TARBUCK, JOHN. Revels patentee, 1610.
TARLTON, RICHARD, first appears in the 'Q^d Richard Tarlton' at the end of a ballad called A very lamentable and wofull discours of the fierce fluds . . . the 5. of October, 1570 (Arber, i. 440).[1] This is preserved (Halliwell, 126; Collier, Old Ballads, 78; H. L. Collman, Ballads and Broadsides, 265). The Stationers' Registers also record in 1576 'a newe booke in Englishe verse intituled Tarltons Toyes' (Arber, ii. 306), in 1578 'Tarltons Tragical Treatises conteyninge sundrie discourses and pretie conceiptes bothe in prose and verse' (Arber, ii. 323), and in 1579 'Tarltons devise upon this unlooked for great snowe' (Arber, ii. 346); but these are all lost. Tarltons Jigge of a horse loade of Fooles (Halliwell, xx) should, if it is genuine, date from about 1579, as the jest at the Puritan fool 'Goose son' is obviously aimed at Stephen Gosson; but it reads to me like a fake, and Halliwell took it from a manuscript belonging to Collier, who had already quoted it in his tainted New Facts, 18. It is improbable that Richard is the 'one Tarlton' whose house in Paris Garden is included in a list of suspected papist resorts sent by Richard Frith to Alderman Martin at some date not earlier than 1585 (Wright, Eliz. ii. 250). The first mention of him is by Gabriel Harvey (cf. p. 4) in 1579, when he had already acquired some reputation. He became an original member of the Queen's men (q. v.) in 1583, and remained their principal comedian until his death in 1588. For this company he wrote The Seven Deadly Sins (q. v.) in 1585. Music for some of his jigs is in existence (Halliwell, Cambridge Manuscript Rarities, 8) and his facility as a jester made him, until he pushed it too far, a persona grata in Elizabeth's presence. Bohun, 352, says that the Queen admitted 'Tarleton, a famous comedian, and a pleasant talker, and other such like men, to divert her with stories of the town and the common jests or accidents, but so that they kept within the bounds of modesty and chastity'. He adds, 'Tarleton, who was then the best comedian in England, had made a pleasant play, and when it was acting before the Queen, he pointed at Sir Walter Raleigh and said "See, the Knave commands the Queen", for which he was corrected by a frown from the Queen; yet he had the confidence to add that he was of too much and too intolerable a power; and going on with the same liberty, he reflected on the overgreat power and riches of the Earl of Leicester, which was so universally applauded by all that were present, that she thought best to bear these reflections with a seeming unconcernedness. But yet she was so offended, that she forbad Tarleton and all her jesters from coming near her table, being inwardly displeased with this impudent and unseasonable liberty.' An anecdote of Tarlton 'playing the God Luz with a flitch of bacon at his back', fighting the Queen's little dog Perrico de Faldes with sword and long staff, and exchanging chaff with the Earl of Sussex (Halliwell, Death-bed, 30, from S. P. Dom. Eliz. ccxv, 89) might have some point
- ↑ J. O. Halliwell, Tarlton's Jests . . . With . . . some Account of the Life of Tarlton (1844, Sh. Soc.; the Jests are reprinted with a few additions in Hazlitt, Jest-Books, ii. 189) and Papers respecting Disputes which arose from Incidents at the Death-bed of Richard Tarlton, the Actor (1866).
