[1] Walley obtained his licence or the C. Mery Talys in 1557-8, during the reign of Mary, perhaps in anticipation 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.
[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.
[9] This story is merely the latter portion of the seventh novel of the Seventh Day of the Decameron; but Boccaccio tells it somewhat differently. It may also he found in the Pecorone of Ser. Giovanni Fiorentino, and in A Sackful of Newes. 1673 (a reprint of a much older edition). In the latter there are one or two trifling particulars not found here.
[10] A rabbit-warren.
[11] Net, Fr. haie.
[12] In orig. and because.
[13] i.e. ere, before.
[14] Owned. In Northward Hoe, 1607, by Decker and Webster, act i. scene i., the writers have made use of this story. See Websters' Works, edit. Hazlitt, i. 178-9.
[15] either.
[16] moving.
[17] See Brand's Popular Antiquities, edit. 1849, iii. 387.
[18] The reverse of the Somersetshire saying. The proverb is well known: "An honest miller hath a golden thumb;" but to this the Somersetshire folks add, "none but a cuckold can see it."
[19] Burned.
[20] orig. reads muste.
[21] Richard Rawson was Archdeacon of Essex from 1503 to 1543, and was perhaps the person here intended. See Le Neve's Fasti, ed. Hardy, ii. 336.
[22] if.
[23] before.
[24] appertaining or relevant.
[25] World.
[26] Orig. reads and: but seems to be required.
[27] Orig. reads whether.
[28] Places or appointments. This is one of the best stories of the kind in the present or any other collection, in our own or other languages. The construction is excellent.
[29] Weened (guessed).
[30] Orig. reads saw.
[31] weened.
[32] shells.
[33] In orig. by.
[34] Orig. reads saw.
[35] Orig. reads of.
[36] The orig. saw.
[37] Orig. hard, i.e. heard.
[38] There is perhaps an allusion here to the Interlude of the Four Elements, supposed to have been printed about 1510 by John Rastell.
[39] Orig. reads properte is.
[40] Vide infra.
[41] economy.
[42] defiled, from Fr. rayer, to shine and give light, as the rays of the sun, and thence to streak with lines of dirt, and so to soil. The word is not common. See Nares art ray (edit. 1859), and Cotgrave art rayer (edit. 1650).
[43] Orig. reads turnyd.
[44] Orig. reads saw.
[45] smock.
[46] i.e. who saw her.
[47] An unregistered proverb, perhaps. The meaning is tolerably clear. See Tarlton's Newes Out of Purgatarie (1590). edit. Halliwell, p. 93.
[48] Whither.
[49] I am myself responsible for these few words in italic, which I have supplied from conjecture.
[50] Perhaps this story, of which we have here a fragment only, was similar to the one narrated a little farther on. See Tale 57.
[51] Thavies Inn, near St. Andrew's Church, in Holborn.
[52] wooed.
[53] Orig. reads that the colyar.
[54] before.
[55] the seat of the commode.
[56] weened.
[57] Orig. reads gentylman.
[58] mocked, made a jest of. See Nares (edit. 1859) in voce.
[59] This moral is also attached to Tales 21, 44, and 56, in all which cases the lady's rejoinder is not less opposed to modern notions of female delicacy.
[60] orig. reads gentylman.
[61] purlieus.
[62] a lean beast not worth hunting—Nares.
[63] The jest here, such as it is, lies in the play on the words male (of the deer) and the mail, or post.
[64] niggard.
[65] a week.
[66] nonce.
[67] Mendicant friar.
[68] Merrily.
[69] orig. reads send.
[70] orig. reads Thomas coke. In the orig. the text runs on in the above passage, which is generally done in old books to save room.
[71] tricks and pranks.
[72] orig. reads synne.
[73] orig. reads he.
[74] Intently engaged in the celebration of mass. "St. Lawrence Jewry," says Mr. Cunningham (Handbook of Lond. 471,) "stood in King Street, Cheapside. It was destroyed in the Fire of 1666, and was rebuilt by Sir C. Wren."
[75] Hooping-cough.
[76] orig. reads ever.
[77] The celebrated poet. The bishop was of course Bishop Nykke, Nikke, or Nyx, as the name is variously spelled. He held the see from 1501 to 1536.
[78] Lute, as a verb, appears to be obsolete. We still say to fiddle, and no doubt to lute was formerly just as much in use.
[79] Orig. reads and that commanded.
[80] Quietly.
[81] This, to save space, is printed like prose in the orig.; but it was evidently meant to be verse.
[82] i. e. him. The Orig. reads them.
[83] Swoon.
[84] Orig. reads besought him of.
[85] Orig, reads Nocolas. The Church of St. Nicholas Shambles, which formerly stood in the neigbourhood of Newgate Market, was pulled down at the Reformation. See Cunningham, Handbook of London, in voce.
[86] Orig. reads and.
[87] Quickly.
[88] Orig. reads lyghtlye espye.
[89] Singer's ed. reads yeve.
[90] Orig. ed. and Singer read we haue and helpe them.
[91] This portion of the tale is repeated in Scoggin's or Scogin's Jests.
[92] I have supplied these four words from conjecture. They are not in the original nor in Singer's reprint.
[93] The double negative is very common in old English books.
[94] Orig. reads wold.
[95] Essence?
[96] Fetched.
[97] Orig. reads whych perchyd, which the context will scarcely allow.
[98] Unlawful.
[99] The words in italics are supplied by me from conjecture. They are not in orig. or in Singer's reprint; but it is evident what the context requires.
[100] Covetousness. Orig. reads covetous.
[101] Whitford, in his Werke for Householders, 1533, says:—"yet must you have a lesson to teche your folkes to beware of the vii pryncipall synnes, whiche ben communely called the seven dedely synnes, but in dede they doue call them wronge: for they be not alway dedely synnes. Therfore they sholde be called capytall or pryncipall synnes, and not dedely synnes. These ben theyr names by ordere after our dyvysion: Pryde, Envy, Wrath, Covetyse, Glotony, Slouth, and Lechery."
[102] i.e. By God's blood and His nail.
[103] Fetch.
[104] These words in Italics I have supplied from conjecture. They are not in orig. or in Singer.
[105] orig. reads: ex duobus malis minus malis.
[106] By God's body.
[107] If meant as quiet irony, this moral is admirable.
[108] disparage.
[109] orig. is here apparently very corrupt; it reads: "all thoughe the meat therein were nat ynoughe, sodenlye commaunded," &c.
[110] planted it against the roost.
[111] orig. reads I am here John Dawe.
[112] orig. reads vocacyon.
[113] The same story is to be found in Scogin's Jests, with a trifling variation. Scogin's Jests were published before 1565. Several of the anecdotes, here narrated, were re-produced in that and other collections. See also Joake upon Joake, 1721, where the present story is told of King Charles the Second, Nell Gwynne, and the Duchess of Portsmouth. In this version the Duchess is the sufferer.
[114] This story, as already mentioned in the Introduction, is taken from the tale of the "Vickar of Bergamo" in Tarlton's Newes out of Purgatorie (1590). See Halliwell's ed. of Tarlton's Jests, &c. p. 82. (Shakesp. Sec.).
[115] Early.
[116] Homily.
[117] Satisfy, a very rare word.
[118] Ham.
[119] The blackness of colliers was employed of course from a very early period as a ground for satirical insinuations as to their connection with the Evil One. In 1568, Ulpian Fulwell, a distinguished writer of the Elizabethan era, published A Pleasant Interlude intituled Like will to Like quoth the Devil to the Collier; and in the old play of Grim the Collier of Croydon, the epithet grim was intended to convey a similar idea. In Robin Goodfellow His Mad Pranks and Merry Jests, 1628, however, Grim is the name of a Fairy.
[120] Shoemaker or Cobbler. Lat. Sutor.
[121] It is not very usual to find this word in its jocular sense spelled in this manner. It continued to be used in its original signification (action or exploit) even to the Restoration, perhaps later. The most recent example of this employment with which the Editor has happened to meet is at p. 29 of Mauley's Iter Carolinum, 1660, where the writer speaks of "His Majesties Gests from Newcastle to Holdenby in Feb. 1646." These gests were certainly no jests. Since the former part of this note was written a more recent instance of the use of gest in the sense in question has occurred to the Editor in the Life and Gests of S. Thomas Cantilupe, Gant, 1674. 8vo.
[122] The words in Italics are supplied from conjecture. They are not in orig. or in Singer.
[123] Sacrament.
[124] Prepared, i.e. had made themselves ready.
[125] Orig. reads spyed.
[126] Orig. reads which came.
[127] Singer's conjectural reading is that; but and seems to me to be the word required.
[128] See Scoggin's Jests(reprint 1795), p. 47.
[129] Count out.
[130] These two words are not in orig. or in Singer; but they seem to be what the context requires.
[131] Orig. reads Comode.
[132] Weened.
[133] Orig. reads and after woman.
[134] The celebrated Sir Richard Whittington. In his If you
know Not me you know No Body, Part ii. 1606, Heywood introduces the
following dialogue respecting Whittington between Dean Nowell and Old
Hobson, the haberdasher of the Poultry:—
"Dr. Now. This Sir Richard Whittington, three times Mayor,
Son to a knight, and 'prentice to a mercer,
Began the library of Gray-friars in London,
And his executors after him did build
Whittington College, thirteen almshouses for poor men,
Repair'd Saint Bartholomew's, in Smithfield,
Glared the Guildhall, and built Newgate.
Hob. Bones a me, then, I have heard lies;
For I have heard he was a scullion,
And rais'd himself by venture of a cat.
Dr. Now. They did the more wrong to the gentleman."
[135] Psalter.
[136] Wanting in orig. and left blank by Singer. I have supplied them from conjecture.
[137] Priests.
[138] Orig. reads gentylmens.
[139] Peril.
[140] Orig. reads thou sluggynge in thy bedde dost thou no good, which repetition of thou seems unnecessary.
[141] Not here put as a painting, but in a general sense, as a representation.
[142] The old perfect of start. The orig. reads starte.
[143] Singer inserts answered before and said; but the word does not appear to be required.
[144] Orig. reads the iii point is that never mis that, &c.
[145] A very costly article of female dress during the reigns of the Tudor and Stuart sovereigns. It constituted part of the head-gear, and from the way in which it was worn by some women, was calculated to convey a notion of skittishness. In the New Courtly Sonet of the Lady Greensleeves, printed in Robinson's "Handful of Pleasant Delites," 1584, the lover is made to say to his mistress:—
"I bought three kerchers to thy head,
That were wrought fine and gallantly:
I kept thee both at board and bed,
Which cost my purse well-favourdly."
[146] Just now.
[147] The Genoese.
[148] At all points.
[149] Make a mistake.
[150] Which of the two.
[151] A too literal translation of the French word legierement, which ought here to have been rendered readily, rather than lightly.
[152] Giddy.
[153] No matter.
[154] Whispered—Singer.
[155] Kissed, from the French word.
[156] i.e. twit or taunt.