joking; and of the next three kings, Henry the Fifth alone, when Prince of Wales, is said to have aired his wit a-nights about Eastcheap. But what Shakespeare has made witty in relation never took place in point of fact. All the Eastcheap doings are apocryphal, and the _Boar’s Head_ never had beneath its roof-tree those joyous princely spirits in whom we shall nevertheless continue to believe. Again, of the third Richard’s jesting humour we have no other example than what Shakespeare and Colley Cibber have invented for him. The seventh Henry was a dull deep man; the eighth, one to laugh with if you felt especially sure it would not shake your head off your shoulders. His son and his daughters are not recorded in the annals of wit, and such stories as have descended to us of James the First are of an unclean tendency, and the best of them in point of mirth are by far the uncleanest. His son Charles was too gentlemanlike and too grave to be such a joker as his unkingly sire. His refinement of manner did not admit of coarseness, with whatever wit it might be gilded, and the royal martyr is but known, in respect of humour, for ‘King Charles’s Golden Rules,’ of which, of course, he was _not_ the author. If ever there was a man in whom we should not expect to find the jesting spirit, that man is Oliver Cromwell. At the wedding festival, however, of his daughter Frances with Mr. Rich, Oliver entered joyously into all the jesting; so joyously that, in a moment of excitement, the Protector whipt off his son Richard’s wig and pretended to throw it into the fire. This he appeared to have done, but he had dexterously conveyed it under him, and was sitting upon it, when the company were looking for the wig upon the top of the coals. No clown, not even thou, oh Joseph Grimaldi!--not even thou who wast an artist, true actor, in whose every look there was a purpose, in every movement a meaning--not even thou, oh best and greatest of the old pantomime clowns! couldst have executed this trick with more rapidity, cleverness, and impudent imperturbability than Oliver Cromwell exhibited on that occasion. It was an occasion, by the way, when spilling of blood had like to have happened through immoderate excess of the spirit of fun. Old Sir Thomas Hillingsby was solemnly dancing, according to the fashion of his younger days. He looked so like an insensible statue in motion, that some daring young Puritan lads thought they might molest him with impunity. They tried, as he slowly moved to and fro in measured pace, to blacken his lips with burnt cork. They roused the old lion to fury. The ex-gentleman usher to the Queen of Bohemia pulled out his dagger, which he would have plunged between the ribs of the fellow most actively concerned but for general interference. Some time elapsed before harmony was restored.