Thus the fool went out in a rather gorgeous fashion. There was a grand tableau as the curtain descended which had been up in England for so many centuries. I am bound to add that the Eglinton fool may find a rival as to the honour of closing the merry line, in Shemus Anderson, the fool of Murthley Castle, Perthshire, who died in the year 1833. He had grown tolerably rich in his vocation; had suffered losses, like Dogberry; but left behind him some comfortable hundreds of pounds to his heirs. Shemus, however, never wore the cap and bells, or nursed the bauble, or whirled the bladder and peas, or shook the clappers, or carried motley. He was a fool in undress; but in respect of fulness of character and costume, of circus jokes, and all the accessories of the part, excepting its indecencies, the Eglinton fool was the last of the race. He flickered up for a moment, as did the padded knights and the Queen of Beauty, to afford some idea to the times present of the aspect of the times past, as far as the latter could be exhibited in one of its gorgeous follies. The blaze of splendour was great, and the fool’s fire of conundrums burnt bravely, but the rain extinguished it all; the umbrellas gave an air of ridicule to the scene; the thing was felt to be, after all, only a splendid sham; and accordingly the fool and the pseudo-feudal lords and ladies disappeared for ever. All that remains of the old reality are rags and shreds and fragments in the mansions of our nobles and gentles. At Glamis Castle a motley jacket still hangs, or did recently hang, on a peg in the wall, and at Stourhead is still preserved a jester’s baldric, which may be devoutly kissed as a relic by the worshippers of Folly. Some resemblance may be certainly traced between the conditions of the English court fool and the ancient parasite, and between the English household fool and the old Roman slave. With all, there was laughter excited by liberty of speech, which must have occasionally fallen like refreshing dew upon the ear of despot or noble, unaccustomed to listen to aught from others save his own exceeding glorification. The despot still retained the power of punishing the fool; and in this particular, the household jester, who was often a menial servant, the drudge of the family, very closely resembled the Roman slave, with whom his master would graciously exchange jokes one day, and whom he would scourge the next. The two, capricious master and servile yet audacious wit, agreed very well with despotism, and coarse times and manners; but with liberty and refinement, both expired, or underwent such modifications, or took such new forms, as to be no longer recognizable. The fool was for a season, but eccentricity of character, which was his great merit, naturally survived him.