THE BOOK

OF

MODERN ENGLISH ANECDOTES.

Humour, it, and Wisdom.

EDITED BY

TOM HOOD.

LONDON:

GEORGE ROUTLEDGE AND SONS,

THE BROADWAY, LUDGATE.

NEW YORK: 416, BROOME STREET.

268. c. 355.

PREFACE.

IF the critics always supposing that this little volume should be considered worthy of their notice-were any thing like the cross-grained creatures they are described to be, whose first object is to find fault, I should have several explanations to make as to the selection of Modern English Anecdotes, which I submit.

I should have to say with reference to the term "modern," that, while I hold it of course to exclude the anecdotes that used to circulate at the Round Table in King Arthur's reign, I have not drawn a hard and fast line at the commencement of the century. It appeared to me that a little-worn anecdote of Johnson was better than a hackneyed story of to-day, just as a well-preserved Queen Anne's farthing is better than one of those smooth sixpences, which haven't the face, though they have the impudence, to pass themselves as current coin of the realm.

Secondly, I should have to say with reference to the term "English," that, in spite of the physiological fact-which as yet Mr. Darwin has not disproved—that a man is not necessarily a horse because he was born in a stable, I have admitted anecdotes of people who were not English by birth,