[75] It was reprinted by Von der Hagen, in a little volume entitled "Narrenbuch; herausgegeben durch Friedrich Heinrich von der Hagen." 12mo., Halle, 1811. The Schildburgers of Germany were represented in England by the wise men of Gotham. Gotham is a village and parish about seven miles to the south-west of Nottingham, and, curiously enough, a story is told according to which the folly of the men of Gotham, like that of the Schildburgers, was at first assumed. It is pretended that one day king John, on his way to Nottingham, intended to pass through the village of Gotham, and that the Gothamites, under the influence of some vague notion that his presence would be injurious to them, raised difficulties in his way which prevented his visit. The men of Gotham were now apprehensive of the king's vengeance, and they resolved to try and evade it by assuming the character of simpletons. When the king's officers came to Gotham to inquire into the conduct of the inhabitants, they found them engaged in the most extraordinary pursuits, some of them seeking to drown an eel in a pond of water, others making a hedge round a tree to confine a cuckoo which had settled in it, and others employing themselves in similar futile pursuits. The commissioners reported the people of Gotham to be no better than fools, and by this stratagem they escaped any further persecution, but the character they assumed remained attached to them. This explanation is, of course, very late and very apocryphal; but there can be little doubt that the character of the wise men of Gotham is one of considerable antiquity. The story is believed to have been drawn up in its present form by Andrew Borde, an English writer of the reign of Henry VIII. It was reprinted a great number of times under the form of those popular books called chap-books, because they were hawked about the country by itinerant booksellers or chap-men. The acts of the Gothamites displayed a greater degree of simplicity even than those of the Schildburgers, but they are less connected. Here is one anecdote told in the unadorned language of the chap-books, in explanation of which it is only necessary to state that the men of Gotham admired greatly the note of the cuckoo. "On a time the men of Gotham fain would have pinn'd in the cuckow, that she might sing all the year; and, in the midst of the town, they had a hedge made round in compass, and got a cuckow and put her into it, and said, 'Sing here, and you shall lack neither meat nor drink all the year.' The cuckow, when she perceived herself encompassed with the hedge, flew away. 'A vengeance on her,' said these wise men, 'we did not make our hedge high enough.'" On another occasion, having caught a large eel which offended them by its voracity, they assembled in council to deliberate on an appropriate punishment, which ended in a resolution that it should be drowned, and the criminal was ceremoniously thrown into a great pond.