The 2,188 occurrences of buffoon

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~ ~ ~ Sentence 716 ~ ~ ~

The crowded and overloaded bark might have been compared to the vessel of human life, which floats at all times subject to the thousand accidents of a delicate and complicated machinery: the lake, so smooth and alluring in its present tranquillity, but so capable of lashing its iron-bound coasts with fury, to a treacherous world, whose smile is almost always as dangerous as its frown; and, to complete the picture, the idle, laughing, thoughtless, and yet inflammable group that surrounded the buffoon, to the unaccountable medley of human sympathies, of sudden and fierce passions, of fun and frolic, so inexplicably mingled with the grossest egotism that enters into the heart of man: in a word, to so much that is beautiful and divine, with so much that would seem to be derived directly from the demons, a compound which composes this mysterious and dread state of being, and which we are taught, by reason and revelation, is only a preparation for another still more incomprehensible and wonderful.

~ ~ ~ Sentence 2,710 ~ ~ ~

"Thou hast a merry life of it, honest Pippo," cried Conrad with swimming eyes, answering a remark of the buffoon.

~ ~ ~ Sentence 2,734 ~ ~ ~

"Truly, we shall have a mean opinion of thy merit, if thou art afraid to meet a few Vaudois peasants in thy trade,--and thou a buffoon of Napoli!"

~ ~ ~ Sentence 4,700 ~ ~ ~

The buffoon and the pilgrim, though of a general appearance likely to excite distrust, presented themselves with the confidence and composure of innocence.

~ ~ ~ Sentence 4,706 ~ ~ ~

The buffoon, though accustomed to deception and frauds, had sufficient mother-wit to comprehend the critical position in which he was now placed, and that it was wiser to be sincere, than to attempt effecting his ends by any of the usual means of prevarication.

~ ~ ~ Sentence 4,715 ~ ~ ~

Such at least is the opinion of a poor street buffoon, who has no better claim to merit than having learned his art on the Mole and in the Toledo of Bellissima Napoli, which, as everybody knows, is a bit of heaven fallen upon earth!"

~ ~ ~ Sentence 4,717 ~ ~ ~

The châtelain then slowly recapitulated the history of the buffoon and the pilgrim to his companions, the purport of which was as follows.

~ ~ ~ Sentence 5,451 ~ ~ ~

Before his execution, the buffoon confessed that Jacques Colis fell by the hands of Conrad and himself, and that, ignorant of Maso's expedient on his own account, they had made use of Nettuno to convey the plundered jewelry undetected across the frontiers of Piedmont.

~ ~ ~ Sentence 2,626 ~ ~ ~

The bad repute into which jugglers had fallen did not prevent the kings of France from attaching buffoons, or fools, as they were generally called, to their households, who were often more or less deformed dwarfs, and who, to all intents and purposes, were jugglers.

~ ~ ~ Sentence 2,629 ~ ~ ~

These buffoons or fools were an institution at court until the time of Louis XIV., and several, such as Caillette, Triboulet, and Brusquet, are better known in history than many of the statesmen and soldiers who were their contemporaries.

~ ~ ~ Sentence 1,854 ~ ~ ~

"Oh, you Neka" (buffoon), she groaned, "didn't you swear to separate from Nalini, and have you not taken all your meals with him ever since?

~ ~ ~ Sentence 397 ~ ~ ~

_Plato_ in the Vision of _Erus_ the _Armenian_, which I may possibly make the Subject of a future Speculation, records some beautiful Transmigrations; as that the Soul of _Orpheus_, who was musical, melancholy, and a Woman-hater, entered into a Swan; the Soul of _Ajax_, which was all Wrath and Fierceness, into a Lion; the Soul of _Agamemnon_, that was rapacious and imperial, into an Eagle; and the Soul of _Thersites_, who was a Mimick and a Buffoon, into a Monkey.

~ ~ ~ Sentence 908 ~ ~ ~

Stiff in Opinion, always in the Wrong, Was every Thing by Starts, and Nothing long; But in the Course of one revolving Moon, Was Chymist, Fidler, Statesman, and Buffoon.

~ ~ ~ Sentence 2,128 ~ ~ ~

As there are many eminent Criticks who never writ a good Line, there are many admirable Buffoons that animadvert upon every single Defect in another, without ever discovering the least Beauty of their own.

~ ~ ~ Sentence 3,363 ~ ~ ~

Tho at the same time, to give them the greater Variety, he has described a _Vulcan_, that is a Buffoon among his Gods, and a _Thersites_ among his Mortals.

~ ~ ~ Sentence 5,616 ~ ~ ~

Let the Sycophant, or Buffoon, the Satyrist, or the Good Companion, consider with himself, when his Body shall be laid in the Grave, and his Soul pass into another State of Existence, how much it will redound to his Praise to have it said of him, that no Man in England eat better, that he had an admirable Talent at turning his Friends into Ridicule, that no Body out-did him at an Ill-natured Jest, or that he never went to Bed before he had dispatched his third Bottle.

~ ~ ~ Sentence 755 ~ ~ ~

"In the centre of the square was an assemblage of everything in the world; theatres, wild beasts, _lusus naturoe_, mountebanks, buffoons, dancers on the slack wire, fighting and swearing, pocket-picking and stealing, music and dancing, and hubbub and confusion in every confused shape.

~ ~ ~ Sentence 762 ~ ~ ~

Contiguous to the theatres are the exhibition rooms of the jugglers and buffoons, who also between their exhibitions display their tricks on stages before the populace, and show as many antics as so many monkeys.

~ ~ ~ Sentence 79 ~ ~ ~

Without knowing it, Jean found a fund of amusement in the witticisms and harangues of his old teacher, who united in himself the contradictory attributes of high-priest and buffoon.

~ ~ ~ Sentence 712 ~ ~ ~

Then he thought that he could live with Hippia[17] by virtue of his office, and that he might give horses which were the property of the state to Sergius the buffoon.

~ ~ ~ Sentence 736 ~ ~ ~

When, therefore, this fellow had begun to wallow in the treasures of that great man, he began to exult like a buffoon in a play, who has lately been a beggar, and has become suddenly rich.

~ ~ ~ Sentence 1,052 ~ ~ ~

I tell you, O conscript fathers, that a lot of buffoons and actresses have been settled in the district of Campania.

~ ~ ~ Sentence 2,498 ~ ~ ~

He is protecting the interests of his buffoons and gamesters and pimps.

~ ~ ~ Sentence 2,499 ~ ~ ~

He is protecting Capho's and Sasu's interests too, pugnacious and muscular centurions, whom he placed among his troops of male and female buffoons.

~ ~ ~ Sentence 3,522 ~ ~ ~

"That Dolabella should at this time have been pronounced a public enemy because he has slain an assassin; and that the son of a buffoon should appear dearer to the Roman people than Caius Caesar, the father of his country, are circumstances to be lamented."

~ ~ ~ Sentence 3,528 ~ ~ ~

But he calls him the son of a buffoon.

~ ~ ~ Sentence 3,114 ~ ~ ~

polyglottis_, or buffoon-bird, is never found north of 46° N. latitude in the summer.

~ ~ ~ Sentence 3,216 ~ ~ ~

As I was listening to the merriment of the sooty buffoons, I happened to cast my eyes up to the ceiling, and through an open semicircular window a bright solitary star looked me calmly in the eyes.

~ ~ ~ Sentence 2,546 ~ ~ ~

Leo delighted in the society of clever people, poetasters, petty scholars, lutists, and buffoons.

~ ~ ~ Sentence 6,955 ~ ~ ~

Being himself of a saturnine humour, he took great delight in the society of persons little better than buffoons.

~ ~ ~ Sentence 6,977 ~ ~ ~

Another of Michelangelo's buffoon friends was a Florentine celebrity, Piloto, the goldsmith.

~ ~ ~ Sentence 2,889 ~ ~ ~

These fat and middle-aged women, married, doubtless, and highly respectable after their fashion, when struck by each gust of humour, such as might issue from the mouth of a foul-minded buffoon at a fair, rolled like ships at sea.

~ ~ ~ Sentence 471 ~ ~ ~

If the Turk had concealed the expression of his anger at the accident, it was not however extinct, for on the appearance of the buffoon, he directed him to be seized by his attendants, and transported in his theatrical costume, to his residence, where, after undergoing a severe bastinado, the hapless actor was thrust into the street, with only his pedal honour for his recompense.

~ ~ ~ Sentence 373 ~ ~ ~

On Potosi, who meets a buffoon?

~ ~ ~ Sentence 2,692 ~ ~ ~

Perhaps the effects even of Shakspeare's poetry might have been yet greater, had he not counteracted himself; and we might have been more interested in the distresses of his heroes, had we not been so frequently diverted by the jokes of his buffoons.

~ ~ ~ Sentence 4,715 ~ ~ ~

In that scene I myself was the buffoon of fate.

~ ~ ~ Sentence 6,217 ~ ~ ~

He is gentleman student, dancing buffoon, lover, poet, and author by turns, and nothing long unless it be a royally good fellow (1824).

~ ~ ~ Sentence 6,218 ~ ~ ~

BUFFOON (_The Pulpit_).

~ ~ ~ Sentence 1,287 ~ ~ ~

Some of their chiefs were princes of the land: In the first rank of these did Zimri stand; A man so various, that he seem'd to be Not one, but all mankind's epitome: Stiff in opinions, always in the wrong; Was everything by starts, and nothing long; But, in the course of one revolving moon, Was chemist, fiddler, statesman, and buffoon: 550 Then all for women, painting, rhyming, drinking, Besides ten thousand freaks that died in thinking.

~ ~ ~ Sentence 2,405 ~ ~ ~

Next her the buffoon Ape[95], as Atheists use, Mimick'd all sects, and had his own to choose: 40 Still when the Lion look'd, his knees he bent, And paid at church a courtier's compliment.

~ ~ ~ Sentence 1,146 ~ ~ ~

"If it were possible to treat such a buffoon as you seriously, she wouldn't.

~ ~ ~ Sentence 398 ~ ~ ~

There still remained a rugged and clownish soldier,--half-fanatic, half-buffoon,--whose talents discerned as yet only by one penetrating eye, were equal to all the highest duties of the soldier and the prince.

~ ~ ~ Sentence 97 ~ ~ ~

Coarse in manner--a buffoon in demeanor--so weak, that in many matters he suffered himself to be a puppet in the hands of the profligates who surrounded him, he had yet a certain amount of cleverness, and an obstinacy which nothing could overcome.

~ ~ ~ Sentence 323 ~ ~ ~

It requires some cleverness to be a great fool, and though some of these public buffoons were clever men the majority had more malice than wit, and in time exhausted the patience of the people.

~ ~ ~ Sentence 2,122 ~ ~ ~

10 The poets, who must live by courts, or starve, Were proud so good a government to serve: And, mixing with buffoons and pimps profane, Tainted the stage, for some small snip of gain.

~ ~ ~ Sentence 789 ~ ~ ~

When the late King, your father of glorious memory, did me the honour of conferring with me upon state affairs, he was in the habit of previously clearing the apartment of all buffoons and mountebanks."

~ ~ ~ Sentence 441 ~ ~ ~

Skelton was a rude railing rhymer, a singular mixture of a true and original poet with a buffoon; coarse as Rabelais, whimsical, obscure, but always vivacious.

~ ~ ~ Sentence 3,476 ~ ~ ~

In the first rank of these did Zimri stand, A man so various that he seemed to be Not one, but all mankind's epitome: Stiff in opinions, always in the wrong, Was every thing by turns, and nothing long; But in the course of one revolving moon Was chymist, fiddler, statesman, and buffoon; Then all for women, painting, rhyming, drinking, Besides ten thousand freaks that died in thinking, Blest madman, who could every hour employ With something new to wish or to enjoy!

~ ~ ~ Sentence 836 ~ ~ ~

[9] The _gracioso_ or buffoon, according to Lord Holland, held an intermediate character between a spectator and a character in the play; interrupting with his remarks, at one time, the performance, of which he forms an essential, but very defective part in another.

~ ~ ~ Sentence 4,254 ~ ~ ~

He was an Irishman, and the established wit, buffoon, and jester of the school.

~ ~ ~ Sentence 855 ~ ~ ~

One man behaved like a buffoon, or as though he had lost his wits.

~ ~ ~ Sentence 3,902 ~ ~ ~

"Buffoon!...

~ ~ ~ Sentence 1,424 ~ ~ ~

[A] [Footnote A: Our modern celebrated clubs are founded upon eating and drinking, which are points wherein most men agree, and in which the learned and illiterate, the dull and the airy, the philosopher and the buffoon, can all of them bear a part.

~ ~ ~ Sentence 3,984 ~ ~ ~

"Him W ... son follow'd, of congenial quill, As near the dirt and no less prone to ill. Walcot, of English heart, had English pen, Buffoon he might be, but for hire was none; Nor plumed and mounted in Professor's chair Offer'd to grin for wages at a fair."

~ ~ ~ Sentence 1,090 ~ ~ ~

Dennis is offended, that Menenius, a senator of Rome, should play the buffoon; and Voltaire, perhaps, thinks decency violated when the Danish usurper is represented as a drunkard.

~ ~ ~ Sentence 1,093 ~ ~ ~

He knew that Rome, like every other city, had men of all dispositions; and, wanting a buffoon, he went into the senate-house for that which the senate-house would certainly have afforded him.

~ ~ ~ Sentence 416 ~ ~ ~

Old C----, one of the "all-talented Whigs," who you know is half a buffoon, was a torment to us during the fearful period of the three days--running to and fro, standing in every body's way, seeking and reporting news, exclaiming, "but the battle cannot be lost--I do not see the army in retreat," &c. &c. At length, the battle over, England victorious, the Duke on Monday rode quietly into Bruxelles, to make arrangements for the wounded, &c. C---- rushes to his apartment to make his compliments.

~ ~ ~ Sentence 358 ~ ~ ~

A buffoon, or a pot-companion, is, of course, often more popular than a disciplinarian; and the brightest talents lose their influence when put in competition with a head that can bear a greater number of bottles.

~ ~ ~ Sentence 3,002 ~ ~ ~

~ ~ ~ Sentence 2,754 ~ ~ ~

A Battle without Bloodshed, or Military Discipline Buffoon'd.

~ ~ ~ Sentence 2,858 ~ ~ ~

He bestows very freely upon him the epithet of a buffoon, an ignorant droll, &c.----He charges him with having no knowledge of the Latin tongue; and says, he is unfit to be read by any person of taste.

~ ~ ~ Sentence 757 ~ ~ ~

Do not let your pleasantries degenerate into those of buffoons, who raise laughter by extravagant representations and indecent action.

~ ~ ~ Sentence 1,261 ~ ~ ~

Our Modern celebrated Clubs are founded upon Eating and Drinking, which are Points wherein most Men agree, and in which the Learned and Illiterate, the Dull and the Airy, the Philosopher and the Buffoon, can all of them bear a Part.

~ ~ ~ Sentence 4,909 ~ ~ ~

In the Catalogue of the _English_ [who [5]] fell, _Witherington's_ Behaviour is in the same manner particularized very artfully, as the Reader is prepared for it by that Account which is given of him in the Beginning of the Battle [; though I am satisfied your little Buffoon Readers (who have seen that Passage ridiculed in _Hudibras_) will not be able to take the Beauty of it: For which Reason I dare not so much as quote it].

~ ~ ~ Sentence 8,889 ~ ~ ~

Stiff in Opinions, always in the wrong; Was ev'ry thing by Starts, and nothing long; But, in the Course of one revolving Moon, Was Chemist, Fidler, Statesman, and Buffoon: Then all for Women, Painting, Rhiming, Drinking: Besides ten thousand Freaks that dy'd in thinking.

~ ~ ~ Sentence 11,190 ~ ~ ~

~ ~ ~ Sentence 11,701 ~ ~ ~

Stiff in Opinion, always in the Wrong, Was every Thing by Starts, and Nothing long; But in the Course of one revolving Moon, Was Chymist, Fidler, Statesman, and Buffoon.

~ ~ ~ Sentence 12,921 ~ ~ ~

~ ~ ~ Sentence 14,156 ~ ~ ~

Tho at the same time, to give them the greater Variety, he has described a _Vulcan_, that is a Buffoon among his Gods, and a _Thersites_ among his Mortals.

~ ~ ~ Sentence 16,409 ~ ~ ~

~ ~ ~ Sentence 25,267 ~ ~ ~

When _Leo X._ reigned Pope of _Rome_, his Holiness, tho' a Man of Sense, and of an excellent Taste of Letters, of all things affected Fools, Buffoons, Humourists, and Coxcombs: Whether it were from Vanity, and that he enjoy'd no Talents in other Men but what were inferiour to him, or whatever it was, he carried it so far, that his whole Delight was in finding out new Fools, and, as our Phrase is, playing them off, and making them shew themselves to advantage.

~ ~ ~ Sentence 25,273 ~ ~ ~

It is a criminal Humility in a Person of your Holiness's Understanding, to believe you cannot excel but in the Conversation of Half-wits, Humorists, Coxcombs, and Buffoons.

~ ~ ~ Sentence 29,841 ~ ~ ~

A Man would neither chuse to be a Hermit nor a Buffoon: Humane Nature is not so miserable, as that we should be always melancholy; nor so happy, as that we should be always merry.

~ ~ ~ Sentence 1,237 ~ ~ ~

It was also an object with him, that the clowns or buffoons should not occupy a more important place than that which he had assigned them: he expressly condemns the extemporizing with which they loved to enlarge their parts.

~ ~ ~ Sentence 371 ~ ~ ~

and the rest five thousand [lacuna] [That model of temperance (as he was wont to put it), the rebuker of licentiousness in others, at the consummation of a most vile and at the same time most dangerous outrage, appeared, in truth, to be indignant; but by not giving that indignation sufficient free play and further by allowing the youths to do what no one had ever yet dared to propose, he greatly corrupted the latter, who had imitated the habits of women of the demi-monde and of professional male buffoons.]

~ ~ ~ Sentence 467 ~ ~ ~

There is the same naive presentation; the same introduction of the buffoon to offset tragedy with comedy; the same tendency to overemphasize the comic parts until all sense of reverence is lost.

~ ~ ~ Sentence 2,822 ~ ~ ~

Scarcely any of the latter that ever I knew but, if they had parts, were buffoons.

~ ~ ~ Sentence 3,499 ~ ~ ~

Aristophanes and Lucian, compared with moderns, were, the one a blackguard, and the other a buffoon.

~ ~ ~ Sentence 3,156 ~ ~ ~

I'm a buffoon.

~ ~ ~ Sentence 175 ~ ~ ~

In fact, he is a species of buffoon, who is allowed full liberty of speech, being himself a universal butt.

~ ~ ~ Sentence 539 ~ ~ ~

buffoon: by heaven I swear it, I will kill you else.

~ ~ ~ Sentence 186 ~ ~ ~

When invited to the court of Louis Philippe, he replied: "I am not a court buffoon."

~ ~ ~ Sentence 716 ~ ~ ~

I've been taught loyalty to my chief--and I'm sorry my chief found it necessary to make a buffoon of me.

~ ~ ~ Sentence 1,682 ~ ~ ~

The bold buffoon, whene'er they tread the green, Their motion mimics, but with jest obscene; Loose language oft he utters; but ere long A bark in filmy net-work binds his tongue; Thus changed, a base wild olive he remains; The shrub the coarseness of the clown retains.

~ ~ ~ Sentence 1,731 ~ ~ ~

French ballet-dancers, French cooks, horse-jockeys, buffoons, procuresses, tailors, boxers, fencing-masters, china, jewel and gimcrack-merchants--these were his real companions."

~ ~ ~ Sentence 194 ~ ~ ~

And certainly few men had a better opportunity than Waller of seeing in private and in undress, and with an eye in which native sagacity was sharpened by prejudices, partly for, partly against, the Man of that century--a man in whom we recognise a union of Roman, Hebrew, and English qualities--the faith of the Jew, the firmness of the Roman, and the homespun simplicity of the Englishman of his own age--in purpose and in powers "an armed angel on a battle-day;" in manners a plain blunt corporal; and in language always a stammerer, and sometimes a buffoon; the middle-class man of his time, with the merits and the defects of his order, but touched with an inspiration as from heaven, lifting him far above all the aristocracy, and all the royalty, and all the literature of his period; who found his one great faculty--inflamed and consecrated commonsense--to be more than equal to the subleties, and brilliancies, and wit, and eloquence, and taste, and genius, of his thousand opponents--whose crown was a branch of English oak, his sceptre a strong sapling of the same, his throne a mound of turf--who economised matters by being at once king and king's jester, and whose mere _clenched fist_, held up at home or across the waters, saved millions of money, awed despots, encouraged freedom in every part of the world, and had nearly established a pure form of Christianity over Great Britain--who gave his country a model of excellence as a man, and as a ruler, simple, severe, ruggedly picturesque, and stupendously original, and solitary as one of the primitive rocks--whose eloquence was uneven and piercing as the forked lightning, which is never so terrible as when it falls to pieces --and highest praise of all, whose deeds and character were so great in their sublime simplicity, that the poet, who afterwards sung the hierarchies of heaven, and the anarchies of hell, was fain to sit a humble secretary, recording the thoughts and actions of Cromwell, and felt afterwards that he had been as nobly employed when defending his grand defiance of evil and arbitrary power, as when he did "Assert Eternal Providence, And justify the ways of God to man."

~ ~ ~ Sentence 5,281 ~ ~ ~

There was at this time one Cervantes at St Jago, a kind of buffoon, generally called mad Cervantes, who used to assume great liberty of speech under pretence of idiocy.

~ ~ ~ Sentence 17,145 ~ ~ ~

RICHTER, JEAN PAUL FRIEDRICH, usually called Jean Paul simply, the greatest of German humourists, born at Wunsiedel, near Baireuth, in Bavaria, the son of a poor German pastor; had a scanty education, but his fine faculties and unwearied diligence supplied every defect; was an insatiable and universal reader; meant for the Church, took to poetry and philosophy, became an author, putting forth the strangest books with the strangest titles; considered for a time a strange, crack-brained mixture of enthusiast and buffoon; was recognised at last as a man of infinite humour, sensibility, force, and penetration; his writings procured him friends and fame, and at length a wife and a settled pension; settled in Baireuth, where he lived thenceforth diligent and celebrated in many departments of literature, and where he died, loved as well as admired by all his countrymen, and more by those who had known him most intimately ... his works are numerous, and the chief are novels, "'Hesperus' and 'Titan' being the longest and the best, the former of which first (in 1795) introduced him into decisive and universal estimation with his countrymen, and the latter of which he himself, as well as the most judicious of his critics, regarded as his masterpiece" (1763-1825).

~ ~ ~ Sentence 3,325 ~ ~ ~

The buffoon and sometimes even the finer comedian cannot free Shakespeare from the reproach of having given two kings of Denmark a clown as Prime Minister.

~ ~ ~ Sentence 121 ~ ~ ~

Why, or how, did a silly buffoon, or a confessed 'bogle' arrive at being regarded as a patron of such morality as had been evolved?

~ ~ ~ Sentence 3,933 ~ ~ ~

"And if you lack further information respecting James Crichton's favor at the Louvre, his feats of arms, and the esteem in which he is held by all the dames of honor in attendance upon your Queen Mother, Catherine de' Medicis--and moreover," he added, with somewhat of sarcasm, "with her fair daughter, Marguerite de Valois--you will do well to address yourself to the king's buffoon, Maître Chicot, whom I see not far off.

~ ~ ~ Sentence 447 ~ ~ ~

Dancing girls and boys, singers, musicians and buffoons, in rich apparel, were in waiting, and singing in concert.

~ ~ ~ Sentence 125 ~ ~ ~

_Voilà!_ But you really must not expect me to grimace and buffoon.

~ ~ ~ Sentence 3,114 ~ ~ ~

Below, the open space, through every nook Of the wide area, twinkles, is alive 690 With heads; the midway region, and above, Is thronged with staring pictures and huge scrolls, Dumb proclamations of the Prodigies; With chattering monkeys dangling from their poles, And children whirling in their roundabouts; 695 With those that stretch the neck and strain the eyes, And crack the voice in rivalship, the crowd Inviting; with buffoons against buffoons Grimacing, writhing, screaming,--him who grinds The hurdy-gurdy, at the fiddle weaves, 700 Rattles the salt-box, thumps the kettle-drum, And him who at the trumpet puffs his cheeks, The silver-collared Negro with his timbrel, Equestrians, tumblers, women, girls, and boys, Blue-breeched, pink-vested, with high-towering plumes.--705 All moveables of wonder, from all parts, Are here--Albinos, painted Indians, Dwarfs, The Horse of knowledge, and the learned Pig, The Stone-eater, the man that swallows fire, Giants, Ventriloquists, the Invisible Girl, 710 The Bust that speaks and moves its goggling eyes, The Wax-work, Clock-work, all the marvellous craft Of modern Merlins, Wild Beasts, Puppet-shows, All out-o'-the-way, far-fetched, perverted things, All freaks of nature, all Promethean thoughts 715 Of man, his dullness, madness, and their feats All jumbled up together, to compose A Parliament of Monsters.

~ ~ ~ Sentence 343 ~ ~ ~

Strange phantasmagoric Pictures of his proceedings flit before The vision of alert imagination; Playing the brute, buffoon, "bounder," or bore, In every climate, and in every nation!

~ ~ ~ Sentence 67 ~ ~ ~

In the uncivilised North they remained buffoons; but in the South, where the greater refinement of life demanded more artistic performance, the musical part of their entertainment became predominant and the _joculator_ became the _joglar_ (Northern French, _jongleur_), a wandering musician and eventually a troubadour, a composer of his own poems.

~ ~ ~ Sentence 1,219 ~ ~ ~

For the rest of his life, indeed, he never lost his interest in England; he was never tired of reading English books, of being polite to English travellers, and of doing his best, in the intervals of more serious labours, to destroy the reputation of that deplorable English buffoon, whom, unfortunately, he himself had been so foolish as first to introduce to the attention of his countrymen.

~ ~ ~ Sentence 434 ~ ~ ~

Life in the eyes of these mournful buffoons is itself an utterly tragic thing; comedy must be as hollow as a grinning mask.

~ ~ ~ Sentence 7,909 ~ ~ ~

This byplay is also a reminiscence of the habits of the early _comédiens italiens_, who indulged to excess in _lazzi_, which originally meant, not witticisms, but tricks more or less buffoon in their nature, such as circus clowns still indulge in.

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The 2,188 occurrences of buffoon