unnecessary amplification. His volumes will serve a double purpose. They will amuse the ordinary reader of the day, and instruct the student of English manners in the habits of a time which has never failed to attract."--_Academy._ "Mr. Ashton has produced, beyond a doubt, the most accurate and readable picture of social life under Queen Anne that has yet been published.... The book can be opened anywhere and read with pleasure and profit."--_Morning Post._ "With commendable diligence Mr. Ashton has assembled a vast number of documents, advertisements, and what not, which he has skilfully grouped in chapters illustrating the education, food, dress, amusements, science, art, and manners of the time. His book is, in fact, a valuable and trustworthy collection of _mémoires pour servir_. In these pages the reader may wander at will in that lesser London of which Covent Garden and Leicester Square were the centres. With Mr. Ashton's book all things are feasible, provided the reader carry with him a decent amount of curiosity and a fairly good memory. And as Mr. Ashton, with commendable and indeed unusual honesty, gives chapter and verse for his statements, our pilgrim may be moderately sure that his imaginings will possess a certain verisimilitude."--_Athenæum._ CHATTO & WINDUS, PICCADILLY, W. [Illustration: RICHARD TARLTON. _Tarlton's Jests, Edit. 1638._] HUMOUR, WIT, & SATIRE of the SEVENTEENTH CENTURY Collected and Illustrated by JOHN ASHTON AUTHOR OF "CHAP-BOOKS OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY," "SOCIAL LIFE IN THE REIGN OF QUEEN ANNE," etc. [Illustration: The foole Rides mee] London CHATTO AND WINDUS, PICCADILLY 1883 _All rights reserved_ _Printed by_ R. & R. CLARK, _Edinburgh_. =Preface.= Our forefathers delighted to call their country "Merrie England;" and so, in very truth, it was. All sorts of sports and pastimes, such as no other nation can show, were then in use; and even the elders, in their hours of relaxation, were wont to exchange a merry jest with one another. Perhaps some of their jokes lacked the refinement of the present age, but they denoted a keen sense of humour. Many, nay most, cannot be reproduced at the present day, and much has this book suffered therefrom; and it is for this reason that the jest-books and ballads of this century are so little known. Some few have been printed in small editions, either privately, or for dilettante societies; but they are not fit for general perusal, and the public at large know nothing of them. This is specially the case with the ballad literature of the century, which is unusually rich. The Pepys, Roxburghe, Bagford, Luttrell, and other collections, are priceless treasures; but I know no publisher who would be bold enough to reproduce them, in their entirety, for the use of the general public. By this I do not wish to cast any slur, either on the modesty, or morality, of our ancestors; but their ways were not quite as ours. The Bibliographical Reference, which forms an Appendix, will show the wide range that the humour of this century takes; and this does not exhaust the store by any means. In it I have given, for the use of students, the British Museum Catalogue number of every authority (to save trouble, should they wish to refer to the books); and, to avoid the multiplicity of footnotes, I have placed against each paragraph a number, by means of which (on turning to the reference) the work from which it was taken can at once be seen. Political satire ought to be a work in itself, so that I have but sparingly used it; and as religious satire hardly comes within the...