Having now dealt at reasonable length with those points of view which have reference to the sophistication and affiliation of Jests, let us proceed to regard this highly fruitful topic from one or two other aspects; and firstly I propose to invite attention to the valuable material which the writer on old English manners and institutions may find here ready to his hand. There is barely a custom or an idea prevalent among our forefathers which the vast body of printed _Ana_, and especially the _Shakespear Jest-Books_, 1864, do not afford the means of illustrating and facilities for more clearly comprehending. The stories embraced within the entire range of jocular literature are so multifarious in their origin and drift, while they so largely partake of a popular character, that they richly reimburse our examination of them, even when, as so frequently happens, their literary and artistic claims are slender to excess. In the _Hundred Merry Tales_, 1526, there is the story of the lad who took his shoes to be mended, whence comes the information to us that the charge for this kind of work was at that period threepence. Then, in another item of the series, which in its totality is decidedly unconventional, we perceive how young fellows just emerging from boyhood wore the hair on the upper lip as well as the beard. The story _Of the Courtier and the Carter_ aptly serves to throw light on a point which does not appear to be sufficiently understood--the application of the terms _cart_ and _carter_ to ordinary vehicles for the conveyance of travellers of all degrees,--so much so that the rough, old-fashioned lawyer, desirous of an audience with Queen Elizabeth, while she was on a journey, cried out to her coachman, “Stop thy cart, good fellow, stop thy cart!” and the ancient French hunting chariots were merely an evolution from the primitive agricultural model. It is difficult to resist the temptation to smile at the whimsical suggestion of the curate “who preached the articles of the Creed,” that such as were not satisfied about them from his communication had better go to Coventry and see them on the stage at the Corpus Christi play. What a vivid glimpse rises before us of the feeling and costume of three or four centuries ago, when we read the account given in another of the _Tales_, “of the man that desired to be set on the pillory,” in order that, while he was there, his confederates in the crowd might pick the honest folks’ pockets and empty the butchers’ aprons, as they gaped at the spectacle!