But the complexion of the story, as a whole, is fictitious; and while I do not for a moment believe that the verse is a contemporary _impromptu_, I am strongly sceptical as to its claim to the character even of a contemporary production. There is no ground for accrediting the poet with the degree of poverty presumable from the description of his clothes and his need of a trifling gratuity; and the very texture of the lines is apocryphal. Besides, the narrator first makes us understand that Randolph was unknown to Jonson and the rest of the company, and then alleges their identification of him from a specimen of poetry which could have furnished no clue whatever to the improviser. I have dwelt on this point because the biographical scrap, so far from standing alone or being a rare type, is a member of an exceedingly numerous family, and the stricture has a common application to it and its congeners. The Retort and the Pun, and indeed the entire _genus_ of succincter jests, are least prone to editorial treatment. But, on the other hand, there are two classes which, from their nature, have a peculiar and an inherent liability to sophistication--namely, the _Epigram_ and the _Story_; and in fact the very structure of these ought to be, as a general rule, a sufficient indication and evidence of their artificial development. The droll and amusing tales in the old English jest-books have been obviously woven into a narrative shape by the original recipient of the particulars, or by some one else more experienced in the science of literary _cuisine_. The inimitable account of John Adroyns, who, after performing on some provincial stage the part of his Satanic majesty, walked home in his theatrical garb, and met with a complication of mishaps, is an excellent specimen of the professed jocular compilation by a third person, as distinguished from a piece of humour delivered to us exactly or approximately in the terms which the actor or actors employed. So long as a pleasantry presents itself to notice with honest credentials, there is no ground for complaint and no source of difficulty; but it is where an anecdote is introduced under fictitious colours, that the critical inquirer is apt to feel, if not embarrassment, at least annoyance. I shall transcribe one illustration of this kind of cross-bred offspring from _Maloniana_:--