'I Love a Fool'

Almost a century ago, J.B. Priestley had the idea of organizing an anthology around the comic characters abundant in English literature. Fools and Philosophers: A Gallery of Comic Figures from English Literature (John Lane, 1925) is heavy on Shakespeare and Dickens, and how could it not be? From what other national literature could such a collection be made? German? Please. In his preface, Priestley emphasizes that he has selected “suitable passages rather than representative characters.” He apologizes for leaving out excerpts from Goldsmith, Thackeray and Trollope, “because there did not seem to me any single passage sufficiently revealing or sufficiently absurd in itself that I could select to represent them.” In contrast, in Shakespeare and Dickens, “absurdity blossoms to perfection in single passages.”

Priestley’s first four selections feature set-pieces with Falstaff, as in this exchange of eloquent vitriol from History of Henry IV, Part I, Act II, Scene 4:

Prince Hal: “I’ll be no longer guilty of this sin; this sanguine coward, this bed-presser, this horseback-breaker, this huge hill of flesh,—”

Falstaff: “’Sblood, you starveling, you elf-skin, you dried neat’s tongue, you bull’s pizzle, you stock-fish! O for breath to utter what is like thee! You tailor’s-yard, you sheath, you bowcase; you vile standing-tuck,—”

So much English humor is rooted in the bounty of the language. Take this exchange from the second chapter of Pickwick Papers (not included by Priestley) between Alfred Jingle and Mr. Pickwick, who share a coach ride:

“Heads, heads--take care of your heads!” cried the loquacious stranger, as they came out under the low archway, which in those days formed the entrance to the coach-yard. “Terrible place-- dangerous work--other day--five children--mother--tall lady, eating sandwiches--forgot the arch--crash--knock--children look round—mother’s head off--sandwich in her hand--no mouth to put it in--head of a family off--shocking, shocking! Looking at Whitehall, sir?--fine place--little window--somebody else’s head off there, eh, sir?--he didn't keep a sharp look-out enough either--eh, Sir, eh?”

“I am ruminating,” said Mr. Pickwick, “on the strange mutability of human affairs.”

“Ah! I see--in at the palace door one day, out at the window the next. Philosopher, Sir?”

“An observer of human nature, Sir,” said Mr. Pickwick.

“Ah, so am I. Most people are when they've little to do and less to get. Poet, Sir?”

“My friend Mr. Snodgrass has a strong poetic turn,” said Mr. Pickwick.

“So have I,” said the stranger. “Epic poem--ten thousand lines --revolution of July--composed it on the spot--Mars by day, Apollo by night--bang the field-piece, twang the lyre.”

You can see how Dickens (and John Barth in The Sot-Weed Factor) gets his cartoonish characters and extravagant language from Tobias Smollett. Priestley includes selections from his epistolary novel Humphrey Clinker, including a letter from Tabitha Bramble to Dr. Lewis. Don’t worry about the absence of context:

“Give me leaf to tell you, methinks you mought employ your talons better, than to encourage servants to pillage their masters. I find by Gwyllim, that Villiams has got my skin; for which he is an impotent rascal. He has not only got my skin, but, moreover, my butter-milk to fatten his pigs; and, I suppose, the next thing he gets, will be my pad to carry his daughter to church and fair: Roger gets this, and Roger gets that; but I’d have you to know, I won’t be rogered at this rate by any ragmatical fellow in the kingdom—,” and so on.

Priestley published his anthology too early to include comic tour de forces by Evelyn Waugh, Anthony Powell and Kingsley Amis. For some reason he omits Wodehouse who, by 1925, had already conceived Psmith, the Blandings Castle series, and Bertie Wooster and Jeeves. It should be noted that Priestley chooses for his book’s epigraph a tag from Charles Lamb’s “All Fool’s Day”: “I will confess a Truth to thee, reader. I love a Fool—”