UNDERNE

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CHAPTER III.

GOTHAMITE DROLLERIES( continued).

HE Schildburgers, it has been alreadyremarked, are the Gothamites ofGermany, and the stories of theirstupidity, after being orally currentfor years among the people, were collectednear the close of the sixteenth century, theearliest known edition being that of 1597.In a most lively and entertaining article onEarly German Comic Romances"( Foreign.Quarterly Review, No. 40, 1837), the late Mr.W. J. Thoms has furnished an account of theexploits of the Schildburgers, from which thefollowing particulars and tales are extracted:" There have been few happier ideas thanthat of making these simpletons descendfrom one of the wise men of Greece, andrepresenting them as originally gifted withsuch extraordinary talents as to be called tothe councils of all the princes of the earth,to the great detriment of their circumstancesand the still greater dissatisfaction of their