I insist on this point a little, because the moral and virtuous ladies and gentlemen of the Victorian era are in the habit of averting their faces from the lamentable depravity of former ages, as if it were some once rampant monster now defunct, and because the change in our manners is vulgarly attributed to the influence of the Court. The latter delusion arises from the common error of mistaking cause for effect; the open profligacy of former reigns is discarded in the same way as that of our literature and theatre; the _modus vivendi_ of the Georges is archæological; if such doings and sayings are any longer, they are under the rose. But it is a pharisaical absurdity to give out that there is no such matter as low life upstairs nowadays. Alas! it is too rife; and, it being so, we have surely no right to be so very hard on Whitechapel and the New Cut. That the general tone of the British community is higher and purer proceeds from the influential preponderance of the middle class; and the court, and in general the aristocracy, conform to the march of civilisation. Queer stories must be _inter nos_. Altered circumstances have rendered it impracticable to bring them into print or to introduce them upon the boards. Be thankful for small mercies; but do not, my dear contemporaries, flatter yourselves that you are, warp and woof, much better than those who read on their first appearance the _Hundred Merry Tales_ and the _Merry Tales and Quick Answers_, or that by reading them you would be made much worse! [Illustration] [Illustration] CHAPTER XV. FACETIOUS BIOGRAPHIES. Leaving behind us these two admirable productions, we encounter an interesting group of compilations, which differ essentially from them in structure and treatment. They constitute a sort of family of books, and are of a biographical cast, with an imperfect attempt at chronological sequence. I shall enumerate some of them:-- _The Jests of the Widow Edith._ _The Merry Tales of Skelton._ _The Jests of Scogin._ _Tarlton’s Jests._ _The Merry Conceited Jests of George Peele._ _The Pleasant Conceits of Old Hobson._ _Dobson’s Dry Bobs._ The original motive for associating a particular individual with a publication was obviously the stimulus which his reputation was expected to lend to the sale. The real tie between a facetious miscellany and its god-parent was, in nine cases out of ten, absolutely nominal. In the reputed adventures and pranks of the Widow Edith, Skelton and Scogin, there is the largest share of verisimilitude; but the printed accounts, especially in the case of Scogin, are so long posterior to the epoch at which the heroes flourished, that there was infinite opportunity for laying to their credit any current jokes or tricks of a suitable complexion.