An English translation,
entitled "_A World of Wonders;_ or, an introduction to a Treatise
tovching the Conformitie of Ancient and Modern Wonders; or, a
Preparative Treatise to the 'Apologie for Herodotus,'" etc., was
published at London in 1607, folio, and at Edinburgh 1608, also folio.
The _Apologie pour Herodote_ was printed at the Hague.
CHAPTER V.
THE SILLY SON.
Among the favourite jests of all peoples, from Iceland to Japan, from
India to England, are the droll adventures and mishaps of the silly son,
who contrives to muddle everything he is set to do. In vain does his
poor mother try to direct him in "the way he should go": she gets him a
wife, as a last resource; but a fool he is still, and a fool he will
always be. His blunders and disasters are chronicled in penny chap-books
and in nursery rhymes, of infinite variety. Who has not heard how
Simple Simon went a-fishing
For to catch a whale,
But all the water he had got
Was in his mother's pail?
an adventure which recalls another nursery rhyme regarding Simon's still
more celebrated prototypes:
Three men of Gotham
Went to sea in a bowl;
If the bowl had been stronger,
My tale had been longer.
Then there is the prose history of _Simple Simon's Misfortunes; or,
his Wife Marjory's Outrageous Cruelty_, which tells (1) of Simon's
wedding, and how his wife Marjory scolded him for putting on his
roast-meat clothes (_i.
Pages:
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122