Shakespeare Jest-Books Part 1

Shakespeare Jest-Books.

by Unknown.

INTRODUCTION.

When a small impression of these quaint old books issued from the Chiswick Press, many years ago, under the auspices of the late Mr. S. W.

Singer, that gentleman merely designed the copies struck off for presentation to a select circle of literary friends who, like himself, felt a warm interest in every relic of the past which helped to ill.u.s.trate Shakespeare and ancient English manners. He did not consequently feel under the necessity of furnis.h.i.+ng notes, and he preserved not only the old orthography, but the old punctuation, and the most palpable errors of the press. His edition unfortunately laboured under one disadvantage: when he printed, in 1814, the _Mery Tales and Quick Answers_ from Berthelet's edition, he imagined that this was the book to which Beatrice is made to allude in _Much Ado About Nothing_, and under this idea he christened the volume _Shakespeare's Jest Book_.

He also thought he was safe in a.s.suming that the edition by Berthelet was the only one extant. But Mr. Singer discovered, before his undertaking was a year old, that he had come to an erroneous conclusion on both these points: for an impression of the _Mery Tales, &c._ printed by Henry Wykes in 1567, and containing, with all the old matter, twenty-six additional stories, was brought under his notice, and about the same time a totally unknown work, bearing the very t.i.tle mentioned by Beatrice, was accidentally rescued from oblivion by the Rev. J. J.

Conybeare, who, it is said by Dunlop, picked up the treasure at a bookstall. This was no other than A C. MERY TALYS.

The copy of _C. Mery Talys_ thus casually brought to light, had been used by a binder of or about the time of its appearance as pasteboard to another book, and it was in this state when it fell in the way of Mr.

Conybeare. As might have been expected, many of the leaves were damaged and mutilated; but (which rendered the matter still more curious) it happily chanced that _more than one copy_ had been employed by the aforesaid binder in fas.h.i.+oning the aforesaid pasteboard, and the consequence was that a much larger fragment than would have been otherwise saved was formed by means of duplicate leaves. Still several gaps in the text remained, which it was found impossible to fill up, and as no other copy has since occurred, no better means exist now than existed fifty years ago of supplying the deficiencies. Where the hiatus consisted of a word or two only, and the missing portion could be furnished by conjecture, Mr. Singer took the liberty of adding what seemed to be wanting, in italics; his interpolations have been left as they stood. The old orthography and language, besides the charm of quaintness, appeared to the editor to possess a certain philological value, and he has rigidly adhered to it. In respect to the punctuation, the case was different; there were no reasons of any kind for its retention; it was very imperfect and capricious; and it has therefore been modernized throughout.

The _C. Mery Talys_, of which the copy above described has a fair pretention to the distinction of uniqueness, were first printed by John Rastell, without date but circa 1525, in folio, 24 leaves. Whether Rastell printed more than one edition is an open question. The book was not reprinted, so far as we know at present, till 1558, when John Walley or Waley paid two s.h.i.+llings to the Stationers' Company for his licence to produce this and other pieces. Walley reprinted a great number of books which had originally come from the press of Wynkyn de Worde and other early masters of the art, but it is not very likely that the _C.

Mery Talys_ made their appearance prior to 1525, and there is room to doubt whether even then the severe reflections on the scandalous lives of the Roman Catholic priesthood were not slightly premature. The almost total destruction of copies may be, after all, due, not to the excessive popularity of the publication, but to its early suppression by authority or otherwise. After the triumph of the Reformation, and until the death of Edward VI. however, although these tales still remained as unpalatable as ever to a certain party, there was nothing to hinder their circulation, and that there were intermediate impressions between that from Rastell's press, and the one licensed to Walley,[1] if not printed by him, is not at all improbable. The _C. Mery Talys_ were subsequently and successively the property of Sampson Awdley and John Charlwood, to the latter of whom they were licensed on the 15th January, 1582. All trace of editions by Walley, Awdley, or Charlwood, has disappeared, although doubtless all three printed the work.

Of the MERY TALES AND QUICKE ANSWERES, which forms the second portion of the present volume, only two impressions are known. One of these, supposed to be the original, was printed by Thomas Berthelet, without date (about 1535), in 4to.; it contains 114 anecdotes. The other, from the press of Henry Wykes, bears the date 1567, and is in the duodecimo form; it produces with tolerable exactness the text of Berthelet, and has twenty-six new stories. Besides these, at least one other impression formerly existed: for, in 1576-7, Henry Bynneman paid to the Stationers'

Company fourpence "and a copie" for "a booke ent.i.tuled mery tales, wittye questions, and quycke answers."[2] No copy of Bynneman's edition has. .h.i.therto been discovered; a copy of that of 1567 was in the Harleian library. At the sale of the White-Knights collection in 1819, Mr. George Daniel of Canonbury gave nineteen guineas for the exemplar of Berthelet's undated 4to, which had previously been in the Roxburghe library, and which at the dispersion of the latter in 1812, had fetched the moderate sum of 5_l._ 15_s._ 6_d._

The reader who is conversant with this cla.s.s of literature will easily recognise in the following pages many stories familiar to him either in the same, or in very slightly different, shapes; a few, which form part of the _Mery Tales and Quick Answers_, were included in a collection published many years since under the t.i.tle of _Tales of the Minstrels_.

No. 42 of the _Mery Tales and Quick Answers_ was perhaps at one time rather popular as a theme for a joke. There is an Elizabethan ballad commencing, "ty the mare, tom-boy, ty the mare," by William Keth, which the editor thought, before he had had an opportunity of examining it, might be on the same subject; but he finds that it has nothing whatever to do with the matter.[3] It may also be noticed that the story related of the king who, to revenge himself on G.o.d, forbade His name to be mentioned, or His wors.h.i.+p to be celebrated throughout his dominions, is said by Montaigne, in one of his essays, to have been current in his part of France, when he was a boy. The king was Alfonso xi of Castile.

No. 68 of _A C. Mery Talys_, "Of the Friar that stole the Pudding," is merely an abridgment of the same story, which occurs in _Tarltons Newes out of Purgatorie_, where it is told of the "Vickar of Bergamo." Many of the jests in these two pamphlets are also to be found in _Scoggins Jests_, licensed in 1565; a few occur in the _Philosopher's Banquet_, 1614; and one--that where the lady ties a string to her toe as a signal to her lover--is repeated at greater length in the "Cobler of Canterbury," edit. 1608, where it is called "the old wives' tale." It would be a curious point to ascertain whether the anecdotes common to these collections and to "_Scoggin's Jests_," do not refer to the same person; and whether Scoggin is not in fact the hero of many of the pranks attributed to the "Scholar of Oxford," the "Youngman," the "Gentleman," &c. in the following pages, which were in existence many years before the first publication of _Scoggins Jests_. It will hardly be contested at the present day, that "books of the people,"[4] like these now reprinted, with all their occasional coa.r.s.eness and frequent dulness, are of extreme and peculiar value, as ill.u.s.trations of early manners and habits of thought.

The editor has ventured to make certain emendations of the text, where they were absolutely necessary to make it intelligible; but these are always carefully noted at the foot of the page where they occur. A word or two, here and there, has been introduced between brackets to complete the sense; and a few notes have been given, since it was thought desirable to point out where a tale was common to several collections in various shapes or in the same shape, to indicate the source from which it was derived, and to elucidate obscure phrases or pa.s.sages. But he has refrained from overloading the book with comment, from a feeling that, in the majority of cases, the cla.s.s of readers, to which a publication such as this addresses itself, are fully as competent to clear up any apparent difficulties which may fall in their way, as himself.

The allusions to the _C. Mery Talys_ and to its companion in old writers are sufficiently numerous.[5]

Bathe, in his _Introduction to the Art of Musick_, 1584, says: "But for the worthiness I thought it not to be doubted, seeing here are set forth a booke of a hundred mery tales, another of the bataile between the spider and the flie, &c." A few years later, Sir John Harington, in his _Apologie_(for the _Metamorphosis of Ajax_) 1596, writes: "Ralph Horsey, Knight, the best housekeeper in Dorsets.h.i.+re, a good freeholder, a deputie Lieutenant. Oh, sir, you keep hauks and houndes, and hunting horses: it may be som madde fellowe will say, you must stand up to the chinne, for spending five hundred poundes, to catch hares, and Partridges, that might be taken for five poundes." Then comes this note in the margin: "according to the tale in the hundred Mery Tales." It is No. 57. In the Epilogue to the play of _Wily Beguild_, printed in 1606, but written during the reign of Elizabeth, there is a pa.s.sage in which the _C. Mery Talys_ are coupled with _Scoggins Jests_, and in his _Wonderful yeare_, 1603, Decker says: "I could fill a large volume, and call it the second part of the _Hundred Merry Tales_, only with such ridiculous stuff as this of the justice." From this extract, first quoted by Mr. Collier in his valuable History of the Drama, and from the manner in which Shakespeare, through the mouth of Beatrice, speaks of the _Mery Talys_, it is to be gathered that neither writer held this book of jests in very high estimation; and, as no vestiges are traceable of an edition of the work subsequent to 1582, it is possible that about that time the t.i.tle had grown too stale to please the less educated reader, and the work had fallen into disrepute in higher quarters. The stories themselves, in some shape or other, however, have been reproduced in every jest-book from the reign of Elizabeth to the Restoration, while many of them multiply themselves even to the present day in the form of chap books.

_A C. Mery Talys_ was one of the popular tracts described by the pedantic Laneham, in his _Letter from Kenilworth_, 1575, as being in the Library of Captain c.o.x, of Coventry.[6]

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Walley obtained his licence or the _C. Mery Talys_ in 1557-8, during the reign of Mary, perhaps in antic.i.p.ation of a change in the government, and in order to forestall other stationers. If Walley printed the Tales, it is most likely that he waited, till Elizabeth came to the throne.

[2] Collier's Extracts from the Reg. Stat. Co. ii. 25.

[3] An abridgment of this ballad was published in Ritson's _Ancient Songs and Ballads_, 1829, ii. 31. But see the _Townley Catalogue_, No.

358.

[4] The elder Disraeli has a chapter on this subject in his _Amenities of Literature_.

[5] For some of these notices I am indebted to Mr. Singer; others I have added myself from the various sources.

[6] In Act v. Sc. iii of Fletcher's _Nice Valour_ (Dyce's B. & F. x.

361) there is mention of the _Hundred Novels_, alluding, not to the _C.

Mery Talys_, but to the _Decameron_ of Boccaccio, of which an English translation appeared in 1620-5.

A C.

MERY TALYS.

-- _Of hym that said there were but two commandementes._ i.

-- A certayne Curate in the contrey there was that _preched_ in the pulpet of the ten comaundementys, sayeng _that_ there were ten commaundementes that euery man _should_ kepe, and he that brake any of them commytted syn, howbeit he sayd, that somtyme it was _dedely and_ somtyme venyal. But when it was dedely syn and whan venyall there were many doutes therin. -- And a mylner, a yong man, a mad felow that cam seldom to chyrch and had ben at very few sermons or none in all his lyfe, answered hym than shortely this wyse: I meruayl, master person, that ye say there be so many commaundementes and so many doutes: for I neuer hard tell but of two commaundementes, that is to saye, commaunde me to you and commaunde me fro you. Nor I neuer harde tell of more doutes but twayn, that ys to say, dout the candell and dout the fyre.[7]

At which answere all the people fell a laughynge.

By this tale a man may well perceyue that they, that be brought vp withoute lernynge or good maner, shall neuer be but rude and bestely, all thoughe they haue good naturall wyttes.

-- _Of the wyfe who lay with her prentys and caused him to beate her husbande disguised in her rayment._ ii.

-- A wyfe there was, which had apoynted her prentys to com to her bed in the nyght, which seruaunt had long woed her to haue his plesure; which acordyng to the apoyntement cam to her bed syde in the night, her husbande lyenge by her. And whan she perceyuyd him there, she caught hym by the hande and helde hym fast, and incontynent wakened her husbande, and sayde: 'syr, it is so ye haue a fals and an vntrue seruant, which is Wylliam your prentys, and hath longe woyd me to haue his pleasure; and because I coulde not auoyde his importunate request, I haue apoynted hym this nyght to mete me in the gardeyne in the herber; and yf ye wyll aray your selfe in myn aray and go theder, ye shall see the profe therof; and than ye may rebuke hym as ye thynk best by your dyscrecyon.

This husbande, thus aduertysed by hys wyfe, put upon him his wyue's rayment and went to the herber; and whan he was gone thyder the prentys cam in to bed to his mastres; where for a season they were bothe content and plesyd ech other by the s.p.a.ce of an hour or ii; but whan she thoughte tyme conuenient, she said to the prentyse: now go thy way into the herber, and mete hym and tak a good waster[8] in thy hand, and say thou dyd it but to proue whether I wold be a good woman or no; and reward him as thou thinkyst best. This prentys doyng after his mastres councell went in to the herber, where he found his master in his mastres' apparell and sayd: A! thou harlot, art thou comen hether? now I se well, if I wod be fals to my master, thou woldest be a strong h.o.r.e; but I had leuer thou were hangid than I wold do him so trayterous a ded: therefor I shall gyve the som punyshment as thou lyke an h.o.r.e hast deseruyd and therewith lapt him well about the sholders and back, and gaue him a dosen or ii good stripes. The master, felyng him selfe somwhat to smarte, sayde: peace, w.i.l.l.yam, myn own trew good seruant; for G.o.ddis sake, _holde thy_ handes: for I am thy mayster and not thy maystres. Nay, h.o.r.e, quod _he, thou knowest_ thou art but an harlot, and I dyd but to proue the; and smote him agayn. _Hold! Hold!_ quod the mayster, I beseech the, no more: for I am not she: for I am thy _mayster_, for I haue a berde; and therwith he sparyd hys hand and felt his berd. Good mayster, quod the prentyse, I crye you mercy; and then the mayster went unto hys wyfe; and she askyd hym how he had sped. And he answeryd; I wys, wyfe, I haue been shrewdly betyn; howbeit I haue cause to be glad: for I thank G.o.d I haue as trew a wyfe and as trew a seruant as any man hath in Englonde.[9]

By thys tale ye may se that yt ys not wysdome for a man to be rulyd alway after his wyuys councell.

FOOTNOTES:

[7] _i.e._ do out. It is, perhaps, scarcely necessary to mention that in French, the term _commander_ has a double signification, _to command_ and _to commend_. In our language, the two words are of course distinct; hence the jest.

[8] Cudgel.

-- _Of John Adroyns in the dyuyls apparell._ iii.

-- It fortunyd that in a market towne in the counte of Suffolke there was a stage play, in the which play one, callyd John Adroyns which dwellyd in a nother vyllage ii myle from thens, playde the dyuyll. And when the play was done, thys John Adroyns in the euynyng departyd fro the sayde market towne to go home to hys own house. Because he had there no change of clothying, he went forth in hys dyuylls apparell, whych in the way comyng homeward cam thorow a waren of conys[10] belongyng to a gentylman of the vyllage, wher he him self dwelt. At which tyme it fortunyd a preste, a vycar of a churche therby, with ii or iii other vnthrifty felows, had brought with them a hors, a hey[11] and a feret to th'entent there to get conys; and when the feret was in the yerth, and the hey set ouer the pathway where thys John Adroyns shuld come, thys prest and hys other felows saw hym come in the dyuyls rayment. Consideryng that they were in the dyuyls seruyce and stelyng of conys and supposyng it had ben the deuyll in dede, [they] for fere, ran away. Thys John Adroyns in the dyuyls rayment, an' because[12] it was somewhat dark, saw not the hay, but went forth in hast and s...o...b..id therat and fell doun, that with the fal he had almost broken his nek. But whan he was a lytyll reuyuyd, he lookyd up and spyed it was a hay to catch conys, and [he] lokyd further and saw that they ran away for fere of him, and saw a horse tyed to a bush laden wyth conys whych they had taken; and he toke the horse and the haye and lept upon the horse and rode to the gentylmannys place that was lorde of the waren to the entente to haue thank for takynge suche a pray. And whan he came, [he] knokyd at the gatys, to whome anone one of the gentylmanny's seruauntys askyd who was there and sodeinly openyd the gate; and a.s.sone as he percyuyd hym in the deuyls rayment, [he] was sodenly abashyd and sparryd the dore agayn, and went in to his mayster and sayd and sware to his mayster, that the dyuell was at the gate and wolde come in. The gentylman, heryng him say so, callyd another of his seruauntys and bad him go to the gate to knowe who was there. Thys seconde seruant [that] came to the gate durst not open it but askyd wyth lowd voyce who was there. Thys John Adroyns in the dyuyls aparell answeryd wyth a hye voyce and sayd: tell thy mayster I must nedys speke with hym or[13] I go. Thys seconde seruaunt heryng * *

_8 lines of the original are wanting._

the deuyll indede that is at the gate syttynge vpon an _horse laden with_ soules; and be lykelyhode he is come for your soule. Purpos _ye_ to _let him have your_ soule and if he had your soule I wene he shulde be _gon_. _The gentyl_man, than, meruaylously aba.s.shed, called his chaplayne _and sayd: let a can_dell be light, and gette holy water; and [he] wente to the gate _with as manye ser_uantes as durste go with him; where the chaplayne with _muche con_iuracyon sayd: in the name of the father, sonne and holy _ghost, I commande_ and charge the in the holy name of G.o.d to tell me _wherefore thou_ comeste hyther. -- This John Adroynes in the deuylls _apparell_, seying them begynne to coniure after such maner, sayd: nay, _feare not_ me; for I am a good deuyll; I am John Adroynes your neyghboure in this towne and he that playde the deuyll to day in the playe. I _bryng_ my mayster a dosen or two of his owne conyes that were stolen in _dede_ and theyr horse and theyr haye, and [I] made them for feare to ronne _awaye_. Whanne they harde hym thus speke by his voyce, [they] knewe him well, and opened the gate and lette hym come in.

And so all the foresayd feare was turned to myrthe and disporte.

By this tale ye may se that men feare many tymes more than they nede, whiche hathe caused men to beleue that sperytes and deuyls haue ben sene in dyuers places, whan it hathe ben nothynge so.