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“ you have, I 'would do more than that. Whatever it be, laid Bankes, to
“ pleafe him, I 'will charge him to do it. Then, faies Tarlton, charge him
“ to bring me the very eft whoremafter in the company. He fall, faies Bankes.
“ Signior, faies he, bring Ma ft er Farlton the very eft 'whoremafter in the com-
“ pany. The horfe leads his mafter to him. Then God-a-mercy, horfe,
“ indeed, faies Tarlton. The people had much ado to keep peace: but
(< Bankes and Tarlton had like to have fquared, and the horfe by, to give
“ aime. But ever after it was a by word thorow London, God-a-mercy,
“ horfe I and is to this day.”
It is elfewhere related, that the flatnefs of his nofe was occafioned by his
interpofing between fome bears and dogs; which, he ufed to fay, did not fo
much aftedt him, but that he could fmell an honeft man from a knave.
Ben Jonfon, in Fhe Induction to his comedy of Bartholomew Fair, makes
the ftage-keeper fpeak thus of him :
“ I kept the ftage in Mafter Tarlton’s time, I thank my ftars. Ho !
“ an’ that man had liv’d to have play’d in Bartholomew Fair, you fhould
“ ha’ feen him ha’ come in, and ha’ been cozened i’ the cloth-quarter, fo
“ finely 1”
He was author of a dramatic piece, the fcheme or plan only of which is
now remaining, called, The Seven Deadly Sins. Gabriel Harvey,
in his Fsure Fetters, &c. qto. 1592, ftiles it a “famous play he alfo
adds, “ which moft deadly, but moft lively playe, I might have feene in
“ London; and was very gently invited thereunto at Oxford by Tarlton
“ himfelfe.”
After an eccentric and too free life, he died a penitent in 1588, and was
buried in St. Leonard’s, Shoreditch, September the third of that year, as
appears by the parilh regifter. About this period were licenfed, as we learn
from the entries in the books of the Stationers’ Company, “ A forowfull
“ newe fonnette, intitled Tarlton’s Recantation upon this theame, gyven
“ him by a gent at the Bel Savage without Ludgate (nowe or els never),
“ beinge the lafte theme he fongeand “ Tarlton’s repentance or his
“ farewell to his friends in his ficknes a little before his death, &c.”
In Wit's Bedlam, 8vo. 1617, is the following epitaph,
“ On Tarlton.
" Here within this fullen Earth
“ Lies Dick 'Tarlton, Lord of Mirth ;
“ Who in his Grave flill, laughing, gapes,
“ Syth all Clownes fince have beene his Apes:
“ Earft he of Clownes to learne ftill fought;
“ But now they learn of him they taught.
“ By Art far paft the Principal!,
“ The Counterfet is, fo, worth all.”
The orthography and phrafeology of thefe anecdotes will, no doubt, ap-
pear uncouth; and fome of Tarlton’s jokes, witticifins, and mummeries,
fiat and infipid to the modern reader and auditor : but it muft be remembered
that, when this celebrated Buffo flourifhed, Humour was but an embrio;
which Shakfpeare afterwards gave birth to, and Jonfon reared to maturity.