The first impression of nine persons out of ten, on taking up a Book of Jests or Anecdotes, is that it is merely a volume prepared for their momentary diversion--to be bought at a stall for a trifle, cursorily studied, and thrown on one side. But the moment that one approaches this description of literature in a critical spirit, it begins to wear a changed, and yet perhaps a more interesting, aspect. The application of a microscope of very inconsiderable power is found by a philosophical student of the subject to be adequate to the detection of much that is new and curious, lying either on the surface or not very far from it. Anecdote-literature, in which I always desire to understand as included the Jest, seems to me fairly resonant with the life of other days--in larger measure than has been usually supposed, simply because on a superficial view we are very apt to content ourselves with the foregone conclusion, that a story, whether humorous or otherwise, is nothing but a story. The notes to the series of Old English Jest-Books, edited by myself in 1864, and the frequent citations of such works in our philological literature, bring us to the consideration of another point of view, in which it is well, perhaps, that we should try to tolerate these facetious miscellanies, and regard with indulgence their sins alike against propriety and against wit. A dull story is frequently redeemed, it may be observed in studying such publications, by the light which it sheds on an otherwise unintelligible phrase or allusion--or, indeed, by the service which it renders in having rescued one from oblivion. The accidental formation, more than twenty years ago, of this acquaintance with our own jocular literature, and the periodical renewal of it in an editorial capacity, have naturally led me to pay rather close attention to the JEST in its numerous varieties and stages of growth, and to cast from time to time a scrutinising eye over the contents of the extensive series of works in this class which has come under my notice. The result, almost unconsciously to myself, has been that the theory on the subject, with which I started in life, has made room for one of a different complexion and drift; and I propose to offer in the following pages some suggestions for reducing to a better and more intelligent order certain of the _facetiæ_ and _jeux d’esprit_, by way of sample, in the Collections, and to point out, to the best of my ability, how they have been subjected to disguising or transforming processes by political, literary, or commercial inducements.