through the churchmen of the Middle Ages, and, after having circulated
long orally, passed into literature, whence, like other kinds of tales,
they once more returned to the people. We find in them the indirect
originals of some of the bulls and blunders which have in modern times
been credited to Irishmen and Scotch Highlanders, and the germs also,
perhaps, of some stories of the Gothamite type: as brave men lived
before Agamemnon, so, too, the race of Gothamites can boast of a very
ancient pedigree! By far the greater number of them, however, seem now
pithless and pointless, whatever they may have been considered in
ancient days, when, perhaps, folk found food for mirth in things which
utterly fail to tickle our "sense of humour" in these double-distilled
days. Of the [Greek: Asteia], or facetiæ, of Hierokles, twenty-eight
only are appended to his Commentary on Pythagoras and the fragments of
his other works edited, with Latin translations, by Needham, and
published at Cambridge in 1709. A much larger collection, together with
other Greek jests--of the people of Abdera, Sidonia, Cumæ, etc.--has
been edited by Eberhard, under the title of _Philogelos Hieraclis el
Philagrii Facetia_ which was published at Berlin in 1869.

In attempting to classify the best of these relics of ancient wit--or
witlessness, rather--it is often difficult to decide whether a
particular jest is of the Hibernian bull, or blunder, genus or an
example of that droll stupidity which is the characteristic of noodles
or simpletons. In the latter class, however, one need not hesitate to
place the story of the men of Cumæ, who were expecting shortly to be
visited by a very eminent man, and having but one bath in the town, they
filled it afresh, and placed an open grating in the middle, in order
that half the water should be kept clean for his sole use.

But we at once recognise our conventional Irishman in the pedant who, on