Afterwards being often printed, [it] is now sold only on the
stalls of ballad-singers." It is likely that the estimation in which the
book was held "by scholars and gentlemen" was not a little due to the
supposition that "A.B., of Phisike Doctour," by whom the tales were said
to have been "gathered together," was none other than Andrew Borde, or
Boorde, a Carthusian friar before the Reformation, one of the physicians
to Henry VIII., a great traveller, even beyond the bounds of
Christendom, "a thousand or two and more myles," a man of great
learning, withal "of fame facete." For to Borde have the _Merie Tales
of the Mad Men of Gotham_ been generally ascribed down to our own
times. There is, however, as Dr. F.J. Furnivall justly remarks, "no good
external evidence that the book was written by Borde, while the internal
evidence is against his authorship."[5] In short, the ascription of its
compilation to "A.B., of Phisike Doctour," was clearly a device of the
printer to sell the book.[6]
The _Tales of the Mad Men of Gotham_ continued to be printed as a
chap-book down to the close of the first quarter of the present century;
and much harmless mirth they must have caused at cottage firesides in
remote rural districts occasionally visited by the ubiquitous pedlar, in
whose well-filled pack of all kinds of petty merchandise such drolleries
were sure to be found.
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