410 HISTORY OF CERTAIN 
to express quaintness, humour, quickness of per- 
ception. But among the Anglo-Saxons, a witty 
person was a man endowed with the sterling 
qualities of sound common sense, and correct 
judgment, one who could strictly observe what 
was going on around him, and profit thereby. 
We, however, consider joking, punning, and 
saying smart and odd things, as constituting the 
character of a wit. Such men our forefathers 
kept for fools—while we are apt to overlook com- 
mon sense somewhat in the same way—so that 
by an unaccountable perversion, we regard the 
wise man of our ancestors as a fool, and they 
regarded those we hold wise as fit for nothing but 
amusement and merriment, adorned them in 
the most grotesque manner, and made “merry 
Andrews” of them. 
From the noun just mentioned comes ‘‘witness,”’ 
the evidence of the senses. As the enjoyment of 
the bodily senses is a common blessing among 
mankind, and connected therewith are the endow- 
ments of the mind in a greater or less degree ; 
there was hence nothing peculiar in the condition 
of our Anglo-Saxon fore-elders, or is there in that 
of ourselves to have introduced or to retain the 
present root in our language. As the use of 
