When is the meetest my money to spend? O Anthony, now, now, now, O Anthony, now, now, now. When goeth the King of good fellows away, That so much delighted in dancing and play? O Anthony, now, now, now, O Anthony, now, now, now. And when should I bid my good master farewell, Whose bounty and curtesie so did excell? O Anthony, now, now, now, O Anthony, now, now, now. “Loe yee now, (quoth hee,) this song have I made for your sake, and by the grace of God when you are gone, I will sing it every Sunday morning under your wives' window.* * “Anthony in his absence sung this song so often in S. Martin's, that thereby he purchast a name which he never lost till his dying day, for ever after men cald him nothing but Anthony now now.” Braithwait thus describes one of the race of “metre ballad mongers.” “Now he counterfeits a natural base, then a perpetual treble, and ends with a counter-tenure. You shall heare him feigne an artfull straine through the nose, purposely to insinuate into the attention of the purer brother-hood.” APPENDIX. Well might Old England * have been called “Merrie,” for the court had its masques and pageantry, and the people their plays, ** sports, and pastimes. There existed a jovial sympathy between the two estates, which was continually brought into action, and enjoyed with hearty good-will. Witness the Standard in Cornhill, and the Conduit in “Chepe;” when May-poles were in their glory, and fountains ran with wine. * The English were a jesting, ballad-singing, play-going people. The ancient press teemed with “merrie jests.” The following oddities of the olden time grin from our bookshelves. “Skelton's merrie Tales;” “A Banquet of Jests, Old and New” (Archee's); “A new Booke of Mistakes, or Bulls with Tales, and Bulls without Tales;” “The Booke of Bulls Baited, with two Centuries of bold Jests and nimble Lies “Robin Good-Fellow, his mad Pranks and merry Jests “A merry Jest of Robin Hood “Tales and quicke answers;” “xii. mery Jests of the Wyddow Edyth “The merry jest of a shrewde and curste Wyfe lapped in Morrelles-skin for her good behavyour “Dobson's Drie Bobbes. Sonne and Heire to Scoggin, full of mirth and delightful recreation;” “Peele's Jests “Tarlton's. Jests “Scoggin's Jests “The Jests of Smug the Smith;” “A Nest of Ninnies,” &e. &e. ** There were not fewer than seventeen playhouses in and about London, between 1570 and 1629. A joyous remnant of the olden time was the coart-fool. “Better be a witty fool than a foolish wit.” What a marvellous personage is the court-fool of Shakspeare! His head was stocked with notions. He wore not Motley in his brain.