“Take gifts with a sigh, most men give to be paid.”—J. B. O’Reilly. Rules of the Road.

This story, which is told in “Jack of Dover,” 1604, is instructive if not amusing:—“There was of late (quoth another of the jurie) a ploughman and a butcher dwelling in Lancaster who, for a trifling matter (like two fooles), went to law, and spent much money therein, almost to both their undoings; but at last, being both consented to be tride by a lawyer dwelling in the same town, each of them, in hope of a further favour, bestowed gyftes upon him. The ploughman first of all presented him a cupple of good fat hens, desiring Mr. Lawyer to stand his good friend, and to remember his suite in law, the which he courteously tooke at his handes, saying that what favour he could show him, he should be sure of the uttermost. But now, when the butcher heard of the presenting of these hens by the ploughman, hee went and presently killed a good fatte hogge, and in like manner presented it to the lawyer, as a bribe to draw him to his side; the which he also tooke very courteously, and promised the like to him as he did before to the other. But so it fell out, that shortly after the verdict passed on the butcher’s side; which when the ploughman had notice of, he came to the lawyer, and asked him wherefore his two hens were forgotten. Mary, quoth he, because there came in a fatte hogge and eate them up. Now a vengeance take that hog! quoth the ploughman, that eate both my suit in law and hens together! Well, quoth Jacke of Dover, this in my minde was pretty foolery, but yet the foole of all fooles is not heere found, that I looked for.”

This seems to have been a rather favourite jest, for it is given also in the “Pleasant Conceits of Old Hobson,” 1607, and in the “Mery Tales,” 1530, and is one of the mediÆval jokes given by Wright in his “Latin Stories” (Percy Society).