There are more fools in the world than those
publicly accounted such, and in the number many who would be
highly offended were the least hint thrown out that their names
stood on the list. Idiots or common fools, whose minds are so
framed that it is difficult to determine whether the weak parts
or the strong be the more conspicuous, generally view things
through a medium peculiar to themselves, and think, speak, and
act in a way distinct from the great mass of mankind. While
other men allow the world to become acquainted with only the
more rational part of their views, the fool reveals all that
comes into his thoughts. Both rational men and idiots build
castles in the air. The former are accounted wise because they
conceal the airy fabrics ; the latter are esteemed fools, not
because they allow their thoughts to run riot, but because they
cannot conceal their vagaries from the public. The one may
embark in the wildest schemes, and pursue the most headlong
course, and still be reckoned no fool ; while the other may say
many witty things, and do many rational deeds, and still the
world will not account him wise, but will laugh at both his
sayings and his doings, because he does not follow exactly the
same track nor view circumstances in the same light as the
muiltitude. But if the world laugh at the eccentricities of the
fool, the fool, in revenge, seems to hold the notions of the
world in derision : for while the more rational part of the
community are carefully keeping in one common and beaten track,
and, individually, would be quite unhappy were they to be
singular in their manners and habits, the fool fearlessly bounds
into a path of his own formation, and pursues his way through a
kind of fictitious region, wherein he seems to find enjoyments
of no ordinary nature, and beyond the ken of all ordinary men.
A century or two ago, a professed fool was
considered a necessary appendage to every family of distinction.
The primitive elements of his character were the knave—the
idiot—the crazed madman. Wit combined with apparent stupidity,
unbending fidelity mingled with reckless audacity, and a
discriminating judgment concealed by a well dissembled
indifference, were indispensable ingredients in his composition.
When the demand for family fools was great, the supply appears
to have been most abundant. A curious Act of Parliament shows us
that at one time it was necessary to confine the assumption of
this character by legislative enactment. It was "ordainit that
shireff's, baylyies, and officiars inquer at ilk court, gif
tliair he ony that males them fulis that are nocht ; and gif ony
sic be fundyn, that thai be put in the king's warde, or in his
yrnis, for thair trespas, als lang as thai haf ony gudes of
their awin to leve upon ; and fra thai haf nocht to leve upon,
that thair eris be nalyt to the troue, or to ace uther tre, and
cuttit of, and bannysit the cuntre ; and gif thairaftir thai be
fundyn again, that thai be hangyt." This laconic piece of
legislation shows that the emoluments of a fool must have been
considerable, since the number of persons feigning to be fools
was such as to call forth so severe an enactment. This is
farther evident from a passage in Dunbar's poem, entitled
"Kennedy's Testament:"—
"To Jock the fule, my follie free.
Lego post corpus sei'ultum.
lu faith I am mair fule than he,
Licet ostendi bonum multum.
Of corn and cattle, gold and fee.
Ipse habet valde multum;
And yet he bleirs my Lordis ee,
Fingendi eum fore stultum."
Thus it would appear that of their
foolishness part was real and part was feigned. They were,
generally, at least as much knaves as fools, concealing their
knavery under that best of all cloaks—simplicity.
Their dry sarcastic humour and rude ready wit received much
freshness and zest from their wild craziness. They were a link
between the quiet helpless idiot and the boisterous madman. They
shared of the eccentricity of the latter and of the stupidity of
the former, and added to these the sharp-wittedness of the
knave. They are now almost, if not altogether, extinct. The
fool's cap and bells have long hung untenanted on the walls, his
seat by his lord on the dais has long since disappeared, and it
is many a day since his sallies have been heard in the hall or
at the festive board. The country clachan has still its innocent
or idiot, and the crazed madman still wanders restlessly through
his chosen district; but it would seem as if these also were
soon to disappear. Already they are much less frequently to be
seen than formerly, being concealed from the public eye in the
cells of charitable asylums. But till within these few years, we
have seen several idiots led about the streets of Aberdeen, or
wandering to and fro under their own guidance. We recollect one
in particular—a most pitiful spectacle—who was led from door to
door of the suburbs by a woman, we believe his mother. "Feel
Peter," "Willie More," and many others, will be remembered by
the youngest of our readers. In a country village it is no
uncommon sight still to see, on a sunny day, the innocent seated
bareheaded on the stone seat by the house door, or sitting for
hours as motionless as a pillar, or wandering about, sometimes
carrying on an unmeaning soliloquy, and sometimes running over
the air of a favourite song. The race of madmen continued to
appear on our streets to a later date. Indeed, we believe "Mourican-room-roum
roum" has not discontinued his visits to the present hour. The
backs of some of our juvenile readers, we doubt not, will be
ready to attest how lately "Jean Carr" brandished her staff,
and, single-handed, scoured the streets of a whole schoolful of
her tormentors; while the bodies of some of them, perhaps, still
ache at the memory of a direful conflict with that renowned
amazon, "Lady Leddles."
It was in the fifteenth and sixteenth
centuries that family fools were most in request. Before the
eighteenth century, about the middle of which Jamie Fleeman
flourished, matters wore a very different aspect. Jamie was pei-haps
the ultimus Homanorum, the last of the race of Scottish family
fools—a class of beings which the author of Waverley has
rendered so familiar to every one by his picture of "Daft Davie
Gellatly." Jamie differed from his brethren and ancestors in
this, that whereas the great majority of them were "fenyet fules,"
he was, in most respects, naturally what he appeared to be, and
by chance fell into the very situation in which he was capable
of acting a conspicuous part.
