As a stage-player, Tarleton was the favourite clown of the people at large. They roared at the coarse extemporary songs which he rattled forth for their amusement and his profit. They shouted at his admirable “gagging,” his improvised speeches, his interlarded jokes with the audience, and his allusions even to religious controversies then raging. Learned physicians praised the voice which uttered, the comical face which heightened, the wit, and the head which was the very temple and head-quarters of facetiousness. It mattered little whether he was in or out of the vein, he was comic in spite of himself; in spite of themselves, people would laugh, and all essayers in his line were frightened out of their specialty, out of sheer despair of being able to be tolerated while he lived or was remembered. No wonder the Queen liked to see him act, as well as listen to his jests at court. The very rudest as well as the highest, could appreciate him as an actor--all but the county justice immortalized, although not named, by Nash, and in whose presence, as also that of the whole township over which this justice presided, Tarleton and his fellow-comedians were playing. The jester had scarcely made his head visible on the stage when the country auditory burst into fits of laughter. “Whereat,” says Nash, “the justice, not a little moved, and seeing, with his becks and nods, he could not make them cease, he went with his staff and beat them round about unmercifully on the bare pates, in that they, being but farmers and poor country hinds, could presume to laugh at the Queen’s man, and make no more account of her cloth in his presence.” Metropolitan magistrates gave more license, and London audiences were not charged with disrespect of her Majesty, because they laughed immoderately at her jester. Tarleton was one night playing at the Bull, in Bishopsgate-street. The play was an old one, touching Henry V.; he, of course, played the clown, but the actor of Judge Gascoyne being absent, Tarleton good-naturedly undertook to play the Judge also. The actor who performed the part of the Prince, dealt the Judge such a box of the ear, when that pseudo-historical incident came on, that Gascoyne shook again, but he did not forget his dignity. He re-appeared as Clown, to whom is told the unseemly scene in court. “Strike a judge!” cried Tarleton. “It could not be but terrible to him, when the report so terrifies me that methinks the blow remains still on my cheek; that it burns again!” “The people,” adds the narrator, “laughed at this mightily;” and we may well fancy a clever and a favourite low comedian turning such an incident to capital account. It was not exactly a time for jests when “In the year 1588,” cried Philip, “the English I’ll humble. I’ve taken it into my Majesty’s pate, and their lion, oh down he shall tumble!”