Note 235 — THE PROLOGUE.

"Here (i.e., at Edmonton) lieth interred vnder a seemlie Tombe without Inscription, the Body of Peter Fabell (as the report goes) vpon whom this fable was fathered, that he by his wittie deuises beguiled the deuil: belike he was some ingenious conceited gentleman, who did vse some sleightie trickes for his owne disports. He liued and died in the raigne of Henry the Seuenth, saith the booke of his merry pranks."—Weever's "Funeral Monuments," fol. 1631, p. 534. Norden says: "There is a fable of one Peter Fabell that lyeth in the same church also, who is saide to have beguiled the Devill by pollicie for Money."—"Speculum Britanniæ" (Middlesex), p. 18.