And this office, it is to be observed, was partly in fashion as being a good sanitary system; “Laugh and grow fat” is a popular saying, with much philosophy therein. “Laughter,” says the Prussian Professor, Hufeland, “is one of the most important helps to digestion with which we are acquainted; and the custom in vogue among our ancestors, of exciting it by jesters and buffoons, was founded on true medical principles. Cheerful and joyous companions are invaluable at meals; obtain such, if possible, for the nourishment received amid mirth and jollity, is productive of light and healthy blood.” Walter Scott, when discussing, in a note to ‘Ivanhoe,’ the question whether Negroes were known in England at the period of that romantic story, cites an instance, whereby he not only establishes an affirmative, but proves that the professional jesters were of value to their patrons in other ways besides exciting their laughter and improving their digestion. “John of Rampayne,” he tells us, “an excellent juggler and minstrel” (words implying the professional jester), “undertook to effect the escape of one Andulf de Bracy by presenting himself in disguise at the Court of the King where he was confined.” For this purpose “he stained his hair and his whole body entirely as black as jet, so that nothing was white but his teeth. And succeeded in imposing himself on the King, as some Ethiopian minstrel. He effected by stratagem the escape of the prisoner. Negroes therefore must have been known in England in the dark ages.” When the joyous brotherhood could perform services of this nature we need not be surprised that prelates as well as princes entertained them, and that the Council of Paris, in 1212, in vain denounced churchmen who were worldly enough to maintain fools in their households. The idea that fools were instituted in order to supply the wants of a free society is, perhaps, not so strictly true as that they were gradually allowed to go out of fashion because their licensed freedom of expression was calculated to lead to social liberty. At first, a sarcasm from an equal may have only been considered as an insult; “yet conversation,” says Southey, “wanted its pepper and vinegar and mustard,” and so Fools were allowed to make the seasoning. When freedom of speech became vulgar (that is, popular or general), the Fool, as such, began to disappear. The term is sometimes applied in a singular sense. Thus “Fools’ Pence” was the name given to a tax once levied on the astrologers of Alexandria, because of the gain of their own ingenious folly derived from fools.