A curious anecdote about Shakespeare survives in a jestbook compiled by the husband of Henry Neville’s granddaughter. In the story, Shakespeare is godfather to one of Ben Jonson’s children and is considering a christening present. He tells Jonson:
I’ faith, Ben, I’ll e’en give him a dozen good Latin spoons, and thou shalt translate them.1
The joke plays on Latin and latten, a copper alloy used for spoons. Jonson was so learned that he should be able to “translate” even these “Latin” spoons.
The compiler, Sir Nicholas L’Estrange, married Anne Lewknor in 1630. She was Neville’s granddaughter through his daughter Mary, wife of Sir Edward Lewknor. L’Estrange’s manuscript, Merry Passages and Jeasts, now British Library Harley MS 6395, contains more than six hundred anecdotes and is dated to around 1650.21
L’Estrange often names the person who supplied a story. The Shakespeare–Jonson anecdote is attributed to “Mr Dun,” whose identity is uncertain but who could be John Donne the younger, the poet’s son. Other entries name Neville relatives directly: William Neville, Mary Lewknor, and Mary’s children Anne, Edward and Catherine. Anne appears repeatedly as “My wife.” The family were contributors to the collection as well as characters in its stories.34
Jokes from Neville’s household
One story takes us back to Mary’s childhood. She is riding in a coach with her mother, Neville’s wife Anne, and Mr Packer, identified by the editor as Neville’s secretary John Packer. A thaw has followed heavy frost and snow. Hearing the adults say that the ice has gone, the girl spots a piece in a ditch and calls out:
Look, look, look, Mr Packer, there ice yet i’ the ditch.
Packer turns her hurried words into a scatological joke and repeats it to her mother.5
Another story about “old Lady Neville,” supplied by William Neville, the ambassador’s son, concerns a gentleman eating a fool—a dessert—at the lower end of the table. Lady Neville asks her maid whether it is a fool. The maid thinks so, and is certain it was made for one.6
The family as storytellers
Anne, the compiler’s wife, supplied a story about another Lady Neville: Elizabeth Smythe, the ambassador’s daughter-in-law. Proud of her cheese, she insists that a witty guest taste it. His reply—that he would not wish to eat worse—sounds insulting until he explains that he wants nothing inferior. The two Lady Nevilles belong to different generations; both appear in the family’s remembered jokes.6
William Neville contributed a story about “Sir William Herbert,” identified by Lippincott as the future Earl of Pembroke, one of the First Folio’s dedicatees. Herbert and another gambler dispute a throw, revealing that their dice are false: they have no four. The source label is “Mr Wil: Nevill.” Pembroke’s cooperation with Neville is discussed in Chapter 49.7
Notes and sources
British Library, Harley MS 6395, fol. 2r, jest 11, c.1650; Heather Wolfe, “Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, and the ‘Latin’ spoons in L’Estrange’s jest book”, Shakespeare Documented, Folger Shakespeare Library, updated 23 February 2020. The record supplies the image, transcription, source label and explanation of the pun. The quotation modernizes spelling. British Library image supplied under the Public Domain Mark. The record dates the manuscript to c.1650; this is not a date for the events related in the anecdotes.↩︎
J. G. Nichols, notice of Sir Nicholas L’Estrange and his contributors, in William J. Thoms, ed., Anecdotes and Traditions, Illustrative of Early English History and Literature (Camden Society, 1839), xv–xvii, xx, public edition. Nichols cites the 25 August 1630 marriage settlement. The diagram shows selected descendants, not a complete pedigree. The British Library catalogue dates the compiler 1604–1655 (Harley MS 6395); Nichols and the title of Lippincott’s edition give 1603 for his birth. Thoms, Anecdotes and Traditions, introduction and source list, especially xiii–xx; H. F. Lippincott, ed., “Merry Passages and Jeasts”: A Manuscript Jestbook of Sir Nicholas Le Strange (1603–1655), Salzburg Studies in English Literature, Elizabethan & Renaissance Studies 29 (Salzburg, 1974). The title’s birth date is retained as part of its bibliographical identity. The present chapter does not claim a fresh collation of the whole Harley manuscript. Thoms prints a selection, whereas Lippincott supplies the fuller text. Jest numbers here follow L’Estrange’s numbering. Nichols quotes Mary’s 1642 will, which names her daughter Lady Anne L’Estrange and leaves her a coach and four horses; Mary’s husband died in 1618.↩︎
Thoms, Anecdotes and Traditions, 2–3, jest 11; Lippincott, Merry Passages, 19, jest 11. Augustus Jessopp, “Donne, John (1604–1662)”, Dictionary of National Biography, for the younger Donne’s custody and publication of his father’s papers. Jessopp does not identify him as this informant. The identification with John Donne the younger remains a possibility only: the source label gives neither a first name nor a relationship. Lippincott, Merry Passages, 22, jest 26, and 28, jest 56, both with “Mr Donne” labels. These printed spellings call for comparison with the original manuscript before any identification of the several labels is adopted.↩︎
Lippincott, Merry Passages, 29, jest 64, source “Ned. Lewkenor”; Thoms, Anecdotes and Traditions, 51, selection no. LXXXVII, L’Estrange jest 370, source “My Sis. Ka. Lewk.” For the siblings’ relationships, see Nichols’s family notice, xvi–xviii. Edward’s jest 64 turns a Latin sentence spoken in a French accent into an absurd English rendering involving “veal”; Catherine’s jest 370 concerns a hungry man fearing that his stomach will eat him up. Mary appears as Lady Lewknor among the collection’s informants.↩︎
Lippincott, Merry Passages, 160, jest 604, and the index entry for old Lady Neville. The two expressions follow the printed edition, with spelling and punctuation modernized. Packer’s first name is not supplied in the jest; the person index identifies him as John Packer. Paul Hunneyball, “PACKER, John (c.1572–1649)”, History of Parliament (2010), records his service to Neville by 1600. The anecdote is undated, and the family notice cited above does not establish Mary’s birth date; it therefore does not support a precise year for this childhood scene. Packer renders the girl’s words as “There I shit i’ the ditch.”↩︎
Lippincott, Merry Passages, 31, jest 70, and 45–46, jest 123, with the distinct index entries for old Lady Neville and Lady Neville, pp. 230–231. The latter identifies Elizabeth, daughter of Sir John Smythe of Ostenhanger and wife of Sir Henry Neville (d.1629). Jest 70 is sourced to William Neville; jest 123 to the compiler’s wife.↩︎
Lippincott, Merry Passages, 30–31, jest 69, and the person-index entries for Herbert and Neville. The story names “Sir William Herbert”; its identification with the third Earl of Pembroke is the editor’s. The source label is “Mr Wil: Nevill.” A separate bowls anecdote, jest 535, concerns Philip Herbert and is attributed to Mr Jenkins, not William Neville. Thoms, Anecdotes and Traditions, 71–72, selection no. CXXVII, L’Estrange jest 535, source “Mr. Jenkins,” and Nichols’s explanatory note identifying Philip Herbert. The note also corrects chronological embellishments in another version of the earlier affront.↩︎