Book Description

“Wit, an’t be thy will, put me into good fooling! Those wits that think they have thee do very oft prove fools; and I that am sure I lack thee, may pass for a wise man: For what says Quinapalus? Better a witty fool than a foolish wit.” Clown in “Twelfth Night,” Act I., Scene 5. Among the folkbooks of the German nation, not one has obtained so general a circulation as that now presented in an English form. It has been deemed worthy, as by the Appendix may be perceived, of being translated into French, Dutch, Danish, Polish, nay, even Hebrew, and honoured by being reprinted on every kind of paper, good and bad. A favourite among the young for its amusing and quaint adventures, and a study among those who strive, by the diligent comparison of different eras of national literature, to arrive at a due appreciation of national character, Eulenspiegel, or Owlglass the boor (peasant), possesses a peculiar value for the old. I well remember how, as a very little child, I first made the friendship of the lithe though clumsy hero; and to the present time do not feel that I can say I have lost my interest in the humourous quips and quiddities of the strolling vagabond. I little thought, when I then read the German book, that it would be my privilege to introduce him to other readers in my own language. The Gil Blas of German mediæval story, there is deep instruction in the pungent jests and literal ways xof the man who held up his mirror for owls to look in, and each of whose tricks might form the groundwork of a moral reflection. And for the early times in which it appeared, there was not a little courage in the author of it. Strange to say, this person appears to have been a Franciscan friar, Thomas Murner, who, in other matters, made not a little stir in his own day. He visited this country, and wrote a book in defence of our good King Hal the Bluff against that famous monk, Luther; and he received some assistance in a substantial gift from that monarch. An account of him will be found in the Appendix; we have here only to deal with the significance of the book itself. Like the deep searching work of Rabelais, the book is a satire, not upon human life only, but upon special and dangerous topics. Very early editions contain the story of how Eulenspiegel procured an old skull from a churchyard, and turned the passion for worshipping relics to profitable account; and the priests and would-be learned men of his time continually appear in ludicrous, undignified, or humiliating positions. Rank was not respected, nor was vice in high places passed by with (so-called) discreet silence. Yet with all the graver objects in the book, the immediate aim of amusement was never forgotten; and, letting us into the secrets of peasant life in Germany at an era when peasants had little to rejoice over, we almost imagine that we can hear the shouts of laughter with which the blunt outspoken jokes of this sly clown were received. But Mr. Hallam does justice to a higher appreciation of this kind of literature among the better classes of the time. To be continue in this ebook...