honest Gascon thus ended his life, and his
last act exhibits, as much as anything, the daring and impatience of
his character.

Contemporary with the Gascon Chicot, was the Norman Maître Guillaume Le
Marchand, a dreaming half-witted fellow, who passed from the household
of the Cardinal of Bourbon to be “fou” in that of Henry IV. Master
Guillaume was accustomed to say that God created angels, but the
devil made pages. These last never lost an opportunity of tormenting
the “natural,” who was quite as active in taking advantage of every
occasion to revenge himself. He would then take out his “little bird,”
as he called his cudgel, pretty well break the bones of the offending
page, and would roar all the time, as if he himself were being beaten.
Guillaume was a Roman Catholic, like Chicot, but he was less tolerant.
He so hated the reformed religion, and the Reformation itself, that
he always used the words “ruined religion,” or the “Ruin,” to show a
fool’s contempt for what he could not understand.

The King certainly did not value him as he valued Chicot. When any
one uttered an opinion in his hearing, unsupported by reason, Henry
was accustomed to bid them go and keep company with Master Guillaume.
The Paris _gamins_ were in the habit of hooting him in the streets,
and noble counts made little of employing him to scare away a whole
saloon-full of ladies by the performance of some beastly trick. Even
Cardinals would condescend to argue with this Norman fool, and boast
of victories in disputes where there was small common sense and less
wit on either side, and little honour to be gained by triumphing over a
“natural.”

As a companion to Guillaume, the name of Pierre du Four l’Evêque is met
with; but he was a street fool, and not a “fou à titre d’office.” Under
their names, and that of Chicot, some of the best political satires of
this period were published. The author could not safely print his own
name; and he found not only safety but profit in publishing his book
under the name of some more popular fool.

Some authors rank Joubert, surnamed Angoulevent, with the court fools
of Henri IV. The surname was common to some of the clubs or memberships
which met under the inspiration of Folly. Joubert was president of
some such society. He called himself “noble” and “gentleman of the
King’s chamber;” but this was in joke, for Joubert seems to have
been connected with the theatre at the Hôtel de Bourgogne. His title
of “Prince of Fools” procured for him some privileges granted by
the Parliament, and some protection at the tribunals of law and
justice. This is explained at great length by Du Tillot, and also
by Dr. Rigollet, in their respective works on this subject. Joubert
was probably a well-esteemed _farceur_, but I only find him once in
connection with Henri IV., namely, when a woman committed suicide by
hanging herself, and the King gave her property, forfeited to the crown
by the felonious act, to Joubert, “surnamed Angoulement, Prince of
Fools.”

Chicot, with his Gascon accent, was accustomed to excite the laughter
of the courts of Henri III. and Henri IV. Maret, the servant and
_plaisant_ of Louis XIII. tried to effect the same object by imitating
the Gascon twang of Gascon nobles. Even Richelieu once imitated this
bad example, bidding the Duke d’Espernon to get rid of his provincial
accent, and at the same time speaking with that accent himself. The
Cardinal ended by hoping that the Duke would not be offended. “Why
should I take offence at it?” said the Duke; “it is only what the
King’s fool does in my hearing every day.”

Maret showed more jealousy than wit, when the King’s page Bravadas
was suddenly preferred to be the friend and playfellow of Louis. At
dinner, on the day when this sudden growth of favour was first made
manifest, the fool, pointing to some mushrooms, bade the lacquey bring
him “a spoonful of _Bravadas_.” On many of the royal customs this
jester was trenchant enough, particularly on the custom observed by the
King, of eating alone; while other customs were observed by him only
when surrounded by a circle of courtiers. “Voilà deux choses de votre
métier,” said Maret, “dont je ne pourrois jamais m’accommoder.”

At the same court with Maret, and accounted as a fool, but not
decorated with, or stigmatized by, the official title, we find,
attached to the King’s brother, Gaston of Orléans, Louis de
Neufgermain, a man whose silliness and vanity made him the sport of
the court, and whose affected skill in poetry acquired for him the
appellation, which he seriously accepted and proudly displayed, of
“Poëte Hétéroclite to his royal highness the Duke of Orleans.” This
very select poet penned rhymes which would not be acknowledged in the
bon-bon Parnassus of the Rue des Lombards. They were execrable and
pointless. For the most part they consisted of lines which he supplied
to words given to him, for which he was to find rhymes. It was the
sport of the court to puzzle him by intractable words, such as in
English would be _orange_ and _month_; and to extricate himself from
the difficulty, he wrote the wildest nonsense, and the wilder this
was, the more the audience laughed at the fool.

With Louis XIV. we approach the last of the French “plaisants.” As
Margaret of Navarre had Guerin to make lively her leisure hours, so the
consort of Louis XIV. maintained Tricomini, who was hardly amusing.
He was remarkable more for rough, unpalatable, but irrefutable truths
than for wit; and we pass him by, to notice L’Angeli, whose greatest
honour it is that he is named by Boileau, in a way too which shows how
fortunate a fool was the last of the official jesters of France.

   “Un poëte à la cour fut jadis à la mode,
    Mais des Fous aujourd’hui c’est le plus incommode,
    Et l’esprit le plus beau, l’auteur le plus poli,
    Ne parviendra jamais au sort de l’Angeli.”

L’Angeli was of a good family, but the branch of it to which he
belonged was so decayed, that the bearer of the name was glad to
follow the Prince of Condé to Flanders in the humble capacity of a
stable-boy. The lad excited notice by his satire and wit, and Condé,
on his return from Flanders, could think of no more acceptable gift
to present to the King, Louis XIII., than his vivacious stable-boy.
The latter rose to fortune, especially in the succeeding reign, when
he became the salaried and official jester, and amassed a fortune.
If the courtiers wanted a joke from him, he first made them pay for
it. If they wanted to escape his sarcasm, Angeli would not pronounce
them exempt, without a fee. What he thus pocketed he carefully put
by. Altogether, he was a well-regulated fellow, save in the matter of
attendance at church; for absenting himself from which, he assigned two
fool’s reasons, namely, that he could not endure brawling, and did not
understand argument. When he had acquired some five-and-twenty thousand
crowns by the exercise of his office at court, his proud relatives
began to acknowledge their long-neglected kinsman: Angeli only
laughed, and went on increasing his fortune. “Of all us fools,” once
exclaimed Marigny, as he saw Louis XIV. laughing at the jester’s light
words,--“of all us fools who were attached to the Prince of Condé,
Angeli is the only one who has made his fortune.”

This “fou” had a quiet as well as a lively wit. On one occasion,
finding himself standing by the side of a nobleman, one of whose
ancestors was supposed to have been a buffoon: “Cousin,” said Angeli,
“let us both sit down, nobody will pay any particular attention to
_us_; and you and I are not likely to take offence from each other.”
L’Angeli died in 1640, just three years after Archie Armstrong had been
ejected from the English court.

With L’Angeli ordinarily closes the list of officially titled fools
in France; but I learn from the learned author of the work on the
medals and tokens of societies connected with fools and follies, that
the Count of Toulouse, the illegitimate son of Louis, had a fool
officially appointed to exercise his calling in the Count’s household.
The author in question most provokingly adds, that “there was one
anecdote he could tell of this fool, which would suffice to avenge the
whole class of fools of the contempt with which we cover them. The
history is unpublished and piquant, but,” again adds this writer, “it
does not belong to me; and that is all I can say about it, _for the
moment_;”--and he never alludes to it again throughout his book!

Although Louis XIV. appointed no successor to L’Angeli, it is clear
that he continued to be pleased with tricks after the court jester’s
fashion. We have this exemplified in the case of that elegant but
inconstant lover, Vardis, who, after throwing the whole court and
household of the King into confusion by his audacious gallantries, was
exiled to Provence, where, for nearly thirty years, he continued to be
the delight of the women and the detestation of the men, who envied and
could not rival him.

At the end of the time above mentioned, the Count, then almost a
sexagenarian, received permission from the Government, to return to
Paris. Vardis was still uncertain how he might be received by the
King, and his very happiness depended on the nature of such reception.
He went boldly down to Versailles, and on entering the presence,
he had the gratification of seeing King and courtiers burst into
uncontrollable peals of laughter. He had prepared himself to produce
so desired a result, by appearing at court in a dress which was the
very height of the fashion when he began his exile, but which looked
so ridiculous now, that I do not know how I can better illustrate it
than by asking any matron who has preserved her bridal bonnet and dress
of thirty years ago, what she thinks she would look like, if she were
to wear the same at her youngest daughter’s wedding-breakfast. Let
any gentleman open a book of fashions of 1828, and say if he would be
daring enough to enter Hyde Park in such a costume. The appearance of
Vardis was still more ridiculous. He had been to his contemporaries
what D’Orsay was within our own remembrance; and he returned to court,
the King of Fashion, but a King who had been touched by a fairy’s wand,
and had been lain asleep as soundly and as long as Rip van Winkle. His
head was a perfect caricature, and he wore one of those blue coats, or
tunics, embroidered with gold and silver lace, which had the name of a
“justaucorps à brevet,” because no person could wear this article of
dress, which the King himself wore, without his Majesty’s _brevet_, or
warrant. Louis rolled in ecstasy at the sight of the old portrait; and
the happy Vardis exclaimed, “Ah, Sire, absent from your Majesty, one
becomes not only unhappy, but ridiculous.” The King, still laughing,
presented him to the Dauphin, to whom Vardis offered the homage of a
low bow. Louis laughed again, remarking, “Vardis, you have done the act
of a fool; you know that no person can salute another in my presence.”
“Oh!” cried Vardis, with an air that would have done credit to the
official fool, “I know nothing at all. I have forgotten everything.
_One_ act of folly? your Majesty must pardon thirty.” “Be it so,”
answered the King; “but stop at nine-and-twenty.” And with this _coup
de fou_ did Vardis leap into a little brief favour.

I must not dismiss the reign of Louis XIV. without a word in reference
to the Duke de Roquelaure, who figures in so many jest-books as a
buffoon at the court of Louis XIV. The Duke is indebted for much of his
reputation, as to this matter, to Saint-Simon, who hated him heartily,
and misrepresented him accordingly. Roquelaure was a plain, brave,
facetious man; but the jokes attributed to him in the ‘Momus Français’
are entirely apocryphal. These represent him as disgustingly insulting
to ladies, audacious to the highest clergy, regardless of his own
honour or of that of his wife, and so forgetful of reverence due to
holy places, as, on one occasion, to have jumped out of bed, run into
a church, and there beat the Spanish Ambassador about the head with
his slippers. According to the ‘Momus,’ no courtier escaped the rough
licking of his tongue; though the Duke, who had little or no nose,
sometimes had to undergo more painful allusions than he himself made,
from courtiers or prelates whose huge noses were points on which he is
said to have sharpened his wit. The last court-foolery told of him is,
of his having asserted that he would not only kick a certain courtier,
Bechamel, but that the latter would thank him for it. He committed the
assault, saluting the victim at the same time, as if he had been the
handsome De Grammont. Bechamel was so delighted at being mistaken, as
he thought, for so brilliant a cavalier, that he turned round with
radiant smiles, and thanked Roquelaure for the error into which he had
fallen.

As I have said, I could not entirely pass over Roquelaure; and it is
on the authority of his biographer in the ‘Biographie Universelle,’ I
have stated that his court jests are apocryphal. Worse jokes, however,
than these were perpetrated at the court of Louis XIV.; witness that
occasion when the French court was at Fère, very dull, and sadly in
want of sport. Cardinal Mazarin then undertook to play the fool for it;
and he did so after a fashion that was highly enjoyed by the “people of
quality.” There was then residing with the Cardinal the youngest of his
nieces, a little girl seven or eight years of age, Marianne Mancini,
afterwards Duchess de Bouillon. As an illustration of court-foolery,
the incident requires to be told, and I prefer giving the opening
portion of it in the words of M. Amédée Renée, from whose book on ‘Les
Nièces de Mazarin,’ I make the extract:--

“Le Cardinal, une après-dînée, se mit à plaisanter la nièce sur ses
galants. Il alla jusqu’à lui dire qu’elle etoit grosse. Marianne se
fâcha tout rouge, et l’oncle de s’en amuser si bien qu’il continua la
plaisanterie. On retrécit les robes de l’enfant, pour lui faire croire
que sa taille s’arrondissait. Ses colères divertissaient toute la cour.
Il n’était question que de son prochain accouchement, et Marianne,
un beau matin, trouva dans ses draps un enfant qui venait de naître.
Il fallut bien convenir alors de sa maternité. Elle jeta des cris de
désespoir, et fit chorus longtemps avec son nouveau-né; elle assurait
fort qu’elle ne s’était aperçu de rien.” To the child thus fooled, the
Queen-mother, Anne of Austria, paid a visit of ceremony, and begged to
be allowed to be godmother to the baby! The entire court turned fools
on this occasion, waited on the imaginary mother in great pomp, and
passed in ceremonious rotation before the bed, according to prescribed
etiquette; and these fine people were in ecstasies! The elder sister of
Marianne, Hortense, Duchess of Mazarin, says in her autobiography, of
which not she, but St. Réal, was the author, “Ce fut un divertissement
public. On pressa Marianne de déclarer le père de l’enfant, et elle
répondit que ce ne pouvait être que le Roi ou le Comte de Guiche,
car elle ne voyoit que ces deux hommes-là qui l’eussent embrassé.”
Hortense, who was, as M. Renée remarks, “au courant de la chose,”
testified her enjoyment of the joke by loud bursts of laughter. The
court thought there had never been so choice a jester as the Cardinal;
for of such complexion were the jokes of that time, and in this manner
did fools of quality prepare the minds of little girls for this world
and the next.

As true wit however was found among the nobles and gentlemen at the
court of the Grand Monarque as ever had been uttered by the liveliest
of professional jesters. Sydney Smith, in his Lectures on Moral
Philosophy, cites a sample which is of such excellence as to have
received his high approbation. “Louis XIV.,” he says, “was exceedingly
molested by the solicitations of a general officer at the levée,
and cried out, loud enough to be heard, ‘That gentleman is the most
troublesome officer in the whole army.’ ‘Your Majesty’s enemies have
said the same thing more than once,’ was the answer; the wit of which,”
adds the narrator, “consists in the sudden relation discovered in
the officer’s assent to the King’s invective, and his own defence.
By admitting the King’s observation, he seems, at first sight, to be
subscribing to the King’s imputation against him; whereas, in reality,
he effaces it by this very means.”

Louis XIV. was yet in his youth when Mazarin introduced a new source
whence idle, wealthy people might derive amusement. The Cardinal filled
_his_ palace with monkeys, that is, there was scarcely a room which
had not in it one of these tricksy animals, to afford laughter to the
occupant or visitor. They were carefully tended and highly scented
by the nieces of Mazarin, those celebrated ladies whom satirists
distinguished by the name of Mazarinettes. They are thus alluded to in
‘Le Passeport et l’Adieu de Mazarin.’

   “Ainsi donc par vos limonades,
    Par vos excellentes pommades,
    Par la bonne odeur de vos gants,

           *       *       *       *       *

    Par les singes que tant aimez,
    Qui, comme vous, sont parfumés
    Par les belles Mazarinettes,” etc.

The fashion of finding amusement in keeping monkeys was, however, of
very old date. Plutarch tells us, that when Cæsar happened once to
see some strangers at Rome carrying young dogs and monkeys in their
arms, caressing them, he asked, ‘Whether the women in their country
never bore any children?’ thus reproving those who lavish on brutes
the natural tenderness which is due to mankind. The only case in which
I can remember that monkeys were made useful, is that of the Abbé
Galiani, whose monkey used to unseal all his letters for him. Galiani
used to call him “a member of the diplomatic body.”

Although the jester by right of office, had disappeared from the French
court, we occasionally meet with amateur fools who presumed to hint
censure at the monarch, but who found the King with more censorious wit
than themselves. This was the case when Latour was taking the portrait
of Louis XV. It was just after a national calamity. Latour, with the
impudent familiarity of Triboulet, exclaimed, “Well, Sire, so we have
no longer any navy!” “And Vernet?” coldly replied the King,--alluding
to the marine painter whom he patronized, and who could furnish him any
amount of fleets on and under canvas.

If Louis XV. had not altogether the ever-ready wit necessary to a
jester, he possessed all the imperturbability of the fool. An instance
presents itself in the little court incident, when M. de Chauvelin was
seized at the royal card-table with the fit of apoplexy of which he
died. On seeing him fall, some one exclaimed, “M. de Chauvelin is ill!”
“Ill?” said the King, coldly turning round and looking at him; “he is
dead. Take him away; spades are trumps, gentlemen!”

Neither did this sovereign maintain an official jester; as before
intimated, the vocation of the fool had ceased, but the favour and
freedom he had enjoyed were acquired by men who, as Chesterfield
remarks of the Marshal Duke of Richelieu, raised themselves above
their betters, without knowledge, talent, or merit. The Duke, however,
whom Louis XV. used to call his “amiable Good-for-nothing,” had
certainly some claim to be ranked as a court wit. He proved as much
when Louis, on one occasion, remarked that there was not such another
“good-for-nothing” in all France. “Ah, Sire,” said the Duke with a tone
of kindly reproach, “Your Majesty forgets yourself!” Triboulet never
said anything half so good.

Here I will close the record of French _plaisants_. The “_plaisantes_”
of Louis XV. have no claim to admission upon my list; and at the court
of his successors, the time had come when princes had begun to be their
own fools. The Republic lowered “Liberty” to the level of fool, and the
people paid dearly for their _marotte_. With the Empire, the nation
had again its fool, under the name of “Glory;” a costly toy which
brought a splendid misery. How Louis Philippe could be his own jester,
I shall have to show in a subsequent page. At the present Imperial
Court, there is no official fool; but some persons may perhaps discover
the Emperor’s “joculator” in that wonderful man, the Count de Morny,
whose last joke consisted in his telling the Imperial Legislature that
the utmost purity of election had brought them there, and that the
utmost freedom of speech was their undoubted privilege. That the Count
could say as much to the Members without, as the French say, “laughing
at their noses,” demonstrates how admirably he is qualified to be
“joculator” to the Empire at large.

The Count’s name, too, is so associated with that of Russia, that,
_apropos_ to court fools, I will now ask my readers to turn with me
towards Muscovy, and see how fools have flourished at the court of the
Czars, and, indeed, in the Northern courts of Europe generally.




JESTERS IN THE NORTHERN COURTS OF EUROPE.


Of all the courts, civilized or uncivilized, at which fools have been
numbered on the household, the jester was never in so uncomfortable
a purgatory as in the household of the Czars. The most savage, the
most able, but it would be hard to say the most mendacious, of these
potentates, was Ivan Vasilievitch IV., who reigned from 1533 to 1581.
He might, for various reasons, be reckoned amongst the princes who
were their own fools,--for some of his acts savoured greatly of the
profession; at least, there was more folly than wit in some of this
gloomy monster’s merry conceits; as, for instance, when he invited a
number of guests to dinner, and set before them a repast of dog, cat,
and even human flesh. His fools must have had a terrible time of it;
and how they could ever be gamesome in presence of such a capricious
savage is inconceivable. Occasionally, the unclean Czar was minded to
be delicate, and then he would take offence at what he generally seemed
most to delight in. Once, his favourite fool, not knowing the bent of
his master’s humour, was indulging at table in very unsavory jests; and
the gentle Ivan ordered him to leave the room. A few minutes later,
the Czar commanded him to return, and to kneel before him. The jester
obeyed, and his gracious master, taking up a kettle of scalding hot
broth, poured the whole down the back of the fool, between his clothes
and his skin. The wretched victim screamed in his agony, and writhed
under the torture. Ivan had the grace to bid his doctor look to him,
but Esculapius himself could not have saved him. The fool died; and
all the requiem chanted over him by his imperious master was,--“Since
the fool did not choose to live; why, let him be buried.”

For many a long year, the Russian joculators that were the most highly
prized were hideous, overfed, sleepy idiots, with nothing remarkable
about them but their want of wit. Beyond the record of this fact,
there is little worth noticing till we arrive at the reign of Peter
the Great, who, according to Weber, quoted by Flögel, maintained
about him not less than a hundred persons who might be classed under
the head of court fools. They were of various qualities; some had
been born imbecile, and these he entirely supported, making use of
them occasionally as examples to his courtiers, comparing the natural
condition of each, and drawing therefrom a moral teaching content.
Others of the class were officials who, having committed some gross
act of folly, he punished by compelling them to wear the dress of a
fool, to take the name, and fulfil to the best of their small wit, the
business of such profession. A third class, if two or three individuals
may be so called, comprised persons who, having been guilty of some
serious offence, thought to avoid the penalty by feigning madness, and
were consequently seriously treated as such.

Among the second class noticed above, was a Captain Uschakow, who
was promoted or degraded to the rank of court fool for the following
exhibition of his quality. The Captain had been despatched by the
commandant of Smolensko with an important letter addressed to the
governor of Kiov, and requiring an immediate reply. He was ordered to
traverse the sixty leagues which lie between those cities, as fast as
his horse could carry him; and he obeyed the order faithfully, arriving
at the gates of Kiov before break of day. On application for admission,
some delay ensued, the officer on duty informing him that he must wait
till the keys could be procured from the commandant, who was then
asleep. Uschakow, in great rage, said his letter was of the utmost
importance, and that if he were not immediately admitted, he would
gallop back to Smolensko and lay a complaint before the commandant who
had sent him. The officer thought he was joking; but his surprise was
great to see the impatient captain turn his horse’s head and disappear,
at full speed, through the morning mist. When Uschakow came in presence
of his superior officer at Smolensko, carrying the letter instead of
the expected reply, and stated what had occurred, the commandant, after
showering upon him every invective he could think of, sent him to the
Czar, with orders to tell his own story. Peter no sooner heard it, than
he immediately ordered Uschakow to be cashiered, and enrolled among the
court fools. So far from this being a punishment, it was the luckiest
thing that could happen to a man of the mental calibre of the captain.
He took to his new office with hearty good will; by his frolicsome
humour he was welcomed to several European courts; and he very speedily
saved not less than 20,000 thalers out of the presents made to him. He
accompanied Peter in most of his visits to brother potentates; and on
one of these occasions he was present, with the Czar and the King of
Poland, at the theatre at Dresden. Some interruption occurred on the
stage, previous to the appearance of a Scaramouch, who was announced to
dance a buffoon _pas seul_, called “Les Follies d’Espagne.” Impatient
at the delay, Uschakow jumped lightly from the royal box on to the
stage, and to the astonishment and delight of the entire house, went
through the whole dance himself, with additional quips, and cranks,
and absurd follies, which kept the illustrious spectators in a roar of
laughter.

There were two brothers of a princely family who did not enjoy the
promotion to the rank of Witless so unreservedly as Uschakow had done.
Flögel does not give their names, nor state whence he derives the
story, which is to this effect. The brothers had joined a conspiracy,
the object of which was to slay the Czar; but which, being discovered,
and the principal plotters summarily hanged, the brothers found that
their turn for responsibility had arrived. This they endeavoured to
avoid by feigning a comic sort of madness; and when this was reported
to Peter, he granted them their lives, but decreed that in every
subsequent act of theirs they should be held to be as mad as they had
pretended to be, and treated accordingly. This novel species of torture
does not seem very intolerable, but as they were retained at court,
the brothers found it past endurance. One of them sank into a deep
melancholy, and the other drank himself into raging madness, in order
to forget that men accounted him mad.

Peter, who judged so terribly of others, once submitted to judgment
himself. In a fit of frolicsome humour, he one evening placed one of
his jolly companions on the throne, before which the Czar stood to give
an account of his actions. At the side of the throne stood Peter’s
favourite fool, who made running comments on every phrase uttered by
the real or the pseudo-Czar, in the style of the ancient Chorus, or
rather in the merry fashion of Mr. Charles Mathews when representing
the ancient Chorus in a burlesque at the Haymarket. Peter came
indifferently off in presence of a judge and fool both of whom, having
full license of speech, used their liberty to the utmost, amid the
risibility of an ecstatic audience.

It is well known how Peter loved to play other parts besides that of
Czar. When, in London, he went to a masked ball at the Temple, he
appeared in the costume of a butcher. So he is described in Luttrell’s
Diary. We find a trait still more illustrative of his character, in
connection with a Christmas incident in his own country. Formerly,
we are told, there was a ceremony in Russia called “Slaevens.” It
consisted of a sledge procession which took place between Christmas
and the New Year, in which the clergy, splendidly attended, stopped
at certain houses, sang a _Te Deum laudamus_ or an occasional carol,
and received in return rich donations from those who wished to be
considered peculiarly orthodox Christians. Peter the Great once
witnessed this procession, and was so edified by the amount of the
contributions, that he relieved the clergy of all further trouble, by
a simple process. He placed himself, suitably attired, at the head
of the sledges and the Church, sang his own carols, and pocketed the
contributions of the loyal and the faithful, with the ecstasy of a man
who has discovered a new sensation combining profit with pleasure.

The men whom Peter sent into foreign countries to study art or science,
were all subjected by him, on their return, to strict examination. If
he found that they had profited by their studies, their reward was
certain; if they had come back almost as ignorant as when they had set
out, the penalty was also inevitable. They were degraded, made menial
servants, and placed on the list of fools. At the court of the Czarina
Anne, there were several of these individuals, over whom the chief
fool, Pedrillo, had absolute authority. They were employed in keeping
the imperial stoves supplied with wood, or in looking after the hounds,
and served as objects of ridicule to the Czarina and her whole court.

Often by Peter’s side at table, and in his cups, was to be seen an
individual addressed as the “Patriarch of Russia,” and sometimes as
the “King of Siberia.” He was attired in sacerdotal robes, and covered
with loosely-hung gold and silver medals, which sounded musically
as he moved. It was a favourite trick with Peter, when he and the
Patriarch were equally drunk, to suddenly overturn him, chair and
all, and exhibit the reverend gentleman with his heels in the air.
There is record of a similar fool in the person of the “King of the
Samoieds.” He was a Pole who was boarded, and who received a rouble
monthly, for entertaining the Czar and court by the exercise of such
small wit as was reckoned at such low worth. This title of “King of
the Samoieds” was usually conferred by Peter on what may be styled
his occasional fools. Thus, meeting among the patients at the “Water
Cure,” at Alonaitz, in 1719, a Portuguese Jew, whose singularities
and comic bearing delighted the Czar, the latter first promoted him
to the equivocal distinction of “titular count,” and then conferred
on him the fool’s royalty in the Kingship of the Samoieds. The most
burlesque of coronations was subsequently performed in Peter’s
presence. It was to some such rank that the Czar elevated his own old
writing-master, Sotoff; and it may be observed that when the Russian
priests remonstrated against his distinguishing his fools by the title
of “patriarchs,” he changed the rank and addressed them as “priests.”

To the rank of court fool Peter also elevated the head cook of the
Czarina. The cook’s wife had, by her conduct, brought dishonour on her
husband, but Peter turned this to comic account. He would have the poor
official up at his state dinners, and overwhelm him with coarse jests
and gestures in presence of the guests. The cook, however, is said to
have occasionally answered so smartly, touching the Czar’s own domestic
matters, as to make his Majesty wince again. In exchange of gross
jokes, it was “like master, like man.” Neither time nor place was ever
thought of by Peter when his will or comfort was in question; and even
at church, in winter, when he felt cold, he would take off the wig of
the man nearest him, and clap it on his own head, returning it after
the service.

Thus the Czar made fools of various members of his household, and
different officers of his court, but he had one official court fool
whom he favoured above all others, and whom he carried abroad with
him to foreign courts,--among others to those of England and France.
At the latter court the buffoon produced almost as much effect as his
master. The period of Peter’s sudden arrival in Paris, was that of the
boyhood of Louis XV. He had travelled so swiftly from Holland, that his
appearance in the French capital was the first intimation received by
the authorities there of his having left the “pays de canaux, canards,
et canaille,” as Voltaire flippantly designated the Dutch territory.

Peter was accompanied by the Princes Kourakin and Dolgorouki, by Baron
Schaffirofy, and by his ambassador, Tolstoi. But, distinguished above
these was Sotoff, the buffoon. He had originally been employed by
Peter to instruct him in the art of writing. In one respect, all the
followers of the Czar were on an equality, for there was not one of
them who had not, in his turn, suffered exile, imprisonment, or the
knout. There was no opportunity, therefore, for any one to reproach his
fellows.

How Peter looked, and walked, and talked, and danced, and tossed the
little King in his arms, and sneered at the Regent Duke of Orleans,
and uttered much nonsense, and drank bottles of beer in his box at the
opera; all these matters are chronicled by Saint-Simon and Cardinal
Dubois, according to the point of view of the individual chronicler.
The Cardinal seems to have been more particularly struck with the
buffoon. The court of France no longer possessed official jesters,
and Sotoff was a marvel and a novelty to the Cardinal. The latter, or
the writer who drew up the autobiographical memoirs, from the notes
and papers of Dubois, speaks with evident surprise of the presence
and duties of Sotoff, who was not only privileged but commanded to
give expression to every form of folly, without being in fear of any
application of the knout. What jests he uttered were incomprehensible
to Dubois and the French court, for Sotoff could only speak his native
Russian; and in that language he uttered comments on all around him
which raised the hilarity of the Muscovites, and excited the surprise,
curiosity, and perhaps the vexation of the French courtiers. Sotoff,
too, was singular in his appearance. He was at this time an aged dwarf,
with long snowy hair flowing over his shoulders. He was so ugly and so
deformed, that, according to the Cardinal, the very sight of him was
almost insupportable to the refined and handsome nobles and ladies of
the French court. Dubois compares the sound of his voice to the harsh
croaking of frogs. In spite of all this, his wit and humour were very
much to the taste of Peter, who could listen to a comedy of Molière’s
without once smiling, but who could never hear a remark from Sotoff,
the court fool, without growing weak from mere excess of laughter.

Sotoff was a man of low birth, but Russia has been especially
remarkable for her fools of high degree, among whom Princes have not
only been reckoned, but proud to find themselves upon the motley
register. The famous Ice Palace, erected by order of the Czarina Anne,
is one of those wonders of which most persons have heard. It was
erected for the celebration of the marriage of Prince Galitzin. It is
not, however, generally known that the Prince, who was between forty
and fifty, and already had a son, a lieutenant in the army, was on the
register of pages and court fools. This registration was a punishment
inflicted on him for having changed his religion, from orthodox
Russo-Greek to Roman Catholic. It was at the Czarina’s bidding that the
princely fool wedded with a girl of low birth, and it was in obedience
to the same high authority that couples from every province in the
empire came up to do honour to the nuptial festival. A procession
of above three hundred persons started from the imperial palace and
traversed the city. The bride and bridegroom were under a canopy, on an
elephant; some of the guests followed on camels, and others rode in
sledges (for it was midwinter of 1739), and their sledges were in the
shape of animals of various species, and were filled with passengers
looking as singular as the conveyances themselves. After the ceremony,
a banquet was given in honour of the Duke of Courland, where each
couple ate their own peculiar provincial dish; and this was followed
by a ball. The ball concluded, the married pair were conducted to the
Ice Palace, their temporary home. It stood on the banks of the Neva;
and was composed of large blocks of ice cemented into one mass by
water. In length it was sixty feet, in breadth eighteen feet, and in
height twenty-one feet. In front was an ice portico, with ice columns
and statues. Behind these were the single floor, divided into two
apartments, all of ice, with the doors and windows painted in imitation
of green marble. Two ice dolphins spouted forth naphtha flames to
light the procession over the threshold; and two ice mortars and
three ice cannon fired several volleys of welcome without breaking.
The two apartments were divided by a lobby; they were well furnished
with elegant ice tables, ice chairs, ice statues, mirrors, candelabra,
glass, plate, in short, every possible article that could be thought
of, and all of ice. The bedroom had state bed, sheets, curtains, two
night-caps, etc., all of ice. About the exterior were ornamental
pyramids, a conservatory, with birds on the trees, a bath-house, and
other appendages, of the same cold material. The whole was brilliantly
illuminated, and into this Temple of Isis the Prince and his bride were
solemnly conducted, and a guard-of-honour placed at the gate prevented
any intrusion on the married couple, or any attempt of the latter to
escape from the cold hospitality provided for them by the Czarina. This
joke was so highly approved of, that to build ice palaces, though not
to have performed in them the same play, became an imperial weakness.
With regard, however, to court fools, it is a singular fact that
Russia has not only made such officials out of foreign ambassadors whom
she has duped by dint of that mingled piety and mendacity which betray
the Tartar blood within her; but she has also commissioned her own
envoys to play the rude jester at the courts of Kings whom she would
fain bring into contempt,--and could bully with safety.

Such an agent as this, Russia found in the representative Repuin,
whom she retained at the court of the last King of Poland, Stanislaus
Poniatowsky. The arrogance of the Muscovite ambassador was extremely
offensive, but his power of joking was quite as frequently employed,
when he had a political end in view. One day he bullied or supported
the King; at another time he rendered him contemptible by sarcasms
uttered against him, in his hearing. Lord Malmesbury, in the first
volume of his Diaries and Correspondence, dated from Warsaw, in 1767,
gives several instances of unseemly liberties taken by Repuin with
the King, such as Scogan himself would have hesitated to take with
the royal Edward, who allowed him privilege of speech and action. One
sample from the measure piled up by Lord Malmesbury will suffice:--“At
the Primate’s, it was a question of some of the ancient Polish monarchs
who, being driven from their own kingdom, were obliged, by way of
support, to exercise some trade,--one particularly who, for awhile, was
a goldsmith at Florence. The present King, discoursing on this topic,
said, he should be extremely embarrassed, if he was to be put to the
trial, as he knew no way of getting his livelihood. ‘Pardon me. Sire,’
said the Ambassador, ‘your Majesty still knows how to dance well.’ What
should we think,” asks Lord Malmesbury, “if we heard an ambassador tell
our King, ‘If all trades fail, your Majesty may turn dancing-master’?”
There is no fear, however, of such a polite observation being made at
our court by any Russian joculator in an ambassador’s dress. These
arrogant agents know how to be submissive; and, in presence of a
monarch to be respected, can sink to the ground, like a cowardly boy
who avoids a blow from a bold adversary, or a Russian fleet in presence
of a resolute enemy.

The Czar Paul had around him a number of that class of jesters who
found favour with Peter; and he was further delighted to be made merry
by the comic French actors who visited his capital. It was not always
safe for these, however, to jest with him too roughly; as may be seen
in the case of Fougère, the actor, who taking the jester’s privilege
to speak freely to Paul once at supper, and to mock at his vaunted
abilities, was punished for it by being dragged from his bed, in the
night, tossed into a van which did not admit the light of day, and
carried off, as he was politely informed, to his extreme horror, to
Siberia. After several weeks had been spent in the journey, Fougère
reached his destination, and on his eyes being unbandaged, he found
himself in presence of Paul and a joyous number of _convives_, all of
whom laughed heartily at the capital jest, whereby Fougère had been
made to believe that he was being conveyed to Siberia, when he was only
being drawn round and round St. Petersburg, for whole weeks.

Nicholas, who may be said to have swam to his throne in the blood of
his subjects in the capital, and to have been washed from it by the
same sanguinary deluge at Sebastopol, had, like his father Paul, his
frolicsome humours and facetious whims. Of course he did not keep
court fools; but he would sometimes catch a fool and compel him to
exhibit for the amusement of his court. He once captured an individual
of this species in the person of Save Saveitch Yakovloff. The young
gentleman with this cacophonous appellation had been an officer in the
Guards, and had been commissioned to purchase horses for his regiment.
As, however, he had not cheated the vendors, and brought back steeds
worth double the money which had been entrusted to him wherewith to
buy them, his condition in his regiment was rendered intolerable, and
he was forced out of it by a series of small but wearying nuisances.
He applied for permission to travel, but was refused. In disgrace and
involuntary idleness, all state employment denied him, Save was puzzled
for a time as to what occupation he could turn to. After consideration,
he resolved to set up in the capital as the glass of fashion, and he
appeared in public in the most exaggerated costumes, founded on French
and English books of fashion. He one day presented himself on the
Nevski Prospect in the following guise. On his head was a little peaked
hat like a flowerpot reversed; his beard was _à la Henri Quatre_;
his cravat was a thick scarf tied in a gigantic bow; his cloak was a
little _Almaviva_; in one hand he carried a knotted cudgel, with the
other he held a small glass to his eye, and between his legs, or at
his side, waddled the most ugly and costly of bulldogs. He was thus
airing himself when the Imperial carriage passed; Nicholas sat therein;
his eye rested for a moment on the “exquisite,” and then the Czar
beckoned to the “fool,” who hurried up, thinking that his fortune was
re-established.

A dialogue ensued, which I give on the authority of Michelsen, who may
be safely trusted. “Pray,” said Nicholas, eyeing him with humorous
curiosity, “in the name of all the saints, who are you, and where do
you come from?”

“May it please your Majesty, I have the honour to be your Majesty’s
faithful subject, Save Saveitch Yakovloff.”

“Indeed!” replied the Emperor, with much gravity, “we are enchanted to
have the opportunity of making your acquaintance, Save Saveitch. Oblige
us by just stepping up, and take a seat beside us.”

Yakovloff slyly dropped the cudgel, and, not without some misgiving,
took his seat.

“But stop,” said the Emperor, when they had driven on a little way,
“where is your stick, Save Saveitch?”

“Never mind the stick, your Majesty.”

“But I do mind it, Save Saveitch Yakovloff.” The carriage was turned
back, the cudgel picked up, and orders were given to drive on straight
to the Winter Palace. When there, the Emperor alighted and made a
signal to his alarmed fellow-traveller to follow. “O Save Saveitch,”
said he sarcastically, “pray do not take off your cloak! we must
have you--hat, stick, cloak and all.” The Emperor led the way to the
apartments of the Empress.

“Pray, my dear,” inquired he, “do you know this animal?”

“No,” replied the Empress, unable to repress a laugh at the strange
figure before her.

“Then allow me to inform you this is our faithful subject Save Saveitch
Yakovloff. What do you think of him?” said Nicholas, turning him round,
“is not he a pretty fellow?”

The unfortunate Save Saveitch, whose feelings may be imagined, after
having afforded the royal couple much diversion, was dismissed,
half-dead with terror and confusion; but before he departed, he
received a salutary hint that the Czar did not always punish the
foolery of his subjects so leniently.--In short, Nicholas, after using
poor Save as a court fool, was mean enough to dismiss him without a
court fool’s wages.

Thus much to illustrate my subject with regard to Russia. There is not
much to be added in reference to the other Northern courts. In the
autobiography of Christina, Queen of Sweden, which forms part of the
ponderous memoirs of that sovereign by Archenholz, she tells the world
that when in her youth the Regency of Sweden had determined to provide
her with apartments separate from those of the Queen-Mother, the latter
opposed it with vehement anger and sorrow, while Christina herself,
with all her tender respect for the widow of Gustavus Adolphus,
approved of the measure with as vehement delight. “I was afraid,”
says the lively Queen, “that she would be a grand obstacle in the
way of my studies and exercises, which annoyed me much, for I had an
extreme desire to learn.” Besides, adds Christina, “the Queen-Mother
took delight in maintaining a number of buffoons and dwarfs in her
apartments, which were always full of them, after the German fashion.
Such a fashion was insupportable to me, for I have a natural aversion
against that wretched class of beings.”

Flögel traces the Scandinavian jesters back to the period of the
Scalds (the Skial, or wise men), who were also called Spekinge (from
_speke_, wisdom), from which, he says, is derived our word _speak_,
which, however, is not always in connection with wisdom. The Sapphic
verses of the Scalds often conveyed a double meaning, and perhaps this
species of wit caused the idea of the bards being a species of jesters.
That they were magnificently rewarded there is no doubt, seeing that
Hiarne, the Scald, wrote an epitaph on Frotho I. of Denmark, which so
delighted the people that they elected the poet to the vacant throne.
The people must have been poor judges of poetry, for the epitaph is but
an indifferent production. And then the story is doubtful, belonging
to the period anterior to that of Harald in the ninth century, all the
details of which are mythic and contradictory. One fact, nevertheless,
connects the Scald with the jester; both were licensed to sing or speak
with impunity. The former might make his harp ring to the intoning
of the royal faults, just as the fool might raise the laughter of a
court by sarcastic allusion to kingly foibles. And, moreover, there
were several Scandinavian Kings who were their own Scalds, as we have
seen several princes who were their own fools. The parallel may,
perhaps, be allowed to pass; the more, that the wit of the Scald was
generally as incomprehensible and cumbersome as that of some of the
early court jesters. Fancy the verse which literally runs:--“I hang
the round hammered yawning serpent at the tongue of the falcon-bridge,
by the gallows of the shield of Odin,” to mean nothing more than,
“I put the ring on the finger of the hand, near the arm!” Here was
euphonistic folly! And the words, too, were mixed up unconnectedly,
having no meaning at all as they originally stood; and through what a
circumlocution-office of construing and interpreting had the student to
go before he reached the thing signified! The _falcon-bridge_ was the
hand on which the falconer carried his bird. The _tongue_ of the bridge
was the little finger; and the _gallows of the shield of Odin_, was the
arm on which the warrior’s shield was wont to be suspended!

They were mighty fellows, those Scalds, in the days of heathenism, but
as Christianity dawned and rose, their power decreased. They became
court poets, which, according to Ménage, was the same as court fool,
and they sank into ordinary minstrels, who sang, as their historians
say, with more truth than refinement, simply to “fill their bellies.”

Like the Italian fools, the Scandinavian jesters seem to have been mere
practical jokers. Of one, who was not clever enough to transmit his
name to posterity, we are told that a King of Denmark once accepted
his invitation to repair to an old castle, and there drink ale-soup
with him; and that the fool, conducting his Majesty to the sea-+side,
remarked, “There is the soup; when you have finished that you shall
have the ale.” At a much later period the fool is to be found in
another capacity; thus, at the triumphal entry of Admiral Bagge, there
figured in the procession “the court fool Hercules,” whose duty it was
to play on the fiddle. Nothing however is said of his proficiency.

In Scandinavia, as elsewhere, the fool is sometimes seen in the light
of excellent counsellor and acute statesman. This was the case with
the jester of Frederick II. of Denmark, about 1580, when that monarch
happened to be in much perplexity touching a bargain he had made, or
half made, with some English merchants at Copenhagen. He had been
induced to accept their offer to purchase the island of Huen, in the
Sound, at the cost of as much English scarlet cloth as would reach all
round the island, and a piece of gold for every fold of the cloth.
The perplexity of Frederick arose from the fact that he had bethought
himself, if the English possessed Huen they might fortify it, and with
their fleets blockade the Sound itself. He was sorely puzzled, for
he wished to break the bargain without seeming to break his word. He
looked in utter helplessness at his fool; and the fool, smiling at
the supposed difficulty, came to the King’s relief. “You have only to
tell the English merchants,” said the descendant of Yorick, “that in
standing to your contract, it is understood that as soon as they pay
the price of the purchase, they must remove the article purchased; for
it is not to be imagined that you sell such an unwieldy article, to let
it stick at your door, or to let them stick on it in your very jaws.”
The King was delighted; he wriggled out of his bargain, by the fool’s
good aid, and the popular voice added the name of the Scarlet Isle to
that of Huen, or Venusia.

These brief notices will perhaps suffice to show the quality of the
joculator in the Northern Courts. The next chapter will as briefly
illustrate the Motley of Spain.




THE SPANISH JESTERS.


In one of the letters addressed by the anxious Chesterfield to his son,
the discerning Peer remarks: “There is at all courts a chain which
connects the Prince or the Minister with the page of the backstairs
or the chambermaid. The King’s wife or mistress has an influence over
him; a lover has an influence over her; the chambermaid or _valet de
chambre_ has an influence over both; and so _ad infinitum_. You must
therefore,” adds the estimable trainer of his child, “not break a link
of that chain, by which you hope to climb up to the prince.”

With a little modification, such as “fool” for _valet de chambre_, this
counsel would not have been without value to any young Spaniard about
to push his fortunes at any one of the royal courts once scattered
over the length and breadth of now united Spain. At these courts,
the jester was paramount in influence. The introduction of the merry
official is said to date from the entry of the Troubadours from the
south of France. This joyous company brought with them many methods of
entertaining royal and noble listeners, but they gradually degenerated,
as the minstrels did in other countries, into buffoons,--and probably
found the latter the more profitable profession of the two.

James II., King of Majorca, provided for the merry professors in the
royal household, by establishing them there, under the protection of
the law. “From ancient times,” as tradition tells us, so runs the
decree, “it has been lawful for Mimes or Jesters to reside in princes’
households; for the execution of their office is a provocative to
gladness. Wherefore, we will and ordain, that in our court there shall
always be five jesters, of which five, two may be trumpeters, and a
third our letter-carrier (_tabellarius_).” This arrangement left the
other two in close attendance upon their royal patron.

That these officials were not always addicted to joking, may be
seen in the case of the anonymous fool, who is said to have stabbed
Theudis, or Theodored, the royal Groth, at the Council of Toledo. It
is believed, however, that the assassin only feigned folly in order to
obtain freer access to the person of the prince. Generally speaking,
the Spanish fools seem to have been as merry fellows as Figaro, whose
office of barber was indeed frequently exercised, like that of the
jester, with infinite mirth and much impunity. So merry were some of
these _Joculatores_, that one king, at least, is said to have died of
laughter at a fool’s jest. This king must have been very easy to kill,
if we may judge by the joke which, as we are told, proved mortal to him.

The monarch in question was Martin of Arragon, who reigned from 1394
to 1410. His favourite jester was the renowned Borra, who drove such
a thriving trade by his jokes, that he is said to have been worth a
ton of gold. He looked down upon many a poor philosopher, remarking
the while, “I have made more by my folly than that fellow by all his
wisdom!” His influence with the King was unbounded, and the bribes he
received in consequence tended very much to increase his fortune. What
he obtained in this way can only be guessed at. That his jokes were
rewarded in magnificent style, we may judge from the circumstance which
occurred when Borra exerted himself professionally at a banquet at
which Sigismund, afterwards Emperor, was present. The latter, pleased
with Borra, so loaded him with silver ere he left the room, that the
fool could not carry it away without bending. Folly was never more
richly paid, except, perhaps, by Queen Sibylla da Forcia, who paid her
joculators in gold, and much pleasanter coin besides.

Borra, as before intimated, killed his royal patron by a joke. King
Martin was suffering from indigestion through too greedily devouring
an entire goose. As he lay groaning on his bed, Borra skipped into the
room with a merry air, and the Monarch inquired of him, whence he came.

“Out of the next vineyard,” answered the fool, “where I saw a young
deer hanging by his tail from a tree, as if some one had so punished
him for stealing figs.” When it is added that the King died of laughter
at this joke, the historians forget the goose and the indigestion.

Alphonso, King of Arragon, had for _his_ fool, one Luis Lopez,
who, according to Cervantes, lies buried in no less a place than
the cathedral of Cordova. Lopez kept, like other fools, a “Fools’
Chronicle,” in which he entered the follies of the court, and the
names of the offenders. The King had given 10,000 ducats to a Moor to
purchase horses with, in Barbary. Some days subsequently, on looking
over the Chronicle, he was astonished to find a page containing simply
his name.

“Cousin Luis,” said his Majesty, “why do you enrol me among fools?”

“For trusting 10,000 ducats to an infidel Moor, without security,”
answered Luis.

“Tush, man! The Moor is honest, and will bring back either horses or
money.”

“Then if he does,” said Lopez, “I will scratch out your name and put
his in its place.”

The above joke was used in various forms, till it grew old, and fools
of quality would no longer plagiarize it. It is told of at least one
jester at every court. Many fools would have been above such a jest at
all; for there were some who, though jesters, joked with instruction in
view.

Michael Aitzinger was one of these. I do not know that he can be
strictly called a Spanish fool, being a Belgian, but he held the office
at the court of Philip II. of Spain, though he became better known for
various heavy historical essays than for light jests quickly spoken.

In one case we have an instance of a Spanish court fool also belonging
to Philip II., exercising the high profession of prophecy. Flögel thus
tells the story, which he borrows from Richter’s _Spectaculum Mundi_.

“A court fool of Philip’s once saw the following persons sitting at
the Royal table:--Hugo Boncampius of Bologna, Papal Nuncio in Spain;
Perettus, a Franciscan monk of Ancona, who in his youth had been a
swineherd; and the Protonotary Sfondrati, of Milan. ‘Dost thou know,’
said the jester to the King, ‘that you have three Popes at table?’
Thereupon, he touched each upon the shoulder according to the future
order of their succession; first, Hugo, afterwards Gregory XIII.; then
Perretus, subsequently Sixtus V.; and lastly Sfondrati, who became
Gregory XIV.”

Flögel considers this as a rather fabulous story, although he admits
that the Eastern idea of the sayings of fools being sometimes inspired
by divinity, prevailed occasionally in Europe. He cites Claudius
Agrippa as ascribing the gift of prophecy to Klaus Narr, of whom I
have already spoken; and he maintains the alleged fact that Klaus,
at the royal table, aroused the guests by exclaiming that one of the
Elector’s castles, twelve leagues off, was in flames. According to
tradition, this proved to be the case, and if so, Klaus may claim the
possession of that not very desirable gift in this world,--the gift of
second-sight.

Of the Spanish jesters in noblemen’s households there is not much
to be said. Perico de Ayala, the paid buffoon of the Marquis of
Villena, was among the most celebrated. The Marquis, says Floresta
(_Española_), “once ordered his wardrobe-keeper to give the fool _un
sayo de brocado_; the man only gave him the _mangas_ and _faldamentos_.
Away went Perico to the court brotherhood, and requested them to bury
one who had died at the Marquis’s, and then away went the funeral
procession, with the little death-bell tinkling before them. The
Marquis, seeing them at his door, asked them why they came. ‘For the
body,’ said the fool, ‘as the Chamberlain only gave me the trimmings.’”

Perico distinguished himself more wittily in his reply to a knight who
once asked him the properties of turquoise. “Why,” said the fool, “if
you have a turquoise about you, and should fall from the top of a tower
and be dashed to pieces, the stone would not break!”

I have already spoken of the Spanish jester who was in the household
of the Marquis del Guasto. The latter, a vaunting General, was opposed
to the Count François de Bourbon, at the battle of Cerizoles. He had
previously made himself so sure of defeating the Count that he took
his fool with him, attired in a splendid suit of armour, that the
jester might witness his triumph. He had, moreover, promised the jester
several hundred ducats if he succeeded in being first to carry to
the wife of the Marquis, the news of her husband’s victory. Things,
however, fell out just contrary to the Marquis’s expectations. Instead
of defeating the Count, the Count defeated him, slaying thousands,
capturing cannon, and taking 4,000 prisoners,--not half the number
of the slain. Among the prisoners was a noble-looking gentleman in
a gorgeous suit of armour, of which he appeared to have taken very
peculiar care, for there was no sign of battle about it. It seemed,
however, to promise heavy ransom, and the dignified-looking warrior
who wore it was conducted with much courteous ceremony to the tent
of François de Bourbon. When the Count inquired of his captive as to
the rank he bore, the merry fellow at once burst into a laugh, and
confessed that he was only house fool to the Marquis del Guasto. “And
where is the Marquis?” asked the Count. “Oh!” replied Sir Fool, with a
merrier laugh than before, “he has ridden home to his wife, to cheat me
of my reward by carrying her the earliest news of the battle.”

If we may judge from the little that is to be collected in books,
concerning the Spanish jesters, they were mentally superior to their
Italian colleagues. Some of the former achieved a literary reputation.
At the head of these was Estevanillo Gonzales, who held office
successively in the households of Count Piccolomini and the Duke of
Amalfi; both these noblemen were commanders in the King of Spain’s
army, in the Netherlands. In 1646, when Gonzales was with the Duke, he
wrote his autobiography, describing himself as “hombre de buen humor.”
This book was partly translated, partly rewritten by Lesage, and is
doubtless known to most of my readers.

The wonder perhaps is, that dignified Spaniards should keep jesters at
all. But one of the gravest of Englishmen did so rather than be out of
the fashion. I allude to Sir Thomas Wentworth (Strafford), who on his
establishment at Wentworth Woodhouse, about the year 1620, maintained
a retinue of sixty persons, and among them there is enumerated, by
Hunter, in his History of Doncaster, our ancient friend, “Tom Foole.”
The mode was then more prevalent in Germany than in any other part of
Europe; and thither, if the “gentle reader” object not, we will now
betake ourselves.




THE FOOLS OF THE IMPERIAL AND MINOR COURTS OF GERMANY.


Voltaire remarks, in his ‘Age de Louis XIV.,’ that the fashion
of keeping court and household fools and dwarfs, was for a time
the _grande mode_ of all the courts of Europe. It was a remnant
of barbarism, he tells us, which continued longer in Germany than
elsewhere. He, naturally enough, traces this mode, in its origin, to a
lack of amusement of a better sort. The poor pleasure which degraded
the human intellect, was only a pleasure, he says, because, in the
times of ignorance and bad taste, really agreeable and praiseworthy
pastimes were not easily procurable. The unphilosophical philosopher,
however, forgets that the most celebrated fools were at the most
refined courts; and that L’Angeli was in full swelling triumph long
after Corneille had composed ‘The Cid.’

The “mode” in Germany dates undoubtedly from a very early time, if we
may credit a German poetical tradition which tells us that the jester
used to appear in the procession of the condemned to execution. But
this incident is perhaps only the poetical filling-up of an imaginary
picture.

The profession of “Fool” was so profitable in Germany, in the Middle
Ages, that not only were men found ambitious to be attached to some
nobleman’s house, where there were ordinarily ten or a dozen of
them, but they were proud of being as it were the honorary fools of
the nobles, and for this reason. Holding the rank in question, they
roamed over the country, reaped considerable profits by the exercise
of their profession, and if their licentiousness brought them into
contact with the magistrates, they pleaded their privileges as fools
to noblemen whom they named, and whose warrant they exhibited. The
abuse of this ran to such excess, and the extravagance of fools became
so offensive, that in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries the abuse
and extravagance were circumscribed by various decrees; and towards
the end of the last-named century, the titular or itinerant fools were
suppressed altogether.[I]

The official fools, at the Imperial courts of Germany, were, for a long
period, held in very great esteem, especially when they united in their
own persons the professions of court fool and court poet. Charlemagne
divided among his mimes, fools, and poets, the entire countship of
Provence; and hence is said to have been the cause that wit and poesy
flourished so generally in that pleasant district.

On the other hand, there were exceptional cases, as at the wedding
festivities of the Emperor Henry III. at Ingleheim in 1043. The fools
joked, the mimes played, the minstrels harped and sang, but the
Imperial bridegroom gave them nothing. They all left the castle thirsty
and penniless, and young Henry cared little for their maledictions, for
he was a man of strong mind, stout heart, and good taste, and had more
respect for Contractus, the chronicler, and Adalbert, the biographer,
and Willeram, the translator, than for all the fools and chanters in
the world.

The German laws had full as little regard for these officials, albeit
princes, generally, patronized them. The Saxon law, especially, laid
down that their property, at their death, belonged to the Government,
which was a certain method of keeping them reckless and extravagant
with what they earned when living.

They were occasionally even greater knaves than fools, an instance of
which we have in the case of the jester of Frederick Barbarossa, who,
for a bribe from the Milaners, undertook to rid them of his master, by
flinging him out of window, and who nearly succeeded in the attempt.
The Emperor’s cries attracted his Guard, two or three of whom seizing
the stalwart fool, tossed him headlong out of the window, by which he
met swift and sudden death upon the stones below.

In some cases, considerable prizes in money and dress were given to the
fools who eminently distinguished themselves. Thus, in 1342, Casimir
the Great, of Poland, having two jesters at his court, one of whom was
a German, offered a prize of twenty florins and an entire new suit of
clothes for the one who should excel the other in foolery. The two
carried on their struggle in presence of a court whose laughter shook
the very roof. The fools were so equally matched that it was difficult
to determine which was the more skilful in his frolicsome craft. They
jumped, skipped, fought, talked, sang, and illustrious warriors and
fair ladies held their sides, the better to retain their breath. At
length, the jesters took to some very nasty jokes, at which the august
company only laughed the louder. Still the competitors were so even in
their skill that the noble arbitrators could not judge between them,
for the victory was to be obtained by one of the fools doing some
crowning feat which the other should strive in vain to accomplish. This
was at last effected by the German, but for what he did, I must refer
the curious to the _Noctuæ Speculum_ of Argidius Periander.

If the Emperor Rudolph of Hapsburg kept no fool of his own, the reason
was that his nose, which was of a size to make Slawkembergius swear
with admiration, was the source of so many jokes, that it provided his
court with fun enough, and so saved the expense of a fool. Rudolph was
yet Count of Hapsburg, when, in 1264, his secret enemy Count Ulrich,
of Ratisbon, resolved to attack him and the Zurich forces, of which
Rudolph was General, unexpectedly. “I think,” said Ulric, one day,
to a circle of his friends, “we have men enough to properly punch Von
Hapsburg’s great nose;”--“_seine grosse Nase zu klopfen_.” Ulric’s
fool heard the remark, and struck with astonishment, or wishing to
convey intelligence to Rudolph, he repaired to the quarters of the
latter to satisfy his curiosity, or any other feeling by which he
was influenced for the moment. His cap and bells procured him ready
access to Rudolph’s presence; and in that presence he stood for awhile,
fixedly staring on the august proboscis. At length he said, “Well, it
is not a mile long, after all. I can’t imagine why my master should
want a whole army in order to punch such a nose. I could myself smash
it flat with a blow of my fist.” “Thanks, good fool, more for your hint
touching your master, than that of the power of your fist.” Therewith
Rudolph protected the jester, and took the initiative in attacking the
Count of Ratisbon; whom, after continued assaults, he reduced to such a
condition, that Ulrich was grateful for permission to become a simple
citizen of Zurich.

Throughout life the nose of Rudolph was ever provocative of remark.
He was once with his courtiers in a very narrow defile, when they
encountered a peasant. “Pass on! pass on!” cried the officers; “the
Emperor! the Emperor!” “That’s all very well,” said the clown, “but
where can I go? his nose fills up the whole valley.” The courtiers
conjectured that the Imperial wrath would be excited; but Rudolph,
turning his head on one side, exclaimed laughingly, “Now, friend, get
on with thee; my poor nose is no longer in your way.”

Few of the Emperors appear to have extended greater favour towards the
jesters than Maximilian I. And yet he found as much peril as profit
in his intercourse with them. In one case he had nearly lost his life
while loading a fowling-piece, by the act of a house fool, who, coming
into his presence with a candle, was about to place the light on an
open cask of powder. On another occasion he was playing with his fool
at snowballs, when the jester sent one at his right eye with such
violence, that the Imperial sight was weakened for a month.

I have said “his fool,” but I should have been more correct in saying
“one of his fools;” for his jester, _par excellence_, his own very
familiar friend and fool, was indisputably Konrad (or Kunz) von den
Rosen, the Don Japhet d’Arménie of Scarron, and the “De Bossu” of
Werner.

Konrad of the Roses was as fearless in applying a joke, as he was neat
in the construction of the joke itself. When Maximilian (then Archduke
of Austria and Burgundy) had once defeated Louis XI., a portion of the
cavalry of the former had not shared in the victory, having early in
the day betaken themselves to flight, following their leader, Count
Philip von Ravenstein. Kunz was on the field, and followed the Count’s
example. On other occasions he did better and more soldierly service;
but for what he rendered now, he was sarcastically bantered at a court
festival at which he and the Count were present. “All very good,” said
Konrad, “but remember, if I showed speed, Count Philip was even more
nimble than I, and was a long league ahead of me when I turned my back
on the fray. Ah, Count,” he added, turning to that “rapid rider,” “you
had a valuable steed that day! he flew out of danger as a bird flies in
the air; and when my horse was blown, and I was compelled to draw rein,
yours was still charging away with his wrong end towards the enemy.”

There was so much useful knowledge, common sense, and actual bravery
about _him_ of the Roses, that some authors, like Manlius, refuse to
rank him among official fools. “The Soldier and Wit of Maximilian,”
is a term applied to him, and we have an instance of his good sense,
when he counselled his Imperial master, at a certain disturbed period,
in 1488, not to enter Bruges, as he would certainly be seized by the
citizens, and be laid up hard and fast in the castle. Maximilian
refused to follow the advice, and entered the city, only to meet the
fate foretold him. The fool, wiser in his generation, rode boldly
in at his master’s side, through one gate; and quietly out, quite
alone, through another. He was a faithful fool, however, and returned
secretly, after awhile, in order to rescue his “dear Max.” On one
dark night, he swam the moat, hoping to be able to convey a rope
to the illustrious captive; but he had no sooner glided into the
water than he was attacked furiously by some old swans, who did not
relish the intrusion. He with great difficulty escaped drowning, and
got back to shore. He subsequently repeated the attempt to liberate
his master, and the means he adopted will remind the reader of an
incident in ‘Ivanhoe.’ No persuasion could induce Maximilian to avail
himself of the opportunity offered him by Konrad. It was not that the
Prince was at all influenced by a reluctance to leave the jester to
be hanged,--for the latter, after gaining access to his master, in a
priest’s dress, was to stay behind, and run the chance of being hanged,
while Maximilian went off in the sacerdotal guise. But Maximilian
suspected that the term of his imprisonment was nearly at an end,
by more legitimate means. Konrad rated his patron with affectionate
sharpness, but in vain; the jester was obliged to pass out through the
groups of guards in waiting, looking as much like a priest, and feeling
more like a fool, than when he entered.[J]

As a common mountebank at court entertainments, we have one sample
of the quality of Kunz, at the marriage at Augsburg, in 1518, of the
Margrave Casimir of Brandenburg with the Bavarian Princess Susanna.
At the festivities which followed the match, Kunz was seated on the
edge of a reservoir, with a preaching monk, and two or three others,
witnessing a foot-race, got up to gratify the more illustrious
personages. At the shout which rose on the race being won, the jester
fell backwards into the reservoir, as if by accident, dragging with
him the monk, whom he managed to duck soundly, and who in his turn
pulled in several others by his struggling. The excellence of this
joke was that not only was the monk nearly drowned, but that Konrad,
on emerging from the water, accused him of being the original cause of
the mischief, whereupon the poor preacher was nearly pummelled dry by
the indignant yet laughing bystanders, and to the great satisfaction of
“persons of quality.”

It is very clear, I think, that the inspiration of a fool was not
always trusted to, and that a joke was sometimes suggested to him, by
his master, when the latter had a particular purpose in so doing. I
find a trace of this suggestion in the case of a costly joke which the
jester of the Roses would certainly not have dared to make on his own
responsibility. A deputation from the Venetian States had presented to
the Emperor a magnificent goblet of the purest crystal. At the banquet,
given in honour of the Ambassadors and their Government, Konrad was in
high, loud, and active mirth. So active indeed that he contrived to
hook his spur in the tablecloth, and dancing off, to pull away with
him everything on the table, the crystal goblet included, which lay in
fragments on the ground. The Ambassadors were indignant, and they cried
loudly for a flagellation for the fool. Maximilian, however, refused to
gratify them. “You see, worthy sirs,” he remarked, “that the thing was
only of glass, and that glass is very fragile. Had it been of gold, it
would not have broken; and even if it had, its fragments would at least
have been valuable.” The Kaiser the more felt this, as he was sorely
in want of gold;--of which Konrad told him he would have enough and
to spare, if instead of being Sovereign he would take the office of a
Minister.

The freedom with which the fool treated his great patron is seen in
the incident at the card-table, at which Kunz was playing, the monarch
standing by him the while. The game, at which much money was staked,
was won by _him_, who under certain circumstances held, and could
play, four kings. Kunz had only three, but after playing his third, he
suddenly seized upon Maximilian, and crying, “Here is my fourth and
winning king,” swept the whole of the stakes into the pockets of his
white trunk-hose, slashed with scarlet. Then throwing his light-blue
cap upon his head, and buckling to his girdle the sword, outside whose
sheath he carried knife and fork, and pulling together his blue and
yellow vest, and fingering complacently his ample and well-curled
beard, he walked off laughingly, every tiny bell in his bonnet ringing
merrily to his laughter, as he passed along.

If all Konrad’s jokes had been as harmless, albeit as bold as this,
there would have been little wherewith to reproach him. But some of
his jests will not bear repeating, and others are only remarkable for
their silliness. Some were quiet and telling; as when a too grossly
flattering genealogist curried favour with the Emperor, by showing him
a pedigree which traced his descent from Noah.--“Bravo!” exclaimed
Von den Rosen, who was present, “then the Kaiser and I are cousins,
through the patriarch. I did not know I was of half such good blood!”
Maximilian smiled approvingly on the fool, and then contemptuously on
Master Johann Stabius, poet and genealogist, who had thought to get
crowns from a King, and only obtained sly reproaches from a fool.

Finally, it may be said that the hand of Konrad was as heavy as his
tongue was sharp. One scene in the life of this jester, exhibits him
in a melodramatic light, that reminds one of the days, or nights, of
“Raymond and Agnes, or the Bleeding Nun.” Konrad was once compelled to
pass the night at a sorry inn, in a wood, through whose intricacies
he had lost his way. It was kept by brigands; but the joyousness of
Konrad won him the heart of the waiting-maid, who bade him beware of
the male-servant who would come to take away his supper-tray, and
who would extinguish the light, as if by accident, in order that the
poor traveller might be murdered in the dark, by the landlord and his
fellows. Konrad, by good luck, had with him a dark-lantern; this he
lighted and concealed beneath his coat; and when the incident occurred
for which the maid had told him to be prepared, the jester went to work
in terrible earnest. As soon as the candle had been extinguished, he
turned on his lantern, and saw himself in presence of three ruffians
with very menacing looks and stilettoes. Kunz’s own poniard was quicker
than theirs: having buried it in the bosom of the bandit nearest to
him, he addressed himself to the landlord, of whose companions one lay
dead at his feet, and the other had suddenly fled. The traveller did
not kill his host, but bound him tightly, with the ready aid of the
female servant, who was herself a sort of prisoner, and delivered him
to that justice which begins with much needless form, but which has a
rope and a noose at the end of it.

It was soon after this exploit that Konrad von den Rosen lost his
Imperial master, Maximilian. The poor fool loved his patron; “I
followed him near for a long while,” said he, “and I will follow him
closely now.” And so it was! Konrad followed Maximilian, when Germany,
too busy to think of him, was talking of Charles V., Luther, and the
Diet of Worms.

The last-named Emperor, however, was himself no illiberal patron of
official fools and dwarfs. Both figured, like living caricatures, amid
the splendours of his Imperial court. One of the latter, who seems to
have been both dwarf and buffoon, a Pole grandiosely named Corneille
de Lithuanie, is spoken of as having figured with such distinction at
a tournament held in Brussels on the first Sunday in February 1545,
as to have carried off the second prize. The first was gained by the
Count d’Egmont, for having broken the greatest number of lances; but on
Corneille was conferred the second, for having been the next best in
the ranks, and for general gallantry.

Charles had native fools in his other dominions. In Spain, we meet
with that excellent jester, Don Francis; also with Pedro de San Erbas
and Zapata. There was another in the service of Charles, named Pape
Theun, who had originally exercised some office of trust. Of these,
Francis was the wittiest; but it is said that the sharpness of his wit
brought about his assassination. He was certainly mortally wounded by
assassins, but his wit kept by him to the last. He was assailed at his
own door, and his wife, hearing the consequent disturbance, cried out
from within to know what was the matter. “Nothing at all, mistress,”
exclaimed the fool, “they have merely killed your husband.” Another
fool, Perico de Ayala, who was a retainer in the house of the Marquis
de Vilena, attended on Don Francis while he was dying, and piously
asked him to pray for poor Perico in the next world. “I will, I will,”
said Francis; “but, Perico, suppose you tie a string round my little
finger, lest I forget it.”

This specimen of wit does not say much for the official fool; and it
is still worse in the case of Pedro de San Erbas, the only incident
connected with whose office, with which I am acquainted, reveals rather
the wit of his master than his own. Thus we are told, that after the
abdication of Charles, he held a court at Valladolid, to receive the
farewell compliments of the nobles and ladies of the vicinity. When
the ceremony had concluded, Pedro approached to take leave of his old
patron. At seeing him, Charles took off his hat, and Pedro thereupon
asked if the act was one of courtesy, or simply to indicate that he was
no longer Emperor. “Neither, Pedro,” answered the prince; “I do it to
signify that all I can give you now is this simple token of civility.”

Of Zapata nothing is known save his remark when Charles, who owed his
entire household a year’s salary, once observed to his courtiers, after
teasing the fool for a long time, “He will soon pay me back again.”
“Ah!” exclaimed Zapata, “what can I pay back, when not a soul under
your roof has received a doit of their salary for a twelvemonth?” This
remark showed the bold freedom rather than the wittiness of Zapata’s
tongue. As for Pape Theun, he seems to have been rather a practical
than a loquacious joker. He was insolent rather than witty of speech,
and when this insolence brought him into disgrace, the jokes he played
to recover the goodwill of his master were coarse jokes, acceptable
to coarse people in coarse times, but the repeating of which would
assuredly not be acceptable to my readers.

To return to the fools who exclusively belonged to the Imperial court
of Germany, the next remarkable individual of the class is Nelle,
attached to the household of Matthias II. Nelle not only attended
the celebrated meeting of the States, assembled at Ratisbon in 1613,
but he presented to the Emperor a volume, exquisitely bound, which
contained, as he said, the record of all that had been accomplished by
the statesmen. Matthias opened the book, and found it all blank paper,
“Why, there is nothing written here,” said the monarch. “Exactly so,”
answered the fool, “because there was nothing done _there_; and so my
record is truthful.” I cannot say, however, that this was so witty as
the reply of the Speaker of the Commons to Elizabeth, when the latter,
at the end of a session, asked him what they had passed; “An it please
your Majesty,” said Mr. Speaker, “we have passed two months and a half!”

Another story is told of Nelle. In his moody master’s reign Lutherans
and Papists were at open strife; and a Bishop Clesel, in Vienna, was
excessively indignant that the sheep of his own particular pasture
flocked every Sunday out of the capital, to listen to a Lutheran monk
in the neighbouring village of Hörnals. In great wrath, and open court,
he besought the Emperor to prohibit the people from leaving Vienna
on the Sabbath for the village in question. Matthias replied that he
did not know how this was to be effected; and looking at the fool, he
added, “Nelle, can your wit help us in this matter?” “It is the easiest
thing in the world,” rejoined Nelle; “you have only to send the Bishop
to Hörnals, and bring the Lutheran monk to preach in the capital, and
you will not find a soul desirous of leaving Vienna on the Sunday.”

The Emperors certainly allowed a license to their jesters which no one
else dared to take advantage of. Thus, at the court of Ferdinand II.,
we hear of a silly courtier who endeavoured to amuse the illustrious
circle by his imbecilities. Jonas, Ferdinand’s favourite fool, began
answering him according to his folly. But this so offended the noble
simpleton of half a hundred quarters, that he exclaimed, “Fellow,
be silent; I never stop to talk with a fool!” “Well, I do,” replied
Jonas, bending over the courtier’s seat as he stood behind the pompous
gentleman’s chair, “and therefore be good enough to listen to me in
your turn.”

This courtier did not resemble Charles VI., at whose court the greatest
favour was enjoyed, not indeed by a professional wearer of cap and
bells, but by a saucy wit of the name of Steffens. The latter had been
a clerk, and his readiness of repartee had so endeared him to the
monarch, that he elevated him to the rank of Count, and so entirely
surrendered himself to the jesting Count’s company, that none of the
ministers, not even Prince Eugene himself, could obtain an audience,
without being previously kept waiting an hour. I have read however
more of Steffens’ reputation for wit than examples of the wit itself.
Möser cites an instance which seems to me to have more impertinence
in it than true humour. For example, in 1724, Count von Mikosch died
of poison. “What is popularly said of Mikosch’s death?” asked Charles
of Steffens. “Well,” answered the latter, “I will tell you, if you
will make me a present.” The Emperor put some gold pieces in the hand
of this mercenary fellow, who rejoined: “The people say that it was
the devil who carried off Mikosch; and they add, that if he had lived
longer, and you had continued to trust him and follow his counsel, the
devil would speedily have come for your Majesty also.” It will be seen
by this, that whatever humour there may have been under the ancient
fool’s cap, there was not much of it to be found beneath the coronet of
this lackered Count Steffens.

The smaller courts of Germany, as a matter of course, followed the
fashion set by the Emperors. At Anspach the Margraves were ordinarily
their own fools; but towards the end of the last century the little
court found intense delight in the religious folly, if I may so speak,
of a poor ex-artist named Bayer. He was reasonable and witty on every
subject except prophecy and the Apocalypse; and it was precisely from
his madness on these points that the Margrave and his courtiers drew
most delight, till indeed they nearly drove the poor fellow mad on
every other subject as well.

Baden, too, had its fools of various degrees; and indeed the Margrave
Philip kept two, Lips and Hänsel von Gingen. The wit or fun of the
latter seems to have consisted in his pride, which would never permit
him to sit at meat with other jesters who accompanied their lords to
the court at Baden. Lips was so great a favourite that he sat in the
council-chamber when Philip was presiding. Lips was once asked his
opinion on a vexed question which the counsellors could not solve--the
admission of the Jews into Baden. “Oh, let them in, let them in,” said
Lips, “and then we shall have all religions among us, even a little
Christianity!”

The jester had occasionally to endure a very superabundant measure
of hardship, as for example, when policy or revenge brought about
the murder of Duke Ludwig of Bavaria, on the bridge over the Danube
at Kehlheim, in 1231. The great but hidden perpetrators of the deed
thought it convenient to lay the crime upon the Duke’s fool, Stich. He
was told that his ducal master having exasperated him by sundry bad
jokes, Stich had suddenly stabbed the Duke with his bread-knife. “Ah!”
said the poor fellow, as he stood at the gallows, “that some one ought
to be hanged for murdering the Duke, I can very well comprehend; but
that that some one should be _me_, I do not comprehend at all.”

To another of Louis of Bavaria’s fools, the King of Bohemia once gave
a goblet of such strong wine that the tipsy jester declared he could
be content to be a fool through eternity, if he might only always be
permitted to drink such wine. But this is far inferior to the quiet
observation of the Connaught man, after a long pull at a whisky flask;
that, had his mother first brought him up on such beverage, he would
never have been weaned. And the Bavarian is not less inferior in his
wit to another Hibernian, who, on hearing a senseless drunken man
pronounced dead, coolly remarked, “Dead is he? I wish I had half his
disease.”

It must be confessed, however, that it is difficult to place fairly
the German fools or joy-makers before a foreign public. Many of their
brightest sayings turn on the point of some sparkling pun which, when
rendered into English, is, as the Germans themselves would say, for a
translation, completely “overset.” On the other hand, the feats of some
of these joy-makers are incredible, although related in solemn Latin
by grave bishops, like Dubravius, the diocesan of Olmütz. This prelate
speaks at great length, in his ‘History of Bohemia,’ of a certain
Zytho, who was brought to the Bohemian court by the Emperor Wenceslaus,
in 1389. In that century, and in that which preceded as well as that
which followed it, the court at Prague took most delight, not in
witty jesters, but in astounding conjurors, jugglers, magicians, and
sorcerers. Individuals of this quality were retained in the sovereign’s
household, and their achievements were of a nature to do credit to
the professions which they exercised. It was when a body of these
were exhibiting in presence of Wenceslaus, then on a visit at Prague,
that the Emperor produced his own wonderful man, Zytho, ordering him
to excel, if he could, those rivals in his vocation. Zytho (so we are
seriously told by the episcopal historian) went quietly up to the most
accomplished of the wonder-workers, and--swallowed him! The Duke of
Bavaria was angry at thus being deprived of his principal performer;
and Zytho, at the command of Wenceslaus, reproduced him after a fashion
that stirred to thundering laughter that unrefined assembly. The Bishop
further tells us that Zytho could change his shape at will; produce any
animal required, out of any material, and, in short, work marvels in
which the prelate believes, and I do not. On one occasion, at a court
banquet, he changed the hands of various of the guests into hoofs, in
order to prevent their taking up the costly viands provided; and on
another occasion, seeing a courtier put his head out of window, Zytho
made spring from his forehead such a gigantic pair of antlers that
the poor gentleman could not draw his head in again, whereby, says
the right reverend historian, he produced such laughter as was _never
heard_ in Bohemia,--the which I can very well believe. I will repeat
one other tale recounted of him, as it gave rise to a proverb which
I have myself heard applied in Bohemia. Zytho, procuring some wisps
of straw, transformed them into swine, which he sold at a good price
to a baker named Michael. Zytho simply recommended the purchaser not
to take the swine down to the water, which of course Michael did on
the first opportunity, out of curiosity, to see the consequence. And
he saw it: the swine no sooner touched the water than they were all
again transformed into wisps of straw, and went floating away down the
stream. Away too went Michael in search of Zytho, whom he found fast
asleep on a bench, but at whose leg he pulled so lustily, in order to
arouse him, that the leg, thigh and all, came away, and the enraged
Zytho summoned him before a magistrate, who awarded him very competent
damages. Hence the proverb, applied by a Bohemian to any one who has
played him false or put a trick upon him, “You’ll get as much profit
from that, as Michael did from the swine.”

Such were the stories rather than the deeds which gave delight to the
Ducal court of Bohemia a few centuries ago. According to tradition,
Zytho was ultimately carried off by his arch-patron, the devil; not
however so much because of his sorcery and satanic deeds, as because
he fell into the heresy of John Huss, who, according to the Roman
Catholics of that day, and the _Univers_ of this, was himself an agent
of Lucifer.

My readers may remember that a pagan Roman Emperor left to a decision
of the Senate the question whether Christianity should or should not be
tolerated in the Roman dominions. In Iceland, too, the same question
was submitted to a similar process, and in both cases it was carried
in the affirmative, by narrow majorities. In Bohemia, one similar, but
less important in degree, was left to be decided by the issue of a
contest between two court fools. In 1461, the Hungarian King, Mathias
Corvinus, and the Bohemian King, George Podiebrad, met in conference
at Prague. The latter, a Reformer, was the father-in-law of Corvinus,
a Roman Catholic, and each had a capacious hut erected, in which, by
turns, the august parties, illustriously attended, carried on a course
of debates, disputes, hard words, and jollification. From the Pope’s
Nuncio down to the two court fools of their majesties, all took active
part in every circumstance of the conference. One of the knotty points
under discussion was that of religion,--the Reformed or the Roman
Catholic.

“Let the two fools fight, and decide it by single combat,” said the
Bohemian counsellor, Isdengo, who was secretly in the pay of Corvinus.
“Let the two fools settle it!” cried the counsellor. The Papal Nuncio
had the decency to protest against the proposition. But the two
sovereigns, lacking excitement, and weary with last night’s banquet,
thought the idea excellent. The fools were accordingly commanded to
fall-to and do their best in behalf of their respective forms of
faith. After exasperating each other by sallies of irritating wit,
they grappled and commenced wrestling. The spectators stood anxiously
looking on while, by such singular argument, the question of the
Sacrament in one or both kinds was being discussed. The Bohemian
Utraquists were in high spirits, for their champion was a gigantic
fellow, while his opponent, the little Hungarian, was not stouter built
than ordinary strong men. He maintained the contest, however, manfully,
and when the course of combat passed from wrestling to hard blows,
he dealt one so well placed, that it would have upset the Utraquist
champion, had he not been promptly upheld by a Bohemian in the rear.

Thereupon the whole Hungarian faction roared out, “Shame! Unfair!” etc.
The Bohemians shouted loudly in an opposite sense. From exclamations,
both parties fell to their swords, and the whole company were speedily
hacking at each other, while the fools sat down and laughed at both
sides. Their respective royal masters had great difficulty in appeasing
the tumult and postponing the debate. Meanwhile, many a good fellow
had got a hole in his side or his throat, from which his life-blood
went trickling; and, finally, Isdengo was banished for making the
proposition, by which he had left a Sacramental question to the
arbitrement of a couple of jesters.

The fool still meddled with religious matters, and Killian, the jester
of King Ladislaus of Hungary, once lectured the Bohemian sovereign
George von Podiebrad, as the Hussite monarch stood by the side of
the Roman Catholic Ladislaus, at a mass in the cathedral at Breslau.
“I see,” whispered Killian to George, “with what sort of a face you
look at our service; but I cannot see your heart. So tell me, do you
not think our religion better than your own? See the nobles, princes,
kings, who follow it. Had you not better join with them than with
your Bohemian Reformers? Can a few men like these be of more sound
understanding than the whole Christian Church? Let noble knight as you
are join with noble knight, and not with the dirty mob of Reformers.”

“Friend Killian,” said George, “if you say this unprompted by others,
you are not such a fool as you pretend to be; but if you have been
moved to it by others, tell them from me, that I act according to my
conscience, am responsible to God only for my belief, and that my
trust is in Him alone. What I profess, I firmly believe; and were I
to change, I should be not only fool, but knave; and I see no cause,
cousin Killian, why I should either make myself like unto you or unto
those who moved you to this bold step of yours. Keep to your folly,
Fool, and I will keep to my belief.”

It is certain that, as late as the sixteenth century, the court or
house fool was still a serf or thrall, and could be bought and sold.
We have a well-known instance of this, which may be mentioned here.
When Louis II. of Hungary (Louis I. of Bohemia) visited Erlau, in 1520,
he found that the governor there possessed one of the best trained
hawks and one of the merriest fools that Louis had ever seen; and so
well pleased was he with them, that he offered to purchase both. We
can only approximately judge of the value of the fool, as the price
given for him and the bird is set down in the sum total. There was a
good deal of haggling, but the money paid down by the King was 40,000
gulden--between three and four thousand pounds.

Looking in at another minor court, we discover that “Frederick with the
bitten cheek,” a Thuringian prince, was partly indebted to a court fool
for the scar from which he got his name. It happened that his father,
Albert, Landgrave of Thuringia, loved a lady, Cunegunda, better than
he did his wife, Margaret, daughter of the Emperor Frederick II. The
court fool seems to have been a menial, since I find him described as
a carrier of wood and water to the Wartburg, where Margaret resided.
Cunegunda so wrought upon the fool by terror, that he consented to
murder the Landgrave’s wife; but he only entered her room to reveal to
her the conspiracy, and to ask forgiveness. Poor Margaret, aware that
her life was not safe, since her rival, Cunegunda von Eisenberg, had
resolved to take it, resolved on immediate flight; and it was in her
eagerly kissing her little son Frederick before she escaped, that she
bit his cheek, and left for ever thereon the testimony of her terror
and affection.

   “She, wanting wit, and frantic with affright,
    Would fain have kiss’d, but, mad with grief, did bite.”

The name of the faithful fool is not given; but he is said to
have lived in her service, during the few months she survived, at
Frankfort-on-the-Maine.

The most renowned fool of the following century was Jenni von Stocken,
who was attached to the household of Leopold the Pious. He was greatly
esteemed by his master, and often gave him counsel which would have
profited him had he been more ready to follow it. Jenni strongly
advised Leopold against entering the Swiss defiles before securing
his return therefrom, in case of accident. The issue of the battle of
Sempach, A.D. 1386, showed that a fool’s advice would have been worth
taking.

Nearly all von Stocken’s sayings and doings are attributed to various
jesters of succeeding centuries. This, too, was the case with Killian,
the fool of Albert of Austria. But there is one saying which is
undoubtedly Killian’s own. He was a strangely eccentric fellow, and
some one asked him why, being so profoundly wise a personage, he should
play the fool. “Ah! there it is,” said Killian; “The more thoroughly I
play the fool, the wiser do men account me; and there is my son, who
thinks himself wise, and whom everybody knows to be a fool.”

It may perhaps be safely asserted, that of all the court jesters at
the lesser courts of Germany, Klaus von Ranstadt, or Klaus _Narr_,
“the fool,” was the most famous. He flourished at the electoral court
of Saxony at the end of the fifteenth and beginning of the sixteenth
centuries. He served as fool to four successive Electors. The first
of these, the Elector Ernest, met with Klaus when he was keeping
geese. The Prince was passing through Ranstadt with a great number of
horses, men, and waggons, when Klaus, wishing to see the sight, and
unwilling to leave his geese, tied all the young ones by the neck to
his girdle, and with two old geese under his arms, he stood to view
the procession. The Prince laughed, questioned the goosekeeper, who had
strangled his young charge, and was so delighted at the sharp replies
he received, that he engaged him at once as his fool, to the great
delight of the grave elders of the place, who declared that Klaus kept
the whole district in a continual uproar of idle laughter by his tricks
and waggery.

His tricks and his waggery, however, have frequently a coarse and
sometimes an unintelligible character. They have been published at
various times, and one sample will serve to show how Klaus performed
his office.

The Elector Frederick, finding his dominions threatened with invasion,
was inclined to treat with the enemy, but first asked the fool what he
thought of the matter. “Give me your best mantle,” said Klaus, “and
I will tell you.” This having been done, Klaus withdrew, tore the
mantle in two, and reappeared with one of the halves hanging from his
shoulders. The Elector, enraged at the damage done to his best cloak,
asked what was meant by such a joke. “It means,” said Klaus, “that if
you treat with the foe, you will soon look as ridiculous with half your
dominions, as I do with half a cloak.”

This was a more cumbersome sort of wit than was exercised by a
contemporary fool, Peter Bärenhaut, at the court of Philip, Landgrave
of Baden. The latter complained of headache on the morrow of a terrible
drinking-bout, and the fool said he knew a cure for it. “What is your
remedy?” asked the Landgrave, “Drink again today,” answered Peter.
“Then I shall only suffer more tomorrow,” said the Prince. “Then,”
rejoined Peter, “you must drink still more.” “But in what would such a
remedy end?” asked the Landgrave. “Why,” said Peter, “in your being a
bigger fool than I am!”

The jesters to small potentates rivalled the _Narrs_ of the Imperial
Court in their boldness. It would seem that at grave ecclesiastical
discussions, where a common man would not dare to make a remark, nor
a courtier to venture on a comment, the fool spoke and acted without
restraint. Eck has left an account of the great controversy on Articles
of Faith which he held against Luther at Leipsic in 1519. “The
citadel,” he says, “was prepared as our battle-field; the place was
guarded by seventy-six soldiers, to protect us, in case of need, from
the insults of the people of Wittemberg.” Against the wit or anger,
however, of the fool of George, Duke of Saxony, who was present with
his master, no precaution was thought necessary. To the jester, some of
the courtiers whispered that Luther and Eck were disputing about his
marriage, the former being for and the latter against it. The ducal
fool had but one eye, but that was fired with indignation against the
supposed opponent of his marriage. Eck bore his angry looks for a time
with some patience. At length, annoyed at and not comprehending them,
the grave churchman took to mimicking the infirmity of the fool, by
screwing up one eye closely, and rolling the other at him in a sort
of comical defiance. This drove the Saxon joker out of all bounds of
moderation. He started up, pummelled old Eck with hard words, called
him rogue, liar, and thief, and after overwhelming him with a torrent
of similar amenities, took an indignant hop, skip, and jump out of the
hall, amid the universal laughter of the delighted audience.

At a later period, Augustus II., of Saxony, had his own official fool
in the person of Joseph Frohlich, for whom he had ninety-nine different
suits made, and who in his full dress was often seen in the streets of
Dresden. He was not the only fool at this court, for we learn that when
the Prussian “joker” von Gundling died, the court fools of Dresden went
into mourning for their colleague, wearing crape bands twenty ells in
length, and mourning cloaks so long that they or others were always
tumbling over them.

A singular instance of what was considered to qualify a man for being
a court fool, presents itself in the case of Conrad Pocher, jester
to Philip the Upright, Elector Palatine. Pocher was a cowherd, and
was once sent a-field, with a boy to attend him. The boy was sick and
feeble, and Pocher, out of compassion, hung him to the branch of a
tree. He was tried for the murder, but he defended himself with such
humour, on the ground that he had greatly benefited the helpless little
cow-boy, that the court was in ecstasy, and the Elector, recognizing
Pocher’s merits, immediately appointed him to the post of official
jester. Little is said of his wit. His jokes were of a very lumbering
nature. He would crop the tails of the Elector’s cows, that they might
look like the Elector’s horses; and once, when his master laid siege
to a small town, which he wanted to reduce by famine, and accordingly
occupied the passes leading to it, Pocher lay for three days across a
ditch which ran in the direction of the town, in order to hasten, as he
said, the surrender of the place!

Another Palatine Prince, Duke Wolfgang of Neuberg, had a far wittier
fool in “Squire Peter,” as he was jokingly called. It was once remarked
to the Squire, that the Duke did not so much care for him as the
Elector of Cologne did for _his_ fool. “I know that very well,” said
Peter; “the reason is, that my master looks after his country and
subjects, and therefore has not the leisure to play with fools, as
_your_ master has.”

Of his dignity, Peter had a very exalted idea, and when a young Count
once wished to bandy jokes with him, the Squire haughtily observed,
“I am his Serene Highness’s jester, and not the tool of every sorry
Count that comes to visit him!” He spared the clergy as little as
the nobility; and to a priest who once asked him if he had prepared
for the coming fast, Peter replied, “Better than you, Father, for
you have bought fish and eggs enough to last a family fond of good
living, for a month. Now _I_ have bought nothing at all; and _so_
am better prepared for fasting.” At the close of the fast, the same
priest inquired how he had kept it. “I did away with a couple of hams,”
said Peter;--at which the reverend gentleman looked shocked. “Don’t
look so disgusted,” rejoined the Squire. “I did away with them in
this sense,--I gave them, instead of money, to a neighbour who was a
creditor of mine.” “You are a merry fellow,” said the priest; “let me
now hear you say the Lord’s Prayer.” “I don’t know it,” answered the
Squire. “It is wicked, it is shameful--” the priest began to remark,
when Peter interrupted him by observing, “Exactly; that’s just the
reason why I did not learn it.”

Numerous are the stories of this nature told of Squire Peter, who
appears to have been something of a profane wit. Towards the end of
the century in which he lived, we find a celebrated fool in Pomerania,
Claus Hintze, in the service of Duke John Frederick of Stettin. Claus
was originally only a cowherd, but after his appointment as official
jester to the Duke, he so grew in his patron’s favour, that his master
made him lord of the village of Butterdorf; and in consequence of a
rhymed petition to that effect, declared that the district should never
again serve as a wolf-chase. For this privilege the grateful people
thanked a fool who had a fair share of fun in him, who served his ducal
master well on very critical occasions, and who was as jolly a toper as
any in Pomerania.

In the last character he was surpassed by a successor at the ducal
court, Hans Miesko, A.D. 1600. Hans was imbecile, and it is surprising
to find that, even in the age in which he lived, princes could derive
pleasure from the mistakes and unclean acts of such persons, or
could give them official standing in their household. Miesko died
in extreme old-age, from reaching which his gluttony and excessive
drinking had presented no obstruction; and he is perhaps the only
fool who had the honour of a funeral sermon being preached over him.
This was done by the command, and in the presence of, his master, Duke
Francis, and the Reverend Philip Cradelius, who took his text from
1 Samuel xxi. 13–15: “And he changed his behaviour before them, and
feigned himself mad in their hands, and scrabbled on the doors of the
gate, and let his spittle fall down upon his beard. Then said Achish
unto his servants, Lo, ye see the man is mad: wherefore then have ye
brought him to me? Have I need of mad men, that ye have brought this
fellow to play the mad man in my presence? shall this fellow come into
my house?” The preacher too much exalted the merits of Miesko, as
Christian, servant, and fool; over-praised the condescension of princes
towards such individuals, and founded on his text, scriptural warrant
for the existence of such officials. But I think there is something
satirical in the application of the text, which teaches us, says the
preacher, that where great princes are, there too may you look to find
great fools. The double meaning should have raised the Rector to a
Deanery.--But perhaps Duke Francis did not relish the joke.

While Miesko was making Pomeranian princes glad by his imbecility and
the fun drawn out of it, Frederick Taubman was keeping the Saxon court
in merry humour by his conceits. But Taubman, though as lowly born as
Miesko, was a scholar, and was not officially a fool. He was something
of a poet, something of a philosopher, was well-read, was a collegiate
professor; but therewith he was poor, yet was fond of luxurious living,
and therefore he was glad to take his eccentricities to court, where
their exhibition was paid for in ducats, rich viands, costly wines,
and endless jollification. He was the court fool in all but being
officially appointed; and, with better qualifications than many, used
the license common to all. On one occasion, a courtier who was shaking
hands with him, remarked, “Taubman, your coarse hands are only fit for
digging.” Taubman squeezed the courtier’s fingers, and answered, “I am
already handling a clod.” He once asked Cardinal Clesel, if he knew
where God was _not_. “In hell,” answered the Cardinal readily.--“Nor in
Rome,” rejoined the wit; “or wherefore is his Vicegerent there?”

Taubman died in 1613. The professional fools increased after his death.
The Elector John George I. maintained, in the year 1639, no less than
three at the same time. Two of them were named Michael, and one Caspar;
and from a tailor’s bill quoted by Flögel, it is very clear that, gay
as the official dress may have been, it was often patched and turned,
before a new one was given in its place.

But, as in the case of Taubman, so in this later period were poor and
witty scholars welcome at the German courts. Bolla was one of these; he
was an Italian, who had his home in the palace at Heidelberg, where he
proved himself to be, what was commonly said of him, _virum ad risum
natum_, a man born for laughter. He excelled in macaronic poetry, and
not only accepted the name of fool, but begged for fool’s largess in
very indifferent Latin verse,--of which here is a sample:--

   “Amate semper vestrum zanum,
    Sed aperite, vestro more, manum.
    Hoc precatur vester zanus,
    Corpore, non crumena sanus.”

It was not only the poor scholar that now was even more welcome for his
wit than the official jester. As in Saxony, so in Poland, the liveliest
sayings were uttered by non-professional individuals. At the courts in
both places just named, the acknowledged court wit, for a long period,
was Frederick, Baron of Kyau, who excelled, we are told, both as a
general and as a joker. In the same list must be enrolled the Baron
von Gundling, who commenced his career of eccentricity at the court
of Frederick William I. of Prussia, at the commencement of the last
century.

Von Gundling was a scholar and of good family, and he was chosen by the
King as a companion for his few leisure hours, which he desired to turn
to instruction and amusement combined. But the Baron was a pedantic
fool, inflated with the most absurd pride, and addicted to hard
drinking and filthiness, like any Silenus. The King loaded him with
ridiculous titles, and he walked about in a dress that must have made
him look like our burlesque King Arthur, in ‘Tom Thumb,’ or Justice
Midas, in O’Hara’s operetta. It must have been pitiable to see a man of
learning submit to any indignity at the hands of King and nobles. He
would embrace a dressed-up monkey presented by a prince, as his son;
and he took as a mark of favour, his being sent-for to the palace in
a sedan-chair, the bottom of which, as previously contrived, fell out
by the way, and the bearers of which had orders to push on and keep
their passenger walking. He was seldom absent from the private evening
parties of the King, where six or eight persons only were present;
where beer and pipes were the refreshments which stood before each
guest,--no servant being admitted; and where sometimes very serious
business was transacted. Gundling died in 1731; his body may be said to
have been pelted by epigrammatic epitaphs, but as it was carried to the
grave in a wine-cask, long before prepared for the occasion, the clergy
refused to bury it with any but maimed rites.

As pedantic and degraded a fool as Von Gundling, and at the same
court, was a certain diminutive Doctor Bartholdi, whose buffoonery
the King once rewarded by presenting him with a peruke which reached
to his feet. But Bartholdi was for ever quarrelling with his patron
or with the government, and he ended his days in prison. Nor were
these the only persons who played the fool, without professing it,
at the Prussian court. Among the latter, and they were all more
or less scholars, was Kornemann, who had not wit enough to escape
marrying a sham countess. A second was Von Hackmann, who was rogue as
well as scholar and buffoon, and robbed the King who sheltered him
at court. He fled to Vienna, changed and re-changed his religion,
returned to Prussia, was whipped by the hangman, and died in misery.
David Fassmann, a writer of considerable merit, was another of those
buffoon-philosophers whom Frederick William distinguished as his
“Learned Fools.” Fassmann held various offices at court, where his
sufferings were as great as his absurd dignities, in both of which the
monarch found opportunity for laughter. For losing a key entrusted to
him by Frederick, Fassmann was condemned to carry a heavy wooden one,
an ell long, round his neck for several days. On various occasions,
these learned fools were excited against each other by noble persons,
who found mirth in so doing. Then would they fly at each other; and
Flögel describes one with a pair of tongs thrusting a burning coal in
the face of his pedantic adversary, who, flying at his assailant, turns
him on his face, strips down his dress, and beats him with the tongs,
till he is tired, or, varying his attack, sets fire to the antagonistic
pedant’s peruke by firing a pistol among the curls.

The Baron von Poelnitz, at the court of the last-named King and at that
of Frederick II., fulfilled a similar office, without being expressly
named to it. In the intercourse which subsisted between the King and
the Baron, it is difficult to say which was the greater fool, and it is
inconceivable that reasonable creatures should be guilty of the absurd
follies attributed to them. The most of the jokes were childish enough,
and King and Baron quarrelled and became reconciled like children. As
a specimen of the familiarity which existed between them, here is one
in connection with a royal commission to the Baron to procure a pair of
turkeys. Poelnitz sent the birds with a very laconic letter: “Here are
the turkeys, Sire.” Frederick, rather nettled at the style, ordered
the leanest ox that could be found to be decked ridiculously with
flowers, and the horns to be gilded. This done, the animal was taken
and tied up in front of the Baron’s house, carrying this inscription on
the forehead:--“Here is the ox, Poelnitz.”

The Baron’s readiness at repartee is exemplified by a remark he made to
a Baron Schwertz, who was of Jewish descent. Poelnitz, one wintry day,
standing with his back to one of the royal stoves, set his long-tailed
coat on fire. “Ah,” said Schwertz,

    “Ainsi brûla jadis et Sodome et Gomorre.”

To which Poelnitz readily replied,

    “Quoi, du Vieux Testament tu te souviens encore!”

Solomon Morgenstern is the last of the learned fools whom I shall
mention. He, too, submitted to every indignity, that he might keep in
favour by exciting the good-humour of the King. His dress was more
caricatured than that of any of his fellows; and instead of a sword,
he wore a fox’s brush at his side, and in his cocked hat, hare’s feet
for feathers. The wisest thing that Morgenstern did, was his lecture on
‘Reasonable thoughts on Folly and Fools,’ in which there was much sly
satire, which was probably lost on the monarch, who presided over the
assembly of listeners.

Finally, the last of the privileged fools existed within the lifetime
of some aged persons still surviving. He was seen by Dr. Edward Moore,
in 1774, at the Electoral court at Mannheim. He was a Tyrolese who
spoke German with so droll an accent that universal laughter was
excited by it. He appeared when the Elector and his guests sat down
to dinner; and he went round the table directing his sallies of wit
against every one present, not even sparing the princesses. This was
the _ultimus ex officio stultorum_; but the time then was at hand
that was to bring with it that revolution which came in contact with
nothing in Europe that it did not destroy,--the French Revolution.
It touched the German Empire; and down went Empire, Electors, and
Fools. The three indeed have reappeared, but under different names and
modified forms.

Before closing the roll of German fools, I will notice one who was in
the service of Prince Maurice of Orange. He was with the Prince with
his forces before Nimeguen. Maurice having some trouble to set his
own troops in order, turned to his fool, who accompanied him on the
expedition, and asked him whether it would not have been better that
he, the jester, should command the army, and the prince turn fool.
“Things would not be much improved by that,” said the Dutch motley;
“for you are as little able to make a jest, as I am to command an army.
If we change places, the States General will dismiss both of us.” Here,
however, the fool did Maurice injustice, for the Prince could say
some excellent things; and his description of the martial qualities
of the chief military nations of the period, is exactly in the spirit
of a professional wit, more true than refined: “The German,” said
Maurice, “is, in war, just like a louse, which lets itself be killed
without flinching. The Frenchman is like a flea, which skips here and
there, and does not willingly allow himself to be taken. The Spaniard
resembles the insect which can only with difficulty be dislodged from
where it burrows itself; and as for the Italian, he is like the bug,
which, being killed, leaves an ill smell behind him.”--And now for the
official fools of Italy.




THE JESTERS OF ITALY.


There are very few of the writers who have devoted their attention to
the subject treated in this imperfect volume, who have ever alluded
to the fool who suddenly appeared at the court of Alboin, King of the
Lombards, (A.D. 572,) and who created a large measure of astonishment
there, by his rude exterior and his ready wit. All Verona was, in
popular phrase, “full of him.” The chronicle of his “Astuzie” was long
the delight of the whole of Italy.

His name was Bertoldo. He was hideously ugly, and not very clean in his
person; dwarfed, and deformed. His eyebrows resembled pigs’ bristles;
but his eyes beneath them, gleamed like two torches; his hair was as
red as carrots, and if you can fancy humanity caricatured to the very
utmost extent, you will not, even then, be able to see with your mind’s
eye the never-matched hideousness of this rustic, who set all the
court in a roar by entering the great hall where Alboin was presiding,
and, without even uncovering, seating himself by the side of the grim
husband of Rosamunda.

The Lombard King smiled sourly at his impudence, and inquired what he
was, when he was born, and in what country.

“I am a man,” said the monster; “was born the night my mother bore me;
and” (this is something of Ancient Pistol’s phrase, which, indeed,
often smacked of the fool’s humour or philosophy,) “the world is my
native country.” King and court understood, now, with whom they had
to do, and they tried his wit by plying him with questions, “What is
the swiftest thing on earth?” asked one. “Thought,” was the reply of
Bertoldo. To other questions he replied, that the best wine was the
wine drunk in another man’s house; and that the worst fire at home was
to be found in an angry wife and an impudent servant.

“Bertoldo,” said the King, “could you contrive to bring me water in a
sieve without spilling any?”

“Certainly,” answered the fool; “in a hard frost, I could bring you any
quantity.”

“Tor so clever a rejoinder, you shall have from me any boon you desire.”

“La, you there!” cried Bertoldo, “I shall have nothing of the sort.
You cannot give me what you do not possess. I am in eager search of
happiness, of which you have not a grain; and how could you give me
any?”

Alboin alluded to his kingly power and glory, which the fool mocked
mightily. He pointed to the glittering crowds of nobles who stood
around his throne. “Oh yes,” was the comment of Bertoldo, “they stand
round your throne; so do hungry ants round a crab-apple, and with
the same purpose,--to devour it.” And therewith he so satirized the
condition of a King, that Alboin threatened to have him whipped out
of court. Some rather sorry jests followed; but as they were rewarded
with unaccountable peals of laughter, the Lombard lords and ladies may
be supposed to have been more merry, or much wiser, than we are. The
riotous fun was checked for awhile, by the entrance of two women in
search of the King and his royal justice. The subject in dispute was a
crystal mirror, which was claimed by both, but which had been stolen by
one from the other. Alboin, being a most religious as well as gracious
King, was, of course, reminded of the Judgment of Solomon, and thought
he could not do better than imitate it. He first ordered the mirror to
be broken into powder, and divided equally between the rival claimants;
and then he commanded it to be delivered whole to the woman who had
expressed regret that so splendid a mirror should be destroyed. The
entire court was in ecstasy at this rather second-hand wisdom of the
King, who, with more conceit than might have been expected in such a
stern personage, looked at Bertoldo and asked something tantamount to
whether he was not a second Daniel come to judgment?

“Your excellent mightiness,” observed the fool, “can only be said to
be an ass.” Nevertheless, the King seems to have had the best of it,
for Bertoldo simply confined himself to abusing ladies generally, and
the two who were lately plaintiff and defendant, in particular,--as
impostors, whose wickedness was past imagining. Thereupon the gallant
monarch burst forth into a passionate panegyric on the entire female
sex, dealing in warm terms and honeyed phrases, like those in a grand
_scena_, by some enamoured _tenore robusto_, and which, set to music
by a fashionable _maestro_, and trilled by the darling of the season,
would make the fortune of Mr. Chappell, were he only lucky enough to
secure the copyright.

“If I don’t make you change your tune before tomorrow night’s sleep,”
said Bertoldo, “gibbet me as high as Haman.”

“Be it so!” cried Alboin; “by the bones of the Wise Kings, I will keep
thee to thy bargain, Sir Wisdom. Look to it.”

Bertoldo flung himself on some straw in the royal stable: he was
resolved not to go to sleep till he had provided for his triumph; and
in five minutes a chuckle of satisfaction was suddenly succeeded by the
loudest snore that had ever startled the affrighted ears of the steeds
of Alboin the King.

His plan was simple enough; he merely went, in the morning, to the
lady who had been so self-denying in the affair of the mirror, and
announced to her that the King had issued a decree by which every man
was permitted to have seven wives. The announcement had the effect of
infuriating the lady, and she lost no time in stirring up, not only
the women of her own district, but half the city. These repaired,
swift of foot and loud of tongue, to the palace, swept through its
halls, and rushed into the sacred presence of Alboin himself, who stood
before his throne with his hand on his sword, as if in presence of an
insurrection. Bertoldo stood in one corner of the vast apartment, with
a demure and satisfied look, feeling sure of the result.

If the words with which Alboin was pelted by the ladies on this
occasion be correctly given by the old chronicle, it is clear
that freedom of speech was very fearlessly exercised by the
remonstrants,--or rather, by the revilers. It was in vain that the King
held his hand aloft, and essayed to speak. He was overwhelmed by a
hurricane of screams, squalls, screeches, and reproaches, for issuing
the decree in question. One loose-tongued termagant exclaimed above
her sisters, that there would have been some sense in him, if he had
conferred on every woman the right of taking seven husbands; but to
allow every man to have seven wives!!--” and the very idea of such an
outrage so worked upon the amiable furies, that they interrupted the
loud speaker by a howl so shrill, so intense, so exasperating, that
Alboin, after stopping his ears with his gauntleted hands, gave a
signal which his guards obeyed by charging the body of remonstrants,
and driving them into the streets,--with much attendant ruffling of
collars and disturbing of stomachers. When the hall was cleared,
there remained Bertoldo, looking still demurely at the King, and with
an inquiring aspect about his expression. Alboin seemed annoyed for
a moment; but at length, smiling, he acknowledged that the fool was
right, and that women were tigresses.

The revolt of the women, and the share that Bertoldo had had therein,
coming to the knowledge of Alboin’s not very gentle Queen, she sent for
the jester, who, throughout the interview, kept up with her Majesty,
as was indeed his custom in most of the conversations in which he
took part, a constant fire of proverbs. As he contrived to surpass the
royal lady in this species of “capping,” she rather unfairly ordered
him, under escort, to carry a letter to certain officials, which
letter enjoined them to whip the bearer. At Bertoldo’s urgent request,
the Queen condescended to add a postscript, whereby the scourgers
were directed to spare the head, but by no means to be merciful in
an opposite direction. When prisoner and escort reached the gaol,
Bertoldo stepped forward, letter in hand, announced himself as head
of the company, and bade the hangman’s lackeys to lay lustily on his
tail, or followers. The poor wretches were lashed till they were raw;
and at this practical joke the court laughed, and all that was asked
of Bertoldo was, that he should maintain a tournament of words with
Alboin’s own official court fool.

This fool’s name, or nickname, was Fagotto. He was short, fat, and
bald; and he was the challenger of Bertoldo. When the King acceded
to his request, and ordered the duel of the two fools to take place,
he remarked to Fagotto, “Now, proceed; but take heed not to resemble
Benevento, who went out to shear, and came home shorn.”

Fagotto replied with a pompous boast, and then turning on his rival,
assailed him with a species of amenities like those that used to pass
between carnival fools on the Paris Boulevards, and before which every
decent person fled. From this contest Bertoldo issued triumphant;
but the King again taxed his wit by ordering him to demonstrate in
what way, as he had asserted, the daylight was whiter than milk, and
stimulated him to success by promising him the bastinado if he failed.

Bertoldo is said to have proved his assertion by a simple process.
Having access everywhere, he entered the King’s bedchamber at night,
and closing all the blinds, placed a pail of milk in the middle of the
room. Alboin rising in the dark, overthrew the pail, and then calling
lustily for daylight, Bertoldo let the same in upon him, with the
remark, that if the milk had been clearer than daylight, he would have
seen the former without the aid of the latter. Whereupon Alboin rubbed
his shins, shook his head, and supposed his philosophy was wrong.

Bertoldo subsequently had to prove that the royal political system was
quite as rickety as the royal philosophy. It seems that the ladies
of the capital had united in demanding “their rights.” They insisted
on the equality of women and men; and demanded therefore that in all
matters of government they should be employed in the same way as their
lords had hitherto been, exclusively. Alboin had a soft heart, and
was inclined to yield to the request; but Bertoldo offered to show
the incapacity of the petitioners to fill the offices to which they
aspired, by a trick of his own devising, and according to his own
office. He enclosed a bird in a casket, and delivering the same to a
deputation of ladies, in the name of the Queen, he informed them that
their petition was granted, and that the first official duty confided
to them was the guardianship of this casket. The ladies carried it
off, full of delight and promises of fidelity. But they had no sooner
reached the house of one of them, than, after a very little hesitation,
in a fit of intense curiosity, they lifted the lid of the casket, and
away flew the treasure.

Their remorse was great--not that they had betrayed their trust,
but that not one had observed what sort of bird it was; and that
consequently their fault was irreparable. In a body, and with the Queen
at their head, they presented themselves before the King, imploring
pardon. As before stated, Alboin had a gentle heart where ladies were
in the case; and he granted an unreserved pardon,--much to the disgust
of the ungallant Bertoldo, who declared that such a King was not worth
rendering homage to, and that, for his part, he would never bow to him
again. Alboin, remembering the threat, assembled his court early on
the following morning, and ordering the upper part of the open doorway
to be covered with boards, so that any one entering must necessarily
bow to the King, seated opposite, sent for Bertoldo. When the fool
arrived, he saw how it was intended to press a stooping homage out of
him; but his ready wit amply served him, and swinging suddenly round,
he entered the royal presence by “one turn astern!”

The other stories related of Bertoldo, almost do outrage to Romance, as
they assuredly do to Reason. Of the more credible, and yet sufficiently
silly, jokes, there is not one that is not told of other jesters, and
much of both belongs probably to the History of Fiction.

Next to Bertoldo, and far better known to light historians generally,
stands joyous and unlucky Gonella, the favourite yet ill-treated jester
of Borso, Duke of Ferrara, to whose service he was transferred from
that of Nicholas, Count of Este, the father of Borso, who died in 1441.

Borso was a coarse fellow, who savoured coarse jokes; and Gonella,
despite his own more refined taste, was obliged to supply his patron
with that he best liked. Hence the proverb, addressed to one who is too
roughly playing the fool, “We are not now in the days of Duke Borso.”

Generally speaking, the Italian fools were more practical in their
jokes than witty of speech; yet it is not thus we should expect to
find them; but it pleased the patrons of fools as well as if it had
been divinest wit, admirably spoken. For instance, Borso the Duke
had a sick Duchess, and he ordered the then newly-married Gonella to
send his wife, that she might amuse the illustrious lady. “She’s as
deaf as a stone,” said Gonella,--which was a jester’s lie, told for a
purpose,--“and you must roar like a tempest, to make her hear.” The
Duke would have her nevertheless, and Gonella, hastening to obey, said
to his wife, on despatching her to the palace, “Now, wench, there will
be ducats for us if you mind my bidding. The Duke is as deaf as a
lump of clay. If you would have him hear, you must shout with a voice
that would arouse the Seven Sleepers. Away with you, and do not be
afraid to pitch it high.” The consequences may be imagined. When the
jester’s wife met the Duke at the bed-side of the sick Duchess, there
ensued a dialogue that might have been heard by the guard at the outer
gate. Each shouted till the head of the invalid throbbed again; and
she begged her husband to speak lower. “It’s of no use,” said Borso,
“the woman’s as deaf as a post.” “Not at all,” answered the wife of
Gonella, “it is you who are deaf, if my husband has spoken truth.”
Whereupon it was discovered that Gonella had played a trick of his
profession; and as no better could be had for the moment, the jest was
declared to be excellent. So easily pleased were the illustrious nobles
of that day, who depended for a laugh upon practical jokes like the
above--if, indeed, the joke be Gonella’s; for a similar story is told
of other jesters and their patrons. Perhaps the same may be said of the
following, which has certainly been appropriated by various authors.

“For the love of the saints, give a poor blind man alms!”

“Pray pity the poor blind; and Heaven preserve your precious eyesight!”

“Born blind, gracious signor; bestow your charity on one who never saw
light!”

Thus prayed three blind beggars, as Gonella passed by them to Mass.
“Poor fellows!” said the jester, “there is a florin, divide it amongst
you.” He gave nothing at all; and as those who stood near smiled, he
put his finger on his lips, to enjoin silence.

“May Heaven reward you in Paradise!” said the blind men, in
chorus;--and a moment after, “Let us share the signor’s charity.” But
as neither had any florin, and as no one believed that he was not
being robbed by his fellows, they fell to savage words, and from savage
words to blows, fiercely striking at each other with their crutches
till heads were broken and bleeding; and Gonella passed in to prayers,
with the complacent comment, “Blessed are the peace-makers!”

Whether it was some such comment or some still worse joke that once
angered the Duchess, I cannot say, but he had so offended her that
she sent for him to her chamber, where she had stationed half-a-dozen
of her maids, armed with sticks, and with orders to lay on the fool
without mercy, as soon as he should appear. Gonella however saw, as
soon as the door was opened, what was intended, and he cried out,
“Ladies, my back is quite at your service; all the favour I ask is,
that the one I kissed last will strike first, and that the most
impudent hussey among you will lay on the heaviest.” Taken by surprise,
each hesitated to strike; and Gonella tripped away to the echo of the
Duchess’s laughter.

That he well deserved the bastinado, is certain, if all be true that
is told of his tricks to swindle honest shopkeepers out of goods and
money. They were such tricks as no common shop-lifter would now stoop
to, nor tradesmen be deceived by; but they earned the unprincipled fool
many a scourging, and they seem to have been held derogatory to his
profession, for there is record of a Florentine jester, named Mocceca,
remonstrating with Gonella on the disgrace brought upon their common
vocation by his flagrant want of honesty. “If honesty be the most
profitable policy,” said Gonella, “by all means let us adopt it.”

That his place was profitable, is pretty clear, from the fact of
his betting a hundred crowns with his master, the Duke, that there
were more doctors in Ferrara than there were members of any other
profession. “Fool,” said Borso, “there are not half-a-dozen to be
found in the city Directory.” “I will bring you a more correct list
in three or four days,” said Gonella; and then the jester went, with
his jaws bound up, and sat at the church door, and as every one asked
him what he ailed, he answered, “The tooth-ache;” whereupon each
questioner prescribed an infallible remedy, and passed on, Gonella
writing down his name and address, instead of the prescription. At
length he appeared, still with his jaws bound up, at the table of his
master, who, hearing from what he suffered, declared that there was no
remedy but extraction. Immediately, the fool put the Duke’s illustrious
name on the list of Ferrara doctors, and reckoning them up, counted
just three hundred. The great man laughed aloud, and told down his
forfeited crowns with as much glee as if the joke had been worth paying
for. It was at all events a more harmless jest than that which Gonella
subsequently played, in return for a practical joke at the hands of the
Duke. The latter, finding Gonella’s pony in the ducal stable, cut off
its tail, and, as a comical revenge, the jester took the Duke’s mule,
and cut off its upper lip. The princely owner was moved to anger, it is
said; but when the two animals were paraded before him, their mutilated
condition so touched the humane prince, that he took Gonella round the
neck, and laughed till he was breathless.

That neck itself was soon to suffer; and there seems like retribution
in the fact. Borso lay ill, and his medical advisers pronounced his
case hopeless, because they were too ignorant to cure him. His malady
was a raging fever. Nature at first helped him a little, and the
prince was enabled to repair to a country residence, where his fever
settled into a fierce quartan; but he was not prevented from taking
exercise. The whole ducal court was in sorrow because of the condition
of their rough but not ungenerous master, and no one grieved more than
Gonella. The latter heard that the doctors had asserted that nothing
but a sudden fright would shake the malady out of the body of the
prince. But then, who would dare to suddenly frighten such a terrible
potentate as Borso of Ferrara? No one but the poor fool; and he did
it effectually. While walking in the garden with his moody master,
trying in vain to make him smile, the two came up to a deep lake, where
the Duke usually took boat, and as he was about stepping in, Gonella,
without a moment’s hesitation, pushed the Duke into the water. Borso
roared aloud for succour, screamed in his agony, and cursed the fool,
who ultimately, with aid he had prepared, drew him out. Borso was
carried to bed, where he fell into such a perspiration from his fright
and exertion, that he got rid of his fever, and rose free from any
disagreeable symptom except his wrath against the jester. The latter
was condemned to exile, with a sentence of death in case of his being
found upon the soil of Ferrara. Gonella went into banishment, which
he bore with so much impatience, that after a few months he resolved
to return,--without incurring the threatened consequences. He thus
contrived it: filling a cart with the earth of the Paduan district
in which he had been sojourning, he rode boldly into Ferrara, where,
upon being captured, he pertinaciously maintained, as he sat in the
cart, that he was still upon the soil of Padua. Roquelaure, the French
court wit, is, erroneously, said to have copied this trick, and with
better result than was encountered by Gonella. The Duke ordered him to
be seized and to be beheaded. “I will only pay fright with fright,”
said Borso; “so, when his neck is on the block, let fall upon it,
not the axe, but a drop of water; then bid my fool arise. I shall be
glad to congratulate him on his and my recovery.” All was done as the
Duke directed. Gonella, made sad for the first time in his life, was
solemnly conveyed to the scaffold. All the usual ceremonies of the
lugubrious drama were then enacted, and these over, the poor jester,
with a shake and a sigh, laid down the old insignia of his office,
and, blindfolded, placed his head upon the block. The executioner
stepped up, and, from a phial, let fall a single drop of water on the
fool’s neck. Then arose a burst of laughter and a clapping of hands,
and shouts to Gonella to get up and thank the Duke for the life given
him. The fool did not move, and all around laughed the more at the jest
which they thought he was perpetuating. Still he remained motionless;
at last the headsman went up to him, and raising Gonella from the
ground, discovered that he was dead. The drop of water had had all the
effect of the sharpest axe; and the spectators went home repeating to
one another, “A shocking bad joke, indeed!”

Such was the end of Gonella, a man proud of his family name. It is a
name not unknown to our own times, and it is borne by an individual of
higher dignity than the Florentine fool. Monseigneur de Gonella is the
Papal Nuncio at Brussels, and there is now wisdom in the family, as
well as wit.

Again, a practical joke had once wellnigh killed Menicucci, the
jester to the Grand Duke Ferdinand I., in Florence. Ferdinand loved
to surround himself with men who could in any way administer to his
enjoyment, and Menicucci, who dubbed himself Count, took up the office
of parasite and fool, that he might be in continual intercourse
with the aristocracy. One of his follies was in the conviction he
entertained, that there was not a corner of the globe in which his name
and fame were not known; and that Kings and Emperors were dying of
envy to make his acquaintance. In the Grand Duke’s household he never
permitted any official to take precedence of him; and, as indicative
of his superiority, he once mounted to the top of a high closet in the
great stone hall of the palace, where he insisted that the pages should
serve him at dinner. They humoured him for awhile; but while the mock
Count was finishing his repast, they carried off the ladder by which
he had mounted, filled the hall with damp straw, to which they set
fire, and would have left the screaming fool to be suffocated, but
for the Archduke, who, hearing his cries, went to his assistance, and
after enjoying the joke for awhile, ordered the choking “Count” to be
released.

Ferdinand had a fool of quite another quality in the person of
Ciajesius, who was a melancholy and serious fool, addicted to gloomy
prophesying and solemn admonishings, rather than to quips and jests,
like his fellow-professors. As he was well acquainted with Latin, the
Grand Duke appointed him to the office of tutor to his young sons,
that they might learn the language from him colloquially. When he laid
down his more respectable vocation, he asked permission to proceed to
Padua, to take the degree of Doctor of Laws. Ferdinand refused, on the
ground that the dignity would be lowered by its being conferred, by
favour or otherwise, on a court fool. But Ciajesius contrived to escape
to “learned Padua,” where he submitted to examination, and returned to
Florence triumphantly with his diploma. Ferdinand roughly reproached
the authorities of the University, for making a doctor of his fool,
and thereby a fool of the Grand Duke. They replied that the profession
of the candidate was entirely unknown to them; and that they did not
remember any one having passed more creditably through his examination.

Ferdinand would have preferred a fool to a philosopher, like Gian
Andrea Doria of Genoa, who once being ill, and condemned to take some
very disagreeable remedies, and to adopt a very unpalatable diet,
summoned his jester Feo to his room, and ordered him to take the same
remedies and follow the same course of diet as his ducal master. “Why,
master,” said Feo, “you are like the condemned in the infernal regions,
who want everybody to suffer just what they do themselves. I beg to be
excused.” “No, no, merry friend,” said the Doge, “you ate and drank of
the best with me when I was well, and you shall even share the same
fare that I have, being ill.” And accordingly Feo was obliged to
swallow many a detestable potion; and the mighty but nervous Doge could
find delight in the torture and embarrassments to which he exposed his
fool.

There is more matter for astonishment in the subject in which great
men could find amusement. Vincentius, Duke of Mantua, when he received
Frederick, Duke of Wirtemberg, at his castle, in the year 1600, could
think of nothing better wherewith to amuse his princely guest, after a
day’s hard hunting, than to make sport with his jester. On the latter,
armed with sword and stick, and placed within improvised lists, was let
loose a young wild boar, deprived of his tusks and upper teeth, but
still a dangerous adversary to encounter. The illustrious spectators
roared with delight at seeing first the fool, then the boar, down.
Now the jester was uppermost, now his savage enemy was on the top of
him; anon they were rolling over and over; and it was impossible to
say which had the best of it. The boar, all deprived as he was of his
chief weapons, would probably have overcome the fool; but the latter
was carried off with bloody cockscomb, for which sorry plaister was
provided in the laughter, applause, and pistoles awarded him by his
refined patrons.

The Wirtembergian Duke had a fool of his own, named Jeronimo, a
Spaniard, who was not so careful of his pistoles as Feo. He was an
inveterate gambler, and at one sitting lost 4000 crowns, a sufficient
proof that his profession was not always an unprofitable one. The
rage for play was so strong upon him, that he once agreed, in case of
his being a loser, that his adversary should take aim at him with a
crossbow, and discharge a certain number of little pointed darts at his
head. He came off a little injured, but he was used to rough treatment,
and when the weather was too inclement for hunting, his master would
turn him into his court-yard, and there he formed an object of chase
and assault for august princes and lofty nobles, who pelted him with
unsavoury eggs and fruit, while the jester, in a paper helmet, and with
a wooden sword, excited general shouts of laughter by his vapouring,
screaming, and mock airs of defiance.

After all these practical jokes, we are glad to come upon that rare
thing in an Italian jester, namely, wit. The sample of it which I have
now to furnish is well known, indeed, but it is said to have originally
belonged to a Pavian jester, who, when the surgeons and the doctors of
law were at loggerheads on a question of precedents, suggested to the
Duke of Milan, who asked his counsel, that the matter was easy enough
of settlement. “When a murderer,” said he, “goes to execution, he
always walks before the hangman; so here, the surgeons ought to precede
the doctors of law.”

The slyest hint made against the want of wit in an Italian jester, was
that of Cardinal Perron to the Duke of Mantua. “Your Highness’s fool,”
said he, “has the most stupendous wit I ever heard of; for he gains a
livelihood by a profession he does not understand.”

Patrons and jesters were, indeed, often worthy of each other. When
Dante was a fugitive, and was received at the court of Cane della
Scala, he found there a host of jugglers, singers, and jesters, the
latter of whom, especially, did not spare the almost friendless poet.
“How comes it?” asked one of him, at his lord’s table, “that you, who
are accounted such a wise and learned man, are such a poor devil, while
I, who am but a fool, am rich, and well cared for?” “There is nothing
wonderful therein,” answered Dante, calmly; “when I find a patron whose
sentiments are in accordance with mine, as you have found one who very
much resembles _you_, then, like you, my merry friend, I shall be rich
and well cared for too.”

Dante was not wrong in comparing Cane della Scala with the fool, for
that great personage often played fool’s tricks on the poet himself. On
one occasion, at a banquet, Cane ordered the bones left from the feast
to be quietly deposited beneath the seat of Dante. When the company
arose, there was a universal shout of laughter at the strange heap then
visible to all. Dante was not disconcerted. “Truly,” said he, “it is
nothing wonderful that the dog (Canis) hath gnawed his bones; but I am
no dog, and have nothing to do with these.” And therewith he walked
proudly away.

Milan, like Verona, had its jesters at court, but the only incident
therewith worth repeating is, that at the court of Duke Francis Sforza,
the fool Marchesina bore so striking a resemblance to the Duke’s
son-in-law, Malatesta, that it was thought necessary always to send
Marchesina out of Milan whenever Malatesta repaired thither on a visit.

From the Italian jesters we will, if my readers please, pass finally to
those of households where we might least expect to find them, unless
Scripture could give warrant for their employment,--namely, priestly
households where fools found homes.




JESTERS IN PRIESTS’ HOUSES.


The court fool, like the tailor, is one whose avocation is passed by
without notice in Scripture. From no passage in Holy Writ could the
old church dignitaries who maintained fools in their households, find
warrant for their practice; they simply found a worldly fashion, and
adopted it. Like princes, they were not always free from “vapours;”
and as princes sought to cure their melancholy by the agency of hired
mirth-makers, these reverend gentlemen followed the example.

With respect to the profession of fools, in its connection with the
Clergy, there are two circumstances which present themselves to our
attention, and excite our surprise. In old pictures and woodcuts
representing inner clerical life, the presence of the jester proves
that he was an actual member of the godly and merry household. This
is further certain by several edicts, which forbid, not only various
church dignitaries therein named from maintaining fools, but also
forbidding abbesses from making dull days in convents tolerable by
employing jesters to help them through such heavy seasons. But if it
be matter of some surprise, to find grave religious dignitaries and
solemn lady abbesses taking pleasure in such jokes as the professional
mirth-maker could manufacture for them, a still greater measure
of surprise is excited by the fact, that these holy personages
occasionally acted the fool themselves, at the tables of patrons whose
particular favour they most earnestly desired. That this irregular
practice must have prevailed to a very wide extent, is ascertained by
a passage in a decree of the Council of Cahors, to this effect: “It
is also our command, that the clergy shall not practise as jesters,
fools, or buffoons (_Joculatores, Goliardi, seu Bufones_), declaring
that if they exercise such disgraceful profession for one year, they
are thereby deprived of every ecclesiastical privilege; and further
ordering, that if they do not desist, after being duly admonished, they
shall be subjected, in addition, to secular punishment.” I am afraid
that the Council of Cahors would not even have granted exemption to
Sydney Smith.

Among the punishments alluded to, was whipping--after degradation.
The last alone was no joke to a clerical jester. He was condemned to
serve his brethren, and to go to communion as a simple laic. If such
an offender travelled without testimonials, he was further subject
to great annoyance and suspicion, as (to take an early example) when
Chrysostom, at Constantinople, hospitably entertained some agreeable
Egyptian monks, he was delighted with his visitors, but he would not
admit them to the Eucharist. The joyous strangers might, for aught he
knew, be under censure, and he treated them accordingly.

But, although Scripture does not mention, and the Councils of the
Church do not sanction, “fools,” the latter particularly when they are
members also of the clerical profession; yet the jester does not lack
a protector among the Saints. The Church, indeed, has been, if one may
say so without being impertinent, a little inconsistent towards the
professional merrymen, when it is recollected, that in the roll of
Saints there are two who especially favour fools. One is St. Mathurin,
who was always invoked by them in sickness. He was a very good man,
who lived at Montargis, in the fourth century, and who condescended
to be the physician of all professional jesters, till the vocation
became extinct. The other, and more especially patron-saint, was St.
Julian; but which of the half-dozen of solemn and shadowy men who bear
that name on the calendar, I am unable to say. Probably it was the
Julian who, in the seventh century, was Archbishop of Toledo. This
prelate not only lived at the court of King Wemba, but he talked him
into abdicating the crown, and assuming the cowl. There was no other
but a fool who could have had such liberty of speech, or was likely to
have used it so effectually,--and from this circumstance is, perhaps,
derived the alleged fact of St. Julian’s patronage of the professors of
folly.

Whatever the Saint may have thought of the community, it is very clear
that the Church did not regard its members with so much complacency as
certain individual priests, who loved to have a “fun-maker” in their
household. I suppose the liking and the practices to which it led were
abused, or solemn councils would hardly have issued stern prohibitions,
by which prelates were forbidden to retain the professional fool. The
prohibition was referred to during many centuries, and we are told that
Antony Sanderus, as late as 1624, reproached the clergy of his time
with their love for buffoons, and for young ladies whose wit might be
heavier, but whose principles were lighter than any ever professed
beneath the party-coloured gabardine.

There was a time when _some_ church corporations peculiarly honoured
the votary of St. Julian. At Tournay, for instance, at the annual
procession of the Holy Sacrament, the pompous line of march was opened
by the official _fou de la ville_, who was paid by the municipality.
When we read that his dress, acts, and words were all of the most
extravagant description, we are surprised to learn that the office
was sometimes filled by a wealthy banker of the city. At _that_ time
perhaps bankers were more fools than knaves.

A reminiscence of this custom was exhibited in Belgium as late as 1834,
at the musical contest in Brussels, when several troops of musicians
from various provinces entered the city, with their especial “fou” at
the head of every company.

Among the Popes, there was none who so liberally patronized jesters as
Leo X. It has been said of this prelate that a witty fool had always
a much better chance of obtaining an audience of him than a grave
philosopher. Jovius and Guicciardini agree in the fact of the papal
predilection for fellows who could afford him mirth, not merely by
their light learning, but by their gross and heavy appetites. The same
writers especially allude to the favour which Leo extended to buffoons,
and to those so-called arch-poets who played the fool and miserably
degraded themselves for the sake of a half-gnawed bone and a handful
of ducats. The most famous, yet not the grossest of these mirthmakers,
was Querno, a Neapolitan by birth, with a diminutive figure, a huge
appetite, and an unquenchable thirst. The mock ovation of this
arch-poet, his march to the Capitol, crowned with a wreath of vine,
carrot, and cabbage-leaves, and mounted on an elephant, is a well-known
incident, as is also his bandying of indifferent Latin verses,
improvised for the nonce, with Leo himself. This buffoon, although by
no means devoid of mental endowments, was content to stand by at papal
banquets, and amuse the godly company by the greedy avidity with which
he swallowed the fragments and half-consumed dishes despatched to him
from the pontiff’s table. If Querno was a buffoon, he was at least that
sort of fool to perform whose part efficiently requires a certain sort
of wit. But Leo had other jesters who had no merit but the sorry one of
being disagreeable fools. Of these we may judge by what is said of two
of them, a greedy, insatiable fellow named Martinus, and a mendicant
brother called Marianus. They certainly were wonderful buffoons in
their way, for one could take a pigeon, roasted or stewed, compress it
into a species of gigantic bolus, and swallow it whole, at one gulp.
The other made no difficulty of devouring forty eggs at a meal, and
indeed on high festive days, wondering and applauding guests saw him
deliberately devour a score of capons!

Of the extravagance of Leo’s table, his successor, Adrian VI., was
heartily ashamed, having a sort of disgust for a pontiff who, in the
company of buffoons like Querno, Gazoldo, Britonio, and Baraballo,
could eat himself into an indigestion, or see others do so, on costly
dishes of peacock-sausages. But in this case we have an instance of
that easy compounding for one’s own sins by denouncing those of our
neighbours. Adrian did not care for costly dishes or jesters; but his
appetite was under less control than that of Leo, if it be true, as
Jovius says of him, that the Flemish pontiff drank himself into chronic
disease on strong beer. “Contrahisse morbum assiduum cerevisiæ potu.”

According to some writers, it was the fool Baraballo, and not Querno,
who was processionally conducted in mock pomp through the streets of
Rome, to be crowned in the Capitol. The absurd verses of this jester
procured for him this doubtful honour; but when he uttered dull jokes
in bad measure, Leo would order him to be bastinadoed,--and to such
depth could one of the most intellectual of pontiffs stoop to find
relaxation from heavy duties and oblivion of as heavy responsibilities.
But he might cite as example and excuse the Pontiff Paul II., who from
1458 to 1464 found exquisite delight in the poor jests of his official
fools. But Paul was at least more orthodox than Leo, and in that
distinction there is a world of difference.

Both these pontiffs differed from Benedict XIV., who was Pope from
1740 to 1758. Benedict loved a joke, but he loved to make it himself,
and he might therefore be set down among those potentates who have
been their own fools. When he was yet but Consistorial Advocate--a
sufficiently grave and responsible dignitary--the spirit of fun so
strongly influenced him, that at carnival-time he would issue into the
thronged streets in the burlesqued costume of a doctor of divinity,
and, mounting on a stool, would hold forth to the other gay masquers,
denouncing their sins so pleasantly that their only regret was, that
they were not fathoms deeper in iniquity, that they might laugh the
more at the comic recapitulation of their offences. When Benedict
became Pope, he endeavoured to suppress the carnival orgies; but the
popular voice expressed itself so menacingly that he was content to
leave others to enjoy what he could no longer participate in himself.
He then confined himself to playing tricks on the Cardinals. His chief
butt was Cardinal Passionei, a patient, orthodox man, who equally hated
heresy and the Jesuits. The papal jokes were practical; as when the
Pope, hearing that his Eminence had ordered a chest of books to be sent
to him, contrived that a chest should reach him full of the most famous
heretical and condemned volumes. The papal enjoyment here consisted in
beholding the horror of the Cardinal on opening the case, and in seeing
the delicate disgust with which he seized each work with a pair of
tongs, and tossed it into the fire.

The spiritual prince-electors followed the fashion, and retained fools
who seem to have been pretty plainly spoken. Thus, when the Elector
Brendal of Mayence asked his jester what he thought of the newly-gilded
chancel of the cathedral, Sir Motley replied, “I think it is very
like the golden goblet in which the Hessians drink sour beer. Your
newly-gilded chancel will be filled by dirty thieves of monks.”

Far bolder, however, was the reply of the electoral buffoon, Witzel,
to Wolfgang, another Elector of Mayence, who asked him of what
gender the word _Mater_ was. “Well,” answered the fool, “mine is
_generis feminini_; but your Electoral Highness’s _mater_ is _generis
communis_.” The fools of the Mayence Electors, it may be added, were
not all remarkable only for wit; one at least, Pastore, fool to Albert
of Mayence, was a kindly and brave-hearted man. When he knew there was
a design on foot to make away with a Reforming preacher named Winkel,
who, in 1527, had been summoned to Mayence to render account of his
stewardship, Pastore aided him to escape. Poor Winkel was ultimately
murdered; but the good deed of Pastore was not forgotten by the
Reformers in their indignation against the more wicked agents of his
unscrupulous master.

The electors of Cologne kept so princely a court that the uniform
of the jesters rubbed against that of the body-guard. Such samples,
however, as I can find of their wit do not say much for their humour or
delicacy. That wit appears to have been exercised chiefly against their
ghostly masters’ vices, and in this respect they had no sinecure. Or
it was exhibited in rather uncleanly practical jokes, or as uncleanly
repartees, and a record of the fact may well take place of a sample
from the measure.

In treating of the jesters of foreign countries, there is some
difficulty in conveying a fair idea of their wit, as by mere
translation the point is ordinarily lost. The jests of Crafulla, a
clever buffoon, yet not an official fool, who was constantly in the
society of the Cardinal de’ Medici, are exactly in this condition. It
is not much better with Barciacca, the house fool of Cardinal Ippolito
de’ Medici. Such wit as he had will not bear, and is hardly worthy,
translation; while his practical jokes are really not worth narrating.
One can only wonder how any of the Medici, refined and learned men,
could laugh at such sorry amusement. Barciacca once compared himself
with the Cardinal, on the ground that he daily fed as many as his
Eminence; and when the latter expressed doubt of the fact, the fool
stripped himself to the drawers, to exhibit the marks of the thousands
that began feeding on him as soon as he lay down to sleep in the bed
assigned him in the Cardinal’s palace. Ippolito laughed at this till he
nearly lost breath. The joke only shows that the _palazzo Cardinale_
was not of the cleanest, and that in point of humour his Eminence was
easily pleased.

Again, if we look to the fools of Cardinals in England, we shall not
find them particularly distinguished for happiness of wit. The best
thing uttered by Cardinal Wolsey’s jester, Saxton, was his wish that
Wolsey might become Pope. “For you see,” said he, “Peter’s father being
a fisherman, he ordered all men to eat fish in Lent, for the sake of
his father’s trade; now, your Eminence’s father having been a butcher,
we should hope, for a similar reason, to be ordered to eat meat all
the year round.” This is at least as good as anything that is told of
foreign fools in the palaces of Cardinals; and I may add, that Wolsey’s
fool was prophet also, if we may credit the story in which we are told,
that, once, as the Cardinal was contemplating the design for a tomb
intended for himself, the fool remarked, “The tomb is well enough, but
your Eminence’s bones will never lie in it,” which proved to be true.

Cardinal Richelieu possessed a better taste in jesters than Wolsey. His
buffoons were men of wit and learning, and the latter were admirably
combined in the Abbé de Boisrobert, who brought to the Cardinal his
daily dish of city scandal, amused him by his imitations of the
peculiarities of Richelieu’s friends, wrote half his tragedies for him,
knew more of the drama than of divinity, was so constantly present at
the theatre that it came to be called the “Cathedral of Boisrobert,”
and finally, who founded the French Academy. The Abbé was no ordinary
fool, but an incomparable wit; and when he was out of favour with
Richelieu, and the latter was ill, his physician wrote the simple but
indispensable prescription, “Recipe Boisrobert!”

If Cardinals had their jesters, we must not be surprised to find them
in episcopal houses. In Germany, in the 16th and 17th centuries,
some of them exhibited the usual bent of the class for practical
joking; some were famous for their feats of strength; others for their
blasphemy; one or two were remarkable for their simplicity; but none of
them can be said to have been distinguished for wit. I have already
mentioned Klaus Narr in a ducal household; he was subsequently jester
to Ernst, Archbishop of Magdeburg. In this service, if he did nothing
else, he at least gave rise to a proverbial saying. He had covered the
floor of the Archbishop’s room with feathers from a bed which he had
ripped open. The prelate, on entering the apartment, angrily inquired
who had done this; and as, at the moment, the Archbishop’s dog Lepsch,
which had been in the chamber the whole time of Klaus Narr’s freak,
rose from his couchant position, and opened his mouth, Klaus called
to him angrily, “Lepsch, boy, don’t let out the secret!” The prelate
laughed; and the expression became a proverb, to be applied in cases
where silence was recommended.

The Bishop of Bamberg was less choice in his fool than his brother
of Magdeburg. He kept a jester whose chief wit consisted in passing
himself off as the brother of our Saviour. This poor wretch prattled
incessantly of incidents in the household of his supposed family,
and drew laughter from his reverend master by chatting with fearful
familiarity of the events of a life, death, and resurrection which no
Christian can ever think of without emotions of sympathy, love, and
gratitude. This sorry fool, once seeing his godly patron treating with
immense demonstration of friendship a deputation of Nurembergers whom
he intended to fleece, imprison, and hang, the jester exclaimed, “Ay,
ay! I remember how my good brother Jesus was superbly treated when he
entered Jerusalem in triumph; but those rascally Jews plundered and
executed him nevertheless!” The blasphemy certainly served the purpose
of putting the Nurembergers on their guard; and the Bishop was only
annoyed at it because it frustrated a cherished purpose.

The bad taste of the Bamberg bishops with respect to their jesters,
is illustrated in another diocesan, who lived in part of the 16th and
beginning of the 17th centuries. This exemplary divine maintained a
coarse, strong, active, semi-savage peasant, who amused the episcopal
court and guests by going about on all-fours, and often with a dwarf
on his back, like a young knight on a huge steed. The fun consisted in
the steed trying to unhorse the cavalier. Sometimes this huge fellow
would leap on to the table without upsetting a goblet; at other times
he was baited in the Bishop’s dining-room by dogs, and they generally
had the worst of it. Springing at them in his wild attire, and uttering
unearthly howls, he would pull down with his teeth even the fiercest
bull-dogs, and so terribly maul them that they would not try a second
attack. As for dogs of less ferocious breed, they flew at once from
his terrific bellowing, seldom waiting to try the effect of his teeth.
The agility of this savage was equal to his strength, and he would
run along the uppermost parapet of the episcopal palace, and throw
somersaults upon it as carelessly as if he had been on the ground, to
the wild delight of the Bambergers, who were not very superior in moral
qualities to the people of Munster. The latter had more regard for
the fool of their Bishop than the fool had for them. One morning, the
prelate’s jester was seen in a field belonging to his master, sowing
pebbles. “It would be more profitable,” remarked a spectator, “if you
could sow seed that should bring a crop of honest men.” “Ah,” answered
the joker, “that’s a crop that the land of Munster is of too bad a
quality to produce.”

Julius, Bishop of Wurtzburg, had as witty a fool as his brother of
Munster. This jester was very much petted; but like spoiled favourites,
he sometimes offended grievously by his impertinence, and the Bishop
once ordered him to prison. While the gaoler was strewing some straw on
the ground of the cell for the condemned jester to lie upon, the latter
slipped out, locked the keeper in, and carried the key to the Bishop,
with the remark that it was “all right.” “All right?” exclaimed the
prelate. “It is all wrong, since you are not in prison, sirrah, and the
gaoler is.” “There may be some mistake,” answered the joker; “but I can
hardly think so. You ordered a fool to prison, and I am sure you will
find one there, if you will only look for him.”

The prelates who kept fools about their hearth, had not unfrequently
a taste of their office which was more likely to excite anger than
merriment. These prelates occasionally even slept with their jesters.
The former could not have been much given to meditation, since they
depended on the latter to laugh them into sleep, or to solace them by
merriment when they were wakeful. One of the princely Archbishops of
Cologne followed this very indifferent fashion.

Were not my space becoming so limited, I might here fittingly notice
those “Festivals of Fools” in which whole cities once took part, and of
which the church was the principal scene. I allude especially to those
_Fêtes des Fous_, Saturnalia established or continued to conciliate
semi-converted pagans, and which were not entirely abolished till the
end of the sixteenth century. This subject, however, would require a
volume, and in some countries has had _volumes_ devoted to it. The
chief characteristic of a _Fête des Fous_ was, insult to the Church,
and it is astonishing that a powerful Church bore with the nuisance
for so long a period. A boy was, generally at the Epiphany, elected
as Bishop, mounted on an ass, and escorted to church, where the
people would interrupt the priest at his office, by unseemly songs,
jeers, and profane and filthy conversation. Some would play at dice
upon the altar, while others would feign to denounce them, or pretend
to assist the priest, by mock exhortations or obscene lectures. The
procession of fools, on leaving the church, greeted the open-mouthed
starers by flinging bran in their faces, as they passed; and amused
others by jumping over brooms, and chanting so-called hymns,--that
were not for edification. This abomination lasted so long that many
conservatively-minded persons saw a mystery in it, and when the church
authorities aided the secular government to suppress the iniquity,
there were not wanting individuals who maintained that this festival
of fools was as pleasing to God, as the holiest festival of the year!
Among these objectors to the suppression of this custom, were many
clerics, who either enjoyed the uproarious holiday or made profit by
being actors on the occasion.

In connection with jests and jesters near the Church, I could not well
avoid mentioning this festival, where the buffoons exceeded any license
assumed by official fools in royal and imperial courts. There are,
however, so many well-known works or essays devoted to this matter,
that I gladly leave the subject, trusting that if there be a reader
who has gone with me thus far, he will accompany me through one more
chapter before we finally part.




PRINCES WHO HAVE BEEN THEIR OWN FOOLS.


Although I have made almost an encyclopædia of notes touching exalted
personages who, since the decline or the suppression of official fools,
have shown a disposition to perform the office on their own account,
neither my space nor my sympathy for the persevering reader who has
thus far accompanied me, will admit of my placing a hundredth part
of them before the public. A few instances, however, I will at once
proceed to give, only premising, that it was lucky for a people when
the Prince, in playing the Fool, enacted his part without inflicting
anything very detrimental upon his subjects. Among those whose follies
may be said to have been comparatively harmless, is to be reckoned that
Prince who was called the Fool of his Health, namely, Ferdinand II.,
Grand Duke of Tuscany, who died in 1670, and was remarkable for the
anxiety with which he attended to his health. “I have frequently seen
him,” says the Abbé Arnauld, “pacing up and down his chamber between
two large thermometers, upon which he would keep his eyes constantly
fixed, unceasingly employed in taking off and putting on a variety of
skull-caps of different degrees of warmth, of which he had always five
or six in his hand, according to the degree of heat or cold registered
by the instruments. This, I can assure you, was a mighty pleasant
sight to behold, for there was not a conjuror in all his dominions
more dexterous in handling his cups and balls than was this prince in
shifting his caps.”

If this was silly, it at least was in better taste than characterized
the proceeding of the Princess of the Asturias, at Madrid, when
Saint-Simon took ceremonious leave of her before he returned to
France, in 1722. In full court, and to all his formal compliments and
speeches, her Royal Highness only replied by a loud rattling noise in
the trachea, which she repeated as he concluded each of his addresses
to her. The poor Duke was stupefied, but the court was in fits of
laughter, and hilariously admired the jest.

The great Condé furnishes us with another example of this class of
fools. A village schoolmaster once came to him with an address. As the
speaker bowed low, on commencing his speech, Condé, quick as thought,
vaulted over his back. With equal rapidity, the orator turned and
continued his speech, but Condé’s folly was uppermost, and laying
a light hand upon the pedagogue’s shoulder, over he bounded again,
lightly as an equestrian in a “daring act” of the harmless arena. The
baffled speaker then gave up the attempt, and left the princely fool to
the enjoyment of the recollection of his folly.

The father of the last Duke of Mantua, Charles III., was another of
those illustrious personages who preferred being his own fool, and
after a singular fashion too. He loved to go abroad in the dirtiest
of disguises, and accompanied by an escort of equally ill clad
bullies for his defence. It was his sport to assail all he met in the
coarsest terms, and when some persons thus assaulted, more impatient
than others, fell upon him in return, with tongue or cudgel, he would
laugh till he was sore, and then his escort came to the rescue. On
other occasions, he would enter the shops of vendors of very breakable
materials, and taking up mirrors or drinking glass, or any other
fragile matter that came to hand, he would let it fall to the ground,
and find double provocation to laughter in the ruin he had committed
and in the expressions of unrestrained abuse which were showered on him
in consequence.

Something of madness must have lurked under this; but in the next
buffoon we shall only see a development of natural disposition.

The dexterity of a quack doctor at a fair made of Peter the Great his
own fool, when the humour took him to play the character. The Czar had
seen the fellow, on a platform, skilfully pushing out teeth with the
end of a ladle, or picking them out with the point of a dagger. Peter
paid for instruction in the art, and forthwith began to practise it
on his courtiers, whose teeth were never safe within their lips. It
happened on one occasion that a Russian officer had exposed himself
to the Czar’s wrath, by being absent from a post at which Peter had
especially placed him. It was necessary that the offender should meet
his enraged sovereign, and his friends gave him up for lost, when
he entered the audience chamber. But the officer, as he crossed the
threshold, pulled out his handkerchief, pressed it to his cheek, and
advanced towards the Czar with a growl of agony. Peter, delighted at
the prospect of a patient, pushed him into a chair; the officer opened
wide his jaws, and the Czar tugged at his gums with a fury that made
the sufferer roar as if he had been under the knout, but which was
attended by the extraction of two useful and stupendous grinders. Peter
looked at the teeth, and then at his patient, whose lips were still
open with pain and discoloured by blood. The Imperial surgeon laughed
and danced with delight; but looking in the face of the officer, his
own darkened with rage, on recognizing the offender. The latter,
shuddering at the look, sank back in his chair and opened his jaws
wider, indicative of another offering from the same source. What could
the amateur dentist do? He laughed louder, danced more wildly with
ecstasy, pulled out another tooth, and dismissed the crafty but clever
patient, with full pardon.

The Czarina Elizabeth, in a milder form it is true, suffered also
under this malady of folly. This lady’s delight was, never to sign any
document brought to her by her ministers, till she had worn them out
by her refusals. When the Grand Chancellor Besterfchef laid before her
a paper which required her name at the bottom of it in order to give
it validity, she would toss the pen across the room, begin dancing
round the minister, who turned upon his knees to meet her face and to
implore her, with tears in his eyes, to cease from such folly. The
Czarina only danced on, laughing the more immoderately as she observed
the embarrassment and the tears of the Chancellor. The latter however
seldom left her till he had made her ashamed of playing the fool, and
of interrupting public business by refusing to scrawl her name to a
state paper.

At a semi-barbarous court like that of Russia, the above traits are
not very surprising. At that of Spain, which boasted so loudly of its
solemn grandeur, dignity, and refinement, we find a more surprising
instance, but quite different from that I have mentioned of the
Princess of the Asturias.

The Spanish royal family of the last century affords us an instance
of the Heir to the Throne not only being his own fool, but of his
raising his friends to the dignity of folly, by conferring on them its
insignia. Lord Ligonier, the husband of one of Alfieri’s worthless
idols, was English Ambassador at the court of Madrid during a portion
of the reign of Charles III., which lasted from 1759 to 1788. After
Lord Ligonier’s introduction to the King, he was conducted to the
apartments of the Heir to the Crown, the Prince of the Asturias. The
latter was, subsequently, that Charles IV. who was his own Queen’s
especial fool throughout the term of their married lives. As Lord
Ligonier approached the Prince’s chamber, he saw issuing therefrom
a number of grandees, each wearing, with proud gravity, a fantastic
fool’s cap. On inquiring the meaning of such a pageant, he was informed
that his Royal Highness possessed the fancy of distinguishing his most
cherished friends as his “fools.” The Prince, too, was often pleased
to confer this mark of his favour on celebrated foreigners. Lord
Ligonier was alarmed.

“I represent,” he said, “a great sovereign; and am myself a foreigner
not altogether unknown. I must add, that my gracious master would
be seriously offended, if the Prince of the Asturias were to think
proper to cover the representative of the King of England with this
decoration. You had better go in, Sir,” said he to his introducer, “and
say as much to his Royal Highness.”

The reluctant official undertook the mission; but he presently
returned, with the intimation that the Prince could not give up an
old-established custom. Upon which, Lord Ligonier turned on his
heel, declaring that he would not visit a Prince who thus exposed
an Ambassador to insult. The court officials were thrown into a
state of amusing terror by this declaration; they maintained, that
if the Ambassador retired, it would be a flagrant insult on the
Prince. Ultimately, and after many messages and countermessages had
passed between the Prince in his room, and the English Envoy in the
antechamber, announcement was made that the Prince of the Asturias
would not attempt to clap the fool’s-cap on the head of Lord Ligonier.
His lordship consequently entered the apartment, but not without being
more than usually vigilant against surprise. He found the sage Prince
with his back to the hearth, and with his hands behind him. The Prince
remained in that position, and invited the Ambassador to approach. The
English lord obeyed; but as he advanced, he perceived that the Prince
held a paper object, and the Ambassador stopped short to converse with
his Royal Highness at a very respectful distance. At the conclusion
of the interview, he had to bow low; but, as a sailor might say, his
weather eye was open, and he watched the Prince narrowly. The latter
was resolved upon effecting his object, and as narrowly watched the
Ambassador. The bow was almost at its lowest, when the Prince, seizing
the most favourable opportunity, suddenly brought the fool’s cap from
behind him, and endeavoured to fix it on the head of Lord Ligonier;
but the old soldier who, by one glorious action at Laffeldt, had
disconcerted all the projects of Marshal Saxe, was not to be foiled by
a foolish prince. As soon as his eye caught sight of the cap, his hand
was upon it, and almost as soon it lay crumpled up beneath his feet.
His sudden action nearly threw the Prince out of his equilibrium; and
leaving that illustrious fool’s-cap maker to recover himself as he best
might, the old warrior quitted the apartment with a smile of scorn upon
his lip.

Turning now from the Envoy from, to the King of, England, I may observe
that the greatest opportunity for court fools to exhibit their wit or
slyness, occurred when great political events were passing before them.
They were then the merry scholiasts of living history. At no period in
England, since the foundation of the monarchy, could a professional
fool have found more incentives to fun or satire, than during the
eventful reign of George III. And of all that reign, the time of “the
Coalition,” in 1783, was that on which a witty court fool, in the
secret of what was passing and what was about to pass, would have had
most to say, hint, or laugh at. The Shelburne Administration had gone
to pieces, and that fatal “Coalition” had been forced on George III.,
who indignantly saw himself compelled to accept a union of men who had
for years been denouncing each other as void of principle, and worthy
of the hangman. Lord North and Charles Fox, antipodes in everything
but wit and good temper, came together, with other bitter foes, who
had salved over their old sores, but wounded their reputation, for
ever. When the new ministers first appeared at court before that good
and obstinate old sovereign whom they and other ministers helped or
harassed into madness, George III. had made up his mind to rid himself
of them at the very earliest opportunity. Had there been a court fool
present who knew the royal intention, he would have revelled in jokes,
gibes, and inuendoes. As it was, the King was his own fool, and could
not avoid showing a sign of his resolve. How he did it, is whimsically
and authentically told in the second volume, page 28, of Russell’s
Memoirs of Fox. Lord Holland is speaking, and in these words:--“I
cannot help relating a saying of that lively and humorous old man” (the
Marquis of Townshend) “on this occasion. He said he had always foreseen
the Coalition Ministry could not last, for he was at court when Mr. Fox
kissed hands; and he observed George III. _turn back his ears and eyes_
just like the horse at Astley’s, when the tailor he had determined to
throw was getting on him.” This was the very action of a court fool,
and not one of the fraternity could have performed it more felicitously
than the King, who, on this occasion, was his own.

The eldest son of George III. had his comic aspect too, and was an
excellent mimic. If we may believe the very respectable authority of
Mr. Raikes, whose journals show him to have been a visitor at the
Pavilion, and the intimate friend of many who visited there more
frequently than himself, George IV., in playing the fool, was not at
all scrupulous as to sacrificing his own ministers, for the sake of
effect. Indeed, they were very good objects for the ridicule of a
monarch who was his own jester. The “best wigged Prince in Christendom”
had in perfection one of the chief qualities of the professional
fool,--the power of imitation. Mr. Raikes affords an illustration of
this in a story told him by the Duke of Wellington. “When the King
sent for me,” said the Duke, “to form a new administration, in 1828,
he was then seriously ill, though he would never allow it. I found him
in bed, dressed in a dirty silk jacket and a turban night-cap, one as
greasy as the other; for, notwithstanding his coquetry about dress in
public, he was extremely slovenly and dirty in private. The first words
he said to me were, ‘Arthur, the Cabinet is defunct;’ and then he began
to describe the manner in which the late ministers had taken leave
of him, in giving in their resignations. This was accompanied by the
most ludicrous mimicry of the voice and manner of each individual, so
strikingly like, that it was quite impossible to refrain from fits of
laughter.”

If George IV. was strong in the fool’s quality of mimicry, Louis
Philippe was not less so in coarser mockery; but then the latter King
was too grave an actor to allow of his playing the fool in presence
even of a friend or minister. He, however, could indulge in a brief
private performance of the character, and he was once unwittingly
caught in the fact by one of his private secretaries, who had concealed
himself behind a door, in order to escape the observation of the
King. His Majesty was approaching in deep conversation with the old
republican, Dupont de l’Eure. The monarch at the head of “the best of
republics,” treated the aged confederate, of whom he wished to be well
rid, with an excess of warmth and courtesy. Louis Philippe professed
ideas liberal enough to gratify a republican so advanced as M. Dupont,
of whom he finally took leave in the most condescending and friendly
manner. “No sooner, however,” says Mr. Raikes, who was the confidant
of the secretary, “had the other turned his back to go out, and before
he quitted the room, than Louis Philippe began to hold up his finger
at him, with a face of mockery, and made a movement with his foot,
as if he could hardly prevent himself from kicking him.” This bit of
pantomimic incivility was often the manner of the most comic of court
fools, and probably Triboulet himself could not have enacted it in
superior style.

But I must draw my instances to a close, and perhaps I cannot do
so more appropriately than by showing the merits, as a jester, of a
sovereign whose country has since been the scene where martyrs have
died, and heroes have avenged them. I refer to Oude, and I will add,
that perhaps few monarchs ever so perfectly played the fool for his own
satisfaction and that of his court, as Nassir-u-Deen, the late King
of that country. His great delight was in puppet-shows, and it was
on the occasion of one being exhibited before him that the following
occurrence took place, as recorded in the ‘Private Life of an Eastern
King.’

“His Majesty laughed heartily at the performances of the little
burlesques of men and women.... At length he gave a whispered order to
his barber,” (who, it may be mentioned, began life as a hair-dresser in
London, and rose to the combined offices of barber and prime-minister
to a King,) “who went out, brought something in his hand, and gave
it to the King. The royal chair was pushed back, and his Majesty
condescended to advance to the front of the puppet-show, going round
the table, as if to inspect it more closely. The owners exerted
themselves to give still more satisfaction, regarding their fortunes as
made. The King watched for a little; his hand was advanced suddenly,
and as suddenly drawn back, and one of the innocent marionettes fell
motionless upon the stage. It was very plain that his Majesty had a
pair of scissors in his hand, and had cut the string. The performers
must have been as well aware of this as we were, but they gazed in
affected, wonder at the catastrophe.... The King turned round, his
face beaming with fun, and looked at us knowingly, as much as to say,
‘Did I not do that well?’ The barber laughed loudly in reply, and
other courtiers joined in the chorus. But this was not the whole of
the royal wit. The hand was pushed forward and drawn back again and
again, and again and again did one after another of the puppets fall
dead and immovable upon the stage, every successive fall eliciting a
shout of laughter from the table and a blank look of astonishment
from the general manager of the show, who was visible directing
and superintending. When nearly all had fallen, the royal wit was
satisfied, returned to his chair, ordered a handsome present to be
given to the owner of the show, and it was withdrawn.”

With this court jest, I too will withdraw, leaving my puppets to
be dealt with according as my readers may have found them more or
less awkwardly handled by their showman. If the latter has amused or
instructed the public audience, whose generous indulgence he has so
often had to gratefully acknowledge, his aim has been accomplished.
He has not pretended to instruct, but has simply brought together
materials for instructors, and for _con_structors of future histories
of a class which, in some shape or other, has existed from the
legendary days of Momus down to those of contemporary Christian
patriarchs in Asia, of whose households the buffoon is still sometimes
a member. To effect this, demanded only a little industry;--small merit
in a country where industry is the recognized duty of every citizen,
and the only merit claimed by the author of these essays towards the
History of Court and Household Fools.


THE END.


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FOOTNOTES


[A] ‘_Geschichte der Hof-Narren._’

[B] A similar story is told of Triboulet.

[C] See Somner’s ‘Canterbury,’ edited by Batteley, p. 39, where the
donation is thus recorded:--“Anno Domini MII., Villæ de Chertham et
Walworth concessa et confirmata fuerunt per sanctum Edwardum, cum
maneriis jam habitis et multis libertatibus concessis. Predictam villam
Walworth Edmundus Rex dedit cuidam joculatori suo, nomine Hitardo.
Tempore tandem Regis Edwardi idem Hitardus, volens limina Apostolorum
Romæ visitare, venit ad Ecclesiam Christi in Dorobernia, et per
consensum et concessionem Regis Edwardi, dedit eandem villam eidem
Ecclesiæ Christi, chartam quoque ejusdem terræ posuit super altare
Christi,” etc.

[D] See also Dugdale, Mon. Ang. vol. ii. p. 166.

[E] Father of Harry Jermyn, first Earl of St. Alban’s.

[F] “_Trunchman._” In ‘Revels at Court,’ p. 126, in an account of a
“Maske of Amasones” (A.D. 1577), appears a “Troocheman” among the
characters represented. At p. 140 we read of a payment made “To
Patrochius Ubaldinus, by the Commandment of the Lord Chamberlain, for
the translating of certain speeches into Italian, to be used in the
mask.” I therefore take the “_trunchman_” of Archie, to mean Dragoman,
or Interpreter. In Pepys’s time the word was written “Druggerman.”

[G] There can be no doubt, I think, that the Danish writer alludes to
our old friend, Tom Derry.

[H] In the ‘Scout’s Discovery’ it is said that Archie himself pleaded
before the Star Chamber his privileges of coat. “For,” said he, “if
neither fool nor wise man may escape this court, I will be neither.”

[I] Dr. Binder, ‘Allgemeine Realencyclopädie,’ vol. v.

[J] The above is related on the authority of Flögel, who follows
Fugger. The Flemish Chroniclers give an entirely opposite version, as
far as regards Maximilian, declaring that he repeatedly attempted to
escape. In the third volume of the Chronicles, page 74, the Flemish
writer says:--“Soo dat Maximiliaen, op verscheyde tyden, sig selven
begonde te verkleeden in verscheyde verworpe kleedern, nu als eene
vrouw, dan als een godsgewyde, weederom als een heerenknecht, om
behendelyk zyne langdurige gevangenis te ontloopen; maer alles was te
vergeefs. Hy was te well bekent, ende syne bewaerders hadden grooter
sorge als hy meynde.” Literally,--“So that Maximilian, at different
times, began to disguise himself in different cast-off suits,--now as
a woman, then as a fool, again as a nobleman’s follower, that at last
he might escape from his tedious captivity; but all was in vain. He was
too well known, and his guards had greater care of him than he thought
for.”




      *      *      *      *      *      *




Transcriber’s note:

Punctuation, hyphenation, and spelling were made consistent when a
predominant preference was found in the original book; otherwise they
were not changed.

Several periods in unexpected places have not been changed.

Simple typographical errors were corrected silently; unpaired
quotation marks were remedied when the change was obvious, and
otherwise left unpaired. Ambiguous situations are documented below.

Unpaired quotation marks on pages 87, 174, 187, 196, 202, 206, 208,
213 and 355 were not changed.

Archaic placement of quotation marks in poetry on page 132 and 157 was
changed to meet current conventions.

Footnotes have been collected, resequenced, and moved to the end of the
book, following the advertisements.

Page 79: “sleeping-off” was printed with the hyphen.

Page 108: “who sang as well as Fayditt himself,” originally ended with
a period. In context, that seemed to be a misprint, and the Transcriber
changed it to a comma.

Page 117: “Bolingbroke” and page 118: “Bonligbroke”, appear to refer to
the same person.

Page 136: “gard and gentlewomen” was printed that way; may be a
misprint for “garb”.

Page 140: Missing closing quotation mark added after “both dead and
rotten.”

Page 164: “her maidenly qualities. the subjoined paragraphs” was
printed that way; at least one word, perhaps “In”, seems to be missing
after the period.

Page 193: “His middle thick. as I have said before;” was printed that
way. Either the period should be a comma or “as” should be capitalized.

The X’s on pages 200 and 217 represent signature marks.

Page 203: “If I can obtain this, I rest” ended without a period. This
may have been intentional.

Page 224: “3lbs.” was printed without a space.

Page 279: “an odd man” was printed that way, but perhaps was intended
to be “an old man”.

Page 289: Both “Angoulevent” and “Angoulement” are used to refer to the
same person.

Page 319: Both “Perettus” and “Perretus” are used to refer to the same
person.