Francisco. What hast thou there? a julep?

  Hylas. He must not touch it;
  ’Tis present death.

Thomas. You are an ass, a twirepipe, A Jeffery John Bo-peep!  Thou minister?  Thou mend a left-handed pack-saddle?  Out! puppy!  My Friend, Frank, but a very foolish fellow.  Dost thou see that bottle? view it well.

  Fran. I do, Tom.

  Tho. There be as many lives in it as a cat carries;
  ’Tis everlasting liquor.

  Fran. What?

Tho. Old sack, boy.  Old reverend sack; which for ought that I can read yet Was the philosopher’s stone the wise King Ptolomus Did all his wonders by.

Fran. I see no harm, Tom. 
Drink with a moderation.

Tho. Drink with sugar,
Which I have ready here, and here a glass, boy.

* * * * *

Hang up your juleps, and your Portugal possets,
Your barley broths and sorrel soups; they are mangy
And breed the scratches only:  Give me sack!

The devil now becomes a constant resource for humour.  In “The Chances” Antonio has lost his jewels.  His servant suggests that the thieves have “taken towards the ports.”

Ant. Get me a conjurer, One that can raise a water-devil.  I’ll port ’em.  Play at duck and drake with my money?  Take heed, fiddler, I’ll dance ye by this hand:  your fiddlestick I’ll grease of a new fashion, for presuming To meddle with my de-gambos! get me a conjurer, Inquire me out a man that lets out devils.

Beaumont and Fletcher were great conversationalists, their racy raillery is said to have been as good as their plays.  They were members of the celebrated Mermaid Club in Fleet Street, a centre where the wits of the day sharpened their humour in friendly conflict.  In his epistle to Ben Jonson, Beaumont writes—­

          “What things have we seen
  Done at the ‘Mermaid!’ heard words that have been
  So nimble and so full of subtle flame,
  As if that every one from whom they came
  Had meant to put his whole wit in a jest,
  And had resolved to live a fool the rest
  Of his dull life.”

Here it was that Shakespeare and Jonson often contended, the former like “a light English man-of-war” the latter like “a high-built Spanish galleon.”

To some portion of the seventeenth century, we must attribute those curious stories called “The Merry tales of the Wise Men of Gotham” although by some they have been attributed to Andrew Gotham, a physician of Henry VIII.  They are said to have been suggested by a circumstance which occurred in the time of King John.  He intended to pass through Gotham, a village in Northamptonshire, but the inhabitants placed some difficulties in his way.  On his expressing his determination to carry out his project, and sending officers to make inquiries about the opposition offered,