n long current in other
countries of Europe and throughout Asia, and accident or malice may have
fixed the stigma of stupidity on any particular spot. There is probably
no ground whatever for crediting the tale of the origin of the proverb,
"As wise as the men of Gotham," although it is reproduced in Thoroton's
_Nottinghamshire_, i. 42-3:

"King John, intending to pass through this place, towards Nottingham,
was prevented by the inhabitants, they apprehending that the ground over
which a king passed was for ever after to become a public road. The
King, incensed at their proceedings, sent from his court soon afterwards
some of his servants to inquire of them the reason of their incivility
and ill-treatment, that he might punish them. The villagers, hearing of
the approach of the King's servants, thought of an expedient to turn
away his Majesty's displeasure from them. When the messengers arrived at
Gotham, they found some of the inhabitants engaged in endeavouring to
drown an eel in a pool of water; some were employed in dragging carts
upon a large barn to shade the wood from the sun; and others were
engaged in hedging a cuckoo, which had perched itself upon an old bush.
In short, they were all employed in some foolish way or other, which
convinced the King's servants that it was a village of fools."

The fooleries ascribed to the men of Gotham were probably first
collected and printed in the sixteenth century; but that jests of the
"fools of Gotham" were current among the people long before that period
is evident from a reference to them in the _Widkirk Miracle Plays_,
the only existing MS. of which was written about the reign of Henry VI.:

"Foles al sam;
Sagh I never none so fare
Bote the soles of Gotham."

The oldest known copy of the _Merie Tales of the Mad Men of Gotam_
was printed in 1630, and is preserved in the Bodleian Library, Oxford.
Warton, in his _History of English Poetry_, mentions an edition,
which he says was printed about 1568, by Henry Wikes, but he had never
seen it. But Mr. Halliwell (now Halliwell-Phillips), in his _Notices
of Popular English Histories_, cites one still earlier, which he
thinks was probably printed between 1556 and 1566: "Merie Tales of the
Mad Men of Gotam, gathered together by A.B., of Phisike Doctour.
[colophon:] Imprinted at London, in Flet-Stret, beneath the Conduit, at
the signe of S. John Evangelist, by Thomas Colwell, n.d. 12 deg., black
letter." The book is ment