Chapter III: Part 3

May we not reasonably conclude that there was once considerable dignity attached to the office of fool, seeing that many ancient families bore the insignia of fools in their arms? The chief of these was the family of Briesach, long since extinct; and indeed I only know one house now existing whose crest seems to intimate some connection with the old jester, or some love of “short, brilliant folly.” I allude to the House of Orford (Walpole). The crest is a male bust, on whose head is the old official fool’s cap, rising from a coronet. The motto also seems to bear reference to the circumstance; for _Fari quæ sentias_, “Speak what you think,” was exactly the injunction suited to the court jester.

It must, however, be observed that even the jester, licensed as he was, could not always do this without watching his opportunity, and the license at one court was different from that at another. It was just the same regarding courtiers and their homage to sovereigns. As Chesterfield reminds his son, it was respectful to bow to the King of England, but at that time it was rather a rudeness than otherwise to bow to the King of France.

And now let us contemplate the outward presence of the official fool. From the oldest period, the jester is represented bald, and wise men, monks at least, adopted the fashion. They shaved their heads, like fools, says Agrippa, in his discourse on Vanity. The fashion, however, was very ancient. The Greek Gelatopoios (laughter-maker), the Mimes, and the Moriones, are never represented otherwise but bald.

As with the natural, so with the artificial covering of the head, the fools and the monks followed, or nearly followed, one mode. The hood attached to the cloak was the covering for a fool, with an addition signified in a remark of Erasmus, that the Franciscans only wanted asses’ ears and bells, to look like fools by profession. The Franciscans would seem to have intended some such profession, for they called themselves _Mundi Moriones_, or Fools of the World. And it was not an unusual thing to meet with highly religious persons who styled themselves, some, “God’s Fools,” others, “Christ’s Fools.” Thus, in 1382, Conrad von Queinfurt, a priest, prays in his epitaph, “Christe, tuum Mimum salvum facias!” As a jester would address a sovereign to have mercy on his poor fool, so did Conrad address Christ. This fashion was adopted by Homagius, in 1609; when that pious personage called himself, “Fool in the Court of God,” or “God’s Court Fool.”

The ass’s ears further distinguished our ancient and merry friend. The _Vice_ in old English plays wore a fool’s cap with ears, a long jacket, and at his side a wooden sword. Learned men have looked into Greek, and found there the origin of this word _Vice_. But, as far as it signifies this dramatic fool, Flögel’s derivation of it, from the old Frank word _Vis_ (phiz), a face, a mask, may be accepted. _Visdase_, another old word for fool, is derived by Ménage from “_Vis d’âne_” (ass-face), and Vizard is a known term amongst ourselves for the mask or counterfeit representation, usually comic, of a face.

This derivation seems more satisfactory than that given by Upton, who tells us that “Old Vice was a droll character in our old plays, accoutred with a long coat, a cap, a pair of ass’s ears, and a dagger of lath. This buffoon character was used _to make fun with the devil_; and he had several trite expressions, as, ‘I’ll be with you in a trice. Ah, hah, boy, are you there?’ etc.; and this was great entertainment to the audience, to see their old enemy so belaboured in effigy. Vice seems to be an abbreviation of Vice-devil,--as Vice-roy, Vice-doge, etc., and therefore called, very properly, ‘The Vice.’ He makes very free with his master, like most other Vice-roys or Prime Ministers, so that he is the devil’s Vice, or Prime Minister. And,” adds Mr. Upton, “this it is which makes him so saucy.”

In that dialogue of which Erasmus is the author, called the ‘_Franciscani_,’ Conrad, the monk, asks Pandocheus, “Are not fools dressed otherwise than wise men?” “Well,” says Pandocheus, “I do not know which dress would be most suitable for you; but you only lack long ears and little bells, to look like the fools themselves.” “Ay,” replied Conrad, “we have not those adornments, and we are plainly fools as regards the things of this world; if we are what we profess to be.” “I know nothing about that,” rejoins Pandocheus; “but I do know that there are many fools, with elongated ears and tinkling bells, who are far wiser men than they who wear the whole insignia of a doctor.” He even goes so far as to assert, that there were some who outdid the University philosophers in their lectures, and who, of course, were twenty times as amusing;--the cockscomb outdoing the doctoral hat.

The cockscomb which surmounted the headpiece of the fool, is too familiar to require description. Its antiquity however is undoubted, since Lucian describes, in his ‘Lapithæ,’ the appearance of a jester with closely-shorn head, except at the top, where it was left in the form of the “comb” which decorates the head of the cock.

The fool carried a stick, staff, or club, which, according to Flögel, was originally nothing more than the plant (_Typha_ Linnæi) which grows in marshes, and which was commonly known as the fools’ club, or sceptre. It was afterwards usual to furnish the jester with one made of leather, something in the shape of Hercules’ club, with a loop to hang it from the arm. It was such an emblem of his vocation as this that a fool once received from his lord, with the command never to give it up except to a greater fool than himself. Some months after, the donor fell ill, the doctor visited him frequently, and the latter being asked on one occasion of his leaving the house, what he thought of the patient, roughly answered, “He’ll be off soon; he won’t stop here long.”

The fool heard the words, ran into the stables, and seeing no preparation for departure, shook his head as if perplexed. The next day, he heard a similar remark from the doctor,--again looked into the stables, and observing all quiet there, went up to the chamber of his sick master.

“The doctor,” whispered he, “declares that you are going to leave us. How long will you be away, master mine? a year?”

“Longer, much longer, merry friend,” said the lord. “So long, that coming back is out of all question.”

“But I see no preparation in the stables--”

“No, nor elsewhere!” groaned the sick man.

“Then I beg to give you my club,” said the jester; “for if you are setting out on a journey which you know you must make, and from which you also know you will never come back, and all this without getting anything ready for it, assuredly, master, you are a greater fool than I. But, perhaps, it is not too late for remedy.”

It is said that the poor fool’s words touched the rich man’s heart, and that the latter, by prayer, prepared for his own journey; and by will provided for the comfort of those of his kin and household who were to tarry here, till summoned to tread the same inevitable road.

The club and the fool’s whip are supposed by some to have descended from the old wooden sword of the comic actor. To these two succeeded the slender staff with the fool’s head delicately carved at the top, which remained one of the signs of his office till the office itself had passed away. The broad frill was probably not adopted by the fool until the exaggeration of fashion had rendered it ridiculous. It still lingers round the necks of Scaramouch, Pierrot, and others of the family “Stultorum.”

Lastly, a fool was only half a fool without his bells. To show whence this ornament was derived, Flögel has ransacked libraries, and displayed a stupendous amount of learning to remarkably little purpose;--if that purpose were, to determine why they were worn by jesters. It is going to a period more than sufficiently remote, to say, that golden bells hung from the robe of the Jewish High Priest, and not for ornament only. They told of his presence; they rang man to thoughts of God; they rang away all the ill words that had fallen from human tongues; they represented the divine shadow; they warned men of death;--these and a hundred other significations have been found in the golden bells of the solemn High Priest.

Further, the Eastern kings, and especially the Persian, were as famous for the bells they wore as the lady in the ballad about Banbury Cross. It was but the other day that the ex-Queen of Oude was received by our own Sovereign Lady, when the head-dress or crown of the former was remarkable for its number of jingling ornaments, which sounded like bells. Christian bishops early adopted this mode, and for many centuries subsequent to this, the pictures of some of the greatest personages, male and female, royal and noble, represent them with bells of fine fashion, attached to neck-chains, bracelets, or girdle. Knights wore them on their armour, ladies on their zones; and people who were in the very highest of the mode attached them to their shoes. When this was the custom, the continual jingle at tournament or ball must have been deafening; and, what was worse, if cavalier and demoiselle bethought themselves of taking a quiet walk together beneath the oaks in the woods, every rustic near was made the confidant of the pleasant matter, as far as bells could do it. The folly of this was so patent, that we cannot wonder at fools mounting the bells in their caps.

Indeed, they mounted them not only in their caps, but on every part of the body. This was especially the case in the fifteenth century, when the fashion of wearing bells was abandoned to the professional merry-men. The mode itself, too, would seem to have prevailed in the East. As late as the seventeenth century, Tartar princes seldom stirred abroad in their barbaric splendour without a little knot of quaintly-dressed “Chaouls,” or fools, running in front of the gorgeous company, at whose every step the bells attached to their shoulders, knees, elbows, ankles, etc., jingled merrily. The Chaouls excited the mirth of their rather moody masters by satirical songs as they went along. In this latter custom we find a trace of the old usage of the Roman imperial soldiery who, at the ovations of Emperors, enjoyed full license of tongue, and took advantage of the triumph of their lord, to pelt him in rude songs with sly, rather than censuring, remarks alluding to his known or supposed vices. Suetonius furnishes us with more than one example of this sort.

As it was said in the olden time that there was no feast without a Levite, so, at a later period, there was no festival without a fool. That the latter custom proved a lack of civilization may perhaps be seen in the fact, that among savage nations a somewhat similar custom prevails. In its extreme form we find it among the old Kamtchatkans, whose gala days were rendered doubly joyous by the performances of the jesters by vocation. One sample however of the jokes of these gentlemen may suffice. This consists in harnessing themselves to sledges like dogs; by their close imitation of which animal in every respect, they excited roars of laughter from their not too delicate audience.

The fools who bustled about on the tournament ground of our knightly forefathers, were less gross in their merriment. They were for ever busy, before, during, and after the contest. While it was raging, they performed the part of the ancient Chorus, making sharp remarks on the proceedings, now full of pity, anon exulting; and as ready to help a favourite knight to victory, as to tender succour to his foe when fallen.

The year 1480 was, in one sense, the very jubilee year of German fools. It was then that took place the famous tournament described by Marx Walther, at which were present not less than fifteen professional fools, in splendid but grotesque uniform. Two of these were mounted, and headed the respective companies of opposing knights, playing lustily the while on screeching bagpipes. It was their delight to raise the wildest screaming from these instruments, as the adversaries rushed to the combat. They might not hope to frighten the knights, but they often succeeded in frightening the horses; at which, loudly laughed the gentle company. Of the remainder of the grotesque children of folly, eleven were engaged in racing, leaping, tumbling, and wildly joking. The remaining two galloped about the arena, sometimes with young fools, sometimes young nobles, on their backs. These fought their mock tournaments; and as the fools went prancing to the charge and rolled over one another in the dust, amid volleys of jokes of every possible description, the spectators condescended to be amused therewith till sterner fighters took the scene, and the breath which had been wasted in laughter, was now held in suspense.

While the combat was proceeding, the most restless of the fools would perhaps try to seek repose with his head reclining on a tin pot, into which, as he remarked, he had stuffed a whole sack-full of feathers to render his pillow softer. When a knight was slain, the fool had at his service a brief epitaph: “Here you are, gentle Sir, quiet for once in your lifetime!” These jokes of the old arena descended to the clowns of the circus; and manuals of wit continue to make mention of their sallies.

The descent was natural enough. As noble lords and ladies patronized fools who figured in the lists, so common people welcomed them at their village festivals. Some districts kept their own fools. There were others who raised to that distinction any “poor natural” of the locality, out of whose peculiarities or infirmities it was possible to extract something to laugh at. In some places, fools were hired on great occasions, to amuse a company unable to amuse itself. In the sixteenth century this appears to have been the case at notable Greek weddings in the Levant. Schweigger describes the nuptial feast (at which he was present) in 1578, of a patriarchal protonotary with a certain Irene Moschini, at which all the jollity was produced by a Jewish fool and other hirelings of the like amusing vocation.

The Jews themselves employed jesters to enliven their own wedding feasts. This was the case in Silesia as late as the last century. The company sat gravely enough till the indispensable jokers and tumblers were introduced, and _then_ the fun was of the oddest, if not most refined, sort. But the Silesian Jews were a simple people, unacquainted with the mendacity and dreariness of wedding-breakfast speeches. Their fools had full license to abuse truth, but not to be dreary.

In passing now to the fools of different courts and localities, I will, by the way, notice a class which may claim precedence, by right of sex. I therefore proceed to say a few words of the FEMALE FOOLS.

THE FEMALE FOOLS.

I do not know any earlier instance of a retained female fool than in the case of the wife of Seneca, who kept in her house one named Harpaste, and whom the philosopher describes as _fatua_, adding that he himself found no pleasure in such objects; and (as I have quoted in another page) that if he found it necessary to take delight in contemplating a fool, he had not far to go,--having only to look in a mirror. Harpaste may have been retained out of charity, for she was so witless that, becoming suddenly blind, she was not conscious of her calamity; but, remarking how very dark it was in the house, asked the pædagogus to lead her out-of-doors.

Seneca, it will be remembered, loved folly as little in a philosopher as in the fool by vocation. “He,” observes the son of the Cordovaner, “who duly considers the business of life and death, will find that he has little time to spare from that study. And yet, how we trifle away our hours upon niceties and cavils! Will Plato’s imaginary ideas make me an honest man?... _A mouse is a syllable, but a syllable does not eat cheese; therefore a mouse does not eat cheese?_ Oh, these childish follies!... We are jesting, when we should help the miserable,--ourselves, as well as others.”

Jeanne, Queen of Charles I. of France, maintained a female fool of the name of Artaude du Puy, but of whom we know nothing more than that she cost her mistress, or rather the royal treasury, a considerable sum, for dress. There is an unpublished autograph letter of Charles, dated January 3, 1373, an extract from which, printed by the author of ‘_Les Monnaies des Évêques_,’ etc., shows that the King orders his treasurers to pay Jean Mandoli, furrier and citizen of Paris, the sum of 179 gold francs, for certain gauds and braveries of woman’s dress, furnished “to Artaude du Puy, Fole to our dear companion, the Queen.”

In 1429, we hear of a _moult gracieuse folle_ (she is so called by St. Remy), whose name was Madame d’Or, and whose wit kept all the nobles laughing at the festival in honour of the institution of the Golden Fleece, at Bruges, in 1429. A _folle_ was also attached to the household of Margaret, the granddaughter of Charles the Bold. Her position in the household is clearly ascertained by the fact that, when moving abroad, she followed her mistress in a chariot, accompanied by the “_old_ ladies in waiting.”

In the succeeding century, in the year 1561, we find a woman, named La Jardinière, registered as “Fole de la Royne,” attached to the rather gloomy household of the Queen Dowager, Catherine de Medicis. Catherine seems to have patronized this sort of official, for in 1568, and for at least four subsequent years, there was a certain _Jacquette_, who held in the Queen’s establishment the office of “Plaisante de la Royne.”

As far, however, as witty license of speech went, Catherine’s court ladies not unfrequently excelled the court fools, male or female. They did not, indeed, let their lightly-hung tongues ring out at Majesty itself; but they observed no such restraint with anybody beneath the rank, even though the individual might be above the King himself in power. I may instance, as a case in point, the mighty Cardinal of Lorraine, who, despite all his puissance, was often the butt of the lively ladies of the Court of Catherine de Medicis and her royal sons. Brantôme says of this gay and intellectual priest, that, when things went well with him, his arrogance was insufferable; but that no one could be more courteous, or more humble, when his projects met with obstruction. One of the Queen’s maids-of-honour, Mdlle. de la Guyonnière, afterwards Madame de Ligneroles, often carried on a fool’s war with the redoubted Cardinal. Whenever the latter appeared to be meek and polite with this lady,--she, who, according to Brantôme’s pleasant compendium, “étoist très habile fille, belle, honneste, et qui disoit bien le mot,” would, with audacious gaiety, exclaim, “Come, come, meek Sir, tell us now if you have not met with some check during the night past? Confess at once that you have been humbled, or we will have nothing to say to you; for, most assuredly, you have encountered some defeat. So, let us hear all about it, if you would have us gracious with you.”

At a later period, we find another lady whose wit was wont to give mirth to courtly circles, if not to the French Court itself. I allude to the sister of that younger De Thou who was executed, by Richelieu, in 1642, for not revealing the conspiracy headed by Cinq-Mars, who had trusted the secret of it with his friend. In after-years, this lady attended the funeral service of the Cardinal, or a service held for the repose of his soul. And there she set the noble persons present into scarcely suppressed laughter, by exclaiming, as she gazed at the coffin where Richelieu lay, or was supposed to lie,--in the words of Martha to Christ, after the death of Lazarus,--“Domine, si fuisses hîc, frater meus non esset mortuus.” (“Lord, if thou hadst been _here_, my brother had not died.”) It was very apt, though a little profane.

To return to the official female fool, we must go back to the Court of the father of the King, under whom this lady lived, namely, the Court of Henri IV. There was there a Mathurine, who seems to have held the office of _Plaisante_, not to the Queen exclusively, but for the benefit and amusement of the Court generally. Of what quality was the wit of these _plaisantes_, some of whom I think were dwarfs, I am unable to say; the only certain fact I can tell of them is, that they, though not more than the male fools, continued to wear out the soles of their shoes with great rapidity. The registers of accounts show an extraordinary consumption of shoe leather. In the ‘_Collection de la Chambre des Comptes_,’ under the year 1319, thirty-two pairs of shoes are set down as having been supplied _at one time_ to the Queen’s dwarf!

It is said of Mathurine that she employed her wit in laughing people out of the Huguenot faith into Catholicism. Mathurine was present in 1594 when Jean Chastel wounded Henri, in his attempt on that king’s life, and she ran great risk of sharing the fate of the would-be assassin, for the monarch, aware of her frantic zeal for the Roman Catholic Church, and that she only looked on Henri as half a Romanist, or believing that she was playing too serious a joke by right of her office, ordered her under arrest as an accomplice. Mathurine, however, proved her innocence, and was set free. She died previous to the year 1627.

De Tillot quotes two authors who make mention of this female fool, Mathurine. The first is the anonymous author of ‘La Lunatique,’ who, addressing the King’s male jester, “Maître Guillaume,” remarks: “Thou doest well to have small love for the Reformers. Satan himself looks on them only with regret; and for a good reason, seeing that if the Reformers could have their way, there would soon be an end of court fools and buffoons. Ah, poor Mathurine, and you poor fellows, Angoulevent, Maître Guillaume, and indeed all you other fools, as well without hoods as with, where would all your pensions be if the Reformers had the upper hand?”

It is a significant fact, this, of the Reformers being the opponents of the expensive follies, and their professors, patronized at Court. Ogive, the second author cited by De Tillot, speaks also of Mathurine, as a salaried fool, appointed by the King: “Folle à gages, et appointée du Roi.” He writes, in 1627, saying, “Truly it is a marvellous thing that noble personages, who have been brought up all their lives with the parrots and apes of the Louvre, and who do not less belong to the Court than Mathurine did, or the Queen-Mother’s dwarfs _do_, should not have learnt in their cabinets to write reasonably.”

Thirty-four years after this was written, a Spanish _folle_ appeared at the French Court, and in rather suspicious society; that of Don John of Austria, who accompanied the famous Pimentel to Paris, to negotiate the marriage of Maria Theresa of Spain with the young Louis XIV. (a marriage which, as it was to put an end to the war, was more cared for by Mazarin than a union which might have taken place between the Cardinal’s most clever niece, Marie Mancini, and the French king). Don John had the impudence to present at court this woman, whom he called his “Folle.” She was full of fun and wit, and every one sought to excite both. Louis enjoyed her jokes with wonderful zest. Her name was Capiton, and no party was thought complete without the presence of the Don’s _Folle_. The cudgelling of brains between her and Marie Mancini was a gladiatorial fight. Poor Marie had loved Louis, and Louis was warmly attached to a woman who had awakened in him the only good qualities he ever possessed, and who saved him from being such a mere beast as his successor was. Capiton loved to provoke Marie, by singing the praises of the Spanish Infanta, and Marie, sharp-witted, as well as sharply wounded by these praises of a rival who was to triumph over her, replied by sarcasms that were repeated with intense delight throughout France. The haughty, eccentric, coarse, and sensual Don John was proud of his Folle Capiton.

The official female fool survived as late as the year 1722, when we meet with a certain Kathrin Lise. She was the duly-appointed jokeress, if I may so speak, to the Duchess von Sachsen-Weissenfels-Dahme, who resided in the castle of Drehna, and depended upon Kathrin for her mirth. This is all we know of the last of the line of female jesters.

* * * * *

Before proceeding to sketch an historical outline of our own English fools, I propose to treat briefly of the Eastern buffoons. These may fairly claim precedence, on the ground that in the East the fashion of maintaining household fools is supposed to have originated, and that it has not yet expired in that locality. Further, there is, in connection with barbaric Courts, both in the East and the West, some legendary matter connected with the Fool, of which it may be as well finally to dispose, prior to dealing with the English jester as an historical character.

THE ORIENTAL “NOODLE.”

As I have just stated, the court or household fool probably originated in the East. The close of this Chapter will show that in the East that pleasant or pretentious official still survives. In a region where aberration of mind is taken to be a sort of divine inspiration, we need not wonder at finding the professional jester still attached to certain families, and himself and his vocation treated with a certain degree of respect.

I have already spoken of the buffoons who could not move the gravity of their own solemn master Attila; and we know that Timour rather kept these people for the amusement of his guests, than that he experienced any satisfaction himself in the exercise of their craft. They were not wanting in the Courts of the Caliphs, and the name of Bahalul conspicuously figures among the cap-and-bell favourites of Haroon Al-Raschid. It was to him that the Caliph once said, “Fool, give me a list of all the blockheads in Bagdad.” To which Bahalul answered, “That were not so easy, and would take too long; but if you want a list of the wise men, you shall have it in two minutes.”

It was in jest that Haroon presented him a document, by which he was constituted governor of all the bears, wolves, foxes, apes, and asses, in the Caliphate. “It is too much for me,” said the fool; “I am not ambitious enough to desire to rule all your holiness’s subjects.”

Bahalul one day, finding no one in the throne-room of the sovereign father of the faithful, seated himself on the cushions of the priest-monarch. The guards near were horror-stricken at beholding the jester on the sacred couch of authority, imitating the manners of Haroon himself; just as Chicot, long after, used to mimic those of Henri III. They speedily dragged him from the throne of cushions, and began bastinadoing him with such violence that the Caliph, hearing his cries, entered the hall and demanded the reason of the outcry. “Uncle,” said Bahalul, “I am not screaming on my own account, but on yours. I pity you. I have only tried royalty for five minutes, and I am already in a fever with pain inflicted by these fellows. What must you endure, then, who occupy the same distinguished seat every day!”

Bahalul seems to have been a dissipated fellow, and the Caliph enjoined him to marry and live discreetly, loving his wife, and bringing up his family in honour. The jester so far obeyed as to go through the nuptial ceremony; but as he was conducting his wife to her apartment, the uncourteous bridegroom suddenly paused, looked as if he were petrified, and declaring that he had never heard such a tumult in his life, took to his heels, and did not re-appear for months. Meanwhile, the deserted bride had procured a divorce, and _then_ Bahalul made his _rentrée_ at Court.

“So!” exclaimed the Caliph, with an inquiring air.

“Ay, ay!” cried the fool, “you would have done as I did. The tumult scared me away beyond the hills.”

“What tumult?” asked Haroon.

“Why,” said Bahalul, “as my wife was entering her room, there came from her, sounds as of a thousand voices. Amid them, I could distinguish the cries of ‘rent! taxes! doctors! sons! daughters! schooling! dress! silks! satins! muslins! drawers! slippers! money! more money! debt! imprisonment! and Bahalul has drowned himself in the Caliph’s bath!--therewith,” added the jester, “terrified at the solemn warning, and wishing to avoid the profanity of plunging my person into your brightness’s bath, I fled, till the danger was over, and--here I am; owing nothing, and disinclined to drown myself.”

Bahalul, however, was not the most favourite jester of this Caliph. There is no doubt that the most renowned of these was Ebn Oaz. We have indeed but one sample of his quality, but that is excellent. Unfortunately, it is also well known; but it must not be omitted in this record of the fraternity. Haroon, it is said, desired to exhibit the best qualities of the wit in presence of the young Sultana and her brilliant court; and he suddenly ordered Ebn Oaz to make some excuse which should be more offensive than the crime it was to extenuate. After considerable thought, Oaz slunk away, and the disappointed spectators were speaking of him as “incapable,” when the Caliph, suddenly starting up from his seat, with a roar and a look of exquisite anguish, set the whole court in confusion. The fact was, that Ebn Oaz had gone behind the curtains of the throne, and, opening them gently, had given the Caliph so astounding a pinch in the rear, that he sprang up as if a javelin had pierced him. Looking on the offender with rage and anguish, he ordered him to be slain for the treasonable and intolerable assault. “Stay!” said Oaz to the too-ready officials, who were already fingering their bow-strings. “Hear my excuse,” added he, turning to the Caliph; “I declare, by way of apology, that when I pinched your Holiness behind, I thought I was pinching the Sultana, your wife.” Haroon saw at once that the excuse was worse than the crime, and that he ought to be delighted; but he only laughed in a forced way, remarking to the Sultana, before he resumed his seat, that he felt he should not forget the joke for some time to come.

This story has been made wonderful use of, and has been dished up in a hundred different ways in a hundred different localities. It belongs, however, originally to the East, as do so many other of our most ancient and accepted anecdotes. I believe that all the facetiæ of Hierocles were old Indian, before they were new Greek stories, and that the “simpleton” who clung to the anchor when the ship was sinking,--who stood before a mirror with his eyes closed, to see how he looked when asleep,--who carried about with him a brick of his house, as a specimen of the building,--who made the experiment of keeping a horse alive without food, only failing to succeed by the premature death of the steed;--all these, and some dozens of others like them, had all drawn laughter from Eastern potentates before they began to raise a smile in the fairer faces of the Hellenes. But these stories only amused; and the jester had the prerogative of being free, as well as the duty of being entertaining.

This freedom of the jester, and the good use to which he could apply his joke and his license, is exemplified in the case of the town-fool who entered the hall where Mahmoud Ghizni was seated in full assembly. Without appearing to be conscious of the illustrious presence and the august company, he went prying about into the corners of the hall, as if in search of some particular object. At length, said he, “Not one!”

“Not one what?” roared the Ghiznian.

“Sheep’s tail!” said the fool, in a tone of voice which set every one in a roar of laughter.

“It’s no laughing matter,” added he; “I am starving, and all I ask is a sheep’s tail for my dinner.”

“Nay!” cried Mahmoud, “thou shalt have one;” and whispering to an official who stood near, the latter personage presently brought in a raw vegetable, which in its shape somewhat closely resembled the long, heavy, and unctuous tail of the Eastern sheep. The fool took it without observation; and, after thanks to the Prophet for excellent mutton, he began devouring it. Observing that the monarch smiled, the jester asked him, with the tail in his mouth, if what he was doing reminded his Majesty of anything.

“Of what should a sheep’s tail in thy mouth remind me,” said Mahmoud, “except of the proverb that ‘Extremes meet’?” The fool was overwhelmed for awhile by the laughter duly shouted forth by the subordinates at their great master’s joke, but he soon recovered himself, and when Mahmoud asked him what he thought of his joint, he answered, “That the thing was eatable enough, but that he observed that sheep’s tails were by no means so fat and well-flavoured as they had been in the days of his Majesty’s predecessor; but that, as men were more lean, too, now, than they used to be, perhaps the fact alluded to was of no material consequence.”

“Thou art not such a fool as thou pretendest to be,” said the sovereign. “It was but yesterday that one of thy profession told me of the gratitude the owls felt for me, because of the many ruined villages in the land; and now thou hintest at the misery of the people. Go thy way, good fellow, and go thy way with full stomach, and assurance that both evils shall yet be remedied.”

In the sixteenth century, when Baber was Emperor of Hindostan, the merry profession was in favour, but the furnishers of amusement for the monarch comprised others besides jesters. Thus, at state dinners, as soon as the imperial host and his guests took their places, tumblers, rope-dancers, and jugglers, whom no other country could equal, exhibited their feats. The highest point of fun was when the scattering of coin among the performers, excited a huge uproar. In earlier times, the wordy contests of two fools used to beguile the half-hour before dinner; but in Baber’s days, he and similar potentates were wont to be exceedingly well amused by witnessing a couple of rams butting at each other. It was perhaps as rational for royalty so to do, as to listen to Ethiopian serenaders chanting harmonized nonsense.

Some writers have classed the “Mutes” among the professional fools of the Eastern courts. This would seem to be an error not easily accounted for. The duty of that official was of a rather severe cast. The fool, however, was well known among the Turks, and perhaps the most celebrated was that Nasur ed Deen Chodscha, who was in the service of the first Bajazet, and who joked to such excellent effect that he once tickled Timour Leng into such good humour that the latter paid the fool the high compliment of saving from plunder his native town Jengi-Scheher (Neapolis). It was done after this wise:--

The inhabitants of the city, hearing of the approach of the conqueror, prepared to defend themselves with vigour. Nasur counselled them to do nothing of the sort, but to trust to him alone, and his mediation with Timour. The people were doubtful of his success, but they yielded. Before proceeding to the camp of the besieger, Nasur, who knew it was useless to approach the great chief without a present, considered what gift was likely to be most acceptable. He resolved it should be fruit, but he hesitated between figs and quinces. “I will consult with my wife,” said Nasur ed Deen, and he according did so. The lady advised him to take quinces, as the larger fruit. “Very good,” said Nasur, “that being your opinion, I will take figs.” When he reached the foot of the throne of Tamerlane, he announced himself as the ambassador from the beleaguered citizens, and presented, as an offering of their homage, his trumpery basket of figs. The chief burst into a rage, and ordered them to be flung at the head of the representative of the people of Jengi-Scheher. The courtiers pelted him with right good will; and each time he was struck, Nasur, who stood patient and immovable, gently exclaimed, “Now Allah be praised!” or, “Oh, the Prophet be thanked!” or, “Oh, admirable! how can I be sufficiently grateful?”

“What dost thou mean, fellow?” asked Timour; “we pelt you with figs, and you seem to enjoy it!”

“Ay, truly, great Sir,” replied Nasur; “I gratefully enjoy the consequence of my own wit. My wife counselled me to bring quinces, but I chose to bring figs; and well that I did, for with figs you have only bruised me, but had I brought quinces, you would have beaten my brains out.”

The stern conqueror laughed aloud, and declared that, for the sake of one fool, he would spare all the asses in the city, male and female, them and their property.

“Then,” cried Nasur, “the entire population is safe!” and he ran homewards to communicate the joyful intelligence.

Nasur, indeed, ranks among the most useful, as well as the most witty, of his ancient vocation. On one occasion, Bajazet had condemned many scores of his officers to death, for some trifling offence, in time of war. “Ay, indeed,” exclaimed the fool, “hang the knaves! hang them! what use are they? kill them for small offences, and rogues will fear to commit greater! excellent wisdom! Timour is at hand; away with them before he comes! The army can do without leaders. You take the standard; I will beat the drum; and we will thus meet that troublesome individual at the head of the forces. We will see how we can handle the Tartars, without such knaves as these to help us!” Bajazet comprehended the implied reproof, and spared the well-proved and lightly-offending leaders of his host.

On another occasion, Nasur, having succeeded so well with his figs, acknowledged the clemency of Timour, by presenting him with a few fresh gherkins, for the great warrior’s supper. The chief ordered him a reward of ten gold crowns, and Nasur went home rejoiced. When the season came that other gherkins had grown into cucumbers, Nasur, expecting commensurate recompense, carried to the residence of Timour a basket full of the refreshing vegetable. The door-keeper, however, refused to allow him to pass until he had agreed to give him half the reward that might be paid to Nasur by order of the chief. It happened that the latter was “not i’ the vein,” and instead of commanding a recompense of gold crowns, he sentenced the unfortunate gift-bearer to receive a hundred blows from the stick. Nasur took fifty patiently; but _then_ he cried to the unpleasant official to hold his hand; and he explained how the other half of the acknowledgment belonged to the door-keeper. Timour swore that the stipulation should be observed, and the remaining half-hundred blows were paid where they were justly due.

A whole Encyclopædia might be written of the sayings and doings of the Eastern “simpletons,” alone. My space is too limited to allow of my doing much more than to offer a few illustrations; but, to those who have much curiosity in the matter, and who may not be disinclined to spend whole hours with a single class of the Oriental Fools, I recommend the well-known book, which contains the birth, parentage, and education, life, character, and behaviour, lively sayings, last dying speech and confession of the Gooroo Noodle. From that tempting chronicle, I return to the “Toorke” jester, with the remark that, great as was his freedom of speech, it was not every witty fellow at Court who was so licensed. The courtier who ventured to take a liberty with a Turkish potentate was as uncertain, as to the effect, as the Roman wits were when bold enough to joke with the Emperor. Selim, the son of Bajazet, was one with whom the most favoured of his followers could not with impunity venture on freedom of speech. When engaged on his Egyptian expedition, one of his officials the most closely attached to his person, hazarded the question as to when his Majesty expected to be at Cairo. “_We_ shall be there,” said Selim, “when it may please God. As for thy arrival there, it rather pleases me that thou shalt stay here.” And therewith, on a sign from the Sultan, the unlucky querist was instantly put to death.

Murad the Third, though as savage by nature as Selim, could take a joke better than his predecessor could a simple question. There was one thing, however, which he could _not_ tolerate--tobacco; the use of which he punished with death. But among the few members of his court was a man renowned for his wit, and for his power of raising the spirits of the Sultan, even when these had been depressed by a three days’ fit of drunkenness. Now this court-wit loved smoking, and was resolved, not only to have his pipe, but to escape the penalty of death attached to the enjoyment of it. Accordingly, he caused a deep pit to be dug in his tent, and when he desired to give himself up to his dearest indulgence, he would descend into it, sitting there concealed by a sieve-like construction drawn over the top, and lightly covered with turf. One evening, Murad became sagacious of the hookah from afar, and, tracing the offender to the very pit in which he was quietly smoking, threatened him with instant death. The offender, however, coolly thrusting his head upward, as he provokingly drew another mouthful of reeking luxury, exclaimed, “Go to, thou son of a bond-woman! Thy edicts extend _over_ the earth, certainly; but they do not extend under it.” “Take thy life for thy joke,” said Murad, laughing and coughing,--the first at the jest, and the second at the odour and vapour, which he detested,--“I only wish thy pipe were as enjoyable as thy wit.”

Many samples of this sort I could continue to place before my readers; but, having regard to the patience of those who have so often borne patiently with me, I will only trace the Eastern jester down to modern times. Till after the commencement of the present century, the courts of the Hospodars of Moldavia and Wallachia were never without the mirthful official. The latter was usually an Armenian. Indeed, there were, ordinarily, several at each court. Their duty was to amuse their lord when he was at table, by every means in their power, by strange remarks, by droll stories, or by burlesques more or less extravagant. In processions, they walked before their masters, and carried long staves covered with silver bells. Since they fell into disuse, the Gipsies succeeded to the exercise of one part of their office, and these are admitted to the palaces of the great, on particular festivals, to amuse their illustrious hearers with national and comic songs.

From a very early period, the public and private buffoons of the East seem to have been selected from among the Armenians. Joinville introduces to us some very sprightly professionals of this sort, in his ‘History of St. Louis.’ “There came with the Prince,” he says, “three minstrels from Armenia (trois ménestriers de la Grande Hyrménie). They carried three horns, and when they began to perform on them, you might have taken the sound for that of swans. They produced the softest melody....” He then informs us how, having fulfilled their office of minstrels, they performed that of buffoons, for the amusement of the illustrious personages present. “They made three marvellous leaps (_sauts_); ... a cloth (_touaille_) being placed beneath their feet, they threw a somersault upon it, without any spring, and two of them leaped in this way, head backwards.”

The old fashion in the East did not altogether expire till a very recent period, for we find a jester at the court of the father of the present Sultan of Turkey. It was said of some eminent individual, that he had made two centuries illustrious; and something like it may be said of this oriental jester, who flourished at the court of Constantinople at the close of the last, and above a quarter of the present century. In 1836 died Abdi Bey, who, for nearly half a century previous, had been the favourite jester of successive Sultans. He worked hard and reaped a large fortune. In the early part of his career, his masters treated him as a mere brutish buffoon, on whom they might play any trick. Sometimes they set him off in a gallop, mounted on a giraffe, or tumbled him headlong into a pond, to the danger of his life. The late Sultan Mahmoud had no stomach for such sorry jokes, and Abdi Bey devoted his capacity to keep his patron in good spirits by amusing him with smart sayings and pleasant stories. He must have been an incomparable fool in his time, or his masters must have been greater fools than he, for out of their imperial bounty, he contrived to save £150,000, which he left to his grateful and deeply-resigned heirs. It was nearly as much as the late Mr. Greenough made by the manufacture of lozenges--“ten a penny!”

Abdi Bey has been called the last of the household buffoons. But this is not the case; for though the official fool has disappeared from Court, he is still to be found attached to families, or heads of families. We even meet with this rather impudent than merry fellow in the household of Christian Patriarchs. Only a few years ago, when the Nestorian Patriarch was flying, with a large number of his followers, from their would-be murderers in the mountains, they found refuge at Mosul, in the houses of the English Consul and the Rev. Mr. Fletcher. The latter gentleman, in his ‘Notes from Nineveh,’ so describes his reverence’s buffoon as to induce us to believe that to have much to do with him was really “no joke at all.” “My new guests,” he says, “were very orderly in their manners, though wild in their appearance. Only one decided quarrel broke out among them during their abode with me; and this was occasioned by a half-crazy old man who served the Patriarch in the double capacity of a domestic and buffoon. This worthy was addicted, like many of his countrymen, to the vice of intoxication; and having on one occasion partaken rather freely of the juice of the grape, he grew riotous, and addressed a reproachful epithet to one of his companions. The fiery nature of the mountaineer was excited, and he retorted in no complimentary terms. The old buffoon drew his dagger, and made a rush at his antagonist, who retreated into an inner apartment and shut the door. Nothing could equal the rage of old Yohanan at being thus baulked of his vengeance. Two or three times he burst from those who were restraining him, and drove his knife into the hard wood of the door. At length he was quieted, and after sleeping-off his drunkenness, appeared the next morning with a sober and abashed countenance.” I suppose old Yohanan was past being amusing, for we are subsequently told, that to raise the drooping spirits of the Patriarch, an itinerant Italian juggler was hired. At _his_ tricks and witticisms the pious head of the Nestorian Church forgot the slaughter of his friends and the devastation of their and his homesteads. The saintly and sympathetic man laughed till he could hardly sit upright on his cushions, and only ceased then because some wonderful stroke of the juggler’s art induced him suddenly to suspect that such marvellous proficiency was only an inspiration of the devil.

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By way of supplement to this Chapter, I will add a few short illustrations of the jester at other barbarous courts than those of the East;--and first, of “that beyond the Atlantic.”

When Cortez first visited the court of Montezuma, he found there various instances of high civilization:--among others, light ladies, strong drinks, court fools, and a spirit of infidelity against the established church, inspired by an influence called the “Rational Owl.” The Aztec monarch resembled Heliogabalus in one respect;--“he had a museum,” says Brantz Mayer, in his excellent work, ‘Mexico, Aztec, Spanish, and Republican,’ “in which, with an oddity of taste unparalleled in history, there had been collected a vast number of human monsters, cripples, dwarfs, albinos, and other freaks and caprices of nature.” Bernal Diaz saw the monarch at dinner, and among the incidents recorded by the old Spaniard, is, that, “at different intervals during the time of dinner, there entered certain Indians, hump-backed, very deformed and ugly, who played tricks of buffoonery; and others, who they said were jesters.” The fashion of maintaining the latter was followed by the nobles. “The principal men,” says Acoste, quoted by Prescott, “had also buffoons and jugglers in their service, who amused them, and astonished the Spaniards by their feats of dexterity and strength.”

Montezuma patronized rather the witty buffoons than the skilful jugglers. “Indeed, he used to say, that more instruction was to be gathered from them than from wiser men, for they dared to tell the truth.” Prescott adds in a note, founded on Clavigero, that “the Aztec mountebanks had such repute, that Cortez sent two of them to Rome, to amuse his Holiness, Clement VII.” This was only an exchange of personages of similar profession, for the European official house fool had already been imported into America. In 1519, at St. Jago, when Velasquez the governor was beginning to be suspicious of the designs of Cortez to supplant him, the two great men were walking together towards the port. As they passed on, the fool of the former called aloud, “Have a care, Master Velasquez, or we shall have to go a-hunting, some day or other, after this same captain of ours.” “Do you hear what the rogue says?” exclaimed the Governor to his companion. “Do not heed him,” said Cortez, “he is a saucy knave, and deserves a good whipping.” The hint of the fool, however, heightened the suspicions of his master; but how the latter was too slow of wit and action to profit thereby, is known to all who have read the graphic pages which tell of the conquest of Mexico.

But neither Aztec nor Spanish monarch rivalled their less civilized brother of Monomotapa in this peculiar department of his household. Gallienus alone deserves to be mentioned, in this respect, with the African potentate, who never stirred abroad with less than five hundred official fools in his vast and noisy retinue!