The entertainment, fools were expected to afford, may be collected in great variety from our old plays, especially from those of Shakespeare; but, perhaps, a good idea may be formed of their general conduct from a passage in a curious tract by Lodge, entitled, "Wit's Miserie," 1599, quarto: "Immoderate and disordinate joy became incorporate in the bodie of a jeaster; this fellow in person is comely, in apparell courtly, but in behaviour a very ape, and no man; his studie is to coin bitter jeasts, or to shew antique motions, or to sing baudie sonnets and ballads; give him a little wine in his head, he is continually flearing and making of mouthes; he laughs intemperately at every little occasion, and dances about the house, leaps over tables, outskips men's heads, trips up his companions' heeles, burns sack with a candle, and hath all the feats of a lord of misrule in the countrie: feed him in his humour, you shall have his heart; in mere kindness he will hug you in his armes, kisse you on the cheeke, and rapping out an horrible oath, crie 'God's soule, Tum, I love you, you knowe my poore heart, come to my chamber for a pipe of tobacco, there lives not a man in this world that I more honor.' In these ceremonies you shall know his courting, and it is a speciall mark of him at table, he sits and makes faces: keep not this fellow company, for in jingling with him, your wardropes shall be wasted, your credits crackt, your crownes consumed, and time (the most precious riches of the world) utterly lost." With regard to the fool's business on the stage, it was nearly the same as in reality, with this difference, that the wit was more highly seasoned. In Middleton's "Mayor of Quinborough," a company of actors, with a Clown, make their appearance, and the following dialogue ensues:-- 1st Cheater. This is our Clown, sir. Simon. Fye, fye, your company Must fall upon him and beat him; he's too fair i'faith, To make the people laugh. 1st Cheater. Not as he may be dress'd, sir. Simon. Faith, dress him how you will. I'll give him That gift, he will never look half scurvily enough. Oh! the Clowns that I have seen in my time, The very peeping out of one of them would have Made a young heir laugh, though his father lay a-dying; A man undone in law the day before, (The saddest case that can be) might for his second Have burst himself with laughing, and ended all His miseries. Here was a merry world, my masters! Some talk of things of state, of puling stuff; There's nothing in a play like to a Clown, If he have the grace to hit on it, that's the thing indeed. Away then, shift; Clown, to thy motley crupper.