thing, like the man in the play, "with the best intentions." His
mind is incapable of entertaining more than one idea at a time; but to
that he holds fast, with the tenacity of the lobster's claw: he cannot
be diverted from it until, by some accident, a fresh idea displaces it;
and so on he goes from one blunder to another. His blunders, however,
which in the case of an ordinary man would infallibly result in disaster
to himself or to others, sometimes lead him to unexpected good fortune.
He it is, in fact, to whom the great Persian poet Sadi alludes when he
says, in his charming "Gulistan," or Rose Garden, "The alchemist died of
grief and distress, while the blockhead found a treasure under a ruin."
Men of intelligence toil painfully to acquire a mere "livelihood"'; the
noodle stumbles upon great wealth in the midst of his wildest vagaries.
In brief, he is--in stories, at least--a standing illustration of the
"vanity of human life"!_

_And now a few words as to the history and design of the following
work. When the Folk-lore Society was formed, some nine years since, the
late Mr. W.J. Thoms, who was one of the leading men in its formation,
promised to edit for the Society the "Merry Tales of the Mad Men of
Gotham," furnishing notes of analogous stories, a task which he was
peculiarly qualified to perform. As time passed on, however, the
infirmities of old age doubtless rendered the purposed work less and
less attractive to him, and his death, after a long, useful, and
honourable career, left it still undone. What particular plan he had
sketched out for himself I do not know; but there can be no doubt that
had he carried it out the results would have been most valuable. And,
since he did not perform his self-allotted task, his death is surely a
great loss, perhaps an irreparable loss, to English students of
comparative folk-lore._

_More than five years ago, with a view of urging Mr. Thoms to set
about the work, I offered to furnish him with some material in the shape
of Oriental noodle-stories; but from a remark in his reply I feared
there would be no need for such services as I could render him. That
fear has been since realised, and the present little book is now offered
as a humble substitute for the intended work of Mr. Thoms, until it is
displaced by a more worthy one._

_Since the "Tales of the Men of Gotham" ceased to be reproduced in
chap-book form, the first reprint of the collection was made in 1840,
with