Читать книгу Notes and Queries, Number 59, December 14, 1850 - Various - Страница 5

THE WISE MEN OF GOTHAM

An ill-starred town in England seems to have enjoyed so unenviable a reputation for some centuries for the folly and stupidity of its inhabitants, that I am induced to send you the following Query (with the reasons on which it is founded) in the hope that some of your readers may be able to help one to a solution.

Query: Why have the men of Gotham been long famous for their extreme folly?

My authorities are,—

1. The Nursery Rhyme,—

2. Drunken Barnaby's Journal (edit. London, 1822, p. 25.), originally printed 1774, London:

3. In the "Life of Robin Hood" prefixed to Ritson's Collection of Ballads concerning Robin Hood (People's edit. p. 27.), the following story, extracted from Certaine Merry Tales of the Madmen of Gottam, by Dr. Andrew Borde, an eminent physician, temp. Hen. VIII. (Black letter), in Bodleian Library, occurs:—

"There was two men of _Gottam, and the one of them was going to the market to Nottingham to buy sheepe, and the other came from the market; and both met together upon Nottingham bridge. Well met, said the one to the other. Whither be yee going? said he that came from Nottingham. Marry, said he that was going thither, I goe to the market to buy sheepe. Buy sheepe? said the other, and which way wilt thou bring them home? Marry, said the other, I will bring them over this bridge. By Robin Hood, said he that came from Nottingham, but thou shalt not. By Maid Marrion, said he that was going thitherward, but I will. Thou shalt not, said the one. I will, said the other. Ter here! said the one. Shue there! said the other. Then they beat their staves against the ground, one against the other, as there had been an hundred sheepe betwixt them. Hold in, said the one. Beware the leaping over the bridge of any sheepe, said the other. I care not, said the other. They shall not come this way, said the one. But they shall, said the other. Then said the other, and if that thou make much to doe, I will put my finger in thy mouth. A t..d thou wilt, said the other. And as they were at their contention, another man of Gottam came from the market with a sack of meale upon a horse, and seeing and hearing his neighbours at strife for sheepe, and none betwixt them, said, Ah, fooles, will you never learn wit? Helpe me, said he that had the meale, and lay my sacke upon my shoulder. They did so and he went to the one side of the bridge, and unloosed the mouth of the sacke, and did shake out all his meale into the river. Now, neighbours, said the mall, how much meale is there in my sacke now? Marry, there is none at all, said they. Now, by my faith, said he, even as much wit as in your two heads, to strive for that thing you have not. Which was the wisest of all these three persons, judge you?"

4. Tom Coryat, in an oration to the Duke of York (afterwards Chas. I.), called Crambe, or Colwarts twice sodden (London, 1611), has this passage:—

"I came to Venice, and quickly took a survey of the whole model of the city, together with the most remarkable matters thereof; and shortly after any arrival in England I overcame any adversaries in the Town of Evill, in my native county of Somersetshire, who thought to have sunk me in a bargain of pilchards, as the wise men of Gottam went about to drown an eel."

5. Dr. More's Antidote against Atheism, cap. ii. § 14.:

"But because so many bullets joggled together in a man's hat will settle a determinate figure, or because the frost and wind will draw upon doors and glass windows pretty uncouth streaks like feathers and other fooleries which are to no use or purpose, try infer thence, that all the contrivances that are in nature, even the frame of the bodies, both of men and beasts, are from no other principle but the jumbling together of the matter, and so because that this doth naturally effect something, that is the cause of all things, seems to me to be reasoning in the same mood and figure with that wise market man's, who, going down a hill and carrying his cheeses under his arms, one of them falling and trundling down the hill very fast, let the other go after it appointing them all to meet him at his house at Gotham