Merry Andrew Meaning

Example : 1749, Henry Fielding, Tom Jones, Folio Society 1973, p. 438:  Instead, therefore, of answering my landlady, the puppet-show man ran out to punish his Merry-Andrew [...]1873, William Lucas Collins, Plautus and Terence, chapter III, page 31.  The games of the circus—the wild-beast fight and the gladiators, the rope-dancers, the merry-andrews, and the posture-masters,—were more to their taste than clever intrigue and brilliant dialogue.1974, Lawrence Durrell, Monsieur, Faber & Faber 1992, p. 155:  One of them, the eldest, was a sort of merry andrew and was not above dressing the part with a weird cap of jackal's skin with many hanging tails and tassels.