The rude character of the Anglo-Saxon humour may be gathered from our having derived from it the word fun. This term which we often apply to romping and boisterous games, refers principally to the sense of feeling, and always implies some low kind of amusement connected with the senses. We also discover among the Anglo-Saxons an unamiable tendency to give nicknames to people from their personal peculiarities. But if we look for anything better, we can find only a translation of the Latin riddles of Symposius by Aldhelm, Bishop of Shirburn. This prelate, who was a relation of Ina, King of the West Saxons, was in attainments far superior to his age. He was celebrated as a harper, poet, and theologian, and wrote several works, especially one in praise of Virginity. His translations from Symposius were probably intended for the post-prandial delectation of the monks.

Aristophanes seems to have made the first approach to rhyming, for he introduced some repetitions of the same word at the end of lines. He probably thought the device had an absurd effect and used it as a kind of humour. Aulus Gellius blames Isocrates, who lived about 400 B.C., for introducing jingles into his orations, and as he also refers to Lucilius' condemnation of them, he would probably have objected to them in poetry.

Classic Latin versification is supposed to have died out with Fortunatus, Bishop of Poitiers in the sixth century, but an advance was made towards playing with words by the introduction of rhymes in the church hymns. Some trace of them is found in the verses of Hilary in the fourth century, but we find them first regularly adopted in a Latin panegyric written for Clotaire II. in France at the commencement of the seventh. Some suppose that "Leonine verses" were invented shortly afterwards by Pope Leo II. As in the days of Greece and Rome, the development of poetry was accompanied by a considerable activity in the fabrication of metres. This did not limit itself to a distich or alternate rhyme called "tailed" or "interlaced," but included the "horned," "crested," and "squared" verses—the last forming double acrostics. Sometimes half a dozen lines were made to rhyme together. This movement, pedantic as it was, showed an advance in finding similarities in things dissimilar, a change in the appreciation of the harmony. Previously rhymes were considered ludicrous, as they seem to us now in prose, and even in the French drama. The old Welsh poetry depended merely upon alliteration—as in the words ascribed to the British Queen—

"Ruin seize thee, ruthless king."

And among our old proverbs we have "Many men of many minds." "Fools build houses, for wise men to live in." "First come, first served." The motto of the Duke of Athole runs "Furth fortune and fill the fetters."

The "Exeter Book," presented to his cathedral by Leofric, first Bishop of Exeter in 1046 deserves notice, as indicative of the course of early Anglo-Saxon literature. Here we have first religious meditations and legends of Saints, then proverbial, or as they are called "gnomic" verses, next allegorical descriptions by means of animals, and finally riddles. The last are very long, and generally consist of emblematic descriptions.

It is a part of the great system of compensation under which we live, that those who are most highly praised are most exposed to the attacks of the envious, and that those who stand on an eminence above others should have their bad as well as their good deeds recorded. And thus we find that the earliest shafts of censure were directed against princes and priests, and the first Norman satires of which we hear were some songs called Sirventois, against Arnould, who was chaplain to Robert Courthose in the time of William Rufus. He was apparently an excellent man, established schools at Caen, and was afterwards promoted to be patriarch of Jerusalem. The next attack of which we have any record was that made by Luc de la Barr against Henry I. The nature of the imputations it contained may be conjectured from the fact, that the king ordered the writer's eyes to be put out. Another satire was directed against Richard, "King of the Romans," who was taken prisoner at Lewes. It was written to triumph over him, and taunt him with his defeat, and the nearest approach to humour in it is where it speaks of his making a castle of a windmill, which is supposed to refer to his having been captured in such a building. The humour in the satires of this time was almost entirely of a hostile or optical character. We have two metrical ballads of the thirteenth century directed against the Scotch and French, but containing little but animosity. There is also one complaining of heavy taxation in the reign of Edward I., but generally the church was attacked, as the clergy formed a prominent mark in every parish in the country, and were safer game than the king or barons. Thus, in the Harleian MSS., there is an ancient French poem pretending to eulogise a new conventual order for both men and women, who are to live together in great luxury and be bound to perpetual idleness. Several monasteries in England are mentioned as affording instances of such a mode of living.

The earliest literary assault we have on the church in this country was written probably in the thirteenth century—Warton says, soon after the conquest—in a mixture of Saxon and Norman. A monastery, composed of various kinds of gems and delicacies, represents the luxury of the monks—

"Fur in see, bi west Spayngne
Is a lond ihote Cokaygne:
Ther nis lond under heuen-riche
Of wel of godness hit iliche.
"Ther is a wel fair abbei,
Of white monkes and of grei,
Ther beth bowris and halles
Al of pasteiis beth the walles
Of fleis, of fisse, and rich met,
The likfullist that man mai et.
Fluren cakes beth the schingles[40] alle
Of cherche, cloister, boure, and halle.
The pinnes[41] beth fat podinges
Rich met to princez and kinges.

"An other abbei is ther bi
For soth a gret fair nunnerie;
Vp a riuer of sweet milke,
Whar is gret plente of silk."

He goes on to speak of the monks and nuns as dancing together in a very indecorous manner.

The clergy were often humorous themselves—Nigellus Wireker, a monk of Canterbury, who is supposed to have lived in the time of Richard I., wrote a very amusing attack on his brethren. It is in Latin elegiac verse, and as being directed against ambition and discontent may be compared with the first satire of Horace. But he wrote in a less advanced state of civilisation to that in which the Roman poet lived, and he carries on his discourse by means of conversations of animals. The work is called the Brunellus—the name of an ass.

The poem is directed against passion and avarice—and especially against the monks, who, he says deserve to be called pastors, not a pascendo but a poscendo. But he takes so much interest in the animals he introduces, that he seems to lose sight of his moral object. He delights in the speeches of a cock and crow, but his main story is that the ass, Brunellus, is dissatisfied, because, having long ears he thinks he ought to have a long tail. He betakes himself to Galienus to consult him, who endeavours to dissuade him from adopting any surgical or medical means, and reminds him that if he has a short tail he has a very large head. He inculcates contentment by a story of two cows, one of which, through impatience when her tail has stuck in the mud, says it is not an honour but an onus, and so pulls it off, and becomes a laughing stock to the world. The other cow waits patiently, and makes a long speech containing references to Cato and the Trojan war.

Prescription given by Galienus to the ass Brunellus to make his tail grow:

"Some marble's fat and seven fold furnace shade
The offspring of a male and female mule,
A little of the milk of goose and kite
A punchbowl's racing, and a wolf's alarms;
Of dogs and hares alliance take a drachm,
And kisses which the lark gives to her hawk."

The ass begs Galienus to bestow upon him his blessing, which he does with mock gravity—

"May Jove to thee a thousand omens give,
And to thy tail ten thousand omens more;
Mayst thou drink water, and on thistles feed,
Be thy bed marble, and thy covering dew.
May hail and snow and rain be ever near,
Ice and hoar frost thy constant comfort be!"

The ass, whose extraordinary performances are narrated, is appointed the "nuntius" of a bishop.

The man who showed at this time the greatest judgment in humour and insight into its nature, was John of Salisbury. His Polycraticus is worthy of a religious character; but he speaks in it of "Court Trifles" under which he places dice, music and dreams. Many of his observations show a taste and knowledge in advance of his time. "Our age," he says, "has fallen back to fables," and he speaks as though the jesters of the day indulged in very questionable jokes and performances. He notices the force of a jest made by a man who would himself fall under it, as when a pauper laughs at poverty. Also he refers to the effect of accusing a man of the faults to which his virtues may lead, as of telling a liberal man he is a spendthrift. "So Diogenes told Antisthenes, his master, that he had made him a doctor instead of a rich man—a dweller in a tub, instead of in a mansion." Well-timed pleasantries, he says, are of use in oratory, but convivial jesting is dangerous, remarks or personal defects are objectionable, and as Lycurgus ordered, all jokes should be without bitterness.

But Walter Mapes seems to have been the first man of note, who reconciled "divinity and wit." He was born on the borders of Wales about the beginning of the twelvth century, and having studied at the University of Paris became a favourite of Henry II., and was made a Canon of St. Paul's, and Archdeacon of Oxford. It may be worth notice that his name was really a monosyllable, "Map," a man's appellation being not always without influence in determining his character and conduct. From being a man of humour he obtained the credit of being a man of pleasure, but as far as we can collect from the writings, which are with certainty attributed to him, he was strongly imbued with religious feelings. He delights to recount the miracles of saints. Peter of Tarentaise exorcised, he tells us, a devil from one possessed, and the man proved his cure by exclaiming, "Mother of God, have mercy upon me!" whereupon John the bishop said of Peter. "This is the only bishop—the rest of us are dogs unable to bark." Mapes also reflects the credulity of the age in which he lived, by narrating extraordinary stories of infidels walking about after death, and calling people by name, who always died shortly afterwards. He gives us a collection of Welsh "apparitions."

We must suppose that even at that day there was something peculiarly fanciful in the mind of the man who collected such tales. But, although he commends his favourite saints as being jocund and pleasant men, we are disappointed when we look for his own wit. It is either verbal or sententious, and does not rise higher than, "Few things are impossible to women." "May God omnipotent grant you not to be deceived by woman omnipotent." "The dog does not gnaw a dry bone, nor the leech stick to an empty vein." His "Mirror of the Church" is full of violent attacks upon the monastic orders, especially the Cistercian, evidently written in serious indignation, although he sometimes indulges in a play upon words. In this he was unlike many writers, who attacked the monks merely to amuse, for which there was a good opening, as the brethren, though in some cases weak, were generally viewed with respect, and tales about them were easily regarded as humorous. There is a story of Walter Mapes having been called to see a Cistercian Abbot, when dangerously ill, and the Archdeacon recommended him to quit his order, and give up avarice and rapacity. The Abbot refused, and even administered to the Archdeacon the rebuke, "Get thee behind me, Satan." Shortly afterwards Mapes was taken ill, and the Abbot going to visit him, strongly recommended him to renounce his light jesting habits, to give up his pluralities, and take refuge in the bosom of the Cistercian order—at the same time producing a gown and cowl, with which he proposed to invest him. Mapes, with characteristic humour called his servants, and told them that, if ever in a fit of sickness he expressed a desire of becoming a monk, they were to consider it a sign that he had lost his senses, and keep him in close confinement.

The character which Mapes obtained for himself, caused a large amount of poetry of a somewhat later date to be attributed to him. It is called "Goliardic," as it gives the views of a class of wild ecclesiastical or University men, who spent their time in composing lampoons, and were called Goliards, from their supposed gluttony. In an epigram, one of these men is represented coming to a bishop's palace, and stating that he is "all ready to dine," somewhat in the way of the old Greek parasites. The bishop tells him he does not want such disreputable company, but that as he has come, he may have his food. We may suppose, however, that he and his poorer brethren did not occupy any dignified position at the repast, as one of them complains

"Abbas ire sede sursum,
Et prioris juxta ipsum,
Ego semper stavi dorsum
Inter rascalilia."

All these poems are in Latin rhyme. Two of them are especially attributed to Mapes. One is "on not marrying;" Golias here sets forth a very appalling catalogue of the miseries of matrimony. The husband is a donkey who is spurned by his wife. Her tongue is a sword. He thanks heaven he has escaped from the danger he was once in from the fascinations of a beautiful lady. The other piece is the "Confessions of Golias," which are very frank with regard to various unclerical weaknesses. Some of the stanzas may be translated as follows,

"I purpose in a tavern to die,
Place to my dying lips the flowing bowl,
May choirs of angels coming from on high
Sing, 'God be gracious to the toper's soul.'[42]
"The race of poets shun both drink and food,
Avoid disputes, withdraw from public strife,
And to make verses that shall long hold good
O'ercome with labour, sacrifice their life.
"Nature allots to each his proper course,
In hunger I could never use my ink,
The smallest boy then equals me in force,
I hate as death the want of food and drink."

In one of these poems, Golias calls down every kind of misery, spiritual and temporal, upon the man who has stolen his purse. He hopes he may die of fever and madness, and be joined to Judas in hell. One of the most amusing pieces is a consultation held among the priests, on account of the Pope having ordered them to dismiss their women-servants. They finally come to the conclusion that parish priests should be allowed two wives, monks and canons three, and deans and bishops four or five. We are not surprised to hear that such effusions as these called down the displeasure of the heads of the Church, and in 1289, a statute was published that no clerks should be "joculatores, goliardi seu bufones."

About the middle of the fourteenth century, a French monk, Robert Langlande, wrote the "Vision of Piers Plowman," an account of a dream he is supposed to have had when among the Malvern Hills. It is possible that the sight of the grand old abbey may have suggested his theme, for he inveighs not only against the laity, but especially against the ecclesiastics for their neglect of the poor. The poem is remarkable for being without rhythm, but alliterative, such as was common in the neighbouring district of Wales. It somewhat resembles one of the old "Mysteries," introducing a variety of allegorical characters. Some of the personifications are very strange. He says that,

"Dowel and Dobet and Dobest the thirde coth he
Arn thre fair vertues and ben not fer to fynde."
"Dobest is above bothe, and berith a bieschopis crois
And is hokid on that on ende to halie men fro helle
And a pike is in the poynt to putte adon the wyked."

In another place, the effects of starvation are described "both the man's eiyen wattred," and "he loked like a lanterne."

In another work by the same hand, "Piers, the Ploughman's crede," the author—a simple man—wishes to know how he is to follow Christ, and betakes himself to the friars for information. But he finds that each order thinks of little beyond railing against some other. The friars preachers are thus described,

"Than turned I ayen whan I hadde al ytoted
And fond in a freitoure a frere on a benche
A greet chorl and a grym, growen as a tonne,
With a face so fat, as a ful bleddere
Blowen bretful of breth, and as a bagge honged."

All the humour of Piers the Ploughman seems to be more or less of this personal kind.

We must here notice the humorous though scurrilous attack made upon the Roman clergy in the "Letters of Obscure Men," published in Germany at the commencement of the sixteenth century. There was something novel in the idea of a series of ironical letters, and from their appearance, the steady progress of the Reformation may be dated. The greater part of them seems to have been written by Ulrich von Hutten, and are addressed to Ortuin Gratius, a professor of the University of Cologne, who had attacked Reuchlin, a celebrated Hebraist. The original quarrel was only about some translations of Rabbinical works, but it extended into a contest between the Church party, represented by Gratius, and those desirous of reformation. Doctrine is scarcely touched upon in these letters, but accusations of immorality abound. There is great variety in the plan upon which the irony and satire are conducted. For instance, the writer says he has just heard from Gratius that he is sending flowers and gifts to another man's wife. "Reuchlin has written a defence of himself against Gratius, in which he calls him an ass. Reuchlin ought to be burnt with his book. Some people say the monks are grossly dishonest—it is a horrible lie. A preacher, after taking a little too much wine, has actually said that the principals of the University are given to drink and play. Some profane men say that the coat of our Lord at Treves is not genuine, but only an old rag; he does not believe there is now any hair of the Virgin in the world; and the preaching friars who sell indulgences are only a set of buffoons who deceive old apple-women. Another fool says that the preaching friars committed fearful abominations at Berne, and one day put poison into the consecrated elements. A great calamity has happened! A thief has stolen three hundred florins, which the preachers had gained by the sale of indulgences. The people who gave the money are in sad trouble to know whether they still have absolution—they need not be alarmed, they have as much as they had before they gave their money to the friars. Query. Is it a sin to play at dice in order to buy indulgences? Gratius, in a letter to another Father of the Church, expresses his astonishment at hearing that he thinks so much about the ladies. Such thoughts come from the devil; wherever they are suggested, he must make the sign of the cross on his back, and put a pinch of blessed salt on his tongue. Women make him ill by employing charms and sorceries against him; it is no wonder, for he has grey hair and eyes, a red face, a large nose, and a corporation. No man should ever make use of necromancy to obtain a woman's love, for a student of theology once fell in love with a baker's daughter at Leipzig, and threw an enchanted apple at her,[43] which caused her to fall violently in love with him, and finally led to a scandal in the church."

No one enjoyed these epistles more thoroughly than Erasmus,[44] who, perhaps, from being himself a monk, appreciated them the better. He is said to have laughed so immoderately over some parts of them, that he burst an abscess, which might have proved fatal to him. He was one of those few celebrated men who combine both humour and learning, and he seems to have imbibed somewhat of the spirit of Lucian, whose works he translated, and who also lived in an age of religious controversy and transition. There was such a love of amusement, and so little earnestness in Erasmus, that he could laugh on both sides of the question, with the Reformers and against them. When the monks told him that Luther had married a nun, and that the offspring of such an unholy alliance must needs be Antichrist, he merely replied: "Already are there many Antichrists!" Writing to a zealous Catholic in London, he says "that he grudges the heretics their due, because that, whereas winter is approaching, it will raise the price of fagots." In another place he attacks dignities: "No situation," he says, "could be more wretched than that of the vicegerents of Christ, if they endeavoured to follow Christ's life." There was scarcely anything sacred or profane which was safe from the lash of his ridicule, and if, as some say, he sowed the seeds of the Reformation, it was mostly because he could not resist the temptation to laugh at the clergy. He wrote a very characteristic Work entitled "The Praise of Folly," "Encomium MoriÆ" (a play on the name of Sir Thomas More), in which he maintains a sort of paradox, setting forth the value and advantages of folly, i.e., of indulging the light fancies and errors of imagination. With much humorous illustration he enumerates a great many conceits, and includes among them jests, but his main argument may be thus condensed.[45]

"Who knows not that man's childhood is by far the most delightful period of his existence? And why? Because he is then most a fool. And next to that his youth, in which folly still prevails; while in proportion as he retires from her dominion, and becomes possessed through discipline and experience of mature wisdom, his beauty loses its bloom, his strength declines, his wit becomes less pungent, until at last weary old age succeeds, which would be absolutely unbearable, unless folly, in pity for such grievous miseries, gave relief by bringing on a second childhood. Nature herself has kindly provided for an abundant supply of folly in the human race, for since, according to the Stoic definition, wisdom means only being guided by reason; whereas folly, on the other hand, consists in submitting to the government of the passions; Jupiter wishing to make life merry, gave men far more passion than reason, banishing the latter into one little corner of his person, and leaving all the rest of the body to the sway of the former. Man, however, being designed for the arrangement of affairs, could not do without a small quantity of reason, but in order to temper the evil thus occasioned, at the suggestion of folly woman was introduced into the world—"a foolish, silly creature, no doubt, but amusing, agreeable, and well adapted to mitigate the gloom of man's temper." Woman owes all her advantages to folly. The great end of her existence is to please man, and this she could not do without folly. If any man doubts it, he has only to consider how much nonsense he talks to a woman whenever he wishes to enjoy the pleasures of female society."

Erasmus wrote an ode in honour of Henry VII. and his children, and in it he recommends him to keep with him Skelton, "the one light and ornament of British literature." He says that no doubt the advice is unnecessary, as he hears the King is most anxious to retain his services. He was tutor to the young prince—afterwards Henry VIII. Skelton was born about 1460. Many of his humorous writings are lost, such as "The Balade of the Mustarde Tarte." He became a "poet laureate," at that time a degree in grammar, rhetoric and versification, on taking which, the graduate was presented with a laurel crown. Having taken orders in 1498, he was afterwards suspended for living with a lady whom he had secretly married. This suspension was much owing to his having incurred the anger of the Dominican Friars, whom he had attacked in his writings. We are told that he was esteemed more fit for the stage than the pulpit. The humour of Skelton consists principally of severe personal vituperation. In "Colyn Cloute" he assailed the clergy generally, but he wrote personal attacks on Garnesche (a courtier), and on Wolsey. The Cardinal had been his patron at one time, and Skelton had dedicated poems to him, among them "A Replycacion" against the followers of Wickliffe and Luther—of which pious effusion the following lines will give a specimen:—

"To the honour of our blessed lady
And her most blesed baby,
I purpose for to reply
Agaynst this horryble heresy
Of these young heretics that
Stynke unbrent.
"I say, thou madde marche hare,
I wondre how ye dare
Open your ianglyng iawes,
To preche in any clawes
Lyke pratynge poppyng dawes.
"I say, ye braynless beestes,
Why iangle you such iestes.
In your diuynite
Of Luther's affynite
To the people of lay fee
Raylying in your rages
To worshyppe none ymages
Nor do pylgrymages."

The cause of his quarrel with Wolsey is not known, but he afterwards wrote a severe personal attack upon him entitled, "Why come ye not to Courte?" The tone of this effusion may be gathered from such expressions as:—

"God save his noble grace
And grant him a place
Endlesse to dwell,
With the deuyll of hell,
For and he were there
We nede neuer feere,
Of the fendys blake;
For I vndertake
He wolde so brag and crake,
That he wolde then make
The deuyls to quake,
To shudder and to shake."

Owing to such attacks, he was obliged to flee and take sanctuary at Westminster, where he died. His most entertaining pieces are "Speke Parrot," "Phyllyt Sparrowe," and "Elynour Rummynge." In the first a fair lady laments the death of her bird, killed by "those vylanous false cattes." She sings a "requiescat" for the soul of her dear bird, and recounts all his pretty ways—

"Sometyme he wolde gaspe
When he sawe a waspe;
A fly or a gnat
He wolde flye at that;
And prytely he wold pant
When he saw an ant;
Lord, how he wolde pry
After the butterfly!
Lord, how he wolde hop
After the gressop,
And whan I said Phypp, Phypp,
Than he wolde lepe and skyp,
And take ane by the lyp.
Alas it will me slo
That Phillyp is gone we fro!"

She gives a long list of birds, who are to attend at his funeral, from which our nursery story of cock-robin may be taken. Skelton seems to have been fond and observant of birds. In Speke Parrot, he thus describes

"With my beeke bent, my lyttyl wanton eye,
My fedders freshe as is the emrawde grene,
About my neck a cyrculet lyke the ryche rubye
My lyttyl leggys, my feet both fete and clene,
I am a mynyon to wayt uppon a quene;
My proper parrot my lyttyl prety foole,
With ladyes I lerne and go with them to scole."

It will be observed that the humour in the above pieces is little separated from poetry. In Elynour Rummynge however, we have something undoubtedly jocose, and proportionally rustic and uncouth.

Skelton adopted, as we have seen, a quick, short metre, somewhat analogous to the "Swift Iambics," of the Greek humorists. Sometimes also he alternated Latin with English in a conceit not very uncommon towards the end of the fourteenth and in the fifteenth century as—

"Freeres, freeres, wo ye be!
Ministri malorum,
For many a mannes soul bringe ye,
Ad poenas infernorum."

No work became more popular than the Ship of Fools by Sebastian Brandt. It was published in Germany in 1494, and was speedily translated into Latin and French. Alexander Barclay altered it so considerably in the rendering as almost to make a new work, especially applicable to the state of things existing in this country. Ersch and GrÜber speak of Brandt's fools as contemptible and loathsome, and say what he calls follies might be better described as sins and vices. But here and there we meet with touches of humour in the mishaps and absurd actions of those he censures. The whole work is rather of a moral and religious complexion, as the following heading of the poem will suggest—

"Of newe fassions and disgised garmentes. Of Avaryce and prodygalyte. Of vnprofytable stody. Of lepynges and dauncis and Folys that pas theyr tyme in suche vanyte. Of Pluralitees, of flatterers, and glosers. Of the vyce of slouth. Of Usurers and okerers. Of the extorcion of knyghtis. Of follisske, cokes, and buttelers."

Literature increased greatly in the fifteenth century, and began to take that general form it afterwards bore. One of the satires on the fashions of the period, which in every age seem to have afforded materials for mirth, begins as follows—

"Ye prowd gallonttes hertlesse
With your hyghe cappis witlesse,
And youre schort gownys thriftlesse,
Have brought this londe in gret hevynesse.
With youre longe peked schone.
Therfor your thrifte is almost don,
And with youre long here into your eyen
Have brought this londe to gret pyne."

There is a good satire written on a priest about the time of the Reformation, showing considerable humour both in matter, language and versification. It is called "Doctor Doubble Ale."

A little episode is given arising from the priest's ignorance—

"His learning is exceeding
Ye may know by his reading,
Yet coulde a cobbler's boy him tell
That he red a wrong gospell
Wherfore in dede he served him well,
He turned himselfe as round as a ball,
And with loud voyce began to call,
'Is there no constable among you all
To take this knave that doth me troble?'
With that all was on a hubble shubble,
There was drawing and dragging,
There was lugging and lagging,
And snitching and snatching,
And ketching and catching,
And so the pore ladde,
To the counter they had,
Some wolde he should be hanged,
Or else he shulde be wranged;
Some sayd it were a good turne
Such an heretyke to burn."

A great many of the humorous poems written against the church were republished at the time of the Reformation to show that for centuries the misdoings of the clergy had been a source of comment. In "the Sak full of Nuez"—a rare book[46] referred to in 1575, containing a collection of humorous pieces of a rough and rude character—we find several hits at the expense of the church.

"A friar used to visit the house of an old woman, who, when he was coming, very prudently hid whatever she had to eat. One day coming with some friends, he asked her if she had not some meat. And she said, 'Nay.' 'Well,' quoth the friar, 'have you not a whetstone?' 'Yea,' quoth the woman, 'what will you do with it?' 'Marry,' quoth he, 'I would make meat thereof.' Then she brought a whetstone. He asked her likewise if she had not a frying-pan. 'Yea,' said she, 'but what the divil will ye do therewith?' 'Marry,' said the fryer, 'you shall see by and by what I will do with it;' and when he had the pan, he set it on the fire, and put the whetstone therein. 'Cocks-body,' said the woman, 'you will burn the pan.' 'No, no,' quoth the fryer, 'if you will give me some eggs, it will not burn at all.' But she would have had the pan from him, when that she saw the pan was in danger; but he would not let her, but still urged her to fetch him some eggs, which she did. 'Tush,' said the fryer, 'here are not enow, go fetch ten or twelve.' So the good wife was constrayned to fetch more, for feare that the pan should burn, and when he had them he put them in the pan. 'Now,' quoth he, 'if you have no butter, the pan will burn and the eggs too.' So the good-wife, being very loth to have her pan burnt, and her eggs lost, she fetcht him a dish of butter, the which he put into the pan and made good meat thereof, and brought it to the table, saying, 'Much good may it do you, my hostess, now may you say you have eaten of a buttered whetstone.'"

Another story runs as follows:—

"There was a priest in the country, which had christened a child; and when he had christened it, he and the clerk were bidden to the drinking that should be there, and being there, the priest drank and made so merry that he was quite foxed, and thought to go home before he laid him down to sleep; but, having gone a little way, he grew so drousie that he could go no further, but laid him down by a ditch-side, so that his feet did hang in the water, and lying on his back, the moon shined in his face; thus he lay till the rest of the company came from drinking, who, as they came home, found the priest lying as aforesaid, and they thought to get him away, but do what they could, he would not rise, but said, 'Do not meddle with me, for I lie very well, and will not stir hence before morning, but I pray lay some more cloathes on my feet, and blow out the candle.'"

At first it occasions us no little surprise to find the clergy of the early centuries so prone to attack and ridicule one another, but we must remember that there was then no reading public, and that the few copies of books in existence were mostly within the walls of the monasteries. Thus, the object of these writers would be like that of St. Jerome in his letters, not so much to disgrace the Church as to improve its discipline. We can also, perhaps, understand how the conflicts between the parish priests and monks led them sometimes to caricature each other in the grotesque heads of corbels and gargoyles; nor does it surprise us that Luther, indignant and rude, should portray the Pope to the public under the form of a jackass.

But how can we account for the strange and profane caricatures which are so numerous in the stone and wood carvings of our cathedrals? In the scriptural ornamentation of the thirteenth century in Strasburg Cathedral, there was the representation of a funeral performed by animals—a hare carried the taper, a wolf the cross, and a bear the holy water—while in another place a stag was celebrating mass, and an ass reading the gospel. We often find carvings in which foxes are habited as ecclesiastics, sometimes accompanied by geese, who represent their flock, and thus we can understand the significance of the design in Sherborne Minster and Wellingborough, where two geese are hanging a fox.

In St. Mary's, Beverley, are two foxes dressed as ecclesiastics, each holding a pastoral staff, while a goose's head is peeping out of his hood. At Boston Church we find a fox in a cope and episcopal vestments, seated on a throne, and holding a pastoral staff, while on the right is an ass holding a book for the bishop to read. The fact was that no means were left untried by the Church to make converts and to obtain a hold on the people. They wished to render religion as attractive as possible, and perhaps to direct and control tendencies which they could not destroy. It was then a favourite doctrine that the end justified the means—the Roman Church instituted persecutions, adopted heathen rites, and ordained fasts and festivals to impress the mind. It is recorded that Theophylact of Constantinople introduced into the Church, in the tenth century, the licentious "Feast of Fools," to wean the people from the revels of their old religion, and have we not until late years celebrated the Nativity of our Lord, not only by games and frolics, but gluttony and drunkenness, and riotous proceedings, under pagan misletoe! I believe that among the masses of the people the Roman saturnalia still survive. We need not then be surprised that the early Christians tried to recommend religion by unsuitable ornamentation. They adopted all kinds of floral designs, they represented fables and romances. In the old church of Budleigh, in Devonshire—which Sir Walter Raleigh attended, and where his head is buried—all kinds of devices are represented on the pews, from a pair of scissors to a man-of-war, including a cook holding a sheep by the tail. It was only a step from this to introduce humour, and as men's feelings had not then been chastened or brought into order by reflection, they probably overlooked the lowering tendencies of levity. Those who came to laugh, might remain to pray, and so a strange crop of incongruities germinated upon the sacred soil. Thus, in Beverley Minster, we have a monkey riding upon a hare—a bedridden goat, with a monkey acting as doctor; and at Winchester a boar is playing on the fiddle, while a young pig is dancing.[47] Even scenes of drunkenness and immorality are not always excluded. But the principal representations attributed human actions to birds and beasts—people who could laugh at stories of this kind, could also at depictions of them. It may be maintained that men were then highly emotional, and demanded but little complexity or truth in humour, so that they could see something amusing in a boar playing upon the bagpipes, or in such a device as a monster composed of two birds, with the head of a lion, or another with a human head on a lion's body! But there must have been something more than this—some peculiar estimation of animals to account for such numerous representations. They were common in the secular ornamentation of the day, for instance, in a MS. copy of Froissart of the fifteenth century, there is a drawing of a pig walking upon stilts, playing the harp, and wearing one of the tall head-dresses then in fashion.

This love of the comic seems to have been fostered by the leisure and the lively turn of some ecclesiastics. In the injunctions given to the British Church in the year 680, no bishop is to allow tricks or jocosities (ludos vel jocos) to be exhibited before him, and later we read of two monks, near Oxford, receiving a man hospitably, thinking he was a "jougleur," and could perform tricks, but kicking him out on finding themselves mistaken. We find some of the monks amusing themselves with "cloister humour," consisting principally of logical paradoxes; while others indulged in verbal curiosities, such as those of Tryphiodorus, the lipogrammatist, who wrote an Odyssey in twenty-four books without once using the letter A. Some were more fond of pictorial designs, and carved great figures on the chalk downs, such as the Giant of Cerne Abbas, in Dorsetshire, and the Long Man of Wilmington, in Sussex.

As we found reason to believe that the earliest kind of laughter was that of pleasure, so in this revival of civilization, we often see humour regarded as having no influence beyond that of ministering to amusement. The mind was scarcely equal to regarding things in more than one light. A jest was often viewed as entirely unimportant, its levity and depreciatory character being altogether overlooked. To this and to the hostile element then very prominent, we may attribute the caricatures of the devil, formerly so common. Before the tenth century, the devil was thought too dreadful to be portrayed, but afterwards, as the Church made a liberal exhibition of the torments of hell, the idea occurred of deterring offenders by representing evil spirits in as frightful a form as possible. Some think that such figures were suggested by the Roman satyrs, but they may have come from Jewish or Runic sources. There is a mediÆval story of a monk having carved an image of the devil so much more repulsive than he really was, that the sable gentleman called upon him one night to expostulate. The monk, however, was inexorable. But the story says further that, although the holy man was proof against the entreaties of the devil, he was not so well armed against the fascinations of the fair, and owing to his suffering a defeat at the hands of the latter came afterwards to be shut up in prison. The original of his portrait again called upon him, and the monk agreed that, if he would obtain his release, he would represent him as a handsome fellow.

As times advanced, people began to fear the devil less, and to be amused at these strange carvings. From regarding them as ludicrous, it was only a step to make humorous caricatures—and there could be little harm in ridiculing the Devil. Thus we frequently find imps and demons brought in to perform the comic parts in the Church mysteries. It was a short advance from the ludicrous to the humorous, and thus we find the devil a merry fellow, playing all kinds of practical jokes on mankind. Such representations would now appear rather ludicrous than humorous, and are seldom seen, except to amuse children on Valentine's Day.