MERRIE ENGLAND should have escaped demolition. Look at St. Saviour's! 1 and refrain from cursing, if you can, its sacrilegious despoilers. In the contemplation of that impressive scene-amidst the everlasting freshness of nature and the decay of time- I have been taught more rightly to estimate the works of man and his Creator,—the one, like himself, stately in pride and beauty, but which pass away as a shadow, and are seen no more; the other the type of divinity, infinite, immutable, and eternal.” "But surely-may I call you Uncle Timothy?" Uncle Timothy good-humouredly nodded assent. Surely, Uncle Timothy, the restoration of the Ladye Chapel and Crosby Hall speak something for the good taste of the citizens." «Modestly argued, Eugenio!" "An accident, my young friend, a mere accident forced upon the Vandals against their will Talk of antiquity to a Guildhall Magnifico!? Sirs. I once mentioned the London Stone' to one of these bine-gown gentry, and his one idea immediately reverted to the wellknown refectory of that venerabie name, where he stuffs himself to repletion and scarletites his nasal promontory, without a thought of Wat Tyler, the Lord of the Circie! An acquaintance of mine, one 1 The ancient grave-vard of St. Saviour's contains the sacred dust of Massinger. All that the Parish Register records of him is, “ March 20, 1639-40, buried Philip Massinger, a Serger John Fletcher, the eminent dramatic poet, who died of the Plate. August 1A 1625 was buried in the church. * De Gastons 2 Alderman Newman, who had scraped together out of the grocery ine six hundred thousand pounds, enjoyed no greater luxury during the last three years of his hre than to repair daily to the shop, and, precisely as the clock struck two the good old-fashioned hour of city dining), eat his mutton with his successors. The late Thomas Rippon. Chief Cashier of the Bank of England, was a similar oddity. Once only, in a service of fifty years, did he venture to ask for a fortnight's holiday. He left town, but after a three days' unhappy ramble through beautiful green fields, he grew moping and melancholy, and prematurely returned to the blissful regions of Threadneedle Street to die at his desk! With all due respect for Uncle Timothy's opinion, we think he is a little too hard upon the citizens, who are not the only Vandals in matters of antiquity. The mitre has done its part in the pious work of demolition. Who destroyed the ancient palace of the Bishops of Ely (where -Old John of Gaunt, time-honour'd Lancaster." breathed his last, in 1398 with its beautiful Chapel and magnificent Gothic Hall? The site of its once pleasant garden in Holborn, from whence Richard Duke of Gloucester requested a dish of strawberries from the Bishop on the morning he sent Lord Hastings to execution, is now a rookery of mean hovels. And the Hospital of Saint Catherine, and its Collegiate Church, where are they? Not one stone lies upon another of those unrivalled Gothic temples of pity and holiness, founded by the pious Queen Matilda. And the ancient Church of St. Bartholomew, where once reposed the ashes of Miles Coverdale, and which even the Great Fire of London spared, will very soon le level with the ground! s Small was the people's gain by the insurrection of Wat Tyler. The elements of discord, once put in motion, spread abroad with wild fury, till, with the ignoble blood of base hinds, mingled the bravest and best in the land. The people returned to their subjection wondering and dispirited. For those advantage had all these excesses been committed ? Was their position raised? Were their grievances redressed, their wants alleviated? Did their yoke press lighter? Were they nearer the attainment of their (perhaps reasonable) wishes, by nobility and prelates cruelly slaughtered, palaces burned down, and the learning and works of art that humanise and soften rugged natures piled in one vast, indiscriminate ruin? won by these monstrous disorders, they were not the winners. The little aristoIf aught was crats of cities, who have thrown their small weight into popular insurrections, may have had their vanity gratified and their maws temporarily crammed; but the masses, who do the rough work of resistance for their more cunning masters, are invariably the sufferers and dupes. Hard knocks and hanging have hitherto been Deputy Dewlap, after dining with the Patten-makers on the 9th of November, was attacked with a violent fit of indigestion. His good lady sent for the family doctor,-a humorist, gentlemen. Ah!' cried Mr. Galen, 'the old complaint, a coagulation in the lungs. Let me feel your pulse. In a high fever! Show me your tongue. Ay, as white as a curd. Open your mouth wider, Mr. Deputy-you can open it wide enough sometimes!-wider still. Good heavens! what do I see here? Oh! my stars!' screamed the fat Deputy's lady. What, my dear doctor, do you see?' — Why, madam, I see the leg of a turkey, and a tureen of oyster-sauce!' Ha! ha! ha!-gluttons all! gluttons all!" Uncle Timothy was in a crotchetty mood. The heart that is soonest awake to the flower Is always the first to be touch'd by the thorn! "A pise on Benjamin Bosky!" he continued; "the cunning Laureat, having a visitation from sundry relatives of his brother's wife's uncle's aunt's sister, hath enjoined me the penance, malgre moi-même ! of playing showman to them among the Lions of London. Now I have no antipathy to poor relations-your shabby genteel-provided that, while they eat and drink at my expense, they will not fail to contradict me stoutly when they think I am in the wrong; but your purse-proud, half-and-half Brummagem gentlefolks, shabby, without being genteel!-your pettifoggers in small talk and etiquette, that know everything and nothing-listening to and retailing everybody's gossip, meddling with everybody's business, and (with a liberal number of loose screws in their own circle) prying into, exposing, and exaggerating family peccadillos, - and such are the Fubsys, Muffs, and Bumgartens, are sad provocatives to my sple netic vein." His spirits rallied when the talk was of Chaucer, whose gracious memory we drank reverently in a cup of sack prepared, as mine host assured us, from a recipe that had belonged to the house as an heirloom, time out of mind, and of which Dick Tarlton had often tasted. "Dick Tarlton, Uncle Timothy,—was not he one of the types of Merrie England?" "A mad wag! an incomparable clown! a peg upon which hung many an odd jest. His diminished nose was their reward; and when these shall grow out of fashion, doubtless some equally agreeable substitute will be found. When Justice Shallow invited Falstaff to dinner, he issued the following orders: -"Some pigeons, Davy; a couple of short-legged hens; a joint of mutton; and any pretty little tiny kickshaws, tell William Cook." This is a modest bill of fare. But what says Massinger of City feasting in the olden time? "Men may talk of Country Christmasses, Their thirty-pound butter'd eggs, their pies of carp's tongue, Of three fat wethers bruised for gravy, to Make sauce for a single peacock; yet their feasts * A friend of Addison's borrowed a thousand pounds of him, which finding it inconvenient to repay, he never upon any occasion ventured to contradict him. One day the hypocrisy became so offensively palpable, that Addison, losing all patience, exclaimed," For heaven's sake contradict me, sir, or pay me my thousand pounds!" hereabouts at the Bear Garden; but the Bull, in Bishopsgate Street; the Bel-Savage, without Ludgate; and his own tavern, the Tabor, in Gracious (Gracechurch) Street, came in for a share of his drolleries. Marvellous must have been the humour of this allowed fool,' when it could undumpish' his royal mistress in her frequent paroxysms of concupiscence and ferocity! He was no poll-parrot retailer of other people's jokes. He had a wit's treasury of his own, upon which he drew liberally, and at sight. His nose was flat; not so his jests; and, in exchanging extemporal gibes with his audience,' he 1 Tarlton being to speak a prologue, and finding no cessation to the hissing, suddenly addressed the audience in this tetrastic : I lived not in the golden age, When Jason won the fleece; He was one of England's merry crew in the olden time: and, on the authority of an old play, "The Three Lords and Three Ladies of London," published two years after his death, originally "a water-bearer." Among them were Will Summers, jester to King Henry the Eighth; Patch, Cardinal Wolsey's fool; Jack Oates, fool to Sir Richard Hollis; and Archibald Armstrong, jester to King Charles the First. There was a famous jester, one Jemy Camber, “a fat foole," who enlivened the dull Court of James the Sixth of Scotland. The manner of his death, as recorded in "A Nest of Ninnies," by Robert Armin, 4to. 1608, is singular. "The Chamberlaine was sent to see him there," (at the house of a laundress in Edinburgh, whose daughter he was soliciting, and who had provided a bed of nettles for his solace,)"who when he came, found him fast asleepe under the bed starke naked, bathing in nettles, whose skinne when hee wakened him, was all blistred grievously. The King's Chamberlaine bid him arise and come to the King. I will not,' quoth he, I will go make my grave.' See how things chanced, he spake truer than he was awar. For the Chamberlaine going home without him, tolde the King his answere. Jemy rose, made him ready, takes his horse, and rides to the church-yard in the high towne, where he found the sexton (as the custom is there) making nine graves-three for men, three for women, and three for children; and who so dyes next, first comes, first served. Lend mee thy spade,' says Jemy, and with that, digs a hole, which hole hee bids him make for his grave; and doth give him a French crowne; the man, willing to please him (more for his gold than his pleasure) did so: and the foole gets upon his horse, rides to a gentleman of the towne, and on the sodaine, within two houres after, dyed: of whom the sexton telling, hee was buried there indeed. Thus, you see, fooles have a gesse at wit sometime, and the wisest could have done no more, nor so much. But thus this fat foole fills a leane grave with his carkasse; upon which grave the King caused a stone of marble to bee put, on which poets writ these lines in remembrance of him : 'He that gard all men till jeare, And here a ligges beneath this steane." The following poetical picture of him is exact and curious. "This Fat Foole was a Scot borne, brought up In Sterlin, twenty miles from Edinborough: Was he at forty yeeres, since when I heard not; Nor of his life or death, and further heede, generally returned a good repartee for a bad one, and with compound interest. Our business is not with his morals, but his mirth. Of the former little is recorded, and that little not over strait-laced; though I am far from thinking that a great wit must necessarily be a great sinner, or that a man who will make a pun will pick a pocket. Of his risible powers as a stage-player, jest-monger, and court-fool, unequivocal testimonies are handed down by some of his most celebrated contemporaries." ""Tis said that he died penitent." "I hope he did. I hope all have died penitent! I hope all will die penitent. Alas! for the self-complacent Pharisees of this world; But what at that time Jemy Camber was, His nose flat, and his beard small, yet grew square; But wide of mouth, few teeth I must confesse. Indifferent thighes and knees, but very short; Whose very presence made the King much sport. On which he ever wore rings rich and good: How this Fat Foole was made on every where." And some capital jokes are recorded of him in this same "Nest of Ninnies." There was another fool, “leane Leonard," who belonged to "a kinde gentleman' in "the merry Forrest of Sherwood," a gluttonous fellow, of unbounded assurance and ready wit. "This leane, greedy foole, having a stomacke, and seeing the butler out of the way, his appetite was such, as loath to tarry, he breakes open the dairy house, eates and spoiles new cheesecurds, cheesecakes, overthrowes creame bowles, and having filled his belly, and knew he had done evill, gets him gone to Mansfield in Sherwood, as one fearefull to be at home: the maydes came home that morning from milking, and finding such a masaker of their dairie, almost mad, thought a yeares wages could not make amends: but 'O the foole, leane Leonard,' they cryed, 'betid this mischiefe!' They complayned to their master, but to no purpose, Leonard was farre inough off; search was made for the foole, but hee was gone none knew whither, and it was his propertie, having done mischiefe, never to come home of himselfe, but if any one intreated him, he would easy be won. 6 "All this while the foole was at Mansfield in Sherwood, and stood gaping at a Goe look,' shoomaker's stall; who, not knowing him, asked him what he was? says hee; I know not my selfe.' They asked him where he was borne? At my mother's backe,' says he.-In what country?' quoth they. In the country,' quoth he, where God is a good man.' At last one of the three journeymen imagined he was not very wise, and flouted him very merrily, asking him if he would have a stitch where there was a hole? (meaning his mouth.) Aye,' quoth the foole, if your nose may bee the needle.' The shoomaker could have found in his heart to have tooke measure on his pate with a last in steede of his foote; but let him goe as he was. "A country plow-jogger being by, noting all this, secretly stole a piece of shoomaker's ware off the stall, and coming behinde him, clapt him on the head, and asked him how he did. The foole, seeing the pitch-ball, pulled to have it off, but they cannot forgive the 'poor player;' little reflecting of how many, not laughing but crying sins they will require to be forgiven. The breath of such hearts would wither even the flowers of Paradise." Could we sit at the Tabard, and not remember the ancient Globe,' could not but with much paine, in an envious spleene, smarting ripe, runs after him, fals at fistie cuffes with, but the fellow belaboured the foole cunningly, and got the fair's head under his arme, and bobb'd his nose. The foole remembering how his head was, strikes it up, and hits the fellowes mouth with the pitcht place, so that the haire of his head, and the haire of the clownes beard were glued together. The fellow cryed, the foole exclaimed, and could not sodainely part. In the end the people (after much laughing at the jest) let them part faire: the one went to picke his beard, the other his head. The constable came, and ask the cause of their falling out, and knowing one to bee Leonard the lease foole, whom hee had a warrant for from the gentleman to search for, demaunds of the fellow how it hapned? The fellow hee could answere nothing but • umum," for his mouth was sealed up with wax. Dost thou scorne to speake?' says hee. I am the King's officer, knave!' · Um—um,' quoth hee againe. Meaning hee would tell him all when his mouth was cleane. But the constable, think. ing hee was mockt, clapt him in the stocks, where the fellow sate a long houre farming his mouth, and when hee had done, and might tell his griefe, the consta bie was gone to carry home Leonard to his maister; who, not at home, hee was enforced to stay supper time, where hee told the gentleman the jest, who was very merry to heare the story, contented the officer, and had him to set the fellow at liberty, who betimes in the morning was found fast asleep in the stocks. The fellow knowing himselfe faulty, put up his wrongs, quickly departed, and went to work betimes that morning with a flea in his eare." Jacke Onars was “a fellow of infinite jest," and took to the fullest extent the laughing hence that his coat of motley allowed him. His portrait is contained in «A Nest of Ninnies." and is quite as minute and interesting as the true effigie of Lease Leonard, which we place by its side. This Foole was tall, his face small, His beard was big and blacke, His necke was short, inclin'd to sport Of nature curst, yet not the worst, Apt, and full of favour; To spare the wise man's labour. To please with tricks of youth. Footed broad and long, In Moly cotes, goes Jacke Oates, « Curled locks on idiot's heads, Yeallow as the amber, Playes on thoughts, as girls with beads, Hookie nosde and thicke of beard, Bodie straight and slender'd, For his marks you cannot misse.” Each play house," says W. Parkes, in his Curtain-drawer of the Wrold, 4to. 1812, “advanceth its flag in the air, whither, quickly, at the waving thereof, are summoned whole troops of men, women, and children." And William Rowley, in * A Search for Money, 1609," whilst enumerating the many strange characters asmbled at a tavern in quest of The Wandering Knight, Monsieur L'Argent," cludes among them four or five flag-jalne plaiers, poore harmlesse merrie |