Hence also the proverb*- -"As wise as the men of Gotham." The tale of its origin, handed down by tradition, is the following:+-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 some foolish way or other, which convinced the King's servants that it was a village of fools.

It is somewhat curious, that the earliest collection of such tales as those which in later times were told of the men of Gotham, laid them to the charge of the men of Norfolk.+ It may also be remarked, that one of the stories in that collection, is identical with

* Fuller's Worthies, Edit. 1662. p. 315-6. + Thoroton's Nottinghamshire, i. 42-3.

This singular collection, under the title of Descriptio Norfolciensium, was first pointed out and printed by Mr. Wright, in his "Early Mysteries, and other Latin Poems," 8vo. Nichols, 1838. See, also, the Introduction to that work, pp. xxi, xxii.

the second tale in the following tract. It is thus briefly told in the Latin Descriptio Norfolciensium,

Ad foram ambulant diebus singulis;
Saccum de lolio portant in humeris,
Jumentis ne noceant: bene fatuis,
Ut prolocutus sum, æquantur bestiis.

Many stories of the Gothamites are preserved orally, which are not found in the printed collection. The following may be given as examples.

66

we

One day some of the men of Gotham were walking by the river-side; and came to a place where the contrary currents caused the water to boil as in a whirlpool. "See how the water boils !" says one. "If we had plenty of oatmeal," says another, might make enough hasty-porridge to serve all the village for a month." It was accordingly resolved that part of them should go to the village and fetch their oatmeal. The oatmeal was soon brought, and thrown into the water, but there soon arose a question how they were to know when the porridge was ready. This difficulty was overcome by the offer of one of the company to jump in, and it was agreed that if he found it was ready for use, he should signify the same to his companions. The man jumped in, and found the water deeper than he expected; thrice he rose to the surface, but said nothing. The others, impatient at his remaining so long silent, and seeing him smack his lips, took this for an avowal that the porridge was good, and they all leaped in after him, and were drowned.

Other stories of a similar kind may still be collected. On one occasion, the villagers are stated to have found a hedgehog in the fields, and the schoolmaster (for the schoolmaster seems even to have reached the village of Gotham) not knowing what

animal it was, declared it to be one of those which Adam had never named. On another occasion, a villager happening to be abroad at a late hour on a moon-shiny night, saw the reflection of the moon in the horse-pond, and, believing the moon was made of green cheese, he raised all his neighbours to help him to draw it out. According to another story, the Gothamites are said to have had but one knife amongst them, which was stuck in a tree in the middle of the village for their common use: many amusing incidents arose out of the disputes for the use of this knife.

William de Gotham was Master of Michael House at Cambridge, in 1336, and twice Chancellor of the University. This is one of the earliest notices of the town that I know of; very ancient, however, is the myth of the stupidity of its inhabitants, for in the Widkirk Plays* we have

"Foles al sam ;

Sagh I never none so fare,

Bote the foles of Gotham."

And Tom Hearne,† in a fit of stupidity, strongly contended that the tales and the proverb arose from certain tenures held by the observance of customs similar to them.

The tales of the Wise Men of Gotham were formed into a chap-book as early as the commencement of

* Collier's History of Dramatic Poetry, ii. 179. See also, ii. 472, iii, 33.

+ Benedictus Abbas, i. 2. and liv. Not. et Spicileg. ad Gul. Neubrig, iii, p. 744.

the sixteenth century, and some have attributed them to Dr. Andrew Borde,* the well known progenitor of Merry-Andrews. The collection continued to be reprinted until lately, but now, like other books of a similar character, has become exceedingly scarce; a copy in the possession of the Rev. J. Hunter being the only one I have seen in London, either in private or public libraries. An edition of 1650 (12mo. Lond.) has been pirated from Wood's collection in the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford, but there are two editions in the Bodleian Library.†

Wood's Ath. Oxon. i. 74. We may here make the following references for allusions:-Eliot's Fruits from the French, p. 69; Warton's History of English Poetry, iii. 356; Ritson's Edition of Robin Hood, i. xci.; More's Philosophical Works, pp. 47, 159; Leigh's Accidence of Armory, Edit. 1597, fol. 134, v.

+ Douce, pp. 179. In MS. Douce, 357, written in the year 1642, is a satirical address to his Majesty "of the inhabitants of the antient corporation of Gotham," commencing thus,— "Wee have with great satisfaction observed the admirable influence of your Majesties late proclamacion, the very reading of which having made some persons in most of the counties and townes of this kingdome as wise men as ourselves," fol. 91, vo. A short political squib (ff. 4) appeared in 1643, called "The Foole's Complaint to Gotham Colledge," Lond. 4to.; and in 1798, we have " Libellus, or a Brief Sketch of the Kingdom of Gotham," 12mo. Lond. pp. 101, neither of which appear to have particular reference to the village of fools.

Kemp wrote " applauded merriments of the men of Goteham," consisting only of a single scene of ignorant blundering and contention, whether a smith or a cobler should deliver a mock-petition to the king regarding the consumption of ale; this was printed in A knack to know a knave in 1594, and Mr. Collier has given the whole of it in his history of English Dramatic Poetry. In the play of Misogonus (A. D. 1560) we find Cacurgus saying

46

Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha! I must neds laughe in my slefe:

The wise men of Gotum are risen againe."- Collier, ii. 472.

In order to put the present inhabitants of the town of Gotham into good humour, we subjoin the following song composed by a rustic Gothamite at the close of the last century:

"Tell me no more of Gotham Fools,
Or of their eels in little pools,
Which they were told were drowning;
Nor of their carts drawn up on high

When King John's men were standing by,
To keep a wood from browning.

"Nor of their cheese shov'd down the hill,
Nor of their cuckoo sitting still,

While it they hedged round;

Such tales of them have long been told,
By prating boobies young and old;
In drunken circles crown'd.

"The fools are those who thither go,
To see the cuckoo-bush I trow,
The wood, the barn, the pools;

For such are seen both here and there,
And passed by without a sneer,
By all but errant fools."