Chapter IX: Appendix

The idea of the old English jest-book, _Jacke of Dover His Quest of Inquirie, or His Privy Search for the Veriest Foole in England_ (London: 1604), may perhaps have been suggested by such popular tales as those of the man going about in quest of three greater fools than his wife, father-in-law, and mother-in-law. It is, however, simply a collection of humorous anecdotes, not specially examples of folly or stupidity, most of which are found in earlier jest-books. The introduction is rather curious:

"When merry Jacke of Dover had made his privy search for the Foole of all Fooles, and making his inquirie in most of the principal places in England, at his return home he was adjudged to be the fool himself; but now wearied with the motley coxcombe, he hath undertaken in some place or other to find a verier foole than himself. But first of all, coming to London, he went into Paul's Church, where walking very melancholy in the middle aisle with Captain Thingut and his fellowes, he was invited to dine at Duke Humphry's ordinary,[1] where, amongst other good stomachs that repaired to his bountiful feast, there came a whole jury of penniless poets, who being fellows of a merry disposition (but as necessary in a commonwealth as a candle in a straw bed), he accepted of their company, and as from poets cometh all kind of folly, so he hoped by their good directions to find out his Foole of Fooles, so long looked for. So, thinking to pass away the dinner-hour with some pleasant chat (lest, being overcloyed with too many dishes, they should surfeit), he discovered to them his merry meaning, who, being glad of so good an occasion of mirth, instead of a cup of sack and sugar for digestion, these men of little wit began to make inquiry and to search for the aforesaid fool, thinking it a deed of charity to ease him of so great a burden as his motley coxcomb was, and because such weak brains as are now resident almost in every place, might take benefit hereat. In this manner began the inquiry:

_The Foole of Hereford._

"'Upon a time (quoth one of the jury) it was my chance to be in the city of Hereford, when, lodging at an inn, I was told of a certain silly-witted gentleman there dwelling, that would assuredly believe all things that he heard for a truth; to whose house I went upon a sleeveless errand, and finding occasion to be acquainted with him, I was well entertained, and for three days' space had my bed and board in his house; where, amongst many other fooleries, I, being a traveller, made him believe that the steeple of Brentwood, in Essex, sailed in one night as far as Calais, in France, and afterwards returned again to its proper place. Another time I made him believe that in the forest of Sherwood, in Nottinghamshire, were seen five hundred of the King of Spain's galleys, which went to besiege Robin Hood's Well, and that forty thousand scholars with elder squirts performed such a piece of service as they were all in a manner taken and overthrown in the forest. Another time I made him believe that Westminster Hall, for suspicion of treason, was banished for ten years into Staffordshire. And last of all, I made him believe that a tinker should be baited to death at Canterbury for getting two and twenty children in a year; whereupon, to prove me a liar, he took his horse and rode thither, and I, to verify him a fool, took my horse and rode hither.'

"'Well,' quoth Jacke of Dover, 'this in my mind was pretty foolery, but yet the Foole of all Fooles is not here found that I looked for.'

_The Fool of Huntington._

"'And it was my chance (quoth another of the jury) upon a time to be at Huntington, where I heard tell of a simple shoemaker there dwelling, who having two little boys whom he made a vaunt to bring up to learning, the better to maintain themselves when they were men; and having kept them a year or two at school, he examined them saying, "My good boy," quoth he to one of them, "what dost thou learn and where is thy lesson?" "O father," said the boy, "I am past grace." "And where art thou?" quoth he to the other boy, who likewise answered that he was at the devil and all his works. "Now Lord bless us," quoth the shoemaker, "whither are my children learning? The one is already past grace and the other at the devil and all his works!" Whereupon he took them both from school and set them to his own occupation.[2]'"

A number of others of the jury of penniless poets having related their stories, at last it is agreed that if the Foole of all Fooles cannot be found among those before named, one of themselves must be the fool, for there cannot be a verier fool than a poet, "for poets have good wits, but cannot use them, great store of money, but cannot keep it," etc.

* * * * *

It is doubtful what the name "Jack of Dover" imports, as that of the imaginary inquirer after fools. The author of the Cook's Tale of Gamelyn--which is generally considered as a spurious "Canterbury" tale-- represents, in the prologue, mine host of the Tabard as saying to Roger the Cook:

"Full many a pastie hast thou lettin blode;
And many a jack of Dovyr hast thou sold,
That hath ben twicè hot and twicè cold."

Dr. Brewer says--apparently on the strength of these lines--that a "Jack of Dover" is a fish that has been cooked a second time. But it may have been a name of a particular kind of fish caught in the waters off Dover. If, however, a "Jack of Dover" is a twice-cooked fish, the title of the jest-book is not inappropriate, since all the stories it comprises are at least "twice-told."

FOOTNOTES:

[1] To "dine with Duke Humphry" meant not to dine at all. See Brewer's _Dictionary of Phrase and Fable_ for the origin of the expression.

[2] The jest is thus told in some parts of Scotland: An old gentleman, walking in the country, met three small boys on their way home from school, and asked them how they progressed in their learning. The youngest--referring, of course, to the _Shorter Catechism_--replied that he was "in a state of sin and misery;" the second, that he was past "redemption;" and the eldest, that he was "in the pains of hell for ever."

INDEX.

* * * * *

Abdera, Man of, 6.

Alewife and her Hens, 73.

Alfonsus, Peter, 45.

Arab and his Cow, 70.

Arab Schoolmaster, 83.

Arabian Idiot, 133.

_Arabian Nights_, 81, 83, 133, 146.

Arabian Noodles, 70,75,107, 147.

Armstrong's, Archie, _Banquet of Jests_, 74.

Ashton, John, xiv.

Ass and the Two Sharpers, 81.

Austwick, Carles of, 17,53,54.

_Avadánas_, 53.

Babrius, 53.

Bakki, Brothers of, 32, 64.

Bang-eater and his Wife, 147.

Bang-eaters and the Dogs, 109.

Barrett, F.T., 9.

_Barrin' o' the Door_, 107.

Belmont, Fools of, 55.

_Beryn, Tale of_, 40.

Beschi, Father, 29.

_Bharataka Dwatrinsati_, 158.

_Bizarrures of the Sieur Gaulard_, 8, 12, 20, 76.

Bidpaï's Fables, 53.

Birth-Stories--_see_ Játakas.

Boccaccio's _Decameron_, 39.

"Boiling" River, 30, 43.

Bond, The Lord's, 17.

Borde, Andrew, 23.

Bráhmans, Four Simple, 171.

Bromyard, John, 167.

Buddha's Five Precepts, 69.

Bull and the Gate, 54.

Bull of Siva, 48.

Burton's _Arabian Nights_, 83.

Busk's _Folk-Lore of Rome_, 204.

Butter eaten by a Dog, 18.

Buzzard, The Gothamite's, 38.

Cabbage-Tree, 47.

Caftan on Tree, 90.

Calf's Head in a Pot, 89.

Campbell's _Popular Tales of the West Highlands_, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 154, 193.

Cat and old Woman, 65.

Cat, Men of Schilda's, 61.

Cazotte's _New Arabian Nights_, 133.

Ceylon--_see_ Sinhalese Noodles.

Chamberlain, B.H., 130.

Cheese, The Gothamite's, 34.

Cheese on the Highway, 40.

Cheese, The Stolen, 91.

Chinese Noodles, 93, 94.

Coelho's _Contes Portuguezes_, 120.

Colombo, Michele, 81.

Countryman and Dog, 79.

Cozens, F.W., 9.

Council-House, Dark, 57.

Crane's _Italian Popular Tales_, 117, 128, 139, 202, 204.

Cuckoo, Hedging in the, 26.

Cumeans and the bath, 4;
and the father's corpse,15;
and the fig-tree, 10;
and the pot of honey, 19;
and the stolen clothes, 4.

Dark Council-House, 57.

Dasent's _Norse Tales_, 126, 212.

Dekker's _Gul's Horn Book_, 26.

Devil in the Meadow, 42.

_Disciplina Clericalis_, 45.

Doctor and Patients, 5.

Doctor's Apprentice, 168.

Dog that ate Honey, 18.

Door, Taking Care of the, 97, 98.

Dreams, The Good, 92, 93.

Dubois, Abbé, 171.

Ear, Biting one's own, 86.

Eberhard's _Hieraclis_, 3.

Eel, Drowning the, 33.

_El Conde Lucanor_, 162.

English typical booby, 139.

_Fabliaux_, Le Grand's, 39,163.

Family, Best of the, 165.

Farmer and his Pigs, 54.

Fisher, Indian Silly Son as, 163.

Fishers, Gothamite, 28.

Fleas, Bit by, 14.

_Folk-Lore in Southern India_, 212.

Fool and the aloes-wood, 98;
and the birch-tree, 151;
and the cotton, 99;
and the cup lost in the sea, 99;
and the elephant-driver, 51;
and his porridge, 119;
and the _Ramayana_, 70;
and the sack of meal, 19, 25, 68;
and the shopkeeper, 100;
at his fireside, 119;
kicked by his mule, 119;
of Hereford, 221;
of Huntingdon, 222.

Fools and the buffalo, 101;
and the Bull of Siva, 48;
and their inheritance, 118;
and the mosquitoes, 95;
and the palm-trees, 96;
and the trunks, 96.

Fortini's Italian Novels, 162.

Fuller, Thomas, on the Gothamites, 20.

Fumivall, F.J., 23.

Gaulard, The Sieur, 8, 12, 20, 76.

Geese and Tortoise, 52.

_Gesta Romanorum_, 117,163.

Gibb's _Forty. Vazírs_, 109, 166, 167.

Giufà, the Sicilian Booby, 97, 130, 165.

Goat and Old Woman, 66.

_Gooroo Paramartan_, 29, 37, 157.

Gossips and their late Husbands, 74.

Gossips at the Alehouse, 43.

_Gotham, Tales of the Mad Men of_, xiii., 20, 24-44.

Grazzini's Florentine Fool, 161.

Grecian Noodles, 1-15.

Halliwell-Phillipps, J.O., xiii., 13, 22, 27, 53.

Hama and Hums, Men of, 75.

Hazlitt, W.C., xiii., 12.

Heaven, Sorry he has gone to, 74.

Herdsman, The Foolish, 106.

Herodotus, Stephens' _Apology_ for, 119.

Hierokles, Jests of, 2.

_Hitopadesa_, 162.

Honey, Pot of, 6, 18.

Hunter's Dream of a Boar, 4.

Icelandic Noodles, 32, 64, 163.

Indian Noodles, 29, 37, 44, 48, 51, 70, 96, 97-106, 111, 1l8, 158, l6l, 163, 170, 212.

Italian Noodles, 115, 127, 143, 160, 197, 202, 204.

Irish Labourer and Farmer, 8.

Irishman and his ass, 119.

Irishman and his hens, 120.

Irishman and lost shovel, 99.

Irishmen and mosquitoes, 14.

Irishman's Dream, 92.

Jack of Dover's Quest, 219.

Japanese Noodle, 130.

Jatakas (Buddhist Birth-Stories), 52, 65, 95, 164.

_Jests of Scogin_, 162.

Joe Miller's Jest-Book, 1, 2.

Judge and Thieves, 87.

Kabaïl Tales, 37, 154.

Kashmírí Tales, 65, 89, 111.

_Katha Manjari_, 11, 70, 100, 163.

_Katha Sarit Sagara_, 48, 53, 120, 164.

Kerchief, The, 90.

Khoja Nasr-ed-Din, 89.

King's Stupid Son, The, 167.

Knite, 'The Gothamites', 53.

Knowles, J.H., 66, 113.

_Laird of Logan_, 13.

Leger's _Contes Populaires Slaves_, 128, 154.

Marie de France, 46.

_Mery Tales and Quicke Answeres_, 161.

Miller's Jest-Book, 1, 2.

Millstone of the Schildburgers, 59.

Minstrel and Pupil, 166.

Monk Transformed, 81.

Moon a green cheese, 44.

Moon in the well, 92.

Moon swallowed by an ass, 46.

"Mortuus Loquens," 160.

Mummy, The, 15.

Nasr-ed-Din Khoja, 89.

Natesa Sastri Pandit, 212.

Needham's _Hieroclis_, 3.

Noodles, The Three Great, 191.

Norfolk Noodles, 17.

Norse Noodles, 123, 207.

Notts Bridge, 24.

_Orientalist, The_, 69, 87, 114, 143, 160.

_Pancha Tantra_, 67, 171.

Paradise, Man who came from, 204, 210, 212, 217.

Pedant, bald man, and barber, 6;
and the lost book, 13;
and his dream, 5,6;
and the jar of feathers, 5;
and his jar of wine, 9;
and the mirror, 9;
and the two slave-boys, 4;
and his slave who died, 8;
and the sparrows, 5;
and the twin-brothers, 12;
and his tomb, 8.

Persian Noodle, 7.

Persian Tales, 7, 66, 79.

_Philotimus_, 27.

Poet and the Dogs, 79.

Poggius' _Facetiæ_ 160, 162.

Priest of Gotham, 42.

Princess caused to grow, 102.

Pupil, The Attentive, 165.

Ralston's _Russian Folk-Tales,_ 48, 153.

Relic-hunter, 95.

Rents of Gothamites, 27.

Right Hand or Left, 91.

River, "Boiling," 30, 43.

Riviere's _Contes Populaires de la Kabylie du Djurdjura_, 37, 154.

Russian Noodles, 47, 128, 151, 154, 195

Rustic and the Dog, 79.

_Sacke Full of Newes_, 46, 97.

Sa'dí's _Gulistán_, xi, 79.

Schilda, The Men of, 56.

Schoolmaster's Lady-love, 83.

Sesame, Roasted, 120.

Sheep's Eyes, Casting, 41, 126, 127.

Sicilian Boobies, 97, 116, 139, 165.

Silent Noodles, 107-117.

Silly Matt, 123.

Silly Son, The, 121.

Simple Simon, 121, 122.

Simpleton and Sharpers, 81.

_Sindibád Náma_, 66.

Sinhalese Noodles, 67-69, 87, 89, 113, 141, 165, 179, 217.

Smith, Alexander, 9.

Spade, The Stolen, 94.

Spinning-Wheel, The, 36.

Stephens, Henry, Tales by, 119.

Stokes' _Indian Fairy Tales_, 154.

_Summa Praædicantium_, The, 167.

Tabourot, Etienne, 8.

_Tales and Quicke Answeres_, 161.

Tawney, C.H., 48.

Taylor's _Wit and Mirth_, 9, 10, 74, 78.

Thief on a Tree, 11.

Thoms, W.J., xii., 56.

Thoroton's _History of Nottinghamshire_, 21.

Three Greatest Noodles, 191.

Treasure Trove, 144, 151, 154.

Trivet, The Gothamite's, 36.

Turkish Noodles, 11, 86, 90, 93, 109, 166, 167.

Twelve Fishers, The, 28.

Twin Brothers, 12.

Vives, Ludovicus, 46.

Warton's _History of English Poetry_, 22.

Washerman and his young Ass, 103.

Wasp's Nest, 40.

"Whittle to the Tree," 53.

Widows, The Two, 74.

Wiltshire Noodles, 17, 54.

Wither's _Abuses Whipt and Stript_, 26.

Wolf's Tail, The, 91.

Wood, Anthony, on the Gotham Tales, 23.

Worsted Balls, The, 35.

Wrestler and the Wag, 7.

Wrong Man wakened, 6, 7.