There is even here, however, a curious coincidence between the fifty-third story and a feature in the Interlude before referred to. In the anecdote the man, who is not worthy to open the gate to the king, proposes to fetch _Master Couper_ to do it, while _Tom Couper_ is introduced in the same sort of casual way into the dramatic performance. Among these tales the fellow who entertained so humble an opinion of his worth was a true coeval type, while he who elsewhere could only see in his sovereign lord “a man in a painted garment” was a Radical born out of his time. Yet both jests bespeak such a liberality of temper as could enjoy a laugh at the two pieces of bucolic ignorance alike, which makes our thoughts return naturally to More. In indelicacy there is not much to choose between the two series; but it has always been a misapprehension to deduce from the equivocal situations and language, which go so far to make the marrow of these popular compilations, a proof of the tolerance among our ancestors of a freedom of speech no longer admissible. The grossness of early English literature is not displayed, after all, most conspicuously in jest-books, but in the drama; and we have assuredly nothing which parallels in obscenity the old popular literature of the French. There is, however, one important consideration to be taken into account when we enter on the study of this class of material, whether prose, poetical or dramatic,--and that is, the social station of the individuals into whose mouths these broad pleasantries are put. Occasionally, no doubt, expressions are ascribed, rightly or wrongly, to men, and even to women, in an exalted rank of life, which seem revolting to modern taste; but, although such traits do not, as a rule, find their way into type, distinguished persons of the present day are capable of a good deal in this direction, and in the last century high-born dames delivered utterances which would certainly be now viewed as extremely improper, without concealment or a consciousness of having said anything unconventional. The standard of politeness has perhaps been raised, if that of morality has not. We confine ourselves in our vices to the closet, and observe good behaviour in the street, and even, on the whole, at the theatre. But, to return to the more immediate subject, the coarseness and ribaldry which distinguish and season the early jest-books principally emanate from the lower strata of the population--from the folk, in fact--which is no whit superior at this moment to the use and enjoyment of a similar phraseology and a similar description of merriment. Place the carter and the bargeman, the market-woman and the orange-wench, of the reign in which we live, side by side with the analogous characters when the _Hundred Merry Tales_ appeared, and see whether in three centuries and a half refinement has made much progress! _Pares cum paribus._