Jack of Dover

Jack of Dover,
in the prologue to Chaucer's ‘Cook's Tale’ ( Canterbury Tales , ll. 4347 – 8 ), refers probably to a pie (or, less probably, fish) that has been reheated. In ‘Jack of Dover, his quest of Inquirie’ ( 1604 ), reprinted in W. C. Hazlitt 's Shakespeare Jest-Books, Jack travels in search of a greater fool than himself, and fails to find one.