Page:Gesta Romanorum - Swan - Wright - 2.djvu/456

444 their meaning. Thus the jesters and minstrels were indefinitely expressed by the words joculator, scurra, mimus, minstrallus, &c. a practice that may admit of justification, when we consider that in early times the minstrel and buffoon characters were sometimes united in one person. It must be allowed, however, that in an etymological point of view, the term Joculator is much better adapted to the jester than the minstrel."— on the Clowns and Fools of Shakspeare, Vol. 2. p. 307.

From this story, with very beseeming alterations, Dr. Byrom wrote the following tale of

'Tale!' That will raise the question, I suppose, 'What can the meaning be of three black crows?' It is a London story, you must know, And happened, as they say some time ago. The meaning of it custom would suppress, Till to the end we come: nevertheless, Though it may vary from the use of old, To tell the moral ere the tale be told,