Curran, when opposed to Lord Clare, said that he reminded him of a chimney-sweep, who had raised himself by dark and dusky ways, and then called aloud to his neighbors to witness his dirty elevation.
A quaker being asked his opinion of phrenology, replied indignantly, "Friend, there can be no good in a science that compels a man to take off his hat!"
In a valedictory address an editor wrote: "If we have offended any man in the short but brilliant course of our public career, let him send us a new hat, and we will then forget the past." A cool chap that!
"Mother, this book tells about the angry waves of the ocean. Now, what makes the ocean get angry?"—"Because it has been crossed so often, my son."
Dr. Abernethy, the celebrated physician, was never more displeased than by hearing a patient detail a long account of troubles. A woman, knowing Abernethy's love of the laconic, having burned her hand, called at his house. Showing him her hand, she said, "A burn."—"A poultice," quietly answered the learned doctor. The next day she returned, and said, "Better."—"Continue the poultice," replied Dr. A. In a week she made her last call and her speech was lengthened to three words, "Well,—your fee?"—"Nothing," said the physician; "you are the most sensible woman I ever saw."
A quaker said to a gunner, "Friend, I counsel no bloodshed; but if it be thy design to hit the little man in the blue jacket, point thine engine three inches lower."
At the last rehearsal of "Joanna," Mr. Wild, the prompter, asked the author for an order to admit two friends to the boxes; and whether Mr. Cumberland was thinking of the probable proceeds of his play, or whether his anxiety otherwise bewildered him, cannot be ascertained; but he wrote, instead of the usual "two to the boxes"—"admit two pounds two."
A widower, having taken another wife, was, nevertheless, always paying some panegyric to the memory of his late spouse, in the presence of his present one; who one day added, with great feeling, "Believe me, my dear, nobody regrets her loss more than I do."
A young man having preached for the doctor one day, was anxious to get a word of applause for his labor of love. The grave doctor, however, did not introduce the subject, and his younger brother was obliged to bait the hook for him. "I hope, sir, I did not weary your people by the length of my sermon to-day?"—"No, sir, not at all; nor by the depth either!" The young man was silent.
An Irishman being asked on a late trial for a certificate of his marriage, exhibited a huge scar on his head, which looked as though it might have been made with a fire-shovel. The evidence was satisfactory.
The great scholar had a horror of the east wind; and Tom Sheridan once kept him prisoner in the house for a fortnight by fixing the weathercock in that direction.
A retired vocalist, who had acquired a large fortune by marriage, was asked to sing in company. "Allow me," said he, "to imitate the nightingale, which does not sing after it has made its nest."
In the House of Commons, the grand characteristic of the office of the Speaker is silence; and he fills the place best who best holds his tongue. There are other speakers in the House (not official) who would show their sagacity by following the example of their President.
A physician passing by a stone-mason's shop bawled out, "Good morning, Mr. D.! Hard at work, I see. You finish your gravestones as far as 'In the memory of,' and then wait, I suppose, to see who wants a monument next?"—"Why, yes," replied the old man, "unless somebody's sick, and you are doctoring him; then I keep right on."
THE COURT OF ALDERMEN AT FISHMONGERS' HALL.
Charles II. playing at tennis with a dean, who struck the ball well, the king said, "That's a good stroke for a dean."—"I'll give it the stroke of a bishop if your Majesty pleases," was the suggestive rejoinder.
To such a height had arrived the custom of giving vails, or visiting-fees, to servants, in 1762, that Jonas Hanway published upon the subject eight letters to the Duke of N——, supposed to be the Duke of Newcastle. Sir Thomas Waldo related to Hanway, that, on leaving the house of the Duke alluded to, after having feed a train of other servants, he (Sir Thomas) put a crown into the hand of the cook, who returned it, saying, "Sir, I do not take silver."—"Don't you, indeed!" said the baronet, putting it into his pocket; "then I do."
Avarice is criminal poverty.
A scholar and a courtier meeting in the street, seemed to contest the wall. Says the courtier, "I do not use to give every coxcomb the wall." The scholar answered, "But I do, sir;" and so passed by him.
An old deaf beggar, whom Collins the painter was once engaged in sketching at Hendon, exhibited great self-possession. Finding, from certain indications, that the body and garments of this English Edie Ochiltree afforded a sort of pasture-ground to a herd of many animals of minute size, he hinted his fears to the old man that he might leave some of his small body-guard, behind him. "No fear, sir; no fear," replied this deaf and venerable vagrant, contemplating the artist with serious serenity; "I don't think they are any of them likely to leave me for you."
A physician of an acrimonious disposition, and having a thorough hatred of lawyers, reproached a barrister with the use of phrases utterly unintelligible. "For example," said he, "I never could understand what you lawyers mean by docking an entail."—"That is very likely," answered the lawyer, "but I will explain it to you: it is doing what you doctors never consent to,—suffering a recovery."
A recruiting serjeant addressing an honest country bumpkin with,—"Come, my lad, thou'lt fight for thy King, won't thou?"—"Voight for my King," answered Hodge, "why, has he fawn out wi' ony body?"
Of this tragedy, the production of Joseph Reed, author of the "Register Office," Mr. Nicholls, in his "Literary Anecdotes," gives some curious particulars. He also relates an anecdote of Johnson concerning it: "It happened that I was in Bolt Court on the day that Henderson, the justly celebrated actor, was first introduced to Dr. Johnson: and the conversation turning on dramatic subjects, Henderson asked the Doctor's opinion of "Dido" and its author. "Sir," said Johnson, "I never did the man an injury, yet he would read his tragedy to me."
A countryman took his seat at a tavern-table opposite to a gentleman who was indulging in a bottle of wine. Supposing the wine to be common property, our unsophisticated country friend helped himself to it with the gentleman's glass. "That's cool!" exclaimed the owner of the wine, indignantly. "Yes," replied the other; "I should think there was ice in it."
During a recent representation of King Lear at one of our metropolitan theatres, an old gentleman from the country, who was visibly affected by the pathos of some of the scenes, electrified the house by roaring out, "Mr. Manager! Sir! Alter the play! I didn't pay my money to be made wretched in this way. Give us something funny, or I'll summons you, sir!"
An old sea captain used to say he didn't care how he dressed when abroad, "because nobody knew him." And he didn't care how he dressed when at home, "because everybody knew him."
Erskine was once retained for a Mr. Bolt, whose character was impugned by Mr. Mingay, the counsel on the other side. "Gentlemen," said Erskine, in reply, "the plaintiff's counsel has taken unwarrantable liberties with my client's good name, representing him as litigious and unjust. So far, however, from this being his character, he goes by the name of Bolt upright."
On one occasion the Duke's deafness was alluded to by Lady A——, who asked if she was sitting on his right side, and if he had benefited by the operations which she heard had been performed, and had been so painful to him. He said, in reply, that the gentleman had been bold enough to ask him for a certificate, but that he had really been of no service to him, and that he could only answer him by saying, "I tell you what, I won't say a word about it."
If a man were to set out calling everything by its right name, he would be knocked down before he got to the corner of the street.
(To those in want of employment.)
A huge, double-sheeted copy of the Times newspaper was put into the hands of a member of the Union Club by one of the waiters. "Oh, what a bore all this is," said the member, surveying the gigantic journal. "Ah," answered another member, who overheard him, "it is all very well for you who are occupied all day with business bore; but to a man living in the country,—it is equal to a day's fishing."
Dr. Parr had a high opinion of his own skill at whist, and could not even patiently tolerate the want of it in his partner. Being engaged with a party in which he was unequally matched, he was asked by a lady how the fortune of the game turned, when he replied, "Pretty well, madam, considering that I have three adversaries."
(On the depth of Lord —— arguments.)
Theodore Hook, being in company, where he said something humorous in rhyme to every person present, on Mr. Winter, the late Solicitor of Taxes, being announced, made the following impromptu:—
(On the immortality of ——'s speeches.)
A witch, being at the stake to be burnt, saw her son there, and desired him to give her some drink. "No, mother," said he, "it would do you wrong, for the drier you are, the better you will burn."
Lord Byron, in reference to a lady he thought ill of, writes, "Lady —— has been dangerously ill; but it may console you to learn that she is dangerously well again."
(On Lord E—nb——h's pericranium.)
A Californian gold digger having become rich, desired a friend to procure for him a library of books. The friend obeyed, and received a letter of thanks thus worded: "I am obliged to you for the pains of your selection. I particularly admire a grand religious poem about Paradise, by a Mr. Milton, and a set of plays (quite delightful) by a Mr. Shakespeare. If these gentlemen should write and publish anything more, be sure and send me their new works."
Jemmy Gordon, meeting the prosecutor of a felon, named Pilgrim, who was convicted and sentenced to be transported at the Cambridge assizes, exclaimed, "You have done, sir, what the Pope of Rome could never do; you have put a stop to Pilgrim's Progress!"
One drinking some beer at a petty ale-house in the country, which was very strong of the hops and hardly any taste of the malt, was asked by the landlord, if it was not well hopped. "Yes," answered he, "if it had hopped a little farther, it would have hopped into the water."
A recent philosopher discovered a method to avoid being dunned! "How—how—how?" we hear everybody asking. He never run in debt.
"Cracked China mended!" Zounds, man, off this minute! There's work for you, or else the deuce is in it!
Charles Lamb sitting next some chattering woman at dinner, observing he didn't attend to her, "You don't seem," said the lady, "to be at all the better for what I am saying to you!"—"No, ma'am," he answered, "but this gentleman on the other side of me must, for it all came in at one ear and went out at the other!"
On the birth of a friend's son (now a well-known novelist), Sir David Wilkie was requested to become one of the sponsors for his child. Sir David, whose studies of human nature extended to everything but infant human nature, had evidently been refreshing his boyish recollections of puppies and kittens; for, after looking intently into the child's eyes, as it was held up for his inspection, he exclaimed to the father, with serious astonishment and satisfaction, "He sees!"
A man was brought before Lord Mansfield, charged with stealing a silver ladle, and the counsel for the crown was rather severe upon the prisoner for being an attorney. "Come, come," said his lordship, "don't exaggerate matters; if the fellow had been an attorney, he would have stolen the bowl as well as the ladle."
The manager of a Scotch theatre, at which F.G. Cooke was playing Macbeth, seeing him greatly exhausted towards the close of the performance, offered him some whiskey in a very small thistle-glass, saying at the same time, by way of encouragement, "Take that, Mr. Cooke; take that, sir; it is the real mountain dew; that will never hurt you, sir!"—"Not if it was vitriol!" was the rejoinder.
The following bill of fare (which consists of a dish of fish, a joint of meat, a couple of fowls, vegetables, and a pudding, being in all seven dishes for sevenpence!) had its rise in an invitation which a young lady of forty-seven sent to her lover to dine with her on Christmas Day. To unite taste and economy is no easy thing; but to show her lover she had learned that difficult art, she gave him the following dinner:—
| £ | s. | d. | |
| At top, fish, two herrings | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| Middle, one ounce and a half of butter, melted | 0 | 0 | 0-3/4 |
| Bottom, a mutton chop, divided | 0 | 0 | 2 |
| On one side, one pound of small potatoes | 0 | 0 | 0-1/2 |
| On the other side, pickled cabbage | 0 | 0 | 0-1/2 |
| First remove, two larks, plenty of crumbs | 0 | 0 | 1-1/2 |
| Mutton removed, French-roll boiled for a pudding | 0 | 0 | 0-1/2 |
| Parsley for garnish | 0 | 0 | 0-1/4 |
| —————— | |||
| £0 | 0 | 7 | |
| —————— | |||
—Seven dishes for sevenpence!
Of a light, frivolous, flighty girl, whom Jerrold met frequently, he said, "That girl has no more head than a periwinkle."
Tom bought a gallon of gin to take home; and, by way of a label, wrote his name upon a card, which happened to be the seven of clubs, and tied it to the handle. A friend coming along, and observing the jug, quietly remarked: "That's an awful careless way to leave that liquor!"—"Why?" said Tom. "Because somebody might come along with the eight of clubs and take it!"
A gentleman, playing at piquet, was much teased by a looker-on who was short-sighted, and, having a very long nose, greatly incommoded the player. To get rid of the annoyance, the player took out his handkerchief, and applied it to the nose of his officious neighbor. "Ah! sir," said he, "I beg your pardon, but I really took it for my own."
All honest men, whether counts or cobblers, are of the same rank, if classed by moral distinctions.
Grattan said of Hussey Burgh, who had been a great Liberal, but, on getting his silk gown, became a Ministerialist, that all men knew silk to be a non-conducting body, and that since the honorable member had been enveloped in silk, no spark of patriotism had reached his heart.
Every Cantab, it is presumed, knows where Shelford Fen is, and that it is famous for rearing geese. A luckless wight, who had the misfortune to be plucked at his examination for the degree of B.A., when the Rev. T. Shelford was his examiner, made the following extemporaneous epigram:—
One afternoon, when Jerrold was in his garden at Putney, enjoying a glass of claret, a friend called upon him. The conversation ran on a certain dull fellow, whose wealth made him prominent at that time.
"Yes," said Jerrold, drawing his finger round the edge of his wineglass, "that's the range of his intellect, only it had never anything half so good in it."
Foote, dining one day with Lord Townsend, after his duel with Lord Bellamont, the wine being bad, and the dinner ill-dressed, made Foote observe, that he could not discover what reason could compel his lordship to fight, when he might have effected his purpose with much more ease to himself. "How?" asked his lordship. "How?" replied the wit, "why you should have given him a dinner like this, and poisoned him."
"Tom," said a colonel to one of his men, "how can so good and brave a soldier as you get drunk so often?"—"Colonel," replied he, "how can you expect all the virtues that adorn the human character for sixpence a-day?"
A gentleman once bought a horse of a country-dealer. The bargain concluded, and the money paid, the gentleman said, "Now, my friend, I have bought your horse, what are his faults?"—"I know of no faults that he has, except two," replied the man; "and one is, that he is hard to catch."—"Oh! never mind that," said the buyer, "I will contrive to catch him at any time, I will engage; but what is the other?"—"Ah, sir! that is the worst," answered the fellow; "he is good for nothing when you have caught him."
A man said the only reason why his dwelling was not blown away in a late storm was, because there was a heavy mortgage on it.
Mathews's attendant, in his last illness, intending to give him his medicine, gave in mistake some ink from a phial on a shelf. On discovering the error, his friend exclaimed, "Good heavens! Mathews, I have given you ink."—"Never—never mind, my boy—never mind," said Mathews, faintly, "I'll swallow a bit—of blotting-paper."
An old gentleman of eighty-four having taken to the altar a young damsel of about sixteen, the clergyman said to him, "The font is at the other end of the church."—"What do I want with the font?" said the old gentleman. "Oh! I beg your pardon," said the clerical wit, "I thought you had brought this child to be christened."
Ned Shuter thus explained his reasons for preferring to wear stockings with holes to having them darned:—"A hole," said he, "may be the accident of a day, and will pass upon the best gentleman, but a darn is premeditated poverty."
A celebrated quack, while holding forth on a stage of Chelmsford, in order to promote the sale of his medicine, told the people that he came there for their good, and not for want. And then addressing his Merry Andrew, "Andrew," said he, "do we come here for want?"—"No faith, sir," replied Andrew, "we have enough of that at home."
Dryden's description of wit is excellent. He says:—
Sir Francis Blake Delaval's death had such an effect on Foote that he burst into tears, retired to his room, and saw no company for two days; the third day, Jewel, his treasurer, calling in upon him, he asked him, with swollen eyes, what time would the burial be? "Not till next week, sir," replied the other, "as I hear the surgeons are first to dissect his head." This last word restored Foote's fancy, and, repeating it with some surprise, he asked, "And what will they get there? I am sure I have known poor Frank these five-and-twenty years, and I never could find anything in it."
"We don't sell spirits," said a law-evading beer-seller; "we will give you a glass; and then, if you want a biscuit, we'll sell it to you for three ha'pence." The "good creature" was handed down, a stiff glass swallowed, and the landlord handed his customer a biscuit. "Well, no, I think not," said the customer; "you sell 'em too dear. I can get lots of 'em five or six for a penny anywhere else."
An overbearing barrister, endeavoring to brow-beat a witness, told him he could plainly see a rogue in his face. "I never knew till now," said the witness, "that my face was a looking-glass."
An artist named Forfeit, having some job to do for Foote, got into a foolish scrape about the antiquity of family with another artist, who gave him such a drubbing as confined him to his bed for a considerable time. "Forfeit! Forfeit!" said Foote, "why, surely you have the best of the argument; your family is not only several thousand years old, but at the same time the most numerous of any on the face of the globe, on the authority of Shakespeare:—
[A] Sir Charles Wetherall was noted for want of cleanliness.
A friend was one day reading to Jerrold an account of a case in which a person named Ure was reproached with having suddenly jilted a young lady to whom he was engaged. "Ure seems to have turned out to be a base 'un," said Jerrold.
A professor of legerdemain entertained an audience in a village, which was principally composed of colliers. After "astonishing the natives" with various tricks, he asked the loan of a halfpenny. A collier, with a little hesitation, handed out the coin, which the juggler speedily exhibited, as he said, transformed into a sovereign. "An' is that my bawbee?" exclaimed the collier. "Undoubtedly," answered the juggler. "Let's see 't," said the collier; and turning it round and round with an ecstasy of delight, thanked the juggler for his kindness, and putting it into his pocket, said, "I'se war'nt ye'll no turn't into a bawbee again."
The Baron de Béranger relates, that, having secured a pickpocket in the very act of irregular abstraction, he took the liberty of inquiring whether there was anything in his face that had procured him the honor of being singled out for such an attempt. "Why, sir," said the fellow, "your face is well enough, but you had on thin shoes and white stockings in dirty weather, and so I made sure you were a flat."
When it was the custom for barristers to leave chambers early, and to finish their evenings at the coffee-houses in the neighborhood of the inns of court, Lord Thurlow on some occasion wanted to see Dunning privately. He went to the coffee-house frequented by him, and asked a waiter if Mr. Dunning was there. The waiter, who was new in his place, said he did not know him. "Not know him!" exclaimed Thurlow, with his usual oaths; "go into the room up stairs, and if you see any gentleman like the knave of clubs, tell him he is particularly wanted." The waiter went up, and forthwith reappeared followed by Dunning.
Some people were talking with Jerrold about a gentleman as celebrated for the intensity as for the shortness of his friendships.
"Yes," said Jerrold, "his friendships are so warm that he no sooner takes them up than he puts them down again."
A laughable blunder was made by Mrs. Gibbs, at Covent Garden Theatre, in the season of 1823, in the part of Miss Stirling, in "The Clandestine Marriage." When speaking of the conduct of Betty, who had locked the door of Miss Fanny's room, and walked away with the key, Mrs. G. said, "She had locked the key, and carried away the door in her pocket." Mrs. Davenport, as Mrs. Heidelberg, had previously excited a hearty laugh, by substituting for the original dialogue, "I protest there's a candle coming along the gallery with a man in his hand;" but the mistake by Mrs. Gibbs seemed to be so unintentional, so unpremeditated, that the effect was irresistible; and the audience, celebrated the joke with three rounds of applause.
"I am the only man in Europe, sir," said the Colonel, "that ever had a broken head,—to live after it. I was hunting near my place in Yorkshire; my horse threw me, and I was pitched, head-foremost, upon a scythe which had been left upon the ground. When I was taken up my head was found to be literally cut in two, and was spread over my shoulders like a pair of epaulettes. That was a broken head, if you please, sir."
Two pedestrian travellers, natives of the North, had taken up their quarters for the night at a Highland hotel in Breadalbane: one of them next morning complained to his friend that he had a very indifferent bed, and asked him how he had slept. "Troth, man," replied Donald, "nea vera well, either; but I was muckle better aff than the bugs, for de'il ane of them closed an e'e the hale night!"
Blayney said, in reference to several persons, all relations to each other, but who happened to have no descendants, that "it seemed to be hereditary in their family to have no children."
Counsellor M——t, after he retired from practice, being one day in company where the uncertainty of the law became the topic of conversation, was applied to for his opinion, upon which he laconically observed, "If any man were to claim the coat upon my back, and threaten my refusal with a lawsuit, he should certainly have it, lest in defending my coat I should too late find that I was deprived of my waistcoat also."
When the Archbishop of York sent him from his table an excellent dish of fish, but without drink, said:—