en busy with honest Joe's fame, decreeing the
collection of his jests to Captain Motley, who wrote short-lived plays
in the time of the First and Second Georges; but the same false Medium
has affected to discover that Dick Whittington did not come to London
City at the tail of a road wagon, neither was he be-ladled by a cross
cook, and driven forth to Highgate, when Bow Bells invited him to return
and make venture of his Cat, marry Fitzalwyn's daughter, and be thrice
Lord Mayor of London, albeit it is written in City chronicles, that
Whittington's statue and the effigy of his gold-compelling Grimalkin
long stood over the door of New Gate prison-house. We would not have
destroyed the faith of the Rising Generation and those who are to
succeed it in that Golden Legend, to have been thought as wise as the
Ptolemies, or to have been made president of all the Dryasdusts in
Europe. No. Let us not part with our old belief in honest Joe Miller,
but trust rather to Mr. Morley, the historian of Bartlemy Fair, and
visit the Great Theatrical Booth over against the Hospital gate of St.
Bartholomew, where Joe, probably, is to dance "the English Maggot
dance," and after the appearance of "two Harlequins, conclude with a
Grand Dance and Chorus, accompanied with Kettledrums and Trumpets." And
when the Fair is over, and we are no longer invited to "walk up," let us
march in the train of the great Mime, until he takes his ease in his
inn,--the _Black Jack_ aforesaid,--and laugh at his jibes and flashes of
merriment, before the Mad Wag shall be silenced by the great killjoy,
Death, and the jester's boon companions shall lay him in the graveyard
in Portugal Fields, placing over him a friendly record of his social
virtues.

Joe Miller was a fact, and Modern Research shall not rob us of that
conviction!

The compiler of this volume has felt the importance of his task, and
diligently sought how to distinguish true wit from false,--the pure gold
from Brummagem brass. He has carefully perused the Eight learned
chapters on "Thoughts on Jesting," by Frederick Meier, Professor of
Philosophy at Halle, and Member of the Royal Academy of Berlin, wherein
it is declared that a jest "is an extreme fine Thought, the result of a
great Wit and Acumen, which are eminent Perfections of the Soul." ...
"Hypocrites, with the appearance but without the reality of virtue,
condemn from the teeth outwardly the Laughter and Jesting which they
sincerely approve in t