During the period which witnessed the publication in England of these books, many other jest-books appeared, for they had already become an important class of English popular literature. Most of them were published anonymously, and indeed they are mere compilations from the older collections in Latin and French. All that was at all good, even in the jests of Skelton, Scogin, Tarlton, and Peele, had been repeated over and over again by the story-tellers and jesters of former ages. Two of the earlier English collections have gained a greater celebrity than the rest, chiefly through adventitious circumstances. One of these, entitled "A Hundred Merry Tales," has gained distinction among Shakespearian critics as the one especially alluded to by the great poet in "Much Ado about Nothing," (Act ii., Sc. 1), where Beatrice complains that somebody had said "that I had my good wit out of the Hundred Merry Tales." The other collection alluded to was entitled "Mery Tales, Wittie Questions, and Quicke Answeres, very pleasant to be readde," and was printed in 1567. Its modern fame appears to have arisen chiefly from the circumstance that, until the accidental discovery of the unique and imperfect copy of the "Hundred Merry Tales," it was supposed to be the book alluded to by Shakespeare. Both these collections are mere compilations from the "Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles," "Poggio," "Straparola," and other foreign works.[77] The words put into the mouth of Beatrice are correctly descriptive of the use made of these jest-books. It had become fashionable to learn out of them jests and stories, in order to introduce them into polite conversation, and especially at table; and this practice continued to prevail until a very recent period. The number of such jest-books published during the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries, was quite extraordinary. Many of these were given anonymously; but many also were put forth under names which possessed temporary celebrity, such as Hobson the carrier, Killigrew the jester, the friend of Charles II., Ben Jonson, Garrick, and a multitude of others. It is, perhaps, unnecessary to remind the reader that the great modern representative of this class of literature is the illustrious Joe Miller. [77] A neat and useful edition of these two jest-books, with the other most curious books of the same class, published during the Elizabethan period, has recently been published in two volumes, by Mr. W. C. Hazlitt. CHAPTER XV. THE AGE OF THE REFORMATION.--THOMAS MURNER; HIS GENERAL SATIRES.--FRUITFULNESS OF FOLLY.--HANS SACHS.--THE TRAP FOR FOOLS.--ATTACKS ON LUTHER.--THE POPE AS ANTICHRIST.--THE POPE-ASS AND THE MONK-CALF.--OTHER CARICATURES AGAINST THE POPE.--THE GOOD AND BAD SHEPHERDS.