Many anecdotes might be collected to show the great difficulty of discovering a person in the collieries without being in possession of his nickname. The following was received from a respectable attorney. During his clerkship he was sent to serve some legal process on a man whose name and address were given to him with legacy accuracy. He traversed the village to which he had been directed from end to end without success; and after spending many hours in the search was about to abandon it in despair, when a young woman who had witnessed his labors kindly undertook to make inquiries for him, and began to hail her friends for that purpose. "Oi say, Bullyed, does thee know a man named Adam Green?" The bull-head was shaken in sign of ignorance. "Loy-a-bed, does thee?" Lie-a-bed's opportunities of making acquaintance had been rather limited, and she could not resolve the difficulty. Stumpy (a man with a wooden leg), Cowskin, Spindleshanks, Corkeye, Pigtail, and Yellowbelly were severally invoked, but in vain; and the querist fell into a brown study, in which she remained for some time. At length, however, her eyes suddenly brightened, and, slapping one of her companions on the shoulder, she exclaimed, triumphantly, "Dash my wig! whoy he means my feyther!" and then, turning to the gentleman, she added, "You should ha' ax'd for Ould Blackbird!"
Foote was once met by a friend in town with a young man who was flashing away very brilliantly, while Foote seemed grave: "Why, Foote," said his friend, "you are flat to-day; you don't seem to relish a joke!"—"You have not tried me yet, sir," said Foote.
Mr. Elliston was enacting the part of Richmond; and having, during the evening, disobeyed the injunction which the King of Denmark lays down to the Queen, "Gertrude, do not drink," he accosted Mr. Powell, who was personating Lord Stanley (for the safety of whose son Richmond is naturally anxious), thus, on his entry, after the issue of the battle:—
Elliston (as Richmond). Your son, George Stanley, is he dead?
Powell (as Lord Stanley). He is, my Lord, and safe in Leicester town!
Elliston (as Richmond). I mean—ah!—is he missing?
Powell (as Lord Stanley). He is, my Lord, and safe in Leicester town!!
And it is but justice to the memory of this punctilious veteran, to say that he would have made the same reply to any question which could, at that particular moment, have been put to him.
(On a little member's versatility.)
The regular routine of clerkly business ill suited the literary tastes and the wayward habits of Charles Lamb. Once, at the India House, a superior said to him, "I have remarked, Mr. Lamb, that you come very late to the office."—"Yes, sir," replied the wit, "but you must remember that I go away early." The oddness of the excuse silenced the reprover.
Curran, who was a very small man, having a dispute with a brother counsel (who was a very stout man), in which words ran high on both sides, called him out. The other, however, objected. "You are so little," said he, "that I might fire at you a dozen times without hitting, whereas, the chance is that you may shoot me at the first fire."—"To convince you," cried Curran, "I don't wish to take any advantage, you shall chalk my size upon your body, and all hits out of the ring shall go for nothing."
Hook was walking one day with a friend, when the latter, pointing out on a dead wall an incomplete inscription, running, "Warren's B——," was puzzled at the moment for the want of the context. "'Tis lacking that should follow," observed Hook, in explanation.
A lady, proud of her rank and title, once compared the three classes of people, nobility, gentry, and commonalty, to china, delf, and crockery. A few minutes elapsed, when one of the company expressed a wish to see the lady's little girl, who, it was mentioned, was in the nursery. "John," said she to the footman, "tell the maid to bring the little dear." The footman, wishing to expose his mistress's ridiculous pride, cried, loud enough to be heard by every one,—"Crockery! bring down little China."
It is a common occurrence in the University of Cambridge for the undergraduates to express their approbation or disapprobation of the Vice-Chancellor, on the resignation of his office. Upon an occasion of this kind, a certain gentleman had enacted some regulations which had given great offence; and, when the senate had assembled in order that he might resign his office to another, a great hissing was raised in disapprobation of his conduct; upon which, bowing courteously, he made the following elegant retort:—
A visitor at Churchtown, North Meols, thought people must like to be buried in the churchyard there, because it was so healthy.
A knavish attorney asking a very worthy gentleman what was honesty, "What is that to you?" said he; "meddle with those things that concern you."
George Selwyn once affirmed, in company, that no woman ever wrote a letter without a postscript. "My next letter shall refute you!" said Lady G——. Selwyn soon after received a letter from her ladyship, where, after her signature, stood: "P.S. Who was right; you or I?"
Cooke was announced one evening to play the Stranger at the Dublin Theatre. When he made his appearance, evident marks of agitation were visible in his countenance and gestures: this, by the generality of the audience, was called fine acting; but those who were acquainted with his failing, classed it very properly under the head of intoxication. When the applause had ceased, with difficulty he pronounced, "Yonder hut—yonder hut," pointing to the cottage; then beating his breast, and striking his forehead, he paced the stage in much apparent agitation of mind. Still this was taken as the chef-d'œuvre of fine acting, and was followed by loud plaudits, and "Bravo! bravo!" At length, having cast many a menacing look at the prompter, who repeatedly, though in vain, gave him the word, he came forward, and, with overacted feeling, thus addressed the audience: "You are a mercantile people—you know the value of money—a thousand pounds, my all, lent to serve a friend, is lost for ever. My son, too—pardon the feelings of a parent—my only son—as brave a youth as ever fought his country's battles, is slain—not many hours ago I received the intelligence; but he died in the defence of his King!" Here his feelings became so powerful that they choked his utterance, and, with his handkerchief to his eyes, he staggered off the stage, amidst the applause of those who, not knowing the man, pitied his situation. Now, the fact is, Cooke never possessed £1,000 in his life, nor had he ever the honor of being a father; but, too much intoxicated to recollect his part, he invented this story, as the only way by which he could decently retire; and the sequel of the business was, that he was sent home in a chair, whilst another actor played the part.
"Come here, Johnny, and tell me what the four seasons are." Young Prodigy: "Pepper, salt, mustard, and vinegar."
A weaver, after enjoying his potations, pursued his way home through the churchyard, his vision and walking somewhat impaired. As he proceeded, he diverged from the path, and unexpectedly stumbled into a partially made grave. Stunned for a while, he lay in wonder at his descent, and after some time he got out, but he had not proceeded much further when a similar calamity befell him. At this second fall, he was heard, in a tone of wonder and surprise, to utter the following exclamation, referring to what he considered the untenanted graves, "Ay! ir ye a' up an' awa?"
On the evening of the coronation-day of our gracious Queen, the Benchers of Lincoln's Inn gave the students a feed; when a certain profane wag, in giving out a verse of the National Anthem, which he was solicited to lead in a solo, took that opportunity of stating a grievance as to the modicum of port allowed, in manner and form following:—
which ridiculous perversion of the author's meaning was received with a full chorus, amid tremendous shouts of laughter and applause.
Henderson, the actor, was seldom known to be in a passion. When at Oxford, he was one day debating with a fellow-student, who, not keeping his temper, threw a glass of wine in the actor's face; when Henderson took out his handkerchief, wiped his face, and cooly said, "That, sir, was a digression: now for the argument."
Don't give your mind to lying. A lie may do very well for a time, but, like a bad shilling, it's found out at last.—D.J.
A person addicted to lying, relating a story to another, which made him stare, "Did you never hear that before?" said the narrator. "No," says the other: "Pray, sir, did you?"
Charles Mathews, seated on a coach-box on a frosty day, waiting for the driver, said to him when at length he appeared: "If you stand here much longer, Mr. Coachman, your horses will be like Captain Parry's ships."—"How's that, sir?"—"Why, frozen at the pole!"
Under the improved system of agriculture and of draining, great preparations had been made for securing a good crop in a certain field, where Lord Fife, his factor, and others interested in the subject were collected together. There was much discussion, and some difference of opinion as to the crop with which the field had best be sown. The idiot retainer, who had been listening unnoticed to all that was said, at last cried out, "Saw't wi' factors, ma lord; they are sure to thrive everywhere."
Never confide in a young man,—new pails leak. Never tell your secret to the aged,—old doors seldom shut closely.
When citizen Thelwall was on his trial at the Old Bailey for high treason, during the evidence for the prosecution he wrote the following note, and sent it to his counsel, Mr. Erskine: "I am determined to plead my cause myself." Mr. Erskine wrote under it: "If you do, you'll be hanged:" to which Thelwall immediately returned this reply: "I'll be hanged, then, if I do."
A shilling subscription having been set on foot to bury an attorney who had died very poor, Lord Chief Justice Norbury exclaimed, "Only a shilling to bury an attorney! Here's a guinea; go and bury one-and-twenty of them."
A person, hearing that "Time is Money," became desirous of learning how many years it would take "to pay a little debt of a hundred pounds!"
Lord Derby once said that Ireland was positively worse than it is represented. "That's intended," said A'Beckett, "as a sinister insult to the members who represent that wretched country."
One of a party of friends, referring to an exquisite musical composition, said: "That song always carries me away when I hear it."—"Can anybody whistle it?" asked Jerrold, laughing.
A fire-eating Irishman challenged a barrister, who gratified him by an acceptance. The duellist, being very lame, requested that he might have a prop. "Suppose," said he, "I lean against this milestone?"—"With pleasure," replied the lawyer, "on condition that I may lean against the next." The joke settled the quarrel.
A very dull play was talked of, and one attempted a defence by saying, "It was not hissed."—"True," said another; "no one can hiss and gape at the same time."
A French nobleman once showing Matthew Prior the palace of his master at Versailles, and desiring him to observe the many trophies of Louis the Fourteenth's victories, asked Prior if King William, his master, had many such trophies in his palace. "No," said Prior, "the monuments of my master's victories are to be seen everywhere but in his own house."
When Baron Martin was at the Bar and addressing the Court of Exchequer in an insurance case, he was interrupted by Mr. Baron Alderson observing: "Mr. Martin, do you think any office would insure your life? Remember, yours is a brief existence."
A philosopher being asked of whom he had acquired so much knowledge, replied, "Of the blind, who do not lift their feet until they have first sounded, with their stick, the ground on which they are going to tread."
We are terribly afraid that some Americans spit upon the floor, even when that floor is covered by good carpets. Now all claims to civilization are suspended till this secretion is otherwise disposed of. No English gentleman has spit upon the floor since the Heptarchy.—S.S.
A glorious bull is related, in the life of Dr. Sims, of a countryman of his, an Irishman, for whom he had prescribed an emetic, who said with great naiveté: "My dear doctor, it is of no use your giving me an emetic! I tried it twice in Dublin, and it would not stay on my stomach either time."
In marriage, as in war, it is permitted to take every advantage of the enemy.
Pope, when he first saw Garrick act, observed, "I am afraid that the young man will be spoiled, for he will have no competitor!"
A spendthrift said, "Five years ago I was not worth a farthing in the world; now see where I am through my own exertions."—"Well, where are you?" inquired a neighbor. "Why, I now owe more than a thousand pounds!"
In former days, when roads were bad, and wheeled vehicles almost unknown, an old laird was returning from a supper party, with his lady mounted behind him on horseback. On crossing the river Urr, the old lady dropped off, but was not missed till her husband reached his door. The party who were despatched in quest of her, arrived just in time to find her remonstrating with the advancing tide, which trickled into her mouth, in these words, "No anither drap; neither het nor cauld."
A retired cheesemonger, who hated any allusions to the business that had enriched him, said to Charles Lamb, in course of discussion on the Poor-Laws, "You must bear in mind, sir, that I have got rid of that sort of stuff which you poets call the 'milk of human kindness.'" Lamb looked at him steadily, and replied, "Yes, I am aware of that,—you turned it all into cheese several years ago!"
"Are you guilty, or not guilty?" asked the clerk of arraigns of a prisoner the other day. "An' sure now," said Pat, "what are you put there for but to find that out?"
A man in a passion spoke many scurrilous words; a friend being by, said, "You speak foolishly." He answered, "It is that you may understand me."
A celebrated wit was asked why he did not marry a young lady to whom he was much attached. "I know not" he replied, "except the great regard we have for each other."
Garrick and Rigby, once walking together in Norfolk, observed upon a board at a house by the roadside, the following strange inscription: "a goes koored hear."—"How is it possible," said Rigby, "that such people as these can cure agues?"—"I do not know," replied Garrick, "what their prescription is,—but it is not by a spell."
A jolly good fellow had an office next to a doctor's. One day an elderly gentleman of the foggy school blundered into the wrong shop: "Dr. X—— in?"—"Don't live here," says P——, who was in full scribble over some important papers, without looking up. "Oh, I thought this was his office."—"Next door."—"Pray, sir, can you tell me, has the doctor many patients?"—"Not living!" The old gentleman was never more heard of in the vicinity.
An Irishman, who lived in an attic, being asked what part of the house he occupied, answered, "If the house were turned topsy-turvy, I'd be livin' on the first flure."
A late noble statesman, more famous for his wit than his love of music, being asked why he did not subscribe to the Ancient Concerts, and it being urged as a reason for it that his brother, the Bishop of W——, did: "Oh," replied his lordship, "if I was as deaf as my brother, I would subscribe too."
A fashionable Irish gentleman, driving a good deal about Cheltenham, was observed to have the not very graceful habit of lolling his tongue out as he went along. Curran, who was there, was asked what he thought could be his countryman's motive for giving the instrument of eloquence such an airing. "Oh!" said he, "he's trying to catch the English accent."
Dr. Jowett, who was a small man, was permitted by the head of his college to cultivate a strip of vacant ground. This gave rise to some jeux d'esprit among the wags of the University, which induced him to alter it into a plot of gravel, and Porson burst forth with the following extemporaneous lines:—
Brevity is in writing what charity is to all other virtues. Righteousness is worth nothing without the one, nor authorship without the other.
Baron N., once playing at cards, was guilty of an odd trick; on which his opponent threw him out of the window of a one-pair-of-stairs room. The baron meeting Foote complained of this usage, and asked what he should do? "Do," says the wit, "never play so high again as long as you live."
Quin had been dining, and his host expressed his regret that he could offer no more wine, as he had lost the key of his wine-cellar. While the coffee was getting ready the host showed his guest some natural curiosities, and among the rest an ostrich. "Do you know, sir, that this bird has one very remarkable property—he will swallow iron?"—"Then very likely," said Quin, "he has swallowed the key of your wine-cellar!"
Sydney Smith said that "the Court of Chancery was like a boa-constrictor, which swallowed up the estates of English gentlemen in haste, and digested them at leisure."
A jack-tar just returned from sea, determined to commit matrimony, but at the altar the parson demurred, as there was not cash enough between them to pay the fees: on which Jack, thrusting a few shillings into the sleeve of his cassock, exclaimed, "Never mind, brother, marry us as far as it will go."
Smith and Brown, running opposite ways round a corner, struck each other. "Oh dear!" says Smith, "how you made my head ring!"—"That's a sign it's hollow," said Brown. "Didn't yours ring?" said Smith. "No," said Brown. "That's a sign it's cracked," replied his friend.
One communion Sabbath, the precentor observed the noble family of —— approaching the tables, and likely to be kept out by those pressing in before them. Being very zealous for their accommodation, he called out to an individual whom he considered the principal obstacle in clearing the passage, "Come back, Jock, and let in the noble family of ——," and then turning to his psalm-book, took up his duty, and went on to read the line, "Nor stand in sinners' way."
A young counsel commenced his stammering speech with the remark, "The unfortunate client who appears by me—" and then he came to a full stop; beginning again, after an embarrassed pause with a repetition of the remark, "My unfortunate client—." He did not find his fluency of speech quickened by the calm raillery of the judge, who interposed, in his softest tone, "Pray go on, so far the court is quite with you."
Kean once played Young Norval to Mrs. Siddons's Lady Randolph: after the play, as Kean used to relate, Mrs. Siddons came to him, and patting him on the head, said, "You have played very well, sir, very well. It's a pity,—but there's too little of you to do anything."
Coleridge said of this "little" actor: "Kean is original; but he copies from himself. His rapid descent from the hyper-tragic to the infra-colloquial, though sometimes productive of great effect, are often unreasonable. To see him act, is like reading 'Shakespeare' by flashes of lightning. I do not think him thorough-bred gentleman enough to play Othello."
As for me, as soon as I hear that the last farthing is paid to the last creditor, I will appear on my knees at the bar of the Pennsylvanian Senate in the plumeopicean robe of American controversy. Each Conscript Jonathan shall trickle over me a few drops of tar, and help to decorate me with those penal plumes in which the vanquished reasoner of the transatlantic world does homage to the physical superiority of his opponents.—S.S.
The best fellow in the world, sir, to get money of; for as he sends you half cash, half wine, why, if you can't take up his bill, you've always poison at hand for a remedy.—D.J.
A man, who pretended to have seen a ghost, was asked what the ghost said to him? "How should I understand," replied the narrator, "what he said? I am not skilled in any of the dead languages."
An Irishman, swearing the peace against his three sons, thus concluded his affidavit: "And this deponent further saith, that the only one of his children who showed him any real filial affection was his youngest son Larry, for he never struck him when he was down!"
The death of Mr. Holland, of Drury Lane Theatre, who was the son of a baker at Chiswick, had a very great effect upon the spirits of Foote, who had a very warm friendship for him. Being a legatee, as well as appointed by the will of the deceased one of his bearers, he attended the corpse to the family vault at Chiswick, and there very sincerely paid a plentiful tribute of tears to his memory. On his return to town, Harry Woodward asked him if he had not been paying the last compliment to his friend Holland? "Yes, poor fellow," says Foote, almost weeping at the same time, "I have just seen him shoved into the family oven."
The air of France! nothing to the air of England. That goes ten times as far,—it must, for it's ten times as thick.—D.J.
Very dry and pithy too was a legal opinion given to a claimant of the Annandale peerage, who, when pressing the employment of some obvious forgeries, was warned, that if he persevered, nae doot he might be a peer, but it would be a peer o' anither tree!
A sceptical man, conversing with Dr. Parr, observed that he would believe nothing that he did not understand. Dr. Parr, replied, "Then young man, your creed will be the shortest of any man's I know."
A Scotch lady, who was discomposed by the introduction of gas, asked with much earnestness, "What's to become o' the puir whales?" deeming their interests materially affected by this superseding of their oil.
"Come down, this instant," said the boatswain to a mischievous son of Erin, who had been idling in the round-top; "come down, I say, and I'll give you a good dozen, you rascal!"—"Troth, sur, I wouldn't come down if you'd give me two dozen!"
Harry Erskine made a neat remark to Walter Scott after he got his Clerkship of Session. The scheme to bestow it on him had been begun by the Tories, but (most honorably) was completed by the Whigs, and after the fall of the latter, Harry met the new Clerk, and congratulated him on his appointment, which he liked all the better, as it was a "Lay of the Last Ministry!"
In the midst of a stormy discussion, a gentleman rose to settle the matter in dispute. Waving his hands majestically over the excited disputants, he began:—
"Gentlemen, all I want is common sense—"
"Exactly," Jerrold interrupted, "that is precisely what you do want!"
The discussion was lost in a burst of laughter.
The Rev. William Cole, of Cambridge, nicknamed the Cardinal, was remarkable for what is called a "comfortable assurance." Dining in a party at the University, he took up from the table a gold snuff-box, belonging to the gentleman seated next to him, and bluntly remarked that "It was big enough to hold the freedom of a corporation."—"Yes, Mr. Cole," replied the owner; "it would hold any freedom but yours."
Mr. Henry Erskine (brother of Lord Buchan and Lord Erskine), after being presented to Dr. Johnson by Mr. Boswell, and having made his bow, slipped a shilling into Boswell's hand, whispering that it was for the sight of his bear.
Some schoolboys meeting a poor woman driving asses, one of them said to her, "Good morning, mother of asses."—"Good morning, my child," was the reply.
George the Third once said to Sir J. Irwin, a famous bon-vivant, "They tell me, Sir John, you love a glass of wine."—"Those, sire, who have so reported me to your Majesty," answered he, bowing profoundly, "do me great injustice; they should have said,—a bottle!"
They say love's like the measles,—all the worse when it comes late in life.—D.J.
A very plain actor being addressed on the stage, "My lord, you change countenance"; a young fellow in the pit cried, "For heaven's sake, let him!"
Two travellers were robbed in a wood, and tied to trees. One of them in despair exclaimed, "O, I am undone!"—"Are you?" said the other joyfully; "then I wish you'd come and undo me."
A soldier passing through a meadow, a large mastiff ran at him, and he stabbed the dog with a bayonet. The master of the dog asked him why he had not rather struck the dog with the butt-end of his weapon? "So I should," said the soldier, "if he had run at me with his tail!"
The subject for the Chancellor's English Prize Poem, for the year 1823, was Australasia (New Holland). This happened to be the subject of conversation at a party of Johnians, when, some observing that they thought it a bad subject, one of the party remarked, "It was at least a transporting one."
A few years ago, when Handel's L'Allegro and Il Penseroso were performed at Birmingham, the passage most admired was,—
The great manufacturers and mechanics of the place were inconceivably delighted with this idea, because they had never heard of anything in iron before that could not be made at Birmingham.
A painter of very middling abilities turned doctor: on being questioned respecting this change, he answered, "In painting, all faults are exposed to view; but in medicine, they are buried with the patient."
Is pupyism come to its full growth.—D.J.