In the _Wit Without Money_ of these authors, we have a glimpse of a sort of household joker of those times, in the person of Shorthose, the widow’s fool, who grows dull in the country, brightens up by town associations, loves good living, dislikes morning prayers, and has a turn for clever similes and smart sayings, in the style of stage valets. He is superior, after all, to Tony, in _A Wife for a Month_, who is a mere low-comedy fool, with a wit to which Shakespeare’s jesters would scorn to condescend. In this piece, however, we again trace the presence of the whip, as a permanent menace against offending Motley, in English houses. The usurping Frederick, indeed, says to him, “Thou art a fool, and may’st do mischief lawfully;”--nevertheless, not only the fool’s master, but others of less authority, frequently threaten to chastise this official with an undefined position. Geta, in the _Prophetess_, is described as a “jester,” but he is little more than a stage servant, who alludes to “turn-spits,” and who becomes duller the higher he rises in station. Villio, in the _Double Marriage_, is a type of the philosophical fool, of whom there were many; and who, with the wit of common sense, judges content in a cottage to be better than a throne with a thorn in the side of the king who sits on it. We have still fewer reflections of the jester in Penurio and Soto, of _Woman Pleased_, and in Jaques and Pedro of _Women’s Prize_. Beaumont and Fletcher have more success in painting the household dwarf than the household fool. The fidelity of Zoilus, dwarf to a duke’s son, in _Cupid’s Revenge_, is a compliment to his class. He is as ugly as most of these creatures were, who moreover lived in constant feud with the more gigantic jester, if there was one in the house. Zoilus is described as being “an ape’s skin stuffed; with a pudding in ’s belly;” and yet his lady loves him, for which, however, he is sent to death. Even Base, the jester to the passionate lord, in _Nice Valour_, is but a weak representative of our official friend. He has but one jest, and that is but a poor one. A servant says, “There comes a Cupid drawn by six fools.” To which Base replies, “That’s nothing, I ha’ known six hundred fools drawn by one Cupid.” There is a finer touch of the real Motley in Massinger’s Calandrino (_Great Duke of Florence_), when he remarks:-- “I confess, I am not very wise, and yet I find A fool, so he be parcel knave, in court May flourish and grow rich.” And his distinction between country and court air is quite in the fool’s vein:-- “As this court air taught me knavish wit, By which I am grown rich, if that again Should turn me fool and honest, vain hopes, farewell! For I must die a beggar.” Calandrino, however, is but the “merry servant” to the nephew of the Great Duke, and has only the attributes of the official jester, without actually exercising the office.