Chapter XV: Facetious Biographies

Leaving behind us these two admirable productions, we encounter an interesting group of compilations, which differ essentially from them in structure and treatment. They constitute a sort of family of books, and are of a biographical cast, with an imperfect attempt at chronological sequence. I shall enumerate some of them:--

_The Jests of the Widow Edith._
_The Merry Tales of Skelton._
_The Jests of Scogin._
_Tarlton’s Jests._
_The Merry Conceited Jests of George Peele._
_The Pleasant Conceits of Old Hobson._
_Dobson’s Dry Bobs._

The original motive for associating a particular individual with a publication was obviously the stimulus which his reputation was expected to lend to the sale. The real tie between a facetious miscellany and its god-parent was, in nine cases out of ten, absolutely nominal. In the reputed adventures and pranks of the Widow Edith, Skelton and Scogin, there is the largest share of verisimilitude; but the printed accounts, especially in the case of Scogin, are so long posterior to the epoch at which the heroes flourished, that there was infinite opportunity for laying to their credit any current jokes or tricks of a suitable complexion.

Of the three, the tracts dealing with the poet and the widow leave the impression, on perusal, of being narratives of authentic incidents in a far greater degree than the _Scoginiana_; and some of the anecdotes of Skelton are superlatively funny,--for instance, that which narrates “how the cobbler told Master Skelton it is good sleeping in a whole skin.” But it is unfortunately too lengthy for transcription. There is not only a stronger air of probability about the anecdotes which we here find of the parson of Diss than in those which occur of Scogin, but an agreeable exemption from grossness, although it has been surmised that both came from the same pen--that of Dr. Andrew Borde, of Pevensey.

Shakespearian readers are familiar with the passage in _Henry IV._,