The Fool of Huntington.

“’And it was my chance (quoth another of the jury) upon a time to be at Huntington, where I heard tell of a simple shoemaker there dwelling, who having two little boys whom he made a vaunt to bring up to learning, the better to maintain themselves when they were men; and having kept them a year or two at school, he examined them saying, “My good boy,” quoth he to one of them, “what dost thou learn and where is thy lesson?” “O father,” said the boy, “I am past grace.”  “And where art thou?” quoth he to the other boy, who likewise answered that he was at the devil and all his works.  “Now Lord bless us,” quoth the shoemaker, “whither are my children learning?  The one is already past grace and the other at the devil and all his works!” Whereupon he took them both from school and set them to his own occupation.[2]’”

A number of others of the jury of penniless poets having related their stories, at last it is agreed that if the Foole of all Fooles cannot be found among those before named, one of themselves must be the fool, for there cannot be a verier fool than a poet, “for poets have good wits, but cannot use them, great store of money, but cannot keep it,” etc.

* * * * *

It is doubtful what the name “Jack of Dover” imports, as that of the imaginary inquirer after fools.  The author of the Cook’s Tale of Gamelyn—­which is generally considered as a spurious “Canterbury” tale—­ represents, in the prologue, mine host of the Tabard as saying to Roger the Cook: 

  “Full many a pastie hast thou lettin blode;
  And many a jack of Dovyr hast thou sold,
  That hath ben twice hot and twice cold.”

Dr. Brewer says—­apparently on the strength of these lines—­that a “Jack of Dover” is a fish that has been cooked a second time.  But it may have been a name of a particular kind of fish caught in the waters off Dover.  If, however, a “Jack of Dover” is a twice-cooked fish, the title of the jest-book is not inappropriate, since all the stories it comprises are at least “twice-told.”

FOOTNOTES: 

[1] To “dine with Duke Humphry” meant not to dine at all.  See Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable for the origin of the expression.

[2] The jest is thus told in some parts of Scotland:  An old gentleman, walking in the country, met three small boys on their way home from school, and asked them how they progressed in their learning.  The youngest—­referring, of course, to the Shorter Catechism—­replied that he was “in a state of sin and misery;” the second, that he was past “redemption;” and the eldest, that he was “in the pains of hell for ever.”

INDEX.

* * * * *

Abdera, Man of, 6.

Alewife and her Hens, 73.

Alfonsus, Peter, 45.