Where the profusion of illustrative matter is inexhaustible, a survey of a subject is bound to limit itself to suggestion and sample. But the remarks and indications which have been afforded, must testify at any rate to the residence in these vast stores, on which I have been drawing, of a utility and dignity in numerous cases beyond their value as mere temporary vehicles for distraction and mirth, and to their claim to a subsidiary place among historical and social monuments. The localisation of interest in an adventure or incident does not seem at first to have struck those who laboured for the public entertainment as a commercial expedient deserving of study and trial. But as the volume of jocular and anecdotal literature swelled, and the competition for favour and novelty grew keener in proportion, the resort to new devices for imparting a relish and edge to old properties comprised the association of jests which had weathered numberless seasons, with some fresh person or neighbourhood. Hence arises the multitude of collections and headings identifying books of the present class or portions of their contents with particular places and particular individuals, such as the _Cobbler of Canterbury_, the _Footpost of Dover_, and the _Gravesend Tilt-Boat_, or, in the case of personality, the numerous entries in _Pasquil’s Jests_ of stories of Merry Andrew of Manchester, Coomes of Stapforth, and so on, all of which are resuscitations of stale and bygone material. The work which led the way and set the mode in this direction was perhaps _The Merry Tales of the Mad Men of Gotham_, by Andrew Borde. It was a dexterous and attractive method of substituting for the vague generalisations of anterior compilers “a local habitation and a name.” It fixed the geography of the event, and established its authenticity beyond dispute; for, as the phrase is in the narratives of early murders and other phenomena, any gentleman, who doubted the veracity of the writer, might go and inquire for himself on the spot. The idea of lending a local colouring and flavour to anecdotes originated, however, probably among the early Italian collectors of _burle_ and _facetie_, of which some are transferred to our own miscellanies; and the practice dates back to a period when the literary life was bounded by the walls of capitals, or did not at most overstep their outskirts.