But the story was old, centuries before the monks—for even Horace sums it up in two verses as one quotes a well-known popular proverb:

'Rusticus exspectat dum defluat amnis: at ille
Labitur et labetur in omne volubilis ævum.'
'The clown awaits until the flood be gone:
It glides and whirls for ages ever on.'

The reader has probably heard of the apocryphal twelfth commandment, 'Mind your own business.' Possibly its existence was suggested by the discovery of the first, told as follows in the Democritus Ridens.

'A certain soldier being asked by his pastor what was the first commandment given by GOD, replied, 'Thou shalt not eat!' At which answer the priest inquiring what he meant, received for reply that this was the first command to our first parents relative to the apple. Quo audito, Pastor conticuit! Which having heard, the priest was silent.'

Of the same family or parentage is the modern story of the clergyman who, wishing to preach against the extravagant head-dresses worn by the women of his congregation, took for a text, 'Top knot come down!' referring for his authority to Matthew xxiv. 17. In like manner a not over-learned brother is said to have expounded Genesis, chap. xxii. v. 23, as follows: 'These eight Milcah bear.' This shows us, my brethren, what hard times they had of old, when it took eight on 'em to milk a bar (and I 'spose get mighty little at that), when nowadays my darter kin milk a cow with nary help, as easy as look at her.'

Every one has heard of the Irishman crossing the brook. 'Sure, Paddy, if ye carry me, don't I carry the barrel of whiskey, an' isn't that fair and aiquil?' It is differently told in one of the old Latin jest books, where a certain Piero, pitying his weary jackass, which bore a heavy plough, took the latter on his own shoulders, and mounting the donkey, said: 'Nune procedere poteris, non enim tu sed ego aratrum fero,'—'Now you may go along, for not you but I now bear the plough.' Not a few of the jokes given to modern Irishmen originated centuries ago in other countries than theirs. The reader may recall the advice given by an Emeralder to another at a tavern, when the latter found that his boiled egg was ready to hatch. 'Down wid it, Murphy, ye divil, before the landlord comes in and charges ye for a chicken breakfast!' The same occurs as an old Latin joke, with this difference, that, in the latter, the companion, when the breakfast was over, required that the chicken eater should pay the reckoning for both. 'Ni facis, dicam cauponi de pullo quem pro ovo absumpsisti, et solves largius.' 'Unless you do, I will tell the landlord of the chicken which you ate for an egg, and then see what a bill you'll have to pay.'

The Germans of the present day have a story of a certain Englishman who, on being told that his coat was burning, politely replied: 'What the devil business is that of yours? I have seen your coat burning this half hour, and never bothered myself about it.' Tom Brown tells us of a roguish boy who said to a traveller, warming his feet at a fire: 'Take care, sir, or you'll burn your spurs!' 'My boots! you mean,' quoth the traveller. 'No, sir, I mean your spurs; your boots be burned already.' But the best form of the joke is given by Erasmus in his Adages, as follows:

'A certain traveller in Holland lay so near the fire that his cloak was scorched. Which being observed by a guest, he said to the sleeper, 'Here—I want to tell you something!' To which the other replied: 'If it is bad news, put it off, for I don't wish to hear any in company where all should be jolly. Post convivium, inquit, seria—'save up the sorrow until after supper.' And when they had merrily supped, 'Now,' said he, 'I am ready to hear it.' Then the other showed him and immense hole in his cloak, and he began to rage that he had not been warned of it in time. 'I wished to do so,' replied the guest meekly, 'but you forbade me.'

The witty sayings of men about to be executed are numerous, but are in many cases far from being original or authentic. During the horrors of the French Revolution, when men 'became so accustomed to death that they lost all respect for it,' it became the fashion to make a jest with the last breath, and it is said that a volume of these sayings was collected and published. In the Democritus Ridens, already referred to, under the head of Jocus sub necem, the author gives several anecdotes, more than one of which has been attributed in modern times to some noted criminal:

'Those condemned to death are not infrequently so excited and confused as to lose their wits and joke most improperly. As an example, take that man who, when standing on the scaffold, said with a smile to the judge who was present: 'I wonder, old fellow, that you with such a turned-up nose can see anything!'