en the
spider and the flie, &c." A few years later, Sir John Harington, in his
_Apologie_(for the _Metamorphosis of Ajax_) 1596, writes: "Ralph Horsey,
Knight, the best housekeeper in Dorsetshire, a good freeholder, a
deputie Lieutenant. Oh, sir, you keep hauks and houndes, and hunting
horses: it may be som madde fellowe will say, you must stand up to the
chinne, for spending five hundred poundes, to catch hares, and
Partridges, that might be taken for five poundes." Then comes this note
in the margin: "according to the tale in the hundred Mery Tales." It is
No. 57. In the Epilogue to the play of _Wily Beguild_, printed in 1606,
but written during the reign of Elizabeth, there is a passage in which
the _C. Mery Talys_ are coupled with _Scoggins Jests_, and in his
_Wonderful yeare_, 1603, Decker says: "I could fill a large volume, and
call it the second part of the _Hundred Merry Tales_, only with such
ridiculous stuff as this of the justice." From this extract, first
quoted by Mr. Collier in his valuable History of the Drama, and from the
manner in which Shakespeare, through the mouth of Beatrice, speaks of
the _Mery Talys_, it is to be gathered that neither writer held this
book of jests in very high estimation; and, as no vestiges are traceable
of an edition of the work subsequent to 1582, it is possible that about
that time the title had grown too stale to please the less educated
reader, and the work had fallen into disrepute in higher quarters. The
stories themselves, in some shape or other, however, have been
reproduced in every jest-book from the reign of Elizabeth to the
Restoration, while many of them multiply themselves even to the present
day in the form of chap books.

_A C. Mery Talys_ was one of the popular tracts described by the
pedantic Laneham, in his _Letter from Kenilworth_, 1575, as being in the
Library of Captain Cox, of Coventry.[6]

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Walley obtained his licence or the _C. Mery Talys_ in 1557-8, during
the reign of Mary, perhaps in anticipation of a change in the
government, and in order to forestall other stationers. If Walley
printed the Tales, it is most likely that he waited, till Elizabeth came
to the throne.

[2] Collier's Extracts from the Reg. Stat. Co. ii. 25.

[3] An abridgment of this ballad was published in Ritson's _Ancient
Songs and Ballads_, 1829, ii. 31. But see the _Townley Catalogue_, No.
358.

[4] The elder Disraeli has a chapter on this subject in his _Am