Let us pass, then, from Scogan and from a King who, with all his patronage of the fool, could least of all the Kings of England bear a political joke, to one who had scant time to listen to jesting. But I will here remind the reader that out of Edward IV.’s barbarity, in executing a merry tradesman in Cheapside, merely for saying that he would make his son heir to the _Crown_,--meaning his house of business, distinguished by that sign,--Fuller, in his ‘Holy State,’ draws an argument against profane jesting which might have profited all, court fools as well as others, could they only have heard the arguer. Fuller upheld harmless mirth as a cordial for restoring wasted spirits; and he only pronounced jesting unlawful when it trespassed in quantity, quality, or season. When speaking against jesting with God’s word, he asks, “Will nothing please thee to wash thy hands in, but the font? or to drink healths in, but the church chalice?” With earthly monarchs, fools may have their privilege; but then Fuller remembers the poor mercer’s joke which so angered Edward IV., and he exclaims, “More dangerous still is it to wit-wanton it with the majesty of God.” Finally, he gives these rules against profane jesting,--rules which, when he wrote, while fools were yet in remembrance, if not in favour at court, he knew had been daily transgressed. “If,” he says, “without thy will, and by chance-medley, thou hittest Scripture in ordinary discourse, yet fly to the city of refuge, and pray God to forgive thee. Scoff not at the natural defects of any which are not in their power to mend. Oh! ’tis cruel to beat a cripple with his own crutches. Neither scorn any for his profession, if honest, though poor and painful. He that relates another man’s wicked jest, adopts it for his own. He that will lose his friend for a jest, deserveth to die a beggar by the bargain. We read that all those who were born in England the year after the beginning of the great mortality, in 1349, wanted their four cheek-teeth. Such let thy jests be,” adds the humorous commentator, “that they may not grind the credit of thy friend; and make not jests so long till thou becomest one.” Such was the comment of a moralist on jesting, suggested by the consequence of non-professional joking on royalty.