4357. 'A true jest is an evil jest.' Hazlitt, in his Collection of Proverbs, gives, 'True jest is no jest,' and quotes 'Sooth bourd is no bourd' from Heywood, and from Harington's Brief Apologie of Poetrie, 1591. Kelly's Scotch Proverbs includes: 'A sooth bourd is nae bourd.' Tyrwhitt alters the second _play_ to _spel_, as being a Flemish word, but he only found it in two MSS. (Askew 1 and 2), and nothing is gained [129] by it. The fact is, that there is nothing Flemish about the proverb except the word _quad_, though there may have been an equivalent proverb in that language. We must take Chaucer's remark to mean that 'Sooth play is what a Fleming would call _quaad_ play'; which is then quite correct. For just as Flemish does not use the English words _sooth_ and _play_, so English seldom uses the Flemish form _quaad_, equivalent to the Dutch _kwaad_, evil, bad, spelt _quade_ in Hexham's Du. Dict. (1658). Cf. also O. Friesic _kwad_, _quad_, East Friesic _kwâd_ (still in common use). The Mid. Eng. form is not _quad_, but (properly) _qu[=e]d_ or _queed_; see examples in Stratmann, s. v. _cwêd_. In P. Plowman, B. xiv. 189, _the qued_ means the Evil One, the devil. _Queed_ occurs as a sb. as late as in Skelton, ed. Dyce, i. 168. We find, however, the rare M. E. form _quad_ in Gower, ed. Pauli, ii. 246, and in the Story of Genesis and Exodus, ed. Morris, 536; and in another passage of the Cant. Tales, viz. B. 1628. The oldest English examples seem to be those in the Blickling Glosses, viz. 'of cweade arærende, _de stercore erigens_'; and 'cwed _uel_ meox, _stercus_.' There is no difficulty about the etymology; the corresponding O. H. G. word is _qu[=a]t_, whence G. _Koth_ or _Kot_, excrement; and the root appears in the Skt. _gu_ or _g[=u]_, to void excrement; see _Kot_ in Kluge. 4358. This is interesting, as giving us the Host's name. _Herry_ is the mod. E. _Harry_, with the usual change from _er_ to _ar_, as in M. E. _derk_, dark, &c. It is the same as the F. _Herri_ (not uncommon in O. F.), made from F. _Henri_ by assimilation of _nr_ to _rr_. The name seems to have been taken from that of a real person. In the Subsidy Rolls, 4 Rich. II. (1380-1), for Southwark, occurs the entry--'Henri' Bayliff, Ostyler, Xpian [Christian] ux[or] eius ... ij s.' In the parliament held at Westminster, in 50 Edw. III. (1376-7), Henry Bailly was one of the representatives for that borough; and again, in the parliament at Gloucester, 2 Rich. II., the name occurs. See Notes and Queries, 2 S. iii. 228. THE COKES TALE. 4368. 'Brown as a berry.' So in A. 207. 4377. 'There were sometimes Justs in Cheapside; Hollingshead, vol. ii. p. 348. But perhaps any procession may be meant.'--Tyrwhitt. 'Cheapside was the grand scene of city festivals and processions.'--Wright.