an odd story of laughter. When Erasmus first
read the Letters of Obscure Men, satirising
ignorance and misdeeds of the clergy, he laughed
so much as to produce an abscess in the cheek.
And the doctors caused it to be opened, lest he
should burst it by continued laughter. A truer
story of Erasmus is also quoted; the Marburg
professor being, of course, a good Protestant.
George, Duke of Saxony, once inquired of Erasmus
concerning the religious questions of the
day, and receiving cautious answers, by which
the scholar would not commit himself, said to
him, "My Erasmus, wash me this dress, but
take care that you do not wet it." Another
of Melander's notes is of a Bishop at Zurich,
who consecrated a cemetery, and being asked
by some poor countryfolks where, since the
whole of the cemetery had been consecrated,
the unbaptised infants were to lie, charged an
additional fee for unconsecrating or profaning
part of it. Melander repeats also a story that
had been told by Luther, of a shoemaker,
whose wife vexed him by paying a round sum
of money for one of Pope Leo's plenary
indulgences, whereby she was to be cleansed of all
sins, exempt from purgatory, and get, in short,
a free passage to paradise. When his wife
died, the shoemaker paid nothing for church
services and masses for her soul. Being
questioned as a contemner of religion, and as one
who had dealt impiously by his late wife, he
averred that, as to her body, he had buried it,
and as to her soul, there were no masses for it
wanted, because he knew that it had gone
immediately to heaven. Being asked how he could
know that, he produced the Pope's warrant to
that effect. As it was not thought decent to
decree that the Pope had cheated the
shoemaker's wife, the shoemaker was allowed to
keep the money claimed of him for masses.
Melander tells another story of a priest preaching in
praise of masses to the people of a German town.
"These masses," he said, "may be of no
advantage to the dead, but they are great profit
to us," meaning us their survivors, but the
people took him to mean us the priests, and
overwhelmed him with their laughter. But the
cunning usually was with the pardoners and
relic-mongers. One went to Tübingen with old
bones, and said that whoever kissed those relics
should for a twelvemonth be untouched by
plague. Prince Eberhard, resentful of his
impudence, accused the man of lying. Men kissed
and yet died of the plague. "That may be," said
the cheat," because nobody does kiss the relics.
They only kiss the glass that covers them."

Of course there are many tales of whimsical
overreaching. Two men, both cowards, met in
a narrow way, neither disposed to turn out
of the road. "Give me the road," said one, in
braggart voice, "Or, if you don't, I'll do for
you what I did for the man who refused it
to me yesterday." The other scrambled aside
in terror, and when he of the braggart voice
had gone by, asked him, timidly, "What did you
do, sir, to the man who refused you the road
yesterday, and would not get out of your way?"
"Why," said the other, " I let him keep the
road, and got out of his way."

A Spaniard and a German held debate over
the relative smartness of the different nations
of the world. "I," said the Spaniard, "can
take an egg from under a sitting bird without
disturbing her." "Do that," said the German,
"and I will let you see what I can do." So
they went into the wood and searched till they
had found a tree with a bird's-nest near the top
of it. The Spaniard took off his sword, and
belt, and spurs, his rustling silk mantle, and
his cap and plumes, laid them at the foot of the
tree, and began noiselessly to mount. While
he was intent on getting at the nest, the German
walked off with the Spaniard's arms and cap,
and cloak and feathers. It was decreed,
therefore, that the German was the smarter
fellow.

A certain abbot was asked why, in the hearing
of causes, he always continued to make
difficulties, though he was so often wrong.
"Why," he said, "I am like the boys who cannot
pass a walnut-tree without throwing stones
into it, in hope that nuts may fall."

An ignorant pardoner was boasting that he
had been through fifty cities, staying a year and
a half in each. When somebody asked how
old he was, he answered "not yet forty," so
that he had been wandering through cities for
five-and-thirty years before he was born.

Another boaster said, he had been in a
country where bees were as large as sheep.
"Then," somebody asked, "how big are the
beehives?" " Not bigger than ours." " But
how do the bees as big as sheep get into them?"
"That's their affair."

Fleas as well as abbots and pardoners were
more troublesome three hundred years ago than
they are now. Melander quotes a charm against
fleas:

Manstula, Correbo, Budigosma, Tarantula, Calpe,
Thymmula, Dinari, Golba, Cadura, Prepon.

Say this nine times before getting into bed, and
after each time of saying drink three tankards
of wine.

But our Melander has his serious and half-serious
moods in the way of story-telling. Here
is an odd tale of murder and calf's head, A
man diligent, courteous, and gentle, loved the
daughter of the house in which he served, but
might not marry her because he was a foreigner,
poor, and a servant. One day he met on a
lonely road a merchant with his wealth about
him, killed him, and took possession of his
wealth. He kept it secretly, and presently,
producing a small part of it, said to his master that
a relative abroad, whose heir he would be, was
dying, and had sent that as travelling money,
with request that he would go to him. He
went away, returned, and produced as his
inheritance the money of the murdered merchant.
His master then received him as a son-in-law,
and in due time he inherited with his wife the
property of her father. Because he was still
diligent, courteous, and gentle, he became a