“When merry Jacke of Dover had made his privy search for the Foole of all Fooles, and making his inquirie in most of the principal places in England, at his return home he was adjudged to be the fool himself; but now wearied with the motley coxcombe, he hath undertaken in some place or other to find a verier foole than himself.  But first of all, coming to London, he went into Paul’s Church, where walking very melancholy in the middle aisle with Captain Thingut and his fellowes, he was invited to dine at Duke Humphry’s ordinary,[1] where, amongst other good stomachs that repaired to his bountiful feast, there came a whole jury of penniless poets, who being fellows of a merry disposition (but as necessary in a commonwealth as a candle in a straw bed), he accepted of their company, and as from poets cometh all kind of folly, so he hoped by their good directions to find out his Foole of Fooles, so long looked for.  So, thinking to pass away the dinner-hour with some pleasant chat (lest, being overcloyed with too many dishes, they should surfeit), he discovered to them his merry meaning, who, being glad of so good an occasion of mirth, instead of a cup of sack and sugar for digestion, these men of little wit began to make inquiry and to search for the aforesaid fool, thinking it a deed of charity to ease him of so great a burden as his motley coxcomb was, and because such weak brains as are now resident almost in every place, might take benefit hereat.  In this manner began the inquiry: 

The Foole of Hereford.

“’Upon a time (quoth one of the jury) it was my chance to be in the city of Hereford, when, lodging at an inn, I was told of a certain silly-witted gentleman there dwelling, that would assuredly believe all things that he heard for a truth; to whose house I went upon a sleeveless errand, and finding occasion to be acquainted with him, I was well entertained, and for three days’ space had my bed and board in his house; where, amongst many other fooleries, I, being a traveller, made him believe that the steeple of Brentwood, in Essex, sailed in one night as far as Calais, in France, and afterwards returned again to its proper place.  Another time I made him believe that in the forest of Sherwood, in Nottinghamshire, were seen five hundred of the King of Spain’s galleys, which went to besiege Robin Hood’s Well, and that forty thousand scholars with elder squirts performed such a piece of service as they were all in a manner taken and overthrown in the forest.  Another time I made him believe that Westminster Hall, for suspicion of treason, was banished for ten years into Staffordshire.  And last of all, I made him believe that a tinker should be baited to death at Canterbury for getting two and twenty children in a year; whereupon, to prove me a liar, he took his horse and rode thither, and I, to verify him a fool, took my horse and rode hither.’

“‘Well,’ quoth Jacke of Dover, ’this in my mind was pretty foolery, but yet the Foole of all Fooles is not here found that I looked for.’