my bed and board in his
house; where, amongst many other fooleries, I, being a traveller, made
him believe that the steeple of Brentwood, in Essex, sailed in one night
as far as Calais, in France, and afterwards returned again to its proper
place. Another time I made him believe that in the forest of Sherwood,
in Nottinghamshire, were seen five hundred of the King of Spain's
galleys, which went to besiege Robin Hood's Well, and that forty
thousand scholars with elder squirts performed such a piece of service
as they were all in a manner taken and overthrown in the forest. Another
time I made him believe that Westminster Hall, for suspicion of treason,
was banished for ten years into Staffordshire. And last of all, I made
him believe that a tinker should be baited to death at Canterbury for
getting two and twenty children in a year; whereupon, to prove me a
liar, he took his horse and rode thither, and I, to verify him a fool,
took my horse and rode hither.'

"'Well,' quoth Jacke of Dover, 'this in my mind was pretty foolery, but
yet the Foole of all Fooles is not here found that I looked for.'

_The Fool of Huntington._

"'And it was my chance (quoth another of the jury) upon a time to be at
Huntington, where I heard tell of a simple shoemaker there dwelling, who
having two little boys whom he made a vaunt to bring up to learning, the
better to maintain themselves when they were men; and having kept them a
year or two at school, he examined them saying, "My good boy," quoth he
to one of them, "what dost thou learn and where is thy lesson?" "O
father," said the boy, "I am past grace." "And where art thou?" quoth he
to the other boy, who likewise answered that he was at the devil and all
his works. "Now Lord bless us," quoth the shoemaker, "whither are my
children learning? The one is already past grace and the other at the
devil and all his works!" Whereupon he took them both from school and
set them to his own occupation.[2]'"

A number of others of the jury of penniless poets having related their
stories, at last it is agreed that if the Foole of all Fooles cannot be
found among those before named, one of themselves must be the fool, for
there cannot be a verier fool than a poet, "for poets have good wits,
but cannot use them, great store of money, but cannot keep it," etc.

* * * * *

It is doubtful what the name "Jack of Dover" imports, as that of the
imaginary inquirer after foo