Tarlton's News out of purgatory (1590) : a modern-spelling edition ...

45
players by Sir Francis Walsingham in March 1583, and Tarlton's
name is recorded with those of the others in documents of the
same year. The popularity of Tarlton may in fact have increased
our knowledge of the Company f s activities, as so many tales
told of him associate the Company with him, and may otherwise
have been lost. Tarlton's Jests says that they played at the
Bull in Bishopsgate ( f Tarlton 1 s Jest of a pippin 1 , p.13; 'An
excellent jest of Tarlton suddenly spoken 1 , p.24); at the
Curtain ('How fiddlers fiddled away Tarlton's apparell 1 , p.16);
and at the Bell ( ! Tarlton's greeting with Banks his horse 1 ,
p.23). When attacking Richard Harvey in Strange Newes Nashe
"57
mentions Tarlton playing at the Theatre. Tarlton's Jests
also tells of the Company playing at Worcester ('Tarlton's
jest of a gridiron', p.27); at Bristol ('Tarlton's jest of a
Bristow man 1 , p.29; 'How Tarlton deceived a country wench',
p.33); and at Salisbury ('How Tarlton made one of his company
utterly forsweare drunkennesse', p.31). Other cities are
mentioned in connection with Tarlton, but the jests do not
make clear whether he was on his own there or with the Company.
1 The most famous tale of Tarlton as an actor must be that
told in 'An excellent jest of Tarlton suddenly spoken 1 (p.24).
This tells of a performance of 'a play of Henry the fift', in
which Tarlton played the clown, Derick. The judge failed to
make his entry on time and so Tarlton stepped into his part,
.'
which involved receiving a box on the ear from the 'King'.
Tarlton then returned in his own part and discussed this blow
with the audience.
The Elizabethan clowns seem consciously to have established
individual clowning personalities for themselves by the use of