No. 94. Of the Cheshire man called Evelyn.
No. 132. Of him that sold two loads of hay.
No. 134. How the image of the Devil was lost and sought.
I think that all the articles which I have just indicated manifest a realism of portraiture and complexion which should commend and endear them to the studiers and lovers of the old English life; in the edition of the Hundred Merry Tales which the Royal Library at Göttingen owns, and which I have lately reprinted in facsimile, there is a further item falling within the same category—the highly amusing and doubtless veracious tale of the Maltman of Colebrook, which may be appropriately bracketed with the one “of him that sold two loads of hay.”
Both are, in fact, relations of actual events thrown into a readable shape with a modicum of colouring.
CHAPTER XX.
The so-called “Tales of Skelton”—Specimens of them—Sir Thomas More and the Lunatic—The Foolish Duke of Newcastle—Pennant the Antiquary—The “Gothamite Tales”—Stories connected with Wales and Scotland.
