Hewees n

√7034

12

The Book of Noodles.

" but who filled this sack with them?"" Well,that is the very question I was about to askmyself when you came up."

The propensity with which Irishmen arecredited of making ludicrous bulls is said tohave its origin, not from any lack of intelli-gence, but rather in the fancy of that livelyrace, which often does not wait for expressionuntil the ideas have taken proper verbal form.Be this as it may, a considerable portion ofthe bulls popularly ascribed to Irishmen arecertainly" old as the jests of Hierokles," andare, moreover, current throughout Europe.Thus in Hierokles we read that one of twin-brothers having recently died, a pedant, meet-ing the survivor, asked him whether it was heor his brother who had deceased.- Taylorhas this in his Wit and Mirth, and he probablyheard it from some one who had read thefacetious tales of the Sieur Gaulard:" A noble-man of France( as he was riding) met witha yeoman of the Country, to whom he said,My friend, I should know thee. I doe remem-ber I haue often seene thee. My good Lord,said the countriman, I am one of your Honerspoore tenants, and my name is T. J. I re-member better now( said my Lord); therewere two brothers of you, but one is dead; Ipray, which of you doth remaine aliue?"- Mr.

W. Carew Hazlitt, in the notes to his edition