shepherd's call from hamlet low,
Replying straight;
But _thee_ nought answers ... Even so,
Poet, thy fate!

* * * * *

There are few things more curious than to observe how universally the
same legends are to be found in the popular traditions of very distant
ages and nations, under circumstances which render it extremely
difficult for the most acute investigator to trace how, when, and where
they were communicated, or even to give any plausible account of the
origin of the legend itself. So difficult indeed is this task, that we
are almost driven to account for so singular a phenomenon, by
attributing to the human mind an exceedingly small endowment of
originality; and by supposing that, however the details of these ancient
traditions may have been modified and adapted to suit the peculiar
nature, the scenery of each particular country, or the manners, customs,
and character of its inhabitants--the fundamental idea, and the leading
incident, remaining the same under the most dissimilar conditions of
time and place, must have a common and a single origin. This doctrine,
if carried to its legitimate consequences, would lead us to consider the
number of the original legends common to all times and many races, as
singularly limited; and that a very short list indeed might be made to
embrace the _root-stories_--the _uhrsagen_, as a German might call them.
And really when we reflect that many of the most threadbare jests which
figure in the recondite tomes of Mr Joseph Miller are to be found,
crystallized in attic salt, in the pages of Hierocles, and represented
as forming part of the "Hundred merye Talis and Jeastis" which
delectated the citizens of ancient Greece; when we reflect, we repeat,
that the same buffooneries, still retailed by after-dinner cits in the
Sunday shades of Clapham or Camden-Town, may have raised the easy laugh
of the merry Greek beneath the portico and in the Agora; it makes us
entertain a very humble idea respecting the amount of creative power
given to man, even for the production of so small a matter as a
pleasantry, not to speak of pleasantries so very small as some of these
mysterious and time-honoured jokes. If we remember, still further, that
the pedigree of these trifling insects of the brain, these children of
the quip, does not stop even in the venerable pages of Hierocles--that
Greek "Joe"--but loses itself, like a Welsh genealogy in the darkest