Well might Old England * have been called “Merrie,” for the court had its masques and pageantry, and the people their plays, ** sports, and pastimes. There existed a jovial sympathy between the two estates, which was continually brought into action, and enjoyed with hearty good-will. Witness the Standard in Cornhill, and the Conduit in “Chepe;” when May-poles were in their glory, and fountains ran with wine.

A joyous remnant of the olden time was the coart-fool. “Better be a witty fool than a foolish wit.” What a marvellous personage is the court-fool of Shakspeare! His head was stocked with notions. He wore not Motley in his brain.

The most famous court-fools were Will Summers, or Sommers, Richard Tarlton, and Archibald Armstrong, vulgo Archee, jester to King Charles I. Archee was the last of the Motleys; unless we admit a fourth, on the authority of the well-known epigram.

“In merry old England it once was a rule,

The king had his poet and also his fool;

But now we're so frugal, I M have you to know it,

Poor Cibber must serve both for fool and for poet!”

Will Summers * was of low stature, pleasant countenance, nimble body and gesture; and had good mother-wit in him! A whimsical compound of fool and knave. He was a prodigious favourite with Henry the Eighth.

That morose and cruel monarch tolerated his caustic satire and laughed at his gibes. When the king was at dinner, Will Summers 'would thrust his face through the arras, and make the royal gormandiser roar heartily with his odd humour and comical grimaces; and then he would approach the table “in such a rolling and antic posture, holding his hands and setting his eyes, that is past describing, unless one saw him.”

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But Will Summers possessed higher qualities than merely making the Defender of the Faith merry. He used his influence in a way that few court favourites—not being fools!—have done, before or since. He tamed the tyrant's ferocity, and urged him to good deeds; himself giving the example, by his kindness to those who came within the humble sphere of his bounty. Armin, in his Nest of Ninnies, 4to. 1608, thus describes this laughing philosopher. “A comely foole indeed passing more stately; who was this forsooth? Will Sommers, and not meanly esteemed by the king for his merriment; his melody was of a higher straine, and he lookt as the noone broad waking. His description was writ on his forehead, and yee might read it thus:

“Will Sommers borne in Shropshire, as some say,

Was brought to Greenwich on a holy day,

Presented to the king, which foole disdayn'd,

To shake him by the hand, or else asham'd,

Howe're it Avas, as ancient people say,

With much adoe was wonne to it that day.

Leane he was, hollow-eyde, as all report,

And stoope he did too; yet, in all the court,

Few men were more belov'd than was this foole,

Whose merry prate kept with the king much rule.

When he was sad, the king and he would rime,

Thus Will exil'd sadness many a time.

I could describe him, as I did the rest,

But in my mind I doe not think it best:

My reason this, howe're I doe descry him,

So many know him, that I may belye him.

Therefore, to please all people one by one,

I hold it best to let that paines alone.

Only thus much, he was a poore man's friend,

And helpt the widdow often in the end:

The king would ever graunt what he did crave,

For well he knew Will no exacting knave;

But wisht the king to doe good deeds great store,

Which caus'd the court to love him more and more.”

Many quaint sayings are recorded of him, which exhibit a copious vein of mirth, and an acute and ready wit. Upon a festival day, being in the court-yard walking with divers gentlemen, he espied a very little personage with a broad-brimmed hat; when he remarked, that if my Lord Minimus had but such another hat at his feet, he might be served up to the king's table, as between two dishes.

Going over with the king to Boulogne, and the weather being rough and tempestuous, he, never having been on ship-board before, began to be fearful of the sea; and, calling for a piece of the saltest beef, devoured it before the king very greedily. His majesty asked him why he ate such gross meat with such an appetite, when there was store of fresh victuals on board? To which he made answer, “Oh! blame me not, Harry, to fill my stomach with so much salt meat beforehand, knowing, if we be cast away, what a deal of water I have to drink after it!”

He was no favourite with Wolsey, who had a fool of his own, one Patch, that loved sweet wine exceedingly, and to whom it was as natural as milk to a calf. The churchman was known to have a mistress; Holinshed terms him “vitious of his bodie,” and Shakspere says, “of his own body he was ill,” which clearly implies clerical concupiscence. Summers improvised an unsavoury jest upon the lady, which made the king laugh, and the cardinal bite his lip. He was equally severe upon rogues in grain, for, said he, “a miller is before his mill a thief, and in his mill a thief, and behind his mill a thief!” and his opinion of church patronage was anything but orthodox. Being asked why the best and richest benefices were for the most part conferred on unworthy and unlearned men, he replied, “Do you not observe daily, that upon the weakest and poorest jades are laid the greatest burdens; and upon the best and swiftest horses are placed the youngest and lightest gallants?”

On his death-bed a joke still lingered on his lips. A ghostly friar would have persuaded him to leave his estate (some five hundred pounds—a large sum in those days!) to the order of Mendicants; but Summers turned the tables upon him, quoted the covetous father's own doctrine, and left it to the “Prince of this world,” by whose favour he had gotten it.

Tarlton * is entitled to especial notice, as being the original representative of the court-fool, or clown, upon the stage. Sir Richard Baker says, “Tarlton, for the part called the clowne's part, never had his match, and never will have.”

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He excelled in tragedy as well as comedy, a circumstance that has escaped the research of all his biographers. This curious fact is recorded in a very scarce volume, “Stradlingi ( Joannis) Epigrammata,” 1607, which contains verses on Tarlton. He was born at Condover in the county of Salop; was (according to tradition) his father's swineherd, and owed his introduction at court to Robert Earl of Leicester. Certain it is that Elizabeth took great delight in him, made him one of her servants, and allowed him wages and a groom. According to Taylor the water poet, (“Wit and Mirth”) “ Dicke Tarlton said that hee could compare Queene Elizabeth to nothing more fitly than to a sculler; for,” said he, “neither the queene nor the sculler hath a fellow.” He basked all his eccentric life in the sunshine of royal favour. The imperial tigress, who condemned a poor printer to be hanged, drawn, and quartered, for publishing a harmless tract, civilly asking her, when tottering and toothless, to name her successor, listened with grinning complacency to the biting jests and waggeries of her court-fool; grave judges and pious bishops relaxed their reverend muscles at his irresistible buffooneries; while the “many-headed beast,” the million, hailed him with uproarious jollity. Here * I must needs remember Tarlton, in his time with the queen his soveraigne, and the people's generall applause.

“Richard Tarlton, ** for a wondrous plentifull, pleasant, extemporal wit, was the wonder of his time. He was so beloved that men use his picture for their signes.”

“Let him *** (the fanatic Prynne) try when he will, and come upon the stage himself with all the scurrility of the Wife of Bath, with all the ribaldry of Poggius or Boccace, yet I dare affirm he shall never give that contentment to beholders as honest Tarlton did, though he said never a word.”

“Tarlton, when his head was onely seene,

The tire-house doore and tapistrie betweene,

Set all the multitude in such a laughter,

They could not hold for scarse an houre after.” *

In those primitive times (when the play was ended) actors and audiences were wont to pass jokes—“Theames,” as they were called—upon each other; and Tarlton, whose flat nose and shrewish wife made him a general butt, was always too many for his antagonist. If driven into a corner, he, as Dr. Johnson said of Foote, took a jump, and was over your head in an instant. In 1611 was published in 4to. “Tarlton's Jests, drawn into Three Parts: his court-witty Jests; his sound-city Jest's; his country-pretty Jests; full of delight, wit, and honest mirth.” This volume is of extraordinary rarity. In the title-page is a woodcut of the droll in his clown's dress, playing on his pipe with one hand, and beating his drum with the other. In Tarlton's News out of Purgatory, the ancient dress appropriated to that character is thus described. I saw one attired in russet, with a buttoned cap on his head, a bag by his side, and a strong bat in his hand; so artificially attired for a clowne, as I began to call Tarlton's woonted shape to remembrance; and in Kind-Hart's Dreame (1592), “The next, by his suit of russet, his buttoned cap, his taber, his standing on the toe, and other tricks, I knew to be either the body or resemblance of Tarlton, who living, for his pleasant conceits, was of all men liked, and dying, for mirth left not his like.” This print * is characteristic and spirited, and bears the strongest marks of personal identity. When some country wag threw up his “Theame,” after the following fashion:—

“Tarlton, I am one of thy friends, and none of thy foes,

Then I prethee tell me how cam'st by thy flat nose:

Had I beene present at that time on those banks,

I would have laid my short sword over his long shankes.”

The undumpisher of Queen Elizabeth made this tart reply:—

“Friend or foe, if thou wilt needs know, marke me well,

With parting dogs and bears, then by the ears, this chance

fell:

But what of that? though my nose be flat, my credit for to

save,

Yet very well I can, by the smell, scent an honest man from

a knave.”

Once while he was performing at the Bull in Bishopsgate-street, where the queen's servants often played, a fellow in the gallery, whom he had galled by a sharp retort, threw an apple, * which hit him on the cheek: Tarlton, taking the apple, and advancing to the front of the stage, made this jest:—

“Gentlemen, this fellow, with his face of mapple, **

Instead of a pippin, hath throwne me an apple;

But, as for an apple he hath cast me a crab,

So, instead of an honest woman, God hath sent him a drab.”

The people laughed heartily, for he had a queane to his wife. ***

Gabriel Harvey, in his “Four Letters and certain Sonnets,” 1592, speaking of Tarlton's “famous play” (of which no copy is known) called “The Seven Deadly Sins,” says, “which most deadly, but lively playe, I might have seen in London, and was verie gently invited thereunto at Oxford by Tarlton himselfe; of whom I merrily demanding, which of the seaven was his own deadlie sinne?

He bluntly answered after this manner, 'the sinne of other gentlemen, letchery!'” Ben Jonson's Induction to his Bartholomew Fair, makes the stage-playur speak thus: “I have kept the stage in Master Tarlton's time, I thank my stars. Ho! an' that man had lived to play in Bartholomew Fair, you should ha seen him ha' come in, and ha' been cozened i' the cloth * quarter so finely!”

“There was one Banks (in the time of Tarlton) who served the Earle of Essex, and had a horse of strange qualities: and being at the Crosse-keyes in Gracious-street, getting money with him, as he was mightily resorted to; Tarlton, then (with his fellowes) playing at the Bell by, (should not this be the Bull in Bishopsgate-street?) came into the Crosse-keyes (amongst many people) to see fashions; which Banks perceiving, (to make the people laugh,) saies, f Signor,' (to his horse,) 'go fetch me the very est foole in the company.' The jade comes immediately, and with his mouth drawes Tarlton forth. Tarlton (with merry words) said nothing but 'God a mercy, horse!' In the end Tarlton, seeing the people laugh so, was angry inwardly, and said, 'Sir, had I power of your horse, as you have, I would doe more than that.' 'Whate'er it be,' said Banks, (to please him,) 'I will charge him to do it.' 'Then,' saies Tarlton, 'charge him to bring me the veriest wh—e-master in the company.' 'He shall,' (saies Banks,) 'Signor,' (saies he,) ' bring Master Tarlton the veriest wh—e-master in the company.' The horse leads his master to him.

Then God a mercy, horse, indeed!' saies Tarlton. The people had much ado to keep peace; but Banks and Tarlton had like to have squared, and the horse by to give aime. But ever after it was a by-word thorow London, 'God a mercy horse!' and is to this day.”

“Tarlton, (as other gentlemen used,) at the first coming up of tobacco, did take it more for fashion's sake than otherwise, and being in a roome, set between two men overcome with wine, and they never seeing the like, wondered at it; and seeing the vapour come out of Tarlton's nose, cried out, 'Fire! fire!' and then threw a cup of wine in Tarlton's face.” With a little variation, Sir Walter Raleigh is reported to have been so treated by his servant. There are some curious old tobacco papers extant representing the fact. It was a jug of beer, not a cup of wine.

“Tarlton being at the court all night, in the morning he met a great courtier coming from his chamber, who, espying Tarlton, said, 'Good-morrow, Mr. Didimus and Tridimus.' Tarlton being somewhat abashed, not knowing the meaning thereof, said, 'Sir, I understand you not; expound, I pray you,' Quoth the courtier, 'Didimus and Tridimus are fool and knave.' 'You overload me,' replied Tarlton, 'for my back cannot bear both; therefore take you the one, and I will take the other; take you the knave, and I will carry the fool with me.' And again; there was a nobleman that asked Tarlton what he thought of soldiers in time of peace?

'Marry,' quoth he, 'they are like chimneys in summer.” Tom Brown has stolen this simile.

“Tarlton, who at that time kept a tavern in Grace-church-street, made the celebrated Robert Armin * his adopted son, on the occasion of the boy (who was then servant to a goldsmith in Lombard-street) displaying that ready wit, for which Tarlton himself was so renowned.

“A wagge thou art, none can prevent thee;

And thy desert shall content thee;

Let me divine: as I am,

So in time thou'lt he the same:

My adopted sonne therefore he,

To enjoy my clowne's suit after me.

“And so it fell out. The boy reading this, loved Tarlton ever after, and fell in with his humour; and private practice brought him to public playing; and at this houre he performs the same, where at the Globe on the Bank-side men may see him.”

Many other jokes are told of Tarlton; how, when he kept the sign of the Tabor, a tavern in Gracechurch street, being chosen scavenger, he neglected his duty, got complained of by the ward, shifted the blame to the raker, who transferred it to his horse, upon which he (Tarlton) sent the horse to the Compter, and the raker had to pay a fee for the redemption of his steed! And how he got his tavern bill paid, and a journey to London scot-free, by gathering his conceits together, and sending his boy to accuse him to the magistrates for a seminary priest! the innkeeper losing his time and charges, besides getting well flouted into the bargain.

In the year 1588 Tarlton gave eternal pause to his merriments. He was buried, September 3, in St. Leonard's, Shoreditch.

In the books of the Stationers' Company was licensed “A Sorrowful new Sonnette,” intituled Tarlton's Recantation upon this Theame given him by a gentleman at the Bel Savage without Ludgate (now or els never) being the last Theame he songe; and Tarlton s repentance and his farewell to his friendes in his sickness, a little before his death.”In “Wits Bedlam,” 1617, is the following epitaph on him:—

“Here within this sullen earth

Lies Dick Tarlton, Lord of Mirth;

Who in his grave still laughing gapes,

Syth all clownes since have been his apes:

Earst he of clownes to learne still sought,

But now they learne of him they taught:

By art far past the principall,

The counterfeit is so worth all.”

The following epitaph, quoted by Fuller,

“Hic situs est cujus poterat vox, actio, vultus,

Ex Heraclito reddere Democritum,”

is thus varied in Hackett's “Select and remarkable Epitaphs”—

“Hie situs est, cujus vultus, vox, actio posset

Ex,” &c. &c.

Archibald Armstrong * in no way disgraced his coat of Motley; though the author of an epitaph on Will Summers speaks of his inferiority:—

“Well, more of him what should I say?

Both fools and wise men turn to clay:

And this is all we have to trust,

That there's no difference in their dust.

Rest quiet then beneath this stone,

To whom late Archee was a drone”

He was an attached and faithful servant, a fellow of arch simplicity and sprightly wit; and if he gave the public not quite so rich a taste of his quality as his predecessors did, let it be remembered that two religious factions were fiercely contending for supremacy, neither of which relished a “merrie jest” It seems, however, that Archee, who had outwitted many, was, on one occasion, himself outwitted.

“Archee coming to a nobleman to give him good-morrow upon New-Year's day, he received a very gracious reward from him, twenty good pieces of gold in his hand. But the covetous foole, expecting (it seemes) a greater, shooke them in his fist, and said they were too light. The nobleman took it ill from him, but, dissembling his anger, said, 'I prithee, Archee, let mee see them again, for amongst them is one piece that I would be loath to part with.' Archee, supposing he would have added more unto them, delivered them back to my lord, who, putting'em up in his pocket, said, 'Well, I once gave money into a foole's hand, who had not the wit to keep it.'”

Archee was “unfrocked” for cracking an irreverend jest on Archbishop Laud, whose jealous power and tyrannical mode of exercising it, could not bear the laughing reproof of even an “allowed fool.” The briefe reason of Archee's banishment was this:—A nobleman asking what he would doe with his handsome daughters, he (Archee) replyed, he knew very well what to doe with them, but hee had sonnes, which he knew not well what to doe with; he would gladly make schollars of them, but that hee feared the archbishop would cut off their eares! *

These were the three merry men of the olden time, who, by virtue of their office, spoke truth, in jest, to the royal ear, and gave home-thrusts that would have cost a whole cabinet their heads. If their calling had no other redeeming quality but this, posterity would be bound to honour it.

THE END.