TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE This book is a collection of nineteen separate ‘Chap-books’, with an introduction on the life of Dougal Graham. The three Footnote anchors are denoted by [A], [B] and [C], and they have been placed at the end of their section. Italic text is denoted by _underscores_. Many minor changes to the text are noted at the end of the book. John Cheap The Chapman’s Library: THE _SCOTTISH CHAP LITERATURE_ OF LAST CENTURY, CLASSIFIED. WITH LIFE OF DOUGAL GRAHAM. COMIC AND HUMOROUS. [Illustration: (a large asterisk)] _GLASGOW_: ROBERT LINDSAY, QUEEN STREET. 1877. _CONTENTS._ The Life of Dougal Graham. Witty Sayings and Exploits of George Buchanan. Adventures of Bamfylde Moore Carew. Daniel O’Rourke’s Voyage to the Moon. The Comical Tricks of Lothian Tom, &c. Comical History of the King and the Cobbler. John Cheap, the Chapman. Simple John and his Twelve Misfortunes. The Wise Men of Gotham. Mansie Waugh, Tailor in Dalkeith. Jockey and Maggie’s Courtship. The Coalman’s Courtship. History of Buckhaven: Wise Willy and Witty Eppy. The Dominie Deposed. Maggie Johnston’s Elegy. A Groat’s Worth of Fun for a Penny. The Comical Sayings of Paddy from Cork. Fun upon Fun; or, Leper the Tailor, &c. John Falkirk’s Cariches. Grinning made Easy,--Funny Dick’s Jokes. The Scotch Haggis; or, Choice Bon-Mots. PREFACE. A name is very often only a definition of a thing in one of its aspects--generally the most obvious to ordinary observation, though not always the most comprehensive or characteristic. The name _Chap-book_ is an example of names of this class, and owes its origin to the fact that the tracts which we now recognise by it were first--and, indeed, during the whole time of their circulation as popular literature--sold by chapmen, or pedlars. With the extinction of these itinerants, the popular circulation of chap-books has ceased; and it seemed as if--from the flimsy nature of their get-up--this form of literature was about to vanish, like the compositions of our earliest minstrels, when a taste for collecting specimens sprung up among the curious in literature. To meet the demand for _collections_ which the spread of this taste originated, the present issue has been projected.