It would not be possible to offer a complete introductory survey of the subject under consideration without turning back to see what the sources were to which later wits would resort--without inspecting the basement of the edifice, so to speak. Otherwise, vastly interesting as they are on literary and archæological grounds, such relics of antiquity as Athenæus and Gellius yield mainly pure Anecdota in the strict acceptation of the term. The pages of the former are more redolent of the theatre and the gymnasium; those of the author of the _Attic Nights_ breathe the atmosphere of the study, and where he tells a story of some _hetaira_ or dancing-girl, he cites his original. But Gellius has devoted much of his space to topics which were more congenial than the adventures and amours of the gay folks of or about the time; he is more profuse on philological dissertation, serious pieces of personal history, and points relevant to the general costume of the Rome which he knew. Now and then, but not so often as might have been expected and excused, the lawyer peeps out. Here and there, too, he reminds us of the _Deipnosophistæ_, as in the twenty-second section, which opens with an account of the conversation and readings which took place at the table of Favorinus; and the very following chapter is occupied by a sample of dramatic criticism, in which his opinion is given of some Roman play founded on the Greek comedians, as we now adapt pieces for the stage from the French. It is a most strangely heterogeneous, and at the same time most charming, miscellany, lacking which our knowledge of Roman literature, society and manners would be far less complete. But, as it has been already indicated in a general way of all the books of the sub-classical period, the _Noctes Atticæ_ does not prove of great service to the gatherer of _facetiæ_; and the few scattered trifles of that nature which the work contains would not be held of sufficient consequence to find a place in a modern collection. Such as they are, they occur for the most part in the early jest-books, and are precisely such as an editor nowadays would instinctively skip as out of keeping with present notions and demands. This fact tends to substantiate the position which I have asserted, that our ideas of wit and humour are widely and essentially different from those of the ancients; for it is only, I apprehend, in this single particular that Gellius fails to keep touch with us. He is in most respects, like all eminent writers, remarkably modern and contemporary; and, as a rule, the matters which he judged worth writing down so many centuries ago, we read with gratitude and enjoyment.