on]

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Etienne Tabourot, the author of this amusing little book,
who was born at Dijon in 1549 and died in 1590, is said to have written
the tales in ridicule of the inhabitants of Franche Comte, who were then
the subjects of Spain, and reputed to be stupid and illiterate. From a
manuscript translation, entitled _Bizarrures; or, The Pleasant and
Witlesse and Simple Speeches of the Lord Gaulard of Burgundy_,
purporting to be made by "J.B., of Charterhouse," probably about the
year 1660, in the possession of Mr. Frederick William Cosens, London,
fifty copies, edited, with a preface, by "A.S." (Alexander Smith), were
printed at Glasgow in 1884. I am indebted to the courtesy of my friend
Mr. F.T. Barrett, Librarian of the Mitchell Library, Glasgow, for
directing my attention to this curious work, a copy of which is among
the treasures of that already important institution.

[2] "_Wit and Mirth_. Chargeably collected out of Taverns,
Ordinaries, Innes, Bowling-greenes and Allyes, Alehouses, Tobacco-shops,
Highwayes, and Water-passages. Made up and fashioned into Clinches,
Bulls, Quirkes, Yerkes, Quips, and Jerkes. Apothegmatically bundled vp
and garbled at the request of John Garrett's Ghost." (1635)--such is the
elaborate title of the collection of jests made by John Taylor, the
Water Poet, which owes very little to preceding English jest-books. The
above story had, however, been told previously in the _Bizarrures_
of the Sieur Gaulard: "His cousine Dantressesa reproued him one day that
she had found him sleeping in an ill posture with his mouth open, to
order which for the tyme to come he commanded his seruant to hang a
looking glasse upon the curtaine at his Bed's feet, that he might
henceforth see if he had a good posture in his sleep."

[3] Only a Liliputian steamer could go up the "river" Cart!

[4] "Seestu" is a nickname for Paisley, the good folks of that busy town
being in the habit of frequently interjecting, "Seestu?"--_i.e.,_
"Seest thou?"--in their familiar colloquies.

[5] "Tory" is said to be the Erse term for a robber.

[6] Halliwell's _Nursery Rhymes of England_, vol. iv. of Percy
Society's publications.

CHAPTER II.

GOTHAMITE DROLLERIES, WITH VARIANTS AND ANALOGUES.

It seems to have been common to most countries, from very ancient times,
for the inhabitants of a particular district, town, or village to be
popularly regarded as pre-eminently foolish, arrant noodles or
simple