THE HISTORY OF COURT FOOLS. BY DR. DORAN, AUTHOR OF ‘TABLE TRAITS,’ ‘HABITS AND MEN,’ ‘LIFE OF YOUNG, THE POET,’ ‘QUEENS OF THE HOUSE OF HANOVER,’ ‘KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS,’ ‘MONARCHS RETIRED FROM BUSINESS,’ ETC. LONDON: RICHARD BENTLEY, NEW BURLINGTON STREET, Publisher in Ordinary to Her Majesty. 1858. PRINTED BY JOHN EDWARD TAYLOR, LITTLE QUEEN STREET, LINCOLN’S INN FIELDS. TO HEPWORTH DIXON, THIS FRIENDLY HOMAGE FROM THE AUTHOR....

In the days of old, it happened that all Olympus was dull, and Zeus complained, yawning the while, that there was not a fool amongst the gods, with wit enough to keep the divine assembly alive, or to kill the members of it with laughter. “Father,” said Mercury, “the sport that is lacking here, may be found for us all, on earth. Look at that broad tract of land between the Peneus and Aliacmon. It is all alive with folks in their holiday gear, enjoying the sunshine, eating sweet melons, singing ti

When Erasmus praised Folly, it was only by making Folly advocate her own cause. After all, her pleading neither recommends her cause, nor says much for the wit of the pleader. Folly, in the abstract, has been denounced alike by Scripture and ancient heathen sages. “All men are fools,” was once a received text. Over the text, some have laughed, some have cried, and upon it, or its equivalent, divines have preached sermons now mirthful now melancholy. “If I wish to look at a fool,” says Seneca mod

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

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

All writers who have taken the ancient English minstrels for a subject, agree in stating that the old Saxon invaders of our land brought with them bards, and a profound reverence for the bards themselves and the art they professed. These highly-esteemed personages were rhyming historians, chroniclers, theologians, and philosophers. They held the key, or, what was the same thing to them, men believed that they held the key, of many secrets appertaining, not only to earth, but heaven. They were mi

It is a singular but incontrovertible fact, that there are many individuals now living, who are indebted for various benefits, and even no inconsiderable wealth (in their corporate capacity), to the liberality of long-departed jesters at our English Courts. The estates so long held by the Cathedral Church of Canterbury, at Walworth, were originally the pious gift of the first English jester on record. C The name of this joculator was Hitard, perhaps Hit-hard, from the success of his sayings. He

Under the word Ministrelli , a term said to belong to “Monk’s Latin,” were anciently comprehended in France, not merely Minstrels, but Buffoons, Mimes, and Jesters generally. They are called in common parlance, says Du Fresne, in his Glossary, “Menestreux or Menestriers,” because they belong to the lower order of officers at court—“quod minoribus aulæ ministris accenserentur.” The same author shows the early identity of the minstrel with the jester, by quoting an ordinance regulating the arrange

Of all the courts, civilized or uncivilized, at which fools have been numbered on the household, the jester was never in so uncomfortable a purgatory as in the household of the Czars. The most savage, the most able, but it would be hard to say the most mendacious, of these potentates, was Ivan Vasilievitch IV., who reigned from 1533 to 1581. He might, for various reasons, be reckoned amongst the princes who were their own fools,—for some of his acts savoured greatly of the profession; at least,

In one of the letters addressed by the anxious Chesterfield to his son, the discerning Peer remarks: “There is at all courts a chain which connects the Prince or the Minister with the page of the backstairs or the chambermaid. The King’s wife or mistress has an influence over him; a lover has an influence over her; the chambermaid or valet de chambre has an influence over both; and so ad infinitum . You must therefore,” adds the estimable trainer of his child, “not break a link of that chain, by

Voltaire remarks, in his ‘Age de Louis XIV.,’ that the fashion of keeping court and household fools and dwarfs, was for a time the grande mode of all the courts of Europe. It was a remnant of barbarism, he tells us, which continued longer in Germany than elsewhere. He, naturally enough, traces this mode, in its origin, to a lack of amusement of a better sort. The poor pleasure which degraded the human intellect, was only a pleasure, he says, because, in the times of ignorance and bad taste, real

There are very few of the writers who have devoted their attention to the subject treated in this imperfect volume, who have ever alluded to the fool who suddenly appeared at the court of Alboin, King of the Lombards, ( A.D. 572,) and who created a large measure of astonishment there, by his rude exterior and his ready wit. All Verona was, in popular phrase, “full of him.” The chronicle of his “Astuzie” was long the delight of the whole of Italy. His name was Bertoldo. He was hideously ugly, and

The court fool, like the tailor, is one whose avocation is passed by without notice in Scripture. From no passage in Holy Writ could the old church dignitaries who maintained fools in their households, find warrant for their practice; they simply found a worldly fashion, and adopted it. Like princes, they were not always free from “vapours;” and as princes sought to cure their melancholy by the agency of hired mirth-makers, these reverend gentlemen followed the example. With respect to the profe

Although I have made almost an encyclopædia of notes touching exalted personages who, since the decline or the suppression of official fools, have shown a disposition to perform the office on their own account, neither my space nor my sympathy for the persevering reader who has thus far accompanied me, will admit of my placing a hundredth part of them before the public. A few instances, however, I will at once proceed to give, only premising, that it was lucky for a people when the Prince, in pl

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