[238] Simcox, Hist. of Latin Liter., i., p. 46.
[239] Given in Hazlitt’s New London Jest Book, pp. 31, 32.
[240] Wright, op. cit., p. 133. A good story of a retaliative practical joke, carried out by a bachelor on a tavern keeper who had spilt some wine on serving him, is given by Bédier, op. cit., iii., p. 272 ff.
[241] H. Spencer, op. cit., p. 208.
[242] Curtius remarks of the Greek comic poets: “It was primarily against the novel fashion of the day that they aimed their blows” (Hist. of Greece, ii., p. 539).
[243] See Ward, Engl. Dram. Poets, ii., p. 401.
[244] Wright, op. cit., chap. xix.
[245] Sellar, Roman Poets, p. 167.
[246] Tyrrell, op. cit., p. 52.
[247] Ward, Engl. Dram. Poets, ii., pp. 398–9. The Restoration comedy also made fun of the “cit” as the inferior of the West-end gentleman.