We may suppose that the humour of Cicero was somewhat hereditary, for he

records a saying of his grandfather that "the men of our time are like

Syrian slaves; the more Greek they know, the greater knaves they are!"

It is fortunate the grandson inherited the old man's wit without his

plebeian prejudices, and became as celebrated for his culture as for his

readiness. In his work entitled "The Orator," he commends humour as a

means of gaining influence, and a vehicle for moral instruction.

"Orators," he says, "joke with an object, not to appear jesters, but to

obtain some advantage." But we may feel sure he did not keep this dry

and profitable end always in view, for he wrote a jest-book, and was

nick-named by his enemies "Scurra Consularis,"[21] the consular buffoon.

A man can scarcely have a talent for humour without being conscious of

its fascination, and being sometimes led away by it--as Cicero says, "it

pleases the listeners"--but he need not therefore descend to buffoonery.

We should not be inclined to accuse a man of that, who tells us that "a

regard to proper times, moderation and forbearance in jesting, and a

limitation in the number of jokes, will distinguish the orator from the

buffoon;" who says that "indelicacy is a disgrace, not only to the

forum, but to any company of well-bred people," and that neither great

vice nor great misery is a subject for ridicule. From all this we may

gather that Cicero was full of graceful and clever jocosity, but did not

indulge in what was vapid and objectionable. Both by precept and

practice he approved good verbal humour. The better class of puns was

used in the literature of the time, as we find by St. Paul and others,

not in levity, but merely as embellishments.[22]

Cicero replied to Vibius Curius, who was telling a falsehood about his

age: "Then when we declaimed at the schools together, you were not

born;" and to Fabia, Dolabella's wife, who said she was thirty, "No

doubt, for I have heard you say so twenty years." When he saw Lentulus,

his cousin--a little man girt with a big sword: "Who," he asked, "has

fastened my cousin to that sword?" and on being shown a colossal bust of

his brother, who was also small, he exclaimed, "The half of my brother

is greater than the whole." One day Cicero had supped with Damasippus,

and his host had said--putting some inferior wine before him--"Drink

this Falernian, it is forty years old!" "It bears its age well," replied

Cicero.

We have a most interesting collection of good sayings in "The Orator,"

which although not spoken by Cicero himself, were those which he had

from time to time noticed, and probably jotted down. Here is one of

Cæsar's (Strabo). A Sicilian, when a friend made lamentation to him that

his wife had hanged herself upon a fig tree: "I beseech you," he said,

"give me some shoots of that tree that I may plant them." Some one asked

Crassus whether he should be troublesome if he came to him before it was

light. Crassus said, "You will not." The other rejoined, "You will order

yourself to be awakened then." To which Crassus replied, "Surely, I said

that you would not be troublesome."

To return to the Cæsars. The humorous vein which we have traced in the

family descended to Augustus--the great nephew of Julius. Some of his

sayings, which have survived, show him to have been as pleasant in his

wit as he was proverbially happy in his fortunes.

When the inhabitants of Tarraco made him a fulsome speech, telling him

that they had raised an altar to him as their presiding deity, and that,

marvellous to relate, a splendid palm tree had grown up on it: "That

shows," replied the Emperor, "how often you kindle a fire there." To

Galba, a hunchback orator, who was pleading before him, and frequently

saying, "Set me right, if I am wrong," he replied, "I can easily correct

you, but I cannot set you right."

The following will give a slight idea of the variety of his humour.

When he heard that, among the children under two years old whom Herod

had ordered to be slain, his own son had been killed, he said, "It is

better to be Herod's pig than his son." Being entertained on one

occasion with a very poor dinner, and without any ceremony, as he was

passing out he whispered in the ear of his host, "I did not know that I

was such a friend of yours." A Roman knight having died enormously in

debt, Augustus ordered them to buy him his bed-pillow at the auction,

observing: "The pillow of a man who could sleep when he owed so much

must be truly soporific." A man who had been removed from a cavalry

command and asked for an allowance, "not from any mercenary motive, but

that I may seem to have resigned upon obtaining the grant from you," he

dismissed with the words: "Tell everybody you have received it. I will

not deny it."

Augustus kept a jester, Gabba, and patronised mimes, and among other

diversions with which he amused himself and his friends, was that of

giving presents by lottery; each drew a ticket upon which something was

named, but on applying for the article a totally different thing was

received, answering to a second meaning of the name. This occasioned

great merriment, a man who thought he was to get a grand present was

given a little sponge, or rake, or a pair of pincers; another who seemed

to have no claim whatever, obtained something very valuable. The humour

was not great, but a little refreshing distraction was thus obtained

from the cares of state. There is no loss in light literature so much to

be deplored as that of the correspondence between Augustus and Mecænas.

The latter prided himself upon his skill in poetry and humour, and we

may be sure that he sent some of his choicest productions to Augustus,

who in turn exerted himself to send something worthy of the eye of so

celebrated a critic. It is not impossible that the Emperor showed

himself equal, if not superior to the friend of Horace.

Those who succeeded to the imperial purple proved very different from

their illustrious predecessor, and in Persius the severity of Roman

satire re-appears. We could scarcely expect a man who lived under Nero,

and after the reigns of Tiberius, Caligula, and Claudius to write with

the mild placidity of the Augustan poet. Moreover, the satires of

Persius were written at an early age--twenty-eight, and youth always

feels acutely, and expresses strongly. Some of his attacks are evidently

aimed at Nero, but his principal object is to denounce the vices of the

times. Hence, indolence and prurient literature are stigmatised. He

ridicules the extremes of extravagance, and of that parsimony by which

it is usually accompanied. "Am I on a festive day to have a nettle

dressed for me, and a smoked pig's cheek with a hole in its ear, in

order that that grandson of yours may be surfeited with goose liver, and

indulge in patrician amours. Am I to be a living anatomy that his pope's

stomach may shake with fat."[23] Alluding to the absurdity of the

prayers generally offered up, he uses language worthy of a Christian.

"You ask for vigour, but rich dishes and fat sausages prevent the gods

from granting your behest. You ask what your fleshly mind suggests. What

avails gold in sacrifice? Offer justice to God and man--generous honour,

and a soul free from pollution."

In Persius we miss the light geniality of Horace and the pure language

of the Augustan age, but we mark the complexity and finesse of a later

date, a form of thought bespeaking a comprehensive grasp, and suitable

to subtle minds. But as regards his humour it depends much on

exaggeration, and is proportionably weak, and beyond this we have little

but the coining of some words,[24] the using others in unaccustomed

senses, and a large seasoning of severity. He evidently aimed rather at

being corrective than amusing, and his covert attacks upon Nero were, no

doubt, well understood. Humour of a poor kind was evidently fashionable

at the day--the Emperor himself wrote Satires and was so fond of comic

performances that he first encouraged and rewarded a celebrated

pantomimic actor named Paris, and then put him to death for being his

rival in the mimetic art. Even Seneca could not resist the example of

his contemporaries, and we find the sedate philosopher attacking his

enemy with severe ridicule. Claudius had him sent into exile for eight

years to the picturesque but lonely Island of Corsica; and Seneca who

liked something more social and luxurious, held him up in a satire

bordering upon lampoon. The fanciful production was called the

Apolokokyntosis of Claudius; that is his apotheosis, except that,

instead of the Emperor being deified, he is supposed to be

"gourdified," changed not into a god, but into a pumpkin. Seneca, after

deriding Claudius' bodily defects, accuses him of committing many

atrocities, and finally sends him down from heaven to the nether world,

where a new punishment is invented for him--he is to be always trying to

throw dice out of an empty box.

One of the most remarkable characters in the reign of Nero was Titus

Petronius Arbiter. He was a great favourite with the Emperor, and held

some official appointment--the duties of which he is said to have

discharged with ability. In his writings he is supposed to condemn

immorality, but he enlarges so much upon what he disapproves that we

doubt whether he does not promote the vice he pretends to condemn.[25]

His "Satyricon" is not intended to be a satire, but an imitation of one

of those old Greek comedies which treated of the doings of Satyrs and

grotesque country deities. It is the first comic prose work, for in

early times verse was thought as necessary to humour as to poetry. The

whole work is enveloped in a voluptuous atmosphere; it is written in a

gay roystering style, but although the indelicacy is great the humour

is small. Occasionally it is interesting, as giving an insight into

private life in the days of Nero. Here we find Trimalchio, a rich man,

providing for the amusement of his guests, as well as for their

sumptuous entertainment. One dish was a wild boar, which was placed on

the table with a cap of liberty on its head. Petronius asked the meaning

of this. "Why," said he, "your servant could explain that, it is no

riddle. This boar escaped from yesterday's dinner where it was dismissed

by the guests, and he now returns to table as a freedman." Afterwards a

much larger hog was brought in. "What!" cried Trimalchio, looking

closely at it, "is not his inside taken out? No! it is not; call the

cook, call the cook." The cook being brought in, excused himself saying

that he forgot. "Forgot!" cried Trimalchio, "why, he talks as if it were

only a pinch of pepper omitted. Strip him." In a moment the cook was

stripped to be flogged. All interceded for him, but Petronius felt

somewhat indignant at such an oversight, and said he must be a careless

rascal to forget to disembowel a hog. Trimalchio with a pleasant look

said, "Come, you with the short memory, see if you can bowel him before

us." The cook slashed with his knife, and out tumbled a load of puddings

and sausages. All the servants raised a shout, and the cook was

presented with a cup of wine, and a silver crown.

Petronius shared the fate of Seneca. He was suspected of conspiring

against the Emperor, and his life being demanded, he preferred to suffer

by his own hand rather than by that of the executioner. He caused his

veins to be opened, but strangely whimsical to the last, and wishing to

die slowly, he had them closed at intervals. In his dying state he was

daily carried about the streets of Cumæ, and received his friends, made

love verses and humorous epigrams, and endeavoured to withdraw his

thoughts from the sad reality by indulging in all kinds of amusing

caprices. At length he expired--another distinguished victim of Nero's

cruelty.

Juvenal, who wrote under Domitian, a little later than Persius, equalled

him in severity--due either to his natural disposition or to the

spectacle presented by the ever increasing demoralization of Rome. Like

Persius, he makes use of much metaphor and involution in his

works--showing the literary taste and intellectual acumen of a settled

state of society, but an early age is impressed upon his pages in the

indelicacy with which he is frequently chargeable. His depiction of

guilt was appreciated at that day, but under the Christian dispensation

vice is thought too sinful, and in a highly civilised state too

injurious to be laughable. The views then held were different, and

Tacitus considered it a mark of great superiority in the Germans that

they did not laugh at crimes. Juvenal tells us that the Romans jeered at

poverty. There was much in the character of this satirist to raise him

in the estimation of right-minded men. His tastes were simple, he loved

the country and its homely fare, and although devoid of ambition, was

highly cultivated. No doubt he was rather austere than genial: his aim

was to instruct and warn rather than amuse; and where he approaches

humour it is merely from complexity of style, in coining words and

barbarisms, or in comparisons mostly dependent upon exaggeration. The

following is one of his best specimens, though over-weighted with

severity. It gives an idea of the state of Rome at the time. A drunken

magnate and his retinue stop a citizen in the street, and insolently

demand--

"With whose vinegar and beans are you blown out? What cobbler has been

eating leeks and sheepshead with you? Answer, or be kicked." "This,"

says Juvenal "is a poor man's liberty. When pummelled, he begs that he

may be allowed to escape with a few of his teeth remaining."

Juvenal longs for the sword of Lucilius, and the lamp of Horace, that

he may attack the vices of Rome, but he himself is more severe than

either. Forgers, gamblers and profligates are assailed, and names are

frequently given, though we often cannot now decide whether they

belonged to real persons. Laughing at those who desire length of years

without remembering the concomitant infirmities of age, he says:

"All kinds of disease dance around the aged in a troop, of which if you

were to ask the names I could sooner tell you how many lovers Hippia

had, how many patients Themison killed in one autumn, or how many allies

Basilus and Hirrus defrauded." He condemns the increased desire for

luxury. "Do not," he warns, "long for a mullet, when you have only a

gudgeon in your purse." The rule of the day was to purchase sensual

indulgence at any cost, "Greediness is so great that they will not even

invite a parasite." Excessive selfishness leads to every kind of

dishonesty. "A man of probity is as rare as a mule's foal, or as a

shower of stones from a cloud." "What day is so sacred that it fails to

produce thieving, perfidy, fraud, gain sought through every crime, and

money acquired by bowl and dagger. The good are so scarce that their

number is barely as great as that of the gates of Thebes, or the mouths

of the fertilizing Nile."

He attacks every kind of social abuse, and does not even spare the

ladies--some are too fast, some are learned and pedantic, some cruel to

their slaves--even scourging them with cowhides. "What fault," he

asks, "has the girl committed, if your own nose has displeased you?" As

to religion, that has disappeared altogether. "What a laugh your

simplicity would raise in public, if you were to require of anyone that

he should not perjure himself, but believe that there was some deity in

the temple, or at the ensanguined altar! That the souls of the departed

are anything, and the realms below, and the punt-pole and frogs of the

Stygian pool, and that so many thousands pass over in one boat, not even

the boys believe, except those who are too young to pay for their bath."

The language used in the last passage is no doubt an example of the

profane manner in which some men spoke at that day, but in general, we

must remember that these pictures are humorous and overdrawn. Still,

some of the offences spoken of with horror by Juvenal were treated

almost as lightly by contemporary poets as they had been by

Aristophanes.

There is a slightly foreign complexion about the productions of Martial,

which reminds us that he was a Spaniard. Even at this time there seems

to have been a sparkle and richness in the thoughts that budded in that

sunny clime. Martial was a contemporary of Juvenal, and addressed two or

three of his epigrams to him. His works consisted of fourteen books,

containing altogether more than fifteen hundred of these short poems.

The appearance of such works may be taken as indicative of the condition

of Rome at the time. The calls of business had become more urgent from

the increase of the population and development of commerce, while the

unsatisfactory state of the Government and of foreign affairs kept men's

minds in agitation and suspense. Martial himself observes that those

were no times for poems of any length, and that some of his friends

would not even read his longer pieces, though they never exceeded thirty

lines. The period demanded something light and short--a book which could

be taken up and laid down without any interruption of the narrative. But

the swifter current of affairs had also produced a keener or more active

turn of mind, so that it was necessary not only to be short, but also

pithy. It was not necessary to be humorous, but it was essential to be

concise and interesting, and thus Martial gave to the epigram that

character for point which it has since maintained.

Nothing could be more attractive than allusions to contemporary men,

passing scenes, or novelties of the day, and when we read his works we

seem to be transported by magic into the streets and houses of ancient

Rome. On one page we have the sanguinary scenes of the circus; in

another we see the ladies waving their purple fans, and hear them

toasted in as many glasses as they have letters to their names.

From this kind of gaiety Martial graduates into another--that of

pleasantry. In an epitaph on his barber, he bids the earth lie light

upon him, adding, "It could not be lighter than his artistic hand." From

his censure of bad wit, it is evident that he drew great distinctions

between broad and subtle humour. "Every man," he says, "has not a

_nose_," _i.e._, a keen perception--cannot smell a fault. He is very

seldom guilty of a pun, and says in one place that he has not adopted

verbal tricks, imitating echoes, or making lines which can be read

backwards or forwards.[26] Nor has he any intention to indulge in bitter

reflections; he says,--

"My page injures not those it hates, and no reputation obtained at the

expense of another is pleasing to me. Some versifiers wish publications

which are but darts dipped in the blood of Lycambus to be mine, and

vomit forth the poison of vipers under my name. My sport is harmless."

But he well saw that some little severity was necessary for humour, for

he chides a dull poet:

"Although the epigrams which you write are always sweetness itself, and

more spotless than a white-leaded skin, and although there is in them

neither an atom of salt, nor a drop of bitter gall, yet you expect,

foolish man, that they will be read. Why, not even food is pleasant if

wholly destitute of acid seasoning, nor is a face pleasing which shows

no dimples. Give children your honey, apples, and luscious figs--the

Chian fig, which has sharpness, pleases my taste."

Following this view we find him often sarcastic, but not personal, the

names being fictitious, or if not, those of well known public men. In a

few instances he is a little ill-natured, and writes, "Laugh, if thou

art wise, girl, laugh, said Ovid, but he did not say this to all girls,

not, for instance, to Maximina, who has only three teeth, and those the

colour of pitch and boxwood. Avoid the pantomimes of Philistion and gay

feasts. It befits you to sit beside an afflicted mother, and a wife

lamenting her husband. Weep, if thou art wise, girl, weep."

Martial often uses the figure called by the Greek grammarians "contrary

to expectation." The point of the whole epigram lies in the last word or

line, which changes the drift of the whole.

"His funeral pile was strewn with reed,

His tearful wife brought fragrant myrrh,

The bier, the grave, the ointment were prepared,

He named me as his heir, and he--got well."

"Sorry is Athenagoras not to send the gifts,

Which in mid-winter he is wont to send;

Whether he be sorry I shall shortly see,

But sorry he has certainly made me."

"You feast so often without me, Lupercus,

I've found a way by which to pay you out,

I am incensed, and if you should invite me,

What would I do, you ask me? Why--I'd come."

The growing appreciation of this kind of writing had already led

Meleager, a cynic philosopher of Gadara, to form the first collection of

Greek epigrams, which he prettily termed the anthology or bouquet.

Martial has been commended at the expense of the Greeks, but he borrowed

considerably from them in form and matter. His epigrams were more

uniformly suggestive and concentrated than those of any previous writer,

and he largely contributed to raise such compositions from being merely

inscriptive into a branch of literature. He opened a new field, and the

larger portion of these productions in Greek were written about this

time. They are not generally humorous, with the exception of a few from

Philo and Leonidas of Alexandria who lived about 60 B.C., from

Ammianus in 120 B.C., and from Lucilius, a great composer of

this kind, of whose history nothing is known but that he lived in the

reign of Nero. The following are from the last-mentioned.

"Some say, Nicylla, that thou dyest thy hair, which thou boughtest most

black at the market."

"All the astrologers prophesied that my uncle would be long-lived except

Hermocleides, who said he would not be so. This, however, was not until

we were lamenting his death."

The following are free translations from the same writer.

"Poor Cleon out of envy died,

His brother thief to see

Nailed near him to be crucified

Upon a higher tree."

On a bad painter.

"You paint Deucalion and Phaeton,

And ask what price for each you should require;

I'll tell you what they're worth before you've done,

One deserves water, and the other fire."

The works of Lucian are generally regarded as forming a part of Roman

literature, although they were written in Greek by a native of Samosata

in Syria. In them we have an intermingling of the warm imagination of

the East with the cold sceptical philosophy of the West. Lucian was

originally brought up to be a stone-cutter, but he had an insatiable

desire for learning, and in his "Dream" he tells us how he seemed to be

carried aloft on the wings of Pegasus. He became a pleader at the bar,

but soon found that "deceit, lies, impudence, and chicanery" were

inseparable from that profession. In disgust he betook himself to

philosophy, but could not restrain his indignation when he found so many

base men throwing the blame of their conduct on Plato, Chrysippus,

Pythagoras, and other great men. "A fellow who tells you that the wise

man alone is rich, comes the next moment and asks you for money--just as

if a person in regal array should go about begging." He says they pay no

more attention to the doctrines they teach than if their words were

tennis balls to play with in schools. "There is," he continues, "a story

told of a certain king of Egypt, who took a fancy to have apes taught to

dance. The apes, as they are apt to mimic human actions, came on in

their lessons and improved very fast, and were soon fit to appear on the

public stage, and display their skill, dressed in purple robes, with

masks on their faces. The spectators were much pleased with them for a

considerable time, when a wag who was present, having brought with him a

quantity of nuts, threw a handful amongst them. The dance was

immediately forgotten, and the performers from pyrrhic dancers, relapsed

into apes, who went chattering and snapping at one another, and fighting

for nuts; so that in a few moments the masks were crumpled, the clothes

torn to rags, and the ape dance, which had been so much extolled,

terminated amidst peals of laughter. Such is the history of mock

philosophers."

The above story may serve to exhibit Lucian's views, and his love of

humorous illustration. He indulges in many fancies, such as the

complaint of the letter S against T, which had in Attic been substituted

for it.

Another kind of pleasantry which he brings forward is interesting,

inasmuch as after having been in fashion among the grammarians, and

reviving among the monks in the middle ages it has now fallen entirely

out of use. It may be regarded as being a kind of continuation of the

philosophical "hard questions" of ancient times, originated with the

Sophists, and was entirely confined to logical subtleties affording

diversion, but not awakening any emotion sufficient to cause laughter.

Lucian makes a parasite ask his host after dinner to solve such riddles

as "The Sorites and the Reaper," and the "Horned Syllogism." The latter

proposition was, "What you have not lost that you still have. You have

not lost horns, therefore you have horns." In "The Sale of the

Philosophers," in which Jupiter puts them all up to auction to see what

will be bid for them, Chrysippus gives some similar examples. "A stone

is a substance, is it not?" "Certainly." "A living being is also a

substance." "Yes." "And you are a living being--therefore you are a

stone." Chrysippus then offers to turn him back into a man. "Is every

substance a living being?" "No." "Is a stone a living being?" "No." "But

you are a substance?" "Yes." "And a living being; then, although you are

a substance you are not a stone, because you are a living being."

Lucian's crusade against vice is of so general a kind as to remind us

more of some of the old philosophers than of the Roman satirists. At the

same time he says he has only spoken against impostors, and is only the

enemy of false pretence, quackery, lies, and puffing. But we may suppose

that he would not be sparing of his lash in any direction, for in the

"Resuscitated Philosophers," he observes, "Philosophy says that

ridicule can never make anything worse than it is in itself, and

whatever is beautiful and good comes out with more lustre from it, and,

like gold, is rendered splendid by the strokes of the hammer."

Following this view, he makes pretty sport of the parasites, whom he

represents as forming a large and educated class. Patroclus he counts as

Achilles' parasite, and includes several philosophers, who, he says,

sponged upon Dionysius of Syracuse, "but Plato failed in the art." He

commends them in merry irony, and describes the parasite as stout and

robust--bold, with an eye full of fire and spirit. Who could venture a

bet against a parasite, whether in jesting or feasting? Who could

contribute more to the diversion of the company? A parasite is obliged

to be strict in his conduct. He has an annual salary, but is always

beaten down in it. He does not receive the same food as the chief

people, and in travelling he is put with the servants. Jokes are made at

his expense by the company, and when he receives a present of his

patron's old clothes, he has to fee the servants for them. Of

philosophers, some are poisoned, some are burned alive. None ever tell

of a parasite who came to such an end--he dies gently and sweetly,

amidst loaded dishes and flowing bowls, and should one of them come to

a violent death, it is merely from indigestion. The parasite does honour

to the rich man--not the rich man to the parasite.

Lucian's "True History" deserves especial notice as having been the

first extravagant story written under the form of a circumstantial

narration of travels. It was the precursor of "The Voyage to the Moon,"

Baron Münchausen, and various Utopias. We must therefore allow it the

merit of originality, and it evinces talent, for mere exaggeration would

not be entertaining. The intention was to ridicule the marvellous

travellers' stories then current. Much of this history is merely florid,

and we may compare it to a waving line, in which the fable is constantly

undulating between humour and poetry.

Lucian says he is going to write about what never can be. He sets sail

on a voyage of discovery for the Western Ocean, and reaches a beautiful

island. There they find a river of wine, navigable in many places. He

could not trace the source of it, but near the place where it seemed to

rise, were several vines full of grapes, and at the root of every one

wine flowed out. They found fish in the stream, and after eating some,

felt intoxicated; when they cut them up, they found grape-stones in

them. Passing the river, they found a most wonderful species of vine;

the lower parts, which touched the ground, were green and thick, the

upper formed the most beautiful women, from the top of whose fingers

branches sprang forth full of grapes; and on their heads, instead of

hair, they had leaves and tendrils. Two of his companions, going up to

embrace them, became so entangled that they could not again disengage

themselves. After this, they left the island, and were caught in such a

violent storm that the vessel was lifted out of the water, so high that

it could not come down again. Then they came to another island, round

and shining. Here they found Hippogypi, men riding upon vultures--birds

so large that each of their feathers was like the mast of a ship. The

voyagers join the Hippogypi in a battle against the inhabitants of the

sun, and have various allies--some mounted on fleas about the size of

twelve elephants, and spiders, each as big as one of the Cyclades

islands. The travellers were taken prisoners, and conveyed to the Sun,

but he returned to the Moon, of which he gives a description. The

inhabitants there make use of their stomachs--which are empty and lined

with hair--as bags or pockets to put away things. They take their eyes

in and out, and borrow them. "Whoever does not believe me, had better

go and see." Returning from the air to the earth and sea, they saw

several enormous whales, one of whom swam up to them with its mouth wide

open. Coming near he swallowed them up--ship and all. It was dark

inside, until he opened his mouth again. There was a large extent of

land inside, and hills and woods, in which birds were building nests.

From this last fancy, we might conclude that Lucian had read the Book of

Jonah, and a description he afterwards gives of the Isles of the

Blessed, seems to be written in imitation of the Revelation.

The age in which Lucian lived was marked by theological contests between

Pagans, Jews, and Christians, and such times have generally caused an

increase of scepticism and profanity. Lucian was a follower of

Democritus, and his Confabulations consist of a succession of squibs and

satires on the mythological legends of the gods and goddesses. He laughs

at curing diseases by charms and incantations. People pretended to fly,

walk on water and through fire--they are called Babylonians and

Hyperboreans. A Syrian from Palestine professes to drive devils out of

people (perhaps alluding to the exorcists of the early church.) He makes

Eucrates speak of one Pancrates, who would take a broom or the pestle of

a wooden mortar, and upon saying a couple of magical words, it appeared

to become a man, drew water, and ordered food. When Pancrates had no

further need of him, he spoke a couple of words, and the man was a

pestle again. Eucrates tried this himself, but having made the pestle a

man, and told him to bring water, he forgot how to change him back

again. So he kept on bringing water. Eucrates then split the pestle in

two, and both halves still continued to bring water.

Demonax, the friend of Lucian, was as remarkable for his wit and

repartee as for his kindly nature. A man who over-rated his austerity,

expressed one day his surprise at seeing him eat sweet-cakes. "Do you

think," he replied, "that the bees make their honey only for fools?" He

seems to have had as little respect as Lucian for the idolatry of his

day, for on one of his companions saying to him "Let us go to the Temple

of Æsculapius to pray for my son," he answered, "Is the god then so deaf

that he cannot hear us where we are?"

He lived and died a bachelor, and we are told that on being blamed by

Epictetus, with whom he studied, for not marrying and having a family as

a philosopher should, he replied "Very well, give me one of your

daughters." Epictetus was an old bachelor.

He counselled a bad orator to practise and exercise himself in the art

of speaking, and on his replying, "I am always doing so--to myself," he

added, "It is therefore not surprising you speak as you do--having a

fool for your audience."

When the sophist Sidonius, delivering a long panegyric on himself, said

that he was acquainted with all the tenets of the philosophers: "If

Aristotle calls me to the Lyceum, I obey; if Plato to the Academy, I

come; Zeno to the Stoa, I take up my abode there; if Pythagoras calls, I

am silent:" Demonax jumped up in the middle of the Assembly and cried

out, "Pythagoras calls you."

His humour was purely genial and jocose, as when, on the point of

setting sail in winter, he replied to a friend who asked him whether he

was not afraid he should be ship-wrecked and go to feed the fishes,

"Should I not be ungrateful were I unwilling to be devoured by fishes,

when I have feasted on so many myself?"

But there is one speech of his which must ever make his memory dear to

all good men. When the Athenians wished to emulate the Corinthians by

exhibiting a gladiatorial combat, he said, "Do not vote this, Athenians,

before ye have taken down the Altar of Mercy."

Demonax lived to a ripe old age, and we are told that he was so much

beloved in Athens that, as he passed the bread-shops, the bakers would

run out to beg his acceptance of a loaf, and thought it a good omen if

he complied; and that the little children called him father, and would

bring him presents of fruit.

Apuleius wrote in Latin in the second century. He was a native of

Carthage--not the celebrated Carthage of Terence, but that of Cyprian--a

new city. He travelled like many of the learned men of his time to

Athens and Alexandria, and thus, most probably, became acquainted with

his contemporary Lucian. At any rate, his "Golden Ass" seems taken from

the work by that author. Bishop Warburton has seen in his production a

subtle attack upon Christianity, but we may take it as intended to

ridicule magical arts, and those who believed in them. He was likely to

feel keenly on this subject, for having married a rich widow,

Pudentilla, her relatives accused him of having obtained her by

witchcraft, and even dragged him into a court of justice.

Lucian ridiculed the religion of his day, Apuleius its superstitions.

Apuleius speaks of his "book of jests," but it is lost--the few lines he

gives out of it are a somewhat matter-of-fact recommendation of

tooth-powder. His enemies thought that tooth-powder was something

magical and unholy--at any rate, they made his mention of it a charge

against him. In reply, he says that perhaps a man who only opens his

mouth to revile ought not to have tooth-powder.

In the "Golden Ass," Apuleius gravely supposes that transformations take

place between men and the lower animals. He makes Aristomenes tell a

story in which a witch appears, "able to drag down the firmament, to

support the world on her shoulders, crumble mountains, raise the dead,

dethrone gods, extinguish the stars, and illuminate hell." She changed

one of her lovers, of whom she was jealous, into a beaver, and

persecuted him with hunters. She punished the wife of another of them,

who was about to increase her family, by condemning her to remain in

that condition. "It is now eight years since she has been growing larger

and larger, and seems as though about to produce an elephant."

Lucius goes to Thessaly, celebrated for its witches, and a good story is

told how returning late from supper he finds three men battering against

his door. Taking them for robbers he draws his dagger, and stabs them,

and the ground is covered with blood. Next day he is tried for murder,

and about to be crucified, when the corpses are brought into court, and

are found to be three wine-skins. He is told that this was a trick

played on him upon the day when they usually celebrated the festival of

the god of laughter, but it seems to have been really owing to an

incantation. He sees Pamphile, his hostess, change herself into an owl,

thinks he also will transform himself into a bird, and anoints himself

with some of the witch's preparations. By mistake, taking the wrong

ointment, he transforms himself into a donkey. He then goes to look for

his horse, who, thinking he is coming to eat his food, kicks him out,

and soon afterwards he is well thrashed by his servant boy. He is told

that eating fresh roses will restore him to his former self, but for

various reasons he cannot get any. Being hungry he goes into a kitchen

garden, and makes a good meal of the vegetables, for which transgression

he is nearly killed by the gardener. To prevent this he kicks the man

over, whereupon a general outcry was raised, and great dogs rush upon

him. After this persecution he is in danger of dying of

starvation--"spiders began to spin their webs on his lips," but becoming

instrumental in saving a young girl, he receives better treatment. He is

then bought by vagrants, who go about playing cymbals, and carrying an

image of the Syrian goddess. He is accompanied by a troop of fanatical

priests, who dance and scourge themselves. While the priests are being

royally entertained by one of their votaries, a dog runs off with a

haunch of venison, and the cook, not knowing what to do, conceives the

project of killing the ass, and dressing one of his haunches instead. To

avoid this the donkey breaks loose, and gallops into the supper room.

After the band of priests is dispersed, owing to their thieving

propensities, the donkey is sold to a baker, and by him to a gardener,

and nearly dies of cold and exposure. Then he becomes the property of

the servants of a very rich man, and is found eating up the remains of

their supper. This greatly amuses them all, and their lord orders him to

be brought to his table. A buffoon, or parasite, who sat among the

guests, exclaims "Give him a cup of wine," and he was taught various

tricks. His fame increases so that his master only admits people to see

him on payment. Finally being taken to the circus, and afraid that some

of the wild beasts might eat him by mistake, he slips away and gallops

to Cenchroea, where he prays to the goddess Iris, and is by her

restored to his human form. The descriptions in this work are often very

beautiful, and the humour in describing the misfortunes of the ass is

excellent.

In contrast to the humour of Lucian and Apuleius, we may place that of

the Emperor Julian, an ascetic and devotee, who was nephew of

Constantine the Great, and brought up a Christian. Julian's early life

was spent in terror, for Constantius, Constantine's son, imprisoned him

at Milan, after having put his elder brother to death. Perhaps this

treatment at the hands of a Christian may have prejudiced him against

the new religion, or his mild disposition may have been scandalized at

the fierceness of theological controversies, or at the lives of many of

the converts. His early education and experiences of life were more

inclined to imbue him with principles of toleration than to make him a

zealous Christian, and, finally, when he arrived at the age of twenty,

he determined to return back into Paganism. This retrograde movement,

not altogether out of keeping with his quaint character and love of

antiquity, has stamped him with the opprobrious title of the "Apostate,"

but in moral excellence he was superior to the age in which he lived.

Many of his writings show a sense of humour, such as that he wrote in

Lutetia (Paris) on "Barley wine" the drink of the Gauls.

"Who and whence art thou, Dionyse? for, by true Bacchus

I know thee not, but Jove's great son alone,

He smells of nectar, thou of goats, truly the Celts

For want of grapes made thee of ears of corn;

Wherefore thou shouldst be Cereal called, not Bacchus,

Pyrogenes and Bromos, not Bromion."[27]

Julian's principal work is on the Cæsars. He commences it by saying that

he is not addicted to jesting, but he will relate a sort of fable in

which all the gods and Cæsars are called to a great banquet.

Accordingly, he introduces various characters. Julius Cæsar seems in his

pride to wish to dispute the throne even with Jupiter. Augustus he

compares to a chameleon, sometimes one colour, sometimes another; one

moment a visage full of sorrow, another smiling.

Tiberius has a fierce countenance, and shows the marks of intemperance

and debauchery. "Take care he does not pull your ear," says Bacchus,

"for thus he treated a grammarian." "He had better," returned Silenus,

"bemoan himself in his solitary island, and tear the face of some

miserable fisherman."[28]

Constantine, not finding among the gods any type of his character,

betook himself to the goddess of pleasure. She, receiving him softly and

embracing him, trimmed him up and adorned him, dressed him in a shining

and many-coloured woman's gown, and led him away to demoralization.

With her he found one of his sons, who loudly proclaimed to all,

"Whosoever is a seducer, a murderer, or shameless, let him advance

boldly, for by washing him with water I will immediately make him pure;

and if he should be again guilty of such things, I will grant him to be

pure on striking his breast, or beating his head."[29] At the end of

this "fable," the Emperors are called upon to speak in their defence.

Constantine being asked what object he had in view, replied "to amass

great riches and spend them on myself and friends." Silenus burst into a

fit of laughter, and retorted "You now wish to pass for a banker, but

how can you forget your living like a cook, or a hair-dresser?" alluding

to his luxurious feastings, and his wearing gold-flowered stuffs, and a

diadem of jewels.

Gibbon calls this work on the Cæsars one of the most agreeable and

instructive productions of ancient wit.

Julian prided himself on his primitive and severe life, and made himself

ridiculous by wearing a long unfashionable beard--either in imitation of

the Gauls, or of the ancient philosophers. It is probable that he

persisted in this habit to discountenance the effeminacy of the times.

He says that soon after he entered Constantinople, he had occasion to

send for a barber. An officer, magnificently dressed, presented himself.

"It is a barber," said the prince, "that I want, and not a minister of

finance." He questioned the man about his profits, and was informed that

besides a large salary and some valuable perquisites, he enjoyed a daily

allowance of twenty servants and as many horses! Not only was Julian

strongly opposed to luxury, but he was, as far as his light went, a

religious man, and was strict in observing the feasts and festivals of

the heathen deities. All his antiquated peculiarities are brought

strongly before us on the occasion of his visit to Antioch. Strabo tells

us that this was one of the largest cities in the world--little inferior

in extent to Alexandria and Seleucia. It was noted for its gaieties, and

seems now to have been the centre of fashion. The new religion had been,

at least nominally, adopted, and also the new costumes, as well as every

kind of luxury and dissipation. Chrysostom bears witness to the same

effect. The town was full of dancers, pipers, and players, camels

"adorned like brides" stalked through the porticos, and fish and poultry

had come to be considered as necessaries of life. There were here many

people of leisure and cultivation, fond of light and fanciful pursuits,

and among others of forming verbal conceits. Hence, we find that the

disciples were first called _Christians_ at Antioch, no doubt,

derisively,[30] and in Julian's time they had a cant saying that they

had suffered nothing from the X or the K (Christ or Constantius). A

celebrated school of rhetoric was established here, and no doubt some of

the effusions penned at this time, abounded with rich and epigrammatic

humour.

It must have been a rare sight for these polished and satirical

Christians of Antioch to behold Julian celebrating the festivals of the

pagan gods. To view the procession of Venus--a long line of all the

dissolute women in the town, singing loose songs--followed by the lean,

uncouth Roman Emperor, with his shaggy beard, and terminated by a

military train. No wonder they hooted him, and wrote lampoons upon him.

But Julian thought he was performing a solemn duty; he by no means

intended to countenance immorality. "Far from us," he says, "be all

licentious jests and scurrilous discourse--let no priest read

Archilochus or Hipponax." He gives an amusing account of his reception

at the celebrated grove of Daphnæ, near Antioch, which he visited at

the time of the annual festival. He expected to see a profusion of

wealth and splendour. He pictured to himself the solemn pomp, the

victims, the libations, the dancers, the incense, the children in white

robes. When he entered the temple, full of such elevated thoughts, he

found there neither incense, cake, nor victims. Much surprised, he could

only suppose that the people were waiting at the gate, by way of

respect, for a signal from the sovereign Pontiff. He therefore asked the

priest what offering the city was about to make on this great

anniversary; to which he replied, "The city has furnished nothing, but I

have brought the god a goose from my own house."

Julian says the people of Antioch had transfixed him with sarcasms, as

with arrows. In accordance, however, with his peaceful disposition, he

only retaliated by writing the Misopogon or "Beard-hater." "No law," he

says, "forbids me to satirise myself." He begins with his face and says,

"Although naturally good-looking, moroseness and bad manners have led me

to wear a long beard for no apparent reason but that nature has not made

it handsome. Therefore, I allow lice to run about in it like wild beasts

in a wood, nor have I the power of eating or drinking much, for I must

be cautious, lest I eat hairs along with bread. About being kissed, or

kissing, I do not much care; still a beard has this inconvenience among

others, that it does not allow us to join pure lips to those that are

pure, and, therefore, the sweeter. You say that ropes should be twisted

out of it, and I would willingly grant this, if only you were able to

draw out the bristles, so that your soft and delicate hands should not

suffer from their roughness."

He says that he never goes to the theatre, and hates horse-races. As to

domestic matters, "I pass sleepless nights upon a bed of straw, and

insufficient food makes my manners severe and offensive to a luxurious

city. Do not think that I do this on your account--a great and senseless

mistake has led me from my childhood to wage war with my stomach." He is

not at all surprised that they should follow the dissolute habits of the

founder of their city, Antiochus, and that they think of nothing but

dressing, bathing, and love-making--charges which could not be brought

against himself. He esteems dancers and players "no more than the frogs

of the lakes," and tells a story, that when Cato came into the city of

Antioch, seeing all the young men under arms, and the magistrates in

their robes, he thought the parade was in his honour. He blamed his

friends for having told them he was coming, and advanced with some

hesitation, when the master of the ceremonies came up and asked,

"Stranger, how far off is Demetrius?" a man who had been a slave of

Pompey, but had become immensely rich. Cato made no reply, but

exclaimed, "O, miserable city!" and departed.

The Misopogon is unique as a mock disparagement of self. Although

written in condemnation of the Antiochians, a vein of pleasantry runs

through it, which shows that Julian was not vindictive, and had a

considerable gift of humour. Had he lived to mature age, he would

probably have left some brilliant literary work. But shortly after his

visit to Antioch, he led an expedition into Persia, and with his usual

disregard of danger, entered the battle without his armour, and was

mortally wounded.

We read that the Roman girls were very fond of amusing themselves in

their leisure hours by making "scirpi" or riddles. They do not seem to

have indulged much in puns, or to have attempted anything very

intricate, but rather to have aimed at testing knowledge and memory. We

have few specimens remaining of their art, but such as we have are of

that early kind, which demand some special information for their

solutions. Aulus Gellius has preserved one "old by Hercules," which

turns on the legend that when Tarquinius Superbus was installing Jupiter

at the Capitol, all the other gods were ready to leave except Terminus,

who being by his character immovable, and having no legs, refused to

depart.[31] Two other specimens are found in Virgil's bucolics:--

"Say in what lands grow flowers inscribed with names

Of kings--and Phyllis shall be yours alone,"

referring to the hyacinth, on whose petals the word Ajax was supposed to

be found. The responding couplet runs:--

"Say, and my great Apollo thou shalt be,

Where heaven's span extends but three ells wide;"

the answer to which is not known.

Probably some riddles of an earlier date may be incorporated in the book

of Symposius. Nothing is known of the life of this author, and it has

been suggested that the word should be Symposium or the "Banquet"--these

enigmas being supposed to be delivered after dinner. But most

authorities consider Symposius to have lived in the fourth century,

although an examination of his prosody might lead us to place him not

earlier than the fifth. Very few of the riddles are really ingenious;

among the best we may reckon:--

"Letters sustain me--yet I know them not,

I live on books, and yet I never read,

The Muses I've devoured and gained no knowledge."

This is tolerably self-evident, but some require special information

as:--

"You can behold what you can scarce believe

There is but one eye, yet a thousand heads,

Who sells what he has, whence shall he get what he has not?"

Few would ever guess that this referred to a one-eyed man selling

garlic. But the greater number of these conceits are merely emblematic

descriptions of well-known things, and are more vague than epigrammatic,

as,

"I am the purple of the earth suffused with lovely tints and girt,

lest I be wronged with pointed spears. Happy indeed! had I but

length of life."

"There's a new capture of some well-known game, that what you catch

not, you bear off with you."

"Hoarsely amidst the waves I raise my voice

It sounds with praise with which it lauds itself,

And though I ever sing, no one applauds."

"Spontaneous coming, I show various forms,

I feign vain fears, when there is no true conflict,

But no one can see me till he shuts his eyes."

"By art four equal sisters run

As if in contest, though the labour's one,

And both are near, nor can each other touch."[32]

We know little of Macrobius except that he was a Greek, and lived in the

fifth century. His principal work was his "Saturnalia," and he selected

for it this title and plan, because, as he tells us, men were in his day

so much occupied with business, that it was only in the annual festival

of misrule that they had any time for reflection or social intercourse.

The "Saturnalia," occupied the greater part of December, and Macrobius

represents a company of magnates and wits agreeing to meet daily to

discuss in the morning topics of importance, and to spend the evening in

light and jocund conversation. His work treats of astronomy, mythology,

poetry and rhetoric, but it is most interesting with regard to our

present subject, where he brings before us one of those scenes of

convivial merriment of which we have often heard. The party are to

relate humorous anecdotes in turn. Avienus says that they should be

intellectual not voluptuous, to which the president, Prætextatus,

replies, that they will not banish pleasure as an enemy, nor consider it

to be the greatest good. After these suggestions they commence:--

Prætextatus records a saying of Hannibal. Antiochus, to whom he had

fled, showed him in a plain a vast army he had collected to make war

with the Romans; the men were adorned with gold and silver, there were

chariots with scythes, elephants with towers, cavalry shining with

ornamental bits and housings. Then turning to Hannibal, he asked him if

he thought they would be enough for the Romans. The Carthaginian,

smiling at the weakness and cowardice of the gaudily accoutred host,

replied, "Certainly, I think they will be enough for them, however

greedy they may be."

Furius Albinus says that after the flight at Mutina, on some lady asking

what Antony was doing, one of his friends replied, "What the dogs do in

Egypt--drink and run!" "It is well known," he adds, "that there the dogs

run while they drink, for fear of the crocodiles."

Avenienus says that the sister of Faustus, the son of Sylla, had two

lovers--one of them, Fulvius, the son of a fuller; the other Pomponius,

nick-named Spot. "I wonder," he said, "that my sister should have a

spot, when she has a fuller."

The remaining guests speak more at length, and their discourses occupy a

considerable portion of the book.

The example set by Martial gradually led to a considerable development

of epigrammatic literature. A humorous epigram survives, written by

Trajan on a man with a large nose:

"By placing your nose and gaping mouth opposite the sun

You will tell wayfarers the hour."

Justinian in the sixth century is supposed to have assisted Paul the

Silentiary--a sort of master of the ceremonies--in his compositions; but

it may be hoped that the Emperor was not an accomplice in producing the

impurities with which they are disfigured. Here and there, however, a

few sweet flowers are found in his poisonous garland. We may hope that

he often received such a cool welcome as that he commemorates in his

"Drenched Lover."

Hierocles and Philagrius are supposed to have lived in the fifth

century, but the jests and stories which bear their names seem to be

much later. They are based upon violations of the primary laws of nature

and mind, but have not the subtlety of the syllogistic quibbles, which

were the work of learned grammarians or the logicians of a better

period. Being little more than Bulls, they excite scarcely any emotion

and no laughter, although evincing a certain cleverness. The hero is

generally a "Scholastic," who is represented as a sort of fool. A friend

of Scholasticus going abroad asks him to buy him some books.

Scholasticus forgets all about it, and when he meets his friend on his

return, says, "By the way, I never received that letter you wrote about

the books." A man meeting Scholasticus says, "The slave you sold me

died." "Did he? By the gods," replied the other, "he never played me

that trick." Scholasticus meeting a friend exclaims, "Why, I heard you

were dead!" The other replies, "Well, I tell you that I'm alive." "Yes,"

persists Scholasticus, "but the man who told me so was more veracious

than you!" A promising son apostrophizes his father, "Base varlet! don't

you see how you have wronged me? If you had never been born and stood in

the way I should have come into all my grandfather's money."

The humour which has come to us from classic times, brings the life of

ancient Greece and Rome near to our own firesides. It is not that of a

primitive or decaying civilization, but of one advanced and matured,

resembling our own, in which density of population has brought a

clashing of interests, and enlarged knowledge has produced a variety of

thought upon a great multiplicity of home and foreign subjects. We can

thus bridge over two thousand years, and obtain, as it were, a grasp of

the Past, in which we find men so very like ourselves, not only in their

strong emotions, but in their little conceits and vanities, and their

opinions of each other.

ENGLISH HUMOUR.

CHAPTER I.

MIDDLE AGES.

Relapse of Civilization in the Middle Ages--Stagnation of Mind--Scarcity

of Books--Character of reviving Literature--Religious

Writings--Fantastic Legends--Influence of the Crusades--Romances--Sir

Bevis of Hamptoun--Prominence of the Lower Animals--Allegories.

Those ancient philosophers who believed in a mundane year and a

periodical repetition of the world's history, would have found a

remarkable corroboration of their theory in the retrogression of

learning during the middle ages, and its subsequent gradual revival.

This re-birth contained all the leading characteristics of the original

development of thought, although, amid the darkness, the torch handed

down from the past afforded occasionally some flickering light. The

great cause of the disappearance of literature and civilization was, of

course, the sword of the Goths, which made the rich countries of

Southern Europe, a wilderness and desolation. A lesser cause was the

intolerance of the ecclesiastics, who, in their detestation of Pagan

superstition and immorality endeavoured to destroy all classical

writings which touched upon mythological subjects, or contained unseemly

allusions. But, although we regret its action in this respect, and the

intellectual stagnation thus generally produced, we must admit that we

are indebted to the Church for the preservation of many valuable works.

There were many men of learning in the monasteries, and some of

sufficient enlightenment to be able to venerate the relics of Greek and

Latin literature. We find that in the East the works of Aristophanes

were so much admired by St. Chrysostom that he slept with them under his

pillow. Perhaps the Saint enjoyed the reflections of the comedian upon

the superstitions of his day, or he may have had a secret liking for the

drama, and in one place he observes how much the world resembles a

stage. There seems to have been a conflict in his breast, as no doubt

there was in many at the time, between love of the classics and

religious scruples; he tells us that he dreamed one night that he was

being whipped by the devil for reading Cicero.

We may observe that the Eastern world was not at this time in such a

benighted state. Theodosius the younger founded in A.D. 425,

an academy and library at Constantinople, which, when it was destroyed

by the Turks contained 120,000 volumes. Nothing brings before us more

forcibly the state of ignorance in which the Western world was now sunk

than the scarcity of books. The price of them in the middle ages was so

great that a man who presented one to a monastery, thought he merited

eternal salvation. Documents were drawn up and duly signed when a book

passed from one person to another--and in the eighth century a library

of 150 volumes was regarded as something magnificent.[33]

The state of ignorance among the Saxons may be imagined from the fact

that Alfred was twelve years old before he could get a master capable of

teaching him the alphabet, and even after the invention of paper in the

eleventh century books were very scarce. The cause of the scanty supply

of literature was not only the general destruction which had taken

place, but also that there was no demand for it. Archbishop Lanfranc,

with a view to improve education in England, directed in 1072 that a

book should be given to each of the monks, who were to be allowed a year

to read it, and what follows gives us some idea of the indolence of

these representatives of learning, for it was ordered that if the monk

has not then read it he is to prostrate himself, and ask pardon of the

abbot. The monks of Winchester were probably not much troubled in this

way, for some time afterwards the library of the bishop of that diocese

only consisted of seven books. What must then have been the ignorance of

the masses of the population! We should scarcely believe that such a

relapse could have taken place had we not seen the centres of

civilization in the world successively succumbing, and the greatest

cities becoming desolate, and did we not reflect that, but for such

vicissitudes, mankind must have attained a far greater degree of

excellence than has been reached at the present day.

The first kind of composition attempted by the mind of man is that which

expresses religious feelings, and the idea that there exists a being

greater than himself. That dim searching after something beyond

experience could seldom confine itself to its legitimate direction, but

by dreams and hopes, and by the love of the marvellous--that early

source of idealism--strayed into a variety of fabulous and legendary

mazes. Hence arose all the strange and grotesque myths about heathen

gods and Christian saints which occupy the shadowy borders between

chaos and history. The stories which were current in this country in

early times spoke of miracles worked by the Virgin, represented St.

Christopher as a giant twenty-four feet high, and related how "Seynt

Pateryk" banished the "wormes" from Ireland; or sometimes would draw

from the rich mine of Rabbinical tradition such allegorical fictions as

that, when Noah planted the vine, Satan was present and sacrificed a

sheep, a lion, an ape, and a sow, representing the different stages of

inebriety.[34]

But man's awakening thoughts turn not only to his Protector above, but

also to his enemies below, and thus the exploits of warlike heroes, who

generally combine the religious with the military character, easily

became tempting themes for the exercise of fancy.

There is reason to believe that the earliest British legends recorded

the glories of King Arthur--the defender of Christianity against the

worshippers of Odin. The origin of these accounts have been traced by

some to Scandinavian, by some to Arabian sources, but we may suppose

them to have arisen among those ancient British people who inhabited

Wales and Cornwall,[35] and passed over in the fifth and sixth centuries

to Brittany (Armorica). It matters little for our present purpose whence

they came, they were full of extravagant and supernatural occurrences.

The names of two shadowy warriors, Sir Bevis and Sir Guy, seem to have

been handed down from Saxon times, probably by oral tradition; the

former is said to have performed prodigies of valour in the South, and

the latter in the North of England. The literature which has come down

to us from this date (with the exception of an ode of triumph) is purely

of a religious character, and adorned with a variety of miraculous

circumstances--a considerable part of it consists of the hymns of

Cædmon, an ignorant cowherd, who was inspired to sing by an angel

appearing to him in a vision.

Bede's Ecclesiastical History is full of strange stories, and although

Acca, his contemporary, adorned his cathedral of Hexham in

Northumberland with what was then considered to be a magnificent

library, it was entirely composed of histories of the Apostles and

martyrs to whose relics he had dedicated the altars of his church.[36]

Meanwhile, the glorification of Charlemagne and his paladins, the great

champions of Christendom, exercised the invention of the minstrels of

France. But activity of mind increasing, additional subjects for

entertainment were demanded, and the old pagan kings and heroes appeared

in entirely new characters. The marvellous and magnificent career of

Alexander the Great seemed to invite a little additional ornamentation,

and the Roman Emperors were introduced in very fantastic habiliments.

It would seem that traditional accounts of Roman times had been

preserved in some of the Western monasteries, as well as portions of the

old Homeric and mythological history in Latin translations[37]--Greek

had been fading out of Europe since the time of Theodosius. No doubt

there were still here and there a few genuine classical books, and we

hear of Aristotle being prized--the obscurity and subtlety of his works

having led to his being now regarded as a magician.

The following will give some idea of the kind of stories then

appreciated. A beautiful princess, nourished with poison, was sent as a

present to Alexander. Aristotle discovered the danger, and a slave was

ordered to kiss her, who immediately fell down dead.

The gigantic body of Pallas, the son of Evander, was found at Rome. It

exceeded in height the walls of the city, and had remained uncorrupted,

and accompanied with a burning lamp for two hundred and forty years. His

wound was fresh, and we may suppose caused instant death, for it was

four feet and a half long.

Magical rings are often mentioned. There is some pretty sentiment in the

story of Vespasian and a wife whom he had married in a distant country.

She refuses to return home with him, and yet declares that she will kill

herself if he leaves her. The Emperor orders two rings to be made, one

bearing the image of Oblivion, the other that of Memory. The former he

gives to the Empress, the latter he wears himself.

Virgil, who is represented as an enchanter, places a magical image in

the centre of Rome, which every day communicates to the Emperor Titus

all the secret offences committed in the city.

From such fanciful sources, and with a discrimination such as they

display, Geoffrey of Monmouth drew up in the eleventh century a fabulous

history of England. His story of Gogmagog, the British giant, supposed

to have been destroyed by Brutus, the great grandson of Æneas, on his

landing in this country, is said to have been derived from that of two

Arabian giants Gog and Magog. The stones which compose Stonehenge, each

containing some medicinal virtue, are fabled to have been transported by

giants from the deserts of Africa to Ireland, and to have been carried

thence by Merlin's enchantment to form a monument over the British slain

by Hengist. The state of criticism existing at this time may be imagined

from the fact that even afterwards, in the reign of Edward I., the

descent of the Britons from the Trojans through Brutus was solemnly

alleged in a controversy of great importance concerning the subjection

of the crown of England to that of Scotland, showing an amount of

credulity which might almost have credited the legend that St. James,

mounted on horseback, led the Christian armies in Spain in their battles

against the Moors, or that there was in that country a golden image of

Mahomet as high as a bird could fly, in which the false prophet had

sealed up a legion of devils.

But the imaginative powers were soon to be developed upon more

attractive themes. War and Religion were about to be blended in the

grand drama of the Crusades, prompted alike by zeal for the faith, by

hatred of the Moslem, and by thirst for military glory. The first nobles

of the West arrayed themselves in their armour, collected their

retainers, and set out for the lands of the rising sun. Here they came

into contact with an Eastern civilization, ornate and dazzling, superior

to their own, but still in a state of childhood, and revelling in the

fanciful creations which please the infantine mind.[38] Foremost among

the Christian knights went the Barons of Provence, accompanied by troops

of minstrels--troubadours to sing their praises; and we might well

suppose that some of the wonders of the dreaming East would now find

their way into Europe, interwoven with the doughty deeds of the

Christian heroes. This view is corroborated by the fact that almost all

our early romances recount some great exploits performed against the

Saracens; but the marvels they relate, from whatever source they come,

were in accordance with the times in which they were written, for as

alchemy preceded chemistry, so romance-writing was the commencement of

literature. Some of the Arabian stories had considerable grace and

beauty, and are even now attractive to the young. But whether our poets

borrowed from this prolific source or not, it is certain that about this

time they became more ambitious, and produced regular tales of

considerable length, in which the northern gallantry towards the fair

sex was combined with extravagances resembling those of Eastern

invention.

Not until this time were the early heroic legends of this country

developed, and committed to writing, and as they appeared first in

French, some writers--among whom is Ritson--have concluded that they

were merely the offspring of our neighbours' fertile imagination. But

although the poets who recounted these stories wrote in French, they

were in attendance at the English Court, in which, even before the

Conquest, French was the language used, while Latin was that of the

learned, and Saxon that of the country-people. Henry the First, the

great patron of letters, sometimes held his Court at Caen, so that the

Norman poets who were competing for his favour, were doubtless familiar

with the legendary history of England. The first important works in the

French language seem to have come from Normandy, and it is not

improbable that some of them were written in England. They were called

romances, because they were composed in one of the languages of Southern

Europe, containing a large element of the Roman, which we find was still

used among the soldiery as late as the seventh century. It has been

supposed that all our early Anglo-Norman romances were translations from

the French, except the "Squyr of Lowe Degre," and of some the originals

are still extant.

These productions, from whatever source they came, were the kind of

literature most acceptable at the time. There seemed then nothing harsh

or contemptibly puerile in stories we should now relegate to the

nursery, and no doubt people derived an amusement from them, for which

that of humour was afterwards gradually substituted.

Examples of such stories are found in that of Robert, King of Sicily,

who for his pride was changed, like Nebuchadnezzar, into one of the

lower animals, and in that of Richard "Coeur de Lion," who rode a

horse possessed by the devil, and whose wife flew away like a bird.

In the romance of Sir Bevis of Hamtoun, (Earl of Southampton,) he is

represented as a kind of infant Hercules, who, when fifteen, killed

sixty Saracen knights. He afterwards was imprisoned at Damascus in a den

with two dragons, but destroyed them. He was kept in a dungeon, however,

and

"Rats and mice, and such small deer,

Was his meat that seven year."

During this time he was cheered by an angel visiting him. An adversary

shortly appears in Ascapard:

"This geaunt was mighty and strong,

And full thirty foot was long,

He was bristled like a sow;

A foot he had between each brow.

His lips were great, and hung aside,

His eyen were hollow, his mouth was wide,

Lothy he was to look on than,

And liker a devil than a man."

He was overcome, and became page to Sir Bevis. Ascapard is very useful,

as he is able to take Bevis, Josyan, and even the horse Arundel under

his arm. An attempt at humour is introduced here, which is said to have

amused the people of Cologne. The bishop prepared to christen the giant,

"For Ascapard was made a tun,

And when he should therein be done,

He lept out upon the brench (brink)

And said, 'Churl! wilt thou me drench?

The devil of hell mote fetche thee!

I am too much (big) christened to be!'"

We will finish this sketch of the romancing tendencies of our early

literature by a description of a dragon from "Sir Degoré:"

"There was a dragon great and grymme,

Full of fyre, and also venymme,

Wyth a wyde throte, and tuskes grete,

Uppon that knygte fast gan he bete,

And as a lyon then was hys feete,

Hys tayle was long, and full unmeete;

Between hys head and hys tayle

Was xxii fote withouten fayle;

His body was lyke a wyne tonne,

He shone ful bryght agaynst the sunne;

Hys eyen were bryght as any glasse,

Hys scales were hard as any brasse:

And thereto he was necked lyke a horse,

He bore hys hed up wyth grete force;

The breth of hys mouth that did not blow

As yt had been a fyre on lowe.

He was to loke on, as I you telle

As yt had been a fiende of helle."

These romances were often called "Gestes," from the great "Gesta" or

exploits they recorded.

The author of "Cursor Mundi," a book of religious legends, says,

"Men lykyn jestis for to here

And romans rede in divers manere

Of Alexandre the conquerour,

Of Julius Cæsar the Emperour, &c."

It may be doubted whether such tales as the above were ever regarded as

true, but it was not until thought became more active that the falsity

of them was fully appreciated, and "jests" gradually acquired their

present signification. The word romance has also come to be used not

only for a pleasant poetical narrative, but especially for something

utterly devoid of truth. "Story" is used in the same sense, but not

"novel," for in our present works of fiction there is seldom so much

improbability as to be offensive in our day, though it may be so to our

successors.

In the above extracts it may have been observed that there is a

prominence and importance given to the lower animals which we should not

find in writings of the present day. As civilization fell back into

barbarism, fables re-appeared, and some indifferent literature of this

kind was produced in the fourth century by Aphthonius in Greek, and

afterwards by Flavius Avianus in Latin. In the Saxon ode on the victory

of Athelstan, a very particular account is given of the beasts of prey

present at the carnage.

Theodosius, the blind Emperor, is said to have been restored to sight by

a serpent, whom he had benefited, coming in while he was asleep, and

placing a precious stone upon his eyes. In one of the early romances of

Marie, a baron is transformed into a bisclaveret,[39] or wolf, for three

days every week, much to his wife's discomfort; in another a falcon

changes into a knight, who is finally caught in a bird-trap; in another

a lady falls into a trance, and is supposed to be dead, until her rival,

seeing a weasel restore another one by placing a vermilion flower in its

mouth, she places it in the lady's mouth and thus awakens her. The same

element is largely present in the other romances.

Alexander Neckam, who lived in the latter part of the twelfth century,

shows how fond our forefathers were of animals, and how they kept them

in their houses. The castles were often full of them, some roving about,

others necessarily in confinement. Monkeys were in high favour. Some of

them were taught to fight as in a tournament, which we are told caused

great laughter. In mediæval times there was a love of all kinds of

hybrid animals, and there was a certain amount of belief that all sorts

of monsters came from the East or North. Giraldus Cambrensis tells us

that there were in Ireland such mixtures as half ox and half man, half

dog and half monkey.

All these stories remind us of the fabular period in old Greek history,

and bespeak a time, when both taste and knowledge were in their infancy;

but when, at the same time, the rays of the ideal were breaking upon the

mind, and "men appeared as trees walking."

Allied to a love of fabling was that of allegory, which, as soon as

literary activity began to appear in the early church, produced an

abundant harvest. This tendency exhibited itself in the first progress

of thought in England. Philippe de Than, one of the most ancient

Anglo-Norman poets, wrote a work describing the character of each bird

and beast, upon which he grounded moral reflections. Robert Grosseteste,

Bishop of Lincoln, who died in 1253, was celebrated for a copious

dissertation on mystical divinity, and a poem is extant ascribed to him,

called the "Castle of Love" by Leland, in which the creation and

redemption are represented as an allegory--our Lord being supposed to

enter a magnificent castle, the body of the Virgin. The "Gesta

Romanorum" strongly exhibits the want of discrimination at this time,

for although the dramatis personæ are generally Roman Emperors, the

deepest Christian mysteries are supposed to be shadowed forth by their

actions. Some of the stories are evidently invented to enforce religious

teaching. We read of an angel accompanying a hermit on his wanderings,

the angel robs or murders all who receive him, but explains afterwards

that it is for their good. He gives a golden goblet to a rich man who

refuses to entertain them, to comfort him in this world, as he will go

to hell in the next.

Vincent of Beauvais, a learned Dominican of France, who flourished in

the thirteenth century, observes that it was a practice of preachers to

rouse their congregation by relating a fable of Æsop. In the British

Museum there is a collection of two hundred and fifteen stories,

romantic, allegorical, and legendary, evidently compiled for the use of

monastic preachers. Mystic similitudes were at this time greatly

affected in all branches of learning. In the "Romaunt of the Rose," the

difficulties of a lover are represented under the form of a man seeking

a rose in an inaccessible garden. This flower, alchemists considered to

be emblematic of the Philosopher's Stone, while theologians referred it

to the white rose of Jericho--a state of grace into which the wicked

could not enter.

CHAPTER II.

Anglo-Saxon Humour--Rhyme--Satires against the Church--The

Brunellus--Walter Mapes--Goliardi--Piers the Ploughman--Letters of

Obscure Men--Erasmus--The Praise of Folly--Skelton--The Ship of

Fools--Doctour Doubble Ale--The Sak full of Nuez--Church

Ornamentation--Representations of the Devil.

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.

CHAPTER III.

Origin of Modern Comedy--Ecclesiastical Buffoonery--Jougleurs and

Minstrels--Court Fools--Monks' Stories--The "Tournament of

Tottenham"--Chaucer--Heywood--Roister Doister--Gammer Gurton.

As the early drama of Greece arose from the celebration of religious

rites, so that of modern times originated in the church. This does not

seem so strange when we remember that religion is in connection with

abstract thought, and with an exercise of the representative powers of

the mind. And if we ask how comedy could have been thus introduced, the

reply must be that the ideal of former ages was very different from our

own. In the days when the mind was dull and inactive, striking

illustrations were very necessary to awaken interest in moral and

spiritual teaching. They changed in accordance with the progress of the

times and country--sometimes the medium was fables or other such

impossible fictions, sometimes it was similitudes from nature, as

parables, and sometimes dramatic performances. Whatever drama the Jews

had was of a religious character. It is supposed by some that the

words--"When your children shall say unto you, 'What mean ye by this

service,'" refers to some commemorative representation. However this may

be, we know that about the year 100 B.C., Ezekiel, an Alexandrian Jew,

wrote a play in Greek on the Exodus, which somewhat resembled a

"mystery." Luther thought that the books of Judith and Tobit were

originally in a dramatic form; and, even among the Jews, a comic element

was sometimes introduced--as in the ancient Ahasuerus' play at the feast

of Purim--with a view of attracting attention at a time when people had

little reflection, and were not very particular about the intermingling

of utterly incongruous feelings, whether religion and cruelty, or

religion and humour.

We have traced the gradual decline of the drama in Rome, until it

consisted but of buffooneries and mimes; and so its revival in modern

times commenced with performances in dumb show, the low intellectual

character of the age being reflected in popular exhibitions. The mimi

were people who performed barefooted, clothed in skins of animals,

with shaven heads, and faces smeared with soot. The Italians gradually

came to relish nothing but a sort of pantomime, and it seems to have

occurred to the Roman Church, always enterprising and fond of

adaptation, that they might turn this taste of the people to some

account. Accordingly, we read of religious mummings in Spain as early as

the sixth century, and in 1264 the Brotherhood of the Gonfalone was

founded in Italy to represent the sufferings of Christ in dumb show and

processions.[48] In France the performance of holy plays, termed

Mysteries, dates from the conclusion of the fourteenth century, when a

company of pilgrims from the Holy Land, with their gowns hung with

scallop shells and images, assisted at the marriage of Charles VI. and

Isabella of Bavaria. They were incorporated as a Society in Paris to

give dramatic entertainments, and were known as the "Fraternity of the

Passion." Originally the intention was to represent scenes in Scripture

history, but gradually they introduced "Moralities"--fanciful pieces in

which God, the Devil, the Virtues, &c., were the dramatis personæ. In

one of these, for instance, the Devil invites the Follies to a banquet

on their arrival in hell. When they sit down the table seems hospitably

spread, but as soon as they begin to touch the food it all bursts into

flame, and the piece concludes with fireworks. We can see that a comic

element might easily be introduced into such performances. But Charles

VI., who seems to have been fond of all mimetic exhibitions, formed

another company named "L'Institution Joyeuse," composed of the sons of

the best families in Paris, who, under the name of the "Enfans sans

Souci," and presided over by the "Prince des Sots," made France laugh at

the follies of the day, personal and political. The above mentioned

religious fraternity joined these gay performers without apparently

seeing anything objectionable in such a connection, and under the name

of the "Clercs de la Bazoche," or clerks of the revels, acted with them

alternately. Even in the Mysteries, an occasional element of humour was

evidently introduced, although many things which would appear ludicrous

to us did not so affect the people of that day. A tinge of buffoonery

was thought desirable. Thus in the "Massacre of the Holy Innocents," a

good deal of scuffling takes place on the stage, especially where the

women attack with their distaffs a low fool, who has requested Herod to

knight him that he may join in the gallant adventure. In France there

was "The Feast of Asses," in which the priests were attired like the

Ancient Prophets, and accompanied by Virgil! Balaam, armed with a

tremendous pair of spurs, rode a wooden ass, in which a man was

enclosed. Robert Grosseteste, Bishop of Lincoln, forbade the celebration

in churches of the "Feast of Fools," in which the clergy danced and

gesticulated in masks. The "Mysteries" seem sometimes to have been of

extraordinary length, for there was a play called "The Creation,"

performed at Clerkenwell which lasted eight days.

Pageantry as well as humour--devices appealing to the senses--were

largely employed to enliven the exhibitions of early times. In the

Christmas games in the reign of Edward I., we find they made use of

eighty tunics of buckram of various colours, forty-two vizors, fourteen

faces of women, fourteen of men, and the same number of angels, as well

as imitations of dragons, peacocks, and swans.

The taking of Constantinople in 1453 scattered the men of learning

throughout the West, and led to a revival of literature. The drama

recommenced with representations of the old plays of Plautus. They were

performed at the Universities, and on state occasions, as in 1528, when

Henry VIII. had a stage erected in his great hall at Greenwich.

But the first development seems to have been in Spain, where the old

Romans had left their impress, and where the cruel games of the circus

still survive in the form of bull-fights. Lopez de Reuda, of Seville,

first brought comedy on the stage, but Cervantes tells us that then the

whole wardrobe of an actor consisted of four sheep-skins, trimmed with

gilt leather, four beards, four wigs, and four shepherds' crooks.

Nevertheless, after the classical period, Spain became the repertory for

the comedians of Europe.

So far we have traced the origin of comedy as to public performance. We

now come to consider what tendencies of disposition opened the way for

it, and led to its becoming a branch of literature. The love of

amusement, which is so strong in man, induced the patronage, which in

early times was extended to the various kinds of professors of light

arts.

In the days of Greece, as in those of Rome, there were ball-players, and

mountebanks, and we may remember an occasion on which Terence complained

that a rope-dancer had enticed away his audience. In Sparta there were

men who represented the tricks of thieves and impostors in dances, and

whose entertainments, though poor, were superior to that of mere

mountebanks. The mimes were a still greater improvement, in which a

certain amount of amusing narrative was illustrated by dances, songs,

contortions, and as the name implies by mimicry. We have seen Plato

introducing mimi from Greece, and Julius Cæsar interesting himself in

such performers. Our mediæval fool has been traced to the Roman mime,

who continued to please the country-people with coarse and debased

representations after Rome had fallen, and comedy had perished. Some

have even given a classic origin to our pantomime, considering harlequin

to be Mercury, the clown Momus, pantaloon Charon, and columbine Psyche.

The Roman Sannio and Manducus certainly somewhat corresponded to our

fool and clown, the latter especially in his gormandising propensities.

But it is scarcely necessary to travel so far back, for the desire for

amusement has in all countries produced an indigenous supply.

Court-jesters are heard of as early as the reign of Philip of Macedon,

but they seem to have been at first little more than parasites of

inferior rank and education. In Roman times they were little more than

buffoons,[49] and not very different from the mediæval fools. They seem

to have received nicknames, and Petronius describes a very low buffoon

performing antics in a myrtle robe with a belt round his waist.

As in ancient times we find Achilles singing to his lyre, so the English

musicians and story-tellers were originally amateurs of high rank. We

read of King Alfred charming the Danes with his minstrelsy. So also in

the Arthurian legends Sir Kaye is represented as amusing the company;

but at the time of Hoel Dha's Welsh laws, the bard was paid, for we read

that the king was to allow him a horse and a woollen garment, and the

queen to give him a linen robe; the prefect of the palace is privileged

to sit near him on festivals and to hand him his harp. Canute seems to

have treated his scalds with less ceremony, for he threatened to put one

of them to death because he recounted his exploits in too short a poem,

but the man escaped by producing thirty strophes on the subject next

day. The Saxon gleemen were generally of humble origin and not only

performed music, but exhibited tricks. So also among the Normans we find

the barons originally amusing one another with "gabs," _i.e._ boastful

and exaggerated accounts of their achievements. But soon a greater

amount of leisure and luxury led them to pay for amusement; professed

musicians and story-tellers were introduced, and were classed with the

_ministri_ or servants, whence came the name minstrel, which was soon

confined to them alone. We find Talliefer going before William the

Conqueror at the battle of Hastings chanting the brave deeds of

Charlemagne and making a display of skill in tossing and catching his

sword and spear. This union of tricks and music became so common that

the words minstrel and jougleur were soon synonymous, though there was

originally a distinction between them. The word jougleur, sometimes by

mistake written jongleur, is derived from the latin _joculator_. This

class of people were conjurers, as their name suggests, and often went

about the country with performing animals, especially bears and monkeys.

They gradually added songs to their accomplishments, which more

assimilated them to the minstrels, and they became connected with, and

were sometimes called "troubadours." In these minstrels or jougleurs,

though sometimes strolling independently, being often attached to great

households, we find an element of the domestic, or as he is called,

court fool, and we find another in their performances being of that

primitive character, which appeals chiefly to the perception of the

senses. For although the "jocular" part, originally subordinate, had

been increased, it took so rude a form that the ludicrous was not always

easily distinguished from the humorous. The Fool was a strange mixture

of both, varying from a mere idiot and butt to a man of genius, far

superior to his masters. He made shrewd remarks, and performed senseless

antics, the city fool, on Lord Mayor's day, was to jump clothes and all

into a large bowl of custard. To a certain extent he generally

corresponded with his name in having some mental weakness or

eccentricity, and it was a recommendation if he were dwarfish or

deformed. He wore a "motley" suit of discordant colours to make him

ridiculous, and correspond with the incongruity of his mind and

actions--a dress similar to the hundred patched _paniculus centunculus_

of the Roman mimes. Sometimes he wore a petticoat or calf-skin to

resemble an idiot. Finally, he had his head shaved and wore a cowl to

make him like a monk, as his buffooneries would thus have a stranger

character, and the nobles had no great affection for the church.[50] The

domestic fool was common in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries up to

the time of Louis XIV.; but it is said that there were such men at the

Court of Louis le Débonnaire. Giraldus Cambrenses writes that when he

was preaching for the Crusades in South Wales, one John Spang "who by

simulating fatuity, and having a quick tongue was wont to be a great

comfort to the court," said to Resus, the king: "You should be greatly

indebted to your relative the Archdeacon for sending a hundred of your

men to day to follow Christ, and if he had spoken Welsh I do not believe

that one of all your people would remain to you." This was towards the

end of the twelfth century, but it does not seem clear that John Spang

was a court jester. We may fairly consider that the institution of the

domestic fools, the employment of men, who professed jocularity as a

branch of art distinct from music and legerdemain increased mental

activity, and a growing desire for humour. But the men who made jesting

their profession were generally regarded with contempt, and an Act of

Parliament in the reign of Edward III. ordered strollers of this kind to

be whipped out of the town. An old satire written at the time of the

Reformation brings together actors, dustmen, jugglers, conjurers, and

sellers of indulgences.

But we want something more than wits and drolleries, and even public

performances, to complete our idea of Comedy. We must have literary

composition and artistic construction. From songs of warlike

achievements such as were chanted by the old scalders to cheer their

chiefs over the bowl, there arose by degrees fanciful tales with which

the Saxons and their successors amused themselves after their dinner,

and round the blazing hearth. In the tenth century the clergy found

stories to amuse the post-prandial hour--extravagant, indelicate, or

profane--such were the times, but marking improved activity of thought.

Thus they enjoyed such a tale as that a "prophet" went to Heriger

(Archbishop of Mayence about 920) and told him he had been to the nether

world, a place, he said, surrounded by woods. The Archbishop replied

that, if that was the case, he would send his lean swine there to eat

acorns. The prophet added that afterwards he went to heaven, and saw

Christ and his saints sitting at table and eating; John the Baptist was

the butler, and served the wine, and St. Peter was the cook. The

Archbishop asked the stranger how he fared himself, and on his saying

that he sat in the corner and stole a piece of liver--Heriger instead of

praising his sanctity ordered him to be tied to a stake, and flogged for

theft. The "Supper," as old as the tenth century, is another humorous

description. A grave assembly of scriptural characters, from Adam and

Eve downwards, are invited, Cain sits on a plough, Abel on a milk-pail

&c.; two, Paul and Esau, are obliged to stand for want of room, and Job

complains of having nothing to sit on but a dunghill. Jonah is here the

butler. Samson brings honey to the dessert, and Adam apples--

"Tunc Adam poma ministrat, Samson favi dulcia.

David cytharum percussit, et Maria tympana,

Judith choreas ducebat et Jubal psalteria

Asael metra canebat, saltabat Herodias."[51]

Thus stories, by degrees, began to be not only composed, but written,

and although not intended for acting, to be dignified with the old name

of "Comedies." Such poems were written by Robert Baston, who accompanied

Edward II. to Scotland.

The Tournament of Tottenham is a merry story of this kind, written in

the reign of Henry VI. It is full of a rough kind of hostile humour,

and shows the sort of things which amused at that time. Here we have a

burlesque upon the deeds of chivalry. A mock tournament is held, the

prize is to be the Reve of Tottenham's daughter, a brood hen, a dun cow,

a grey mare, and a spotted sow. The combatants--clowns and

rustics--provide themselves with flails, and poles, and sheep skins

"They armed tham in mattes;

They set on ther nollys (heads)

For to kape ther pollys,

Gode blake bollys (bowls)

For t' batryng of battes (cudgels)."

The fierceness of the combat is described:

"And fewe wordys spoken,

There were flayles al to-slatered,

Ther were scheldys al to-flatred,

Bollys and dysches al to-schatred,

And many hedys brokyn."

We find some specimen of the kind of tales called Comedies, which

preceded acted Comedy, in the works of Chaucer, who died in 1400.

Scarcely any part of Chaucer's writings would raise a laugh at the

present day, though they might a blush.[52] But he was by no means a man

who revelled in indelicacy. We may suppose that he was moderate for the

time in which he lived, and when he makes an offensive allusion, he

usually adds some excuse for it. The antiquated language in which his

works are written prevents our now appreciating much of the humour they

contained; generally, there is more refinement and grace in his

writings. No doubt at the time he was thought witty, and his tendency in

this direction is shown by his praise of mirth in the "Romaunt of the

Rose."