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Naturally this would make the most illiterate person stop and gaze and wonder who this merry-andrew might be. Assuredly this is not the fine simplicity of manners one expects from a great man. "Earl, do you wear one of these?" asked an American democrat of an English peer at his table, as he produced a coronet from a cupboard and stuck the pudding-dish upon the inverted spikes.
Again the negro spoke, and again Glynn made the same reply; whereupon the black fellow turned round to his comrades and looked at them, and they, in reply to the look, burst again into an immoderate fit of laughter, and cut a variety of capers, the very simplest of which would have made the fortune of any merry-andrew in the civilised world, had he been able to execute it.
While they were talking, fate so willed it that one of the company in a mummers' dress with a great number of bells, and armed with three blown ox-bladders at the end of a stick, joined them, and this merry-andrew approaching Don Quixote, began flourishing his stick and banging the ground with the bladders and cutting capers with great jingling of the bells, which untoward apparition so startled Rocinante that, in spite of Don Quixote's efforts to hold him in, taking the bit between his teeth he set off across the plain with greater speed than the bones of his anatomy ever gave any promise of.
No; that would never do, there was but one alternative, and dreadful, shocking as it was, I could not avoid it, and with a heavy heart, and as much indignation at Waller for what I could not but consider a most scurvy trick, I donned the yellow inexpressibles; next came the vest, and last the coat, with its broad flaps and lace excrescenses, fifty times more absurd and merry-andrew than any stage servant who makes off with his table and two chairs amid the hisses and gibes of an upper gallery.
Indeed, I own, till to-day, I thought Miss Emilie had less of the merry-andrew nature than any of her country; but the butterfly has satisfied me that there is no striving against climate and natural character, which conquer gratitude and every thing else." Mrs. Somers sighed, and told Masham that she had said enough upon this disagreeable subject.
'In answer to your Letter, I must desire you to recollect yourself; and you will find, that when you did me the Honour to be so merry over my Paper, you laughed at the Idiot, the German Courtier, the Gaper, the Merry-Andrew, the Haberdasher, the Biter, the Butt, and not at Your humble Servant, The SPECTATOR. No. 53. Tuesday, May 1, 1711. Steele. ... Aliquando bonus dormitat Homerus. Hor.
The third who entered the Lists was a Foot-man, who in Defiance of the Merry-Andrew, and all his Arts, whistled a Scotch Tune and an Italian Sonata, with so settled a Countenance, that he bore away the Prize, to the great Admiration of some Hundreds of Persons, who, as well as my self, were present at this Trial of Skill.
It was his custom when in banter to drop from English to his native brogue like a merry-andrew. "But, Father Holland, I had him in my power. I struck him, but I didn't kill him, more's the pity!" "An' who's talking of killin', ye young cut-throat? I say get howld of his body and when ye've got howld of his body, I'd further advise gettin' howld of the butt end of a saplin' "
England has always done us the honour to utilize, for her personal service, the fleur-de-lis. The Comprachicos, allowing for the shade which divides a trade from a fanaticism, were analogous to the Stranglers of India. They lived among themselves in gangs, and to facilitate their progress, affected somewhat of the merry-andrew.
I cannot dwell on the terrible scenes we saw in crossing the country. Sometimes La Croissette did some trifling act of kindness, but the evils demanded more potent remedies. "This unfits me for my calling," said he, one day, as he scrambled into the cart and drove off. "How can one play the merry-andrew under such circumstances?
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