There is proof that the household jester, as well as minstrel--the two characters often under one hood--was a very common and a liberally-patronized professor of his respective arts, in the days of Henry VI. Warton, in his first volume, cites the Prior’s accounts of Maxtoke, in Warwickshire (to which I have before alluded), under one of its general heads, “De Joculatoribus et Mimis.” Under this head, and having reference only to various years in the reign of Henry VI., we find several sums expended by the brotherhood for itinerant entertainers who have different names, but whose shades of professional difference it is not so easy to determine. Thus we find, “To a _joculator_, in the Michaelmas week, the sum of fourpence.” Again, “At Christmas, to a _cithariste_ and other joculators, 4_d._” The following entries are further illustrations:--“To the mimes of Solihull, 6_d._” “To the mimes of Coventry, 20_d._” “To Lord Ferrers’ mimes, 6_d._” “To the _lusores_ from Eton, 8_d._” “Ditto, from Coventry, 8_d._” “To those from Daventry, 12_d._” “To the mimes from Coventry, 12_d._” “To Lord Astley’s mimes, 12_d._” “To four of Lord Warwick’s mimes, 10_d._” “To a blind mime, 2_d._” “To six mimes of the household of Lord Clinton.” ... “To two mimes from Rugby, 10_d._” “To a certain cithariste, 6_d._” “To another from Coventry, 6_d._” “To two others from Coventry, 8_d._” “To the mimes of Rugby, 8_d._” “To Lord Buckridge’s mimes, 20_d._” “To the mimes of Lord Stafford, 2_s._” “To the lusores from Coleshill, 8_d._” “It is here to be observed,” says Warton, “that the minstrels,” or jesters, “of the nobility, in whose families they were constantly retained, travelled about the country to the neighbouring monasteries; and that they generally received better gratuities for these occasional performances, than the others.” After the death of Henry VI., there appears on the stage a court jester who is said to have made half England merry with his jests. I allude to the famous Scogan (or Scoggin, or Scogin), who was attached to the household of Edward IV., and whose name is not forgotten in these later days. Oriel College, Oxford, counted about a century and a half from the time of its foundation, in the reign of Edward II. (1326), when, if credit may be attached to the story told by merry Andrew Borde, of Pevensey, Scogan became a student in that college. The young student is said to have been of a good family; and tradition, to be more or less trusted as the reader pleaseth, has preserved a few incidents of his life there, and in other localities. We have a hint of his roystering career in the little incident of Falstaff in his salad days, who “broke Scogan’s head at the court gate.” Ben Jonson alludes to him, in the Masque of ‘The Fortunate Isles,’ as--