Shakespeare Jest-Books Part 16

"A the Austen fryers They count us for lyers: And at Saynt Thomas of Akers They carpe us lyke crakers."

--Skelton's _Colin Clout_ (Works, ed. Dyce, i. 357).

This tale is imitated in _Hobson's Conceits_.

P. 60. _Of the gentylman, that promysed the scoler of Oxforde a sarcenet typet_--Sarcenet, at the period to which this story refers, was a material which only certain persons were allowed to wear. See Nicolas'

note to a pa.s.sage in the _Privy Purse Expenses of Elizabeth of York_, p.

220. This jest is transplanted by Johnson, with very little alteration, into the _Pleasant Conceits of Old Hobson_, 1607.

P. 78. _Therefore I pray thee, teche me my Pater noster, and by my truthe, I shall therfore teche thee a songe of Robyn Hode that shall be worth xx of it!_

The following pa.s.sage from a poem, which has been sometimes ascribed to Skelton, is a curious ill.u.s.tration of this paragraph:--

Thus these sysmatickes, And lowsy lunatickes, With spurres and p.r.i.c.kes Call true men heretickes.

They finger their fidles, And cry in quinibles, Away these bibles, For they be but ridles!

And give them Robyn Whode, To red howe he stode In mery grene wode, When he gathered good, Before Noyes ffloodd!

_The Image of Ipocrysy_, Part iii.

P. 84. _Of the wyfe that bad, &c._

_Of swearing between a wyfe and her husband._

"Cis, by this candle in my sleep I thought One told me of thy body thou wert nought.

Good husband, he that told you ly'd, she said, And swearing, laid her hand upon the bread.

Then eat the bread, quoth he, that I may deem That fancie false, that true to me did seem.

Nay, sir, said she, the matter well to handle, Since you swore first, you first shall eat the candle."

_Wits Interpreter, the English Parna.s.sus_, By John Cotgrave, 1662, p. 286.

P. 87. _Of the man that had the dome wyfe._

"A certain man, as fortune fel, A woman tungles wedded to wive, Whose frowning countenance perceivig by live Til he might know what she ment he thought long, And wished ful oft she had a tung.

The devil was redy, and appeered anon, An aspin lefe he bid the man take, And in her mouth should put but one, A tung, said the devil, it shall her make; Til he had doon his hed did ake; Leaves he gathered, and took plentie, And in her mouth put two or three.

Within a while the medicine wrought: The man could tarry no longer time, But wakened her, to the end he mought The vertue knowe of the medicine; The first woord she spake to him She said: 'thou wh.o.r.esonne knave and theef, How durst thou waken me, with a mischeef!'

From that day forward she never ceased.

Her boistrous bable greeved him sore: The devil he met, and him entreated To make her tungles, as she was before; 'Not so,' said the devil, 'I will meddle no more.

A devil a woman to speak may constrain, But all that in hel be, cannot let it again.'"

_Schole-house of Women_, 1542 (Utterson's _Select Pieces of Early Popular Poetry_, ii. 74).

P. 89. _Of the Proctour of Arches that had the lytel wyfe._

"One ask'd his Friend, why he, so proper a Man himself, marry'd so small a Wyfe? _Why_, said he, _I thought you had known, that of all evils we should chuse the least_."--_Complete London Jester_, ed. 1771, p. 65.

P. 92. _Of him that wolde gette, &c._

In the _Scholehouse of Women_, 1542, the same story is differently related:--

"A husband man, having good trust His wife to him bad be agreeable, Thought to attempt if she had be reformable, Bad her take the pot, that sod over the fire, And set it aboove upon the astire.

She answered him: 'I hold thee mad, And I more fool, by Saint Martine; Thy dinner is redy, as thou me bad, And time it were that thou shouldst dine, And thou wilt not, I will go to mine.'

'I bid thee (said he) vere up the pot.'

'A ha! (she said) I trow thou dote,'

Up she goeth for fear, at last, No question mooved where it should stand Upon his hed the pottage she cast, And heeld the pot stil in her hand.

Said and swore, he might her trust, She would with the pottage do what her l.u.s.t."

As this story in the _C. Mery Talys_ is defective in consequence of the mutilation of the only known copy, the foregoing extract becomes valuable, as it exhibits what was probably the sequel in the prose version, from which the author of the _Scholehouse of Women_ was no doubt a borrower.

P. 101. _If a thousande soules may dance on a mannes nayle._--This is a different form of the common saying that a thousand angels can stand on the point of the needle. "One querying another, whether a thousand angels might stand on the point of a needle, another replied, 'That was a _needles_ point.'"--Ward's _Diary_, ed. 1839, p. 94.

P. 106. Scot, in his _Discovery of Witchcraft_, 1584, ed. 1651, p. 191, has a story, which bears the mark of being the same as the one here ent.i.tled "Of the parson that stale the mylner's elys." The pa.s.sage in Scot, which may help to supply the unfortunate _lacuna_ in the _C. Mery Talys_, is as follows:--

"So it was, that a certain Sir John, with some of his company, once went abroad jetting, and in a moon-light evening, robbed a miller's weire and stole all his eeles. The poor miller made his mone to Sir John himself, who willed him to be quiet; for he would so curse the theef, and all his confederates, with bell, book, and candel, that they should have small joy of their fish. And therefore the next Sunday, Sir John got him to the pulpit, with his surplisse on his back, and his stole about his neck, and p.r.o.nounced these words following in the audience of the people:--

'All you that have stolne the millers eeles, _Laudate Dominum de coelis_, And all they that have consented thereto, _Benedicamus Domino_.'

Lo (saith he), there is savoe for your eeles, my masters."

P. 108. _Of the parson that sayde ma.s.se of requiem, &c._--This story is also in _Scoggin's Jests_, 1626, and perhaps the lacunae may be supplied from that source. Thus (the words supplied from _Scoggin's Jests_ are in italics):--

"Then quod the prest: tel thy mayster that he must _say the Ma.s.se which doth begin with a great R_. [when the boy returned, the Prest asked him whether the Parson had told him what] ma.s.se, &c."

And again, a line or two lower down, there can be no doubt, on a comparison of Scoggin's Jests, p. 74, what the missing words are. We ought to read:--"but he had me tell you it began _with a great R_."

[Ill.u.s.tration: Johannes Ractell]

-- Tales, and quicke

answers, very mery,

and pleasant to

rede.

_Mery_

Tales, Wittie

_Questions_

and Quicke Answeres,

Very pleasant to be Readde.