When a small impression of these quaint old books issued from the
Chiswick Press, many years ago, under the auspices of the late Mr. S. W.
Singer, that gentleman merely designed the copies struck off for
presentation to a select circle of literary friends who, like himself,
felt a warm interest in every relic of the past which helped to
illustrate Shakespeare and ancient English manners. He did not
consequently feel under the necessity of furnishing notes, and he
preserved not only the old orthography, but the old punctuation, and the
most palpable errors of the press. His edition unfortunately laboured
under one disadvantage: when he printed, in 1814, the _Mery Tales and
Quick Answers_ from Berthelet's edition, he imagined that this was the
book to which Beatrice is made to allude in _Much Ado About Nothing_,
and under this idea he christened the volume _Shakespeare's Jest Book_.
He also thought he was safe in assuming that the edition by Berthelet
was the only one extant. But Mr. Singer discovered, before his
undertaking was a year old, that he had come to an erroneous conclusion
on both these points: for an impression of the _Mery Tales, &c._ printed
by Henry Wykes in 1567, and containing, with all the old matter,
twenty-six additional stories, was brought under his notice, and about
the same time a totally unknown work, bearing the very title mentioned
by Beatrice, was accidentally rescued from oblivion by the Rev. J. J.
Conybeare, who, it is said by Dunlop, picked up the treasure at a
bookstall. This was no other than A C. MERY TALYS.
The copy of _C. Mery Talys_ thus casually brought to light, had been
used by a binder of or about the time of its appearance as pasteboard to
another book, and it was in this state when it fell in the way of Mr.
Conybeare. As might have been expected, many of the leaves were damaged
and mutilated; but (which rendered the matter still more curious) it
happily chanced that _more than one copy_ had been employed by the
aforesaid binder in fashioning the aforesaid pasteboard, and the
consequence was that a much larger fragment than would have been
otherwise saved was formed by means of duplicate leaves. Still several
gaps in the text remained, which it was found impossible to fill up, and
as no other copy has since occurred, no better means exist now than
existed fifty years ago of supplying the deficiencies. Where the hiatus
consisted of a word or two only, and the missing portion could be
furnished by conjecture, Mr. Singer took the liberty of adding what
seemed to be wanting, in italics; his interpolations have been left as
they stood. The old orthography and language, besides the charm of
quaintness, appeared to the editor to possess a certain philological
value, and he has rigidly adhered to it. In respect to the punctuation,
the case was different; there were no reasons of any kind for its
retention; it was very imperfect and capricious; and it has therefore
been modernized throughout.
The _C. Mery Talys_, of which the copy above described has a fair
pretention to the distinction of uniqueness, were first printed by John
Rastell, without date but circa 1525, in folio, 24 leaves. Whether
Rastell printed more than one edition is an open question. The book was
not reprinted, so far as we know at present, till 1558, when John Walley
or Waley paid two shillings to the Stationers' Company for his licence
to produce this and other pieces. Walley reprinted a great number of
books which had originally come from the press of Wynkyn de Worde and
other early masters of the art, but it is not very likely that the _C.
Mery Talys_ made their appearance prior to 1525, and there is room to
doubt whether even then the severe reflections on the scandalous lives
of the Roman Catholic priesthood were not slightly premature. The almost
total destruction of copies may be, after all, due, not to the excessive
popularity of the publication, but to its early suppression by authority
or otherwise. After the triumph of the Reformation, and until the death
of Edward VI. however, although these tales still remained as
unpalatable as ever to a certain party, there was nothing to hinder
their circulation, and that there were intermediate impressions between
that from Rastell's press, and the one licensed to Walley,[1] if not
printed by him, is not at all improbable. The _C. Mery Talys_ were
subsequently and successively the property of Sampson Awdley and John
Charlwood, to the latter of whom they were licensed on the 15th January,
1582. All trace of editions by Walley, Awdley, or Charlwood, has
disappeared, although doubtless all three printed the work.
Of the MERY TALES AND QUICKE ANSWERES, which forms the second portion of
the present volume, only two impressions are known. One of these,
supposed to be the original, was printed by Thomas Berthelet, without
date (about 1535), in 4to.; it contains 114 anecdotes. The other, from
the press of Henry Wykes, bears the date 1567, and is in the duodecimo
form; it produces with tolerable exactness the text of Berthelet, and
has twenty-six new stories. Besides these, at least one other impression
formerly existed: for, in 1576-7, Henry Bynneman paid to the Stationers'
Company fourpence "and a copie" for "a booke entituled mery tales,
wittye questions, and quycke answers."[2] No copy of Bynneman's edition
has hitherto been discovered; a copy of that of 1567 was in the Harleian
library. At the sale of the White-Knights collection in 1819, Mr. George
Daniel of Canonbury gave nineteen guineas for the exemplar of
Berthelet's undated 4to, which had previously been in the Roxburghe
library, and which at the dispersion of the latter in 1812, had fetched
the moderate sum of 5_l._ 15_s._ 6_d._
The reader who is conversant with this class of literature will easily
recognise in the following pages many stories familiar to him either in
the same, or in very slightly different, shapes; a few, which form part
of the _Mery Tales and Quick Answers_, were included in a collection
published many years since under the title of _Tales of the Minstrels_.
No. 42 of the _Mery Tales and Quick Answers_ was perhaps at one time
rather popular as a theme for a joke. There is an Elizabethan ballad
commencing, "ty the mare, tom-boy, ty the mare," by William Keth, which
the editor thought, before he had had an opportunity of examining it,
might be on the same subject; but he finds that it has nothing whatever
to do with the matter.[3] It may also be noticed that the story related
of the king who, to revenge himself on God, forbade His name to be
mentioned, or His worship to be celebrated throughout his dominions, is
said by Montaigne, in one of his essays, to have been current in his
part of France, when he was a boy. The king was Alfonso xi of Castile.
No. 68 of _A C. Mery Talys_, "Of the Friar that stole the Pudding," is
merely an abridgment of the same story, which occurs in _Tarltons Newes
out of Purgatorie_, where it is told of the "Vickar of Bergamo." Many
of the jests in these two pamphlets are also to be found in _Scoggins
Jests_, licensed in 1565; a few occur in the _Philosopher's Banquet_,
1614; and one--that where the lady ties a string to her toe as a signal
to her lover--is repeated at greater length in the "Cobler of
Canterbury," edit. 1608, where it is called "the old wives' tale." It
would be a curious point to ascertain whether the anecdotes common to
these collections and to "_Scoggin's Jests_," do not refer to the same
person; and whether Scoggin is not in fact the hero of many of the
pranks attributed to the "Scholar of Oxford," the "Youngman," the
"Gentleman," &c. in the following pages, which were in existence many
years before the first publication of _Scoggins Jests_. It will hardly
be contested at the present day, that "books of the people,"[4] like
these now reprinted, with all their occasional coarseness and frequent
dulness, are of extreme and peculiar value, as illustrations of early
manners and habits of thought.
The editor has ventured to make certain emendations of the text, where
they were absolutely necessary to make it intelligible; but these are
always carefully noted at the foot of the page where they occur. A word
or two, here and there, has been introduced between brackets to complete
the sense; and a few notes have been given, since it was thought
desirable to point out where a tale was common to several collections in
various shapes or in the same shape, to indicate the source from which
it was derived, and to elucidate obscure phrases or passages. But he has
refrained from overloading the book with comment, from a feeling that,
in the majority of cases, the class of readers, to which a publication
such as this addresses itself, are fully as competent to clear up any
apparent difficulties which may fall in their way, as himself.
The allusions to the _C. Mery Talys_ and to its companion in old writers
are sufficiently numerous.[5]
Bathe, in his _Introduction to the Art of Musick_, 1584, says: "But for
the worthiness I thought it not to be doubted, seeing here are set forth
a booke of a hundred mery tales, another of the bataile between the
spider and the flie, &c." A few years later, Sir John Harington, in his
_Apologie_(for the _Metamorphosis of Ajax_) 1596, writes: "Ralph Horsey,
Knight, the best housekeeper in Dorsetshire, a good freeholder, a
deputie Lieutenant. Oh, sir, you keep hauks and houndes, and hunting
horses: it may be som madde fellowe will say, you must stand up to the
chinne, for spending five hundred poundes, to catch hares, and
Partridges, that might be taken for five poundes." Then comes this note
in the margin: "according to the tale in the hundred Mery Tales." It is
No. 57. In the Epilogue to the play of _Wily Beguild_, printed in 1606,
but written during the reign of Elizabeth, there is a passage in which
the _C. Mery Talys_ are coupled with _Scoggins Jests_, and in his
_Wonderful yeare_, 1603, Decker says: "I could fill a large volume, and
call it the second part of the _Hundred Merry Tales_, only with such
ridiculous stuff as this of the justice." From this extract, first
quoted by Mr. Collier in his valuable History of the Drama, and from the
manner in which Shakespeare, through the mouth of Beatrice, speaks of
the _Mery Talys_, it is to be gathered that neither writer held this
book of jests in very high estimation; and, as no vestiges are traceable
of an edition of the work subsequent to 1582, it is possible that about
that time the title had grown too stale to please the less educated
reader, and the work had fallen into disrepute in higher quarters. The
stories themselves, in some shape or other, however, have been
reproduced in every jest-book from the reign of Elizabeth to the
Restoration, while many of them multiply themselves even to the present
day in the form of chap books.
_A C. Mery Talys_ was one of the popular tracts described by the
pedantic Laneham, in his _Letter from Kenilworth_, 1575, as being in the
Library of Captain Cox, of Coventry.[6]