and with explanatory letter-press descriptive
of its spending forty pounds in giving away
a hundred; of its being governed by a council
which can never meet nor be by any earthly
power called together, of its boasted secrets
touching the distresses of authors being
officially accessible at all times, to more than
one publisher; and of its being a neat example
of a practical joke.

The style of the National Jest-Book, in
narrating those choice pieces of wit and humour
of which it will be the storehouse, to be
strictly limited (as everything in the United
Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland ought
to be), by precedent. No departure from the
established Jest-Book method, to be sanctioned
on any account. If the good old style
were sufficient for our forefathers, it is sufficient
for the present and all future generations.
In my desire to render these proposals
plain, complete, and practical, I proceed to
offer some specimens of the manner in which
the National Jest-Book will require to be
conducted.

As, in the precedents, there is a supposititious
personage, by name Tom Brown, upon whom
witty observations are fathered which there
is a difficulty in fastening on any one else, so,
in the National Collection, it will be indispensable
to introduce a similar fiction. I propose
that a certain imaginary Mr. Bull be
established as the Tom Brown of the National
collection.

Let us suppose, for example, that the
learned Board, in pursuing their labours for
the present year one thousand eight hundred
and fifty-six, were reducing to writing
the National jests of the month of April.
They would proceed according to the following
example.

      BULL AND THE M.P.

A waggish member of Parliament, when
vaccination had been introduced by Dr.
Jenner upwards of half a century, and had
saved innumerable thousands of people from
premature death, from suffering, and from
disfigurement — as, down to that time, had
been equally well-known to wise men and
fools — rose in his place in the House of Commons
and denounced it forsooth. "For,"
says he, "it is a failure, and the cause of
death." One meeting Mr. Bull, and telling
him of this pretty speech, and further of its
eliciting from that astonishing assembly no
demonstration, "Aye," cries Bull, looking
mighty grave, "but if the Member for Nineveh
had mistaken, in that same place, the Christian
name of a Cornet in the Guards, you
should have had howling enough!"

Again, another example.

           BULL AND THE BISHOP.

A certain Bishop who was officially a
learned priest and a devout, but who was individually
either imbecile or an abusive and
indecent common fellow, printed foul letters
wherein he called folks by bad names, as
Devils, Liars, and the like. A Cambridge man,
meeting Bull, asked him of what family this
Bishop was and to whom he was related?
"Nay, I know not," cries Bull, "but I take
my oath he is neither of the line of the
apostles, nor descends from their Master."
"How, now," quoth the Cambridge man,
"hath he no connection with the Fishermen?"
"He hath the connection that Billingsgate
hath with Fishermen, and no other," says
Bull. "But," quoth the Cambridge man
again, "I understand him to be great in the
dead tongues." "He may be that too," says
Bull, "and yet be small in the living ones, for
he can neither write his own tongue nor yet
hold it."

Sometimes it would be necessary, as in the
Tom Brown precedents, to represent Bull in the
light of being innocently victimised, and as not
possessing that readiness which characterises
him in the foregoing models. The learned
body forming the National Collection, would
then adopt the following plan.

           BULL GOT THE BETTER OF.

Bull, riding once from market on a stout
Galloway nag, was met upon the Tiverton
highway by a footpad in a soldier's coat (an
old hand), who rifled him of all he carried
and jeered him besides, saying, "A fig for
you. I can wind you round my finger, I can
pull your nose any day," — and doing it, too,
contemptuously, while he spoke, so that he
brought the blood mounting into Bull's
cheeks. "Prithee tell me," says Bull, pacifically,
"why do you want my money?"
"For the vigorous prosecution of your war
against the birds of prey," replies the fellow
with his tongue in his cheek, who indeed
had been hired by Bull to scare those vermin,
just when the farm-traps and blunderbusses
had been found to be horribly out of order,
and were beginning to be put right. For which
he now took all the credit. "But what have
you done?" asks Bull. "Never you mind,"
says the fellow, tweaking him by the nose
again. "You have not made one good shot
in any direction that I know of," cries Bull;
"is that vigorous prosecution?" "Yes,"
cries the fellow, tweaking him by the nose
again. "You have discomfited me the best
and bravest boys I sent into the field," says
Bull; "is that vigorous prosecution?" "Yes,"
cries the fellow, tweaking him by the nose
again. "You have brought down upon my
head the heaviest and shamefullest book with a
blue cover (called the Fall of Kars), in all my
library," says Bull; "is that vigorous prosecution?"
"Yes," says the fellow, tweaking
him by the nose again. "Then," whis-
pers Bull to his Galloway nag, as he gave
him the rein, "you and I had better jog
along feebly, for it should seem to be the
only true way of prospering." And so
sneaked off.

Occasionally, the learned body would resort
to the dialogue form, for variety's sake. As