tine_, though it be false,
with as great confidence as ever _Cicero_ could pronounce an oration." I
suspect that the _Mery Tales and Quicke Answeres_ were collected by some
person more or less versed in the classics and in foreign authors, which
was probably not the case with the _C. Mery Talys_, which do not smell
so much of the inkhorn, as Gascoigne would have said.

P. 54. _Breble-brable._

In _Twelfth Night_, act iv. sc. 2, Shakespeare makes the Clown use
_bibble-babble_ in a similar sense; but afterwards in the same drama,
act v. sc.1, _brabble_ is put for "a brawl."

This word is no doubt the same as the "pribbles and prabbles" which Sir
Hugh uses more than once in the _Merry Wives of Windsor_. See act v. sc.
5.

P. 60. _Of hym that payde his dette with crienge bea._--Compare the
story of "the subtility of Kindlewall the lawyer repayed with the like
craft," printed in _Pasquil's Jests_, ed. Gilbertson, n. d. 40.

P. 65. _All to._--I fear that I too hastily adopted the self-suggested
notion that the former words might be read more properly as one word,
and in the sense which I indicated. Perhaps as _all to_ or _al to_ is
not uncommonly used by early writers in this way, though the meaning in
the present case is not particularly clear, it may be better to restore
the original reading.

P. 67. _Of the Inholders wyfe and her ii lovers._--See Rowlands' _Knave
of Clubbs_, 1600, ed. Rimbault, p. 25.

P. 67. _Daungerous of her tayle._ So in the _Schole-house of Women_,
1542, the author says:--

"Plant them round with many a pin,
Ringed for routing of pure golde,
Faire without, and foule within,
And of their tailes have slipper holde."

P. 70. _Of Mayster Vavasour and Turpin his man._

"A Lawyer and his Clerk riding on the Road, the Clerk desired to know
what was the chief Point of the Law. His Master said, if he would
promise to pay for their Suppers that Night, he would tell him; which
was agreed to. Why then, said the Master, good Witnesses are the chief
Point in the Law. When they came to the Inn, the Master bespoke a couple
of Fowls for Supper; and when they had Supped, told the Clerk to pay for
them according to Agreement. O _Sir_, says he, where's your
witness."--_Complete London Jester_, ed. 1771, p. 102.

P. 72. One of _Pasquil's Jests_ is "how mad Coomes, when his wife was
drowned, sought her against the stream." It is merely a new application
of the present anecdote.

P.