"Call that a kind man," said an actor, speaking of an absent acquaintance; "a man who is away from his family, and never sends them a farthing! Call that kindness?"
"Yes, unremitting kindness," Jerrold replied.
At Birmingham, one of Kean's "benefits" was a total failure. In the last scene of the play ("A New Way to pay Old Debts"), wherein allusion is made to the marriage of a lady, "Take her, sir," Kean suddenly added, "and the Birmingham audience into the bargain."
A learned doctor has given his opinion that tight lacing is a public benefit, inasmuch as it kills off all the foolish girls, and leaves the wise only to grow into women.
Congreve was disputing a point of fact with a man of a very positive disposition, but one who was not overburdened with sense. The latter said to him, "If the fact is not as I have stated, I'll give you my head."—"I accept it," said Congreve; "for trifles show respect."
A runaway couple were married at Gretna Green. The smith demanded five guineas for his services. "How is this?" said the bridegroom, "the gentleman you last married assured me that he only gave you a guinea."—"True," said the smith, "but he was an Irishman. I have married him six times. He is a good customer, and you I may never see again."
"I remember," says Lord Biden, "Mr. Justice Gould trying a case at York, and when he had proceeded for about two hours, he observed, 'Here are only eleven jurymen in the box, where is the twelfth?'—'Please you, my lord,' said one of the eleven, 'he has gone away about some other business—but he has left his verdict with me!'"
In a lecture-room of St. John's College, Cambridge, a student one morning, construing the Medea of Euripides came to the following passage:—
To which he gave the proper sense,—
but pausing as if he doubted its correctness,—"You are quite right, sir," observed the lecturer; "go on."
Jemmy Gordon, the Cambridge eccentric, when he happened to be without shoes or stockings, one day came in contact with a person of very indifferent character. The gentleman, pitying his condition, told him, if he called at his house, he would give him a pair of shoes. "Excuse me, sir," replied Jemmy, assuming a contemptuous air, "I would not stand in your shoes for all the world!"
An old friend of Charles Lamb having been in vain trying to make out a black-letter text of Chaucer in the Temple Library, laid down the precious volume, and with an erudite look told Lamb that "in those old books, Charley, there is sometimes a deal of very indifferent spelling."
"Did you not on going down find a party in your kitchen?" asked an underbred barrister of a witness. "A tea-party, Mr. ——?" mildly interposed Judge Maule.
An officer advising his general to capture a post, said: "It will only cost a few men."—"Will you make one of the few?" remarked the general.
When Mr. Gulley, the ex-pugilist, was elected Member for Pontefract, Gilbert A'Beckett said: "Should any opposition be manifested in the House of Commons towards Mr. Gulley, it is very probable the noes (nose) will have it."
One day, just as an English officer had arrived at Vienna, the empress knowing that he had seen a certain princess much celebrated for her beauty, asked him if it was really true that she was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. "I thought so yesterday," he replied.
A late Duke of Norfolk had a fancy for owls, of which he kept several. He called one, from the resemblance to the Chancellor, Lord Thurlow. The duke's solicitor was once in conversation with his grace, when, to his surprise, the owl-keeper came up and said, "Please you, my lord, Lord Thurlow's laid an egg."
A Mr. John Smith, who is described, evidently not without reason, as a "fast" talker, gave the following description of the blowing up of a steamboat on the Mississippi: "I had landed at Helena for a minute to drop some letters into the post-office, when all of a sudden I heard a tremendous explosion, and, looking up, saw that the sky was for a minute darkened with arms, legs, and other small bits and scraps of my fellow-travellers. Amongst an uncommonly ugly medley, I spied the second clerk, about one hundred and fifty feet above my own level. I recognized him at once, for ten minutes before I had been sucking a sherry-cobbler with him out of the same rummer. Well, I watched him. He came down through the roof of a shoemaker's shop, and landed on the floor close by the shoemaker, who was at work. The clerk, being in a hurry, jumped up to go to the assistance of the other sufferers, when the 'man of wax' demanded five hundred dollars for the damage done to his roof. 'Too high,' replied the clerk; 'never paid more than two hundred and fifty dollars in my life, and I've done the same thing often.'"
"Why," said a country clergyman to one of his flock, "do you always sleep in your pew when I am in the pulpit, while you are all attention to every stranger I invite?"—"Because, sir," was the reply, "when you preach I'm sure all's right, but I can't trust a stranger without keeping a good look-out."
"Uncle," said a young man (who thought that his guardian supplied him rather sparingly with pocket-money), "is the Queen's head still on the sovereign?"—"Of course it is, you stupid lad! Why do you ask that?"—"Because it is now such a length of time since I saw one."
Two young officers, after a mess-dinner, had very much ridiculed their general. He sent for them, and asked them if what was reported to him was true. "General," said one of them, "it is; and we should have said much more if our wine had not failed."
Quin thought angling a very barbarous diversion; and on being asked why, gave this reason: "Suppose some superior being should bait a hook with venison, and go a-Quinning, I should certainly bite; and what a sight should I be dangling in the air!"
Sydney Smith was once dining in company with a French gentleman, who had been before dinner indulging in a number of free-thinking speculations, and had ended by avowing himself a materialist. "Very good soup, this," said Mr. Smith. "Oui, monsieur, c'est excellente," was the reply. "Pray, sir, do you believe in a cook?" inquired Mr. Smith.
"Why don't you take off your hat?" said Lord F—— to a boy struggling with a calf. "So I wull, sir," replied the lad; "if your lordship will hold my calf, I'll pull off my hat."
Judge Maule, in summing up a case of libel, and speaking of a defendant who had exhibited a spiteful piety, observed, "One of these defendants, Mr. Blank, is, it seems, a minister of religion—of what religion does not appear, but, to judge by his conduct, it cannot be any form of Christianity." Severe.
A Scotch Minister, after a hard day's labor, and while at a "denner tea," as he called it, kept incessantly praising the "haam," and stating that "Mrs. Dunlop at hame was as fond o' haam like that as he was," when the mistress kindly offered to send her the present of a ham. "It's unco kin' o' ye, unco kin', but I'll no pit ye to the trouble; I'll just tak' it hame on the horse afore me." When, on leaving, he mounted, and the ham was put into a sack, but some difficulty was experienced in getting it to lie properly. His inventive genius soon cut the Gordian-knot. "I think, mistress, a cheese in the ither en' wad mak' a gran' balance." The hint was immediately acted on, and, like another John Gilpin, he moved away with his "balance true."
A certain well-known provincial bore having left a tavern-party, of which Burns was one, the bard immediately demanded a bumper, and, addressing himself to the chairman, said, "I give you the health, gentlemen all, of the waiter that called my Lord —— out of the room."
When that vacancy happened on the Exchequer Bench which was afterwards filled by Mr. Adams, the Ministry could not agree among themselves whom to appoint. It was debated in Council, the King, George II., being present; till, the dispute growing very warm, his Majesty put an end to the contest by calling out, in broken English, "I will have none of dese, give me the man wid de dying speech," meaning Mr. Adams, who was then Recorder of London, and whose business it therefore was to make the report to his Majesty of the convicts under sentence of death.
The celebrated Quin had this faculty. "What sort of a morning is it, John?"—"Very wet, sir."—"Any mullet in the market?"—"No, sir."—"Then, John, you may call me this time to-morrow." So saying, he composed himself to sleep, and got rid of the ennui of a dull day.
"I suppose," said a quack, while feeling the pulse of his patient, "that you think me a humbug?"—"Sir," replied the sick man, "I perceive that you can discover a man's thoughts by your touch."
A certain learned serjeant, who is apt to be testy in argument, was advised by the Court not to show temper, but to show cause.
Pope was one evening at Button's coffee-house, where he and a set of literati had got poring over a Latin manuscript, in which they had found a passage that none of them could comprehend. A young officer, who heard their conference, begged that he might be permitted to look at the passage. "Oh," says Pope, sarcastically, "by all means; pray let the young gentleman look at it." Upon which the officer took up the manuscript, and, considering it a while, said there only wanted a note of interrogation to make the whole intelligible: which was really the case. "And pray, master," says Pope, with a sneer, "what is a note of interrogation?"—"A note of interrogation," replied the young fellow, with a look of great contempt, "is a little crooked thing that asks questions."
One asked another why learning was always called a republic. "Forsooth," quoth the other, "because scholars are so poor that they have not a sovereign amongst them."
An Irish fire-eater, previous to a trial in which he was the defendant, was informed by his counsel, that if there were any of the jury to whom he objected, he might legally challenge them. "Faith, and so I will," replied he; "if they do not acquit me I will challenge every man of them."
When Mr. Naylor's father married his second wife, Naylor said, "Father, they say you are to be married to-day; are you?"—"Well," replied the Bishop, "and what is that to you?"—"Nay, nothing; only if you had told me, I would have powdered my hair."
A tutor at Cambridge had been examining some lads in Latin; but in a little while excused himself, and said he must speak English, for his mouth was very sore.
After going out of the Commons, and fighting a duel with Mr. Chetwynd, whom he wounded, "my uncle" (says Walpole) "returned to the House, and was so little moved as to speak immediately upon the cambric bill;" which made Swinny say, that "it was a sign he was not ruffled."
Murphy was asked how it was so difficult to waken him in the morning: "Indeed, master, it's because of taking your own advice, always to attind to what I'm about; so whenever I sleeps, I pays attintion to it."
A schoolboy going into the village without leave, his master called after him, "Where are you going, sir?"—"I am going to buy a ha'porth of nails."—"What do you want a ha'porth of nails for?"—"For a halfpenny," replied the urchin.
Lord William Poulat was said to be the author of a pamphlet called "The Snake in the Grass." A gentleman abused in it sent him a challenge. Lord William protested his innocence, but the gentleman insisted upon a denial under his own hand. Lord William took a pen and began: "This is to scratify that the buk called 'The Snak'"—"Oh! my Lord," said the person, "I am satisfied; your Lordship has already convinced me you did not write the book."
A physician once defended himself from raillery by saying, "I defy any person whom I ever attended, to accuse me of ignorance or neglect."—"That you may do safely," replied an auditor, "for you know, doctor, dead men tell no tales."
"When I courted her," said Spreadweasel, "I took lawyer's advice, and signed every letter to my love,—'Yours, without prejudice!'"—D.J.
A wag, on seeing his friend with something under his cloak, asked him what it was. "A poniard," answered he; but he observed that it was a bottle: taking it from him, and drinking the contents, he returned it, saying, "There, I give you the scabbard back again."
When Lord Eldon resigned the Great Seal, a small barrister said, "To me his loss is irreparable. Lord Eldon always behaved to me like a father."—"Yes," remarked Brougham, "I understand he always treated you like a child."
At a party of college grandees, one of the big-wigs proposed that each gentleman should toast his favorite Belle. When it came to the turn of Dr. Barrett (who happened to be one of the quorum) to be called on for the name of the fair object of his admiration, he very facetiously gave, "The College Bell!" Vivat Collegium Sancti Petri!
When some one was expatiating on the merits of the French language to Mr. Canning, he exclaimed: "Why, what on earth, sir, can be expected of a language which has but one word for liking and loving, and puts a fine woman and a leg of mutton on a par:—J'aime Julie; J'aime un gigot!"
(On the alleged disinterestedness of a certain Prelate.)
A country schoolmaster had two pupils, to one of whom he was partial, and to the other severe. One morning it happened that these two boys were late, and were called up to account for it. "You must have heard the bell, boys; why did you not come?"—"Please, sir," said the favorite, "I was dreaming that I was going to Margate, and I thought the school-bell was the steamboat-bell."—"Very well," said the master, glad of any pretext to excuse his favorite. "And now, sir," turning to the other, "what have you to say?"—"Please, sir," said the puzzled boy, "I—I—was waiting to see Tom off!"
Lord Avondale, Chief Baron of the Exchequer, was much given to anticipation. A lawyer once observed in his presence, "Coming through the market just now I saw a butcher, with his knife, going to kill a calf; at that moment a child ran across him, and he killed ——" "O, my goodness!—he killed the child!" exclaimed his lordship. "No, my lord, the calf; but you will always anticipate."
A lady said to her husband, in Jerrold's presence:—
"My dear, you certainly want some new trousers."—"No, I think not," replied the husband.
"Well," Jerrold interposed, "I think the lady who always wears them ought to know."
A good story of Gibbon is told in the last volume of Moore's Memoirs. The dramatis personæ were Lady Elizabeth Foster, Gibbon the historian, and an eminent French physician,—the historian and doctor being rivals in courting the lady's favor. Impatient at Gibbon's occupying so much of her attention by his conversation, the doctor said crossly to him, "Quand milady Elizabeth Foster sera malade de vos fadaises, je la guérirai." [When my Lady Elizabeth Foster is made ill by your twaddle, I will cure her.] On which Gibbon, drawing himself up grandly, and looking disdainfully at the physician, replied, "Quand milady Elizabeth Foster sera morte de vos recettes, je l'im-mor-taliserai." [When my Lady Elizabeth Foster is dead from your recipes I will immortalize her.]
Among the many English who visited Paris in 1815 was Alderman Wood, who had previously filled the office of Lord Mayor of London. He ordered a hundred visiting cards, inscribing upon them. "Alderman Wood, feu Lord Maire de Londres," which he distributed amongst people of rank, having translated the word "late" into "feu," which we need hardly state means "dead."
Sir John Germain was so ignorant, that he is said to have left a legacy to Sir Matthew Decker, as the author of St. Matthew's Gospel.
Churchill (General C——, a natural son of the Marlborough family) asked Pulteney the other day, "Well, Mr. Pulteney, will you break me, too?"—"No, Charles," replied he, "you break fast enough of yourself!" Don't you think it hurt him more than the other breaking would?
Walpole was plagued one morning with that oaf of unlicked antiquity, Prideaux, and his great boy. He talked through all Italy, and everything in all Italy. Upon mentioning Stosch, Walpole asked if he had seen his collection. He replied, very few of his things, for he did not like his company; that he never heard so much heathenish talk in his days. Walpole inquired what it was, and found that Stosch had one day said before him, that the soul was only a little glue.
A clergyman, who had to preach before Archbishop Whately, begged to be let off, saying, "I hope your Grace will excuse my preaching next Sunday."—"Certainly," said the other indulgently. Sunday came, and the archbishop said to him, "Well! Mr. ——, what became of you? we expected you to preach to-day."—"Oh, your Grace said you would excuse my preaching to-day."—"Exactly; but I did not say I would excuse you from preaching."
(On Mr. Croker's reputation for being a wag.)
"What is the difference," asked Archbishop Whately of a young clergyman he was examining, "between a form and a ceremony? The meaning seems nearly the same; yet there is a very nice distinction." Various answers were given. "Well," he said, "it lies in this: you sit upon a form, but you stand upon ceremony."
Some one remarking that the dinner hour was always getting later and later, "Ay," quoth Rogers, "it will soon end in our not dining till to-morrow."
A gentleman dining at a hotel, whose servants were "few and far between," despatched a lad among them for a cut of beef. After a long time the lad returned, and was asked by the faint and hungry gentleman, "Are you the lad who took away my plate for this beef?"—"Yes, sir."—"Bless me," resumed the hungry wit, "how you have grown!"
"Morrow's Library" is the Mudie of Dublin; and the Rev. Mr. Day, a popular preacher. "How inconsistent," said Archbishop Whately, "is the piety of certain ladies here. They go to Day for a sermon and to Morrow for a novel!"
A man was described in a plea as "I. Jones," and the pleader referred in another part of the plea to "I" as an "initial." The plaintiff said that the plea was bad, because "I" was not a name. Sir W. Maule said that there was no reason why a man might not be christened "I" as well as Isaac, inasmuch as either could be pronounced alone. The counsel for the plaintiff then objected that the plea admitted that "I" was not a name by describing it as "an initial."—"Yes," retorted the judge, "but it does not aver that it is not a final as well as an initial letter."
A man being interrogated on a trial, spoke several words with much impropriety; and at last saying the word curosity, a counsellor exclaimed, "How that fellow murders the English language!"—"Nay," returned another, "he has only knocked an I out."
The late James Fergusson, Clerk of Session, a most genial and amiable man, of whose periodical fits of absence most edifying stories are still repeated by his friends, was an excellent and eloquent speaker, but in truth, there was often more sound than matter in his orations. He had a habit of lending emphasis to his arguments by violently beating with his clenched hand the bar before which he pleaded. Once when stating a case to Lord Polkemmet, with great energy of action, his lordship interposed, and exclaimed, "Maister Jemmy, dinna dunt; ye think ye're duntin't into me, and ye're just duntin't out o' me."
A young actor having played a part tolerably well, Elliston one evening called him into the green-room, and addressed him to this effect: "Young man, you have not only pleased the public, but you have pleased me; and, as a slight token of my regard and good wishes, I beg your acceptance of a small piece of plate." It was, beyond all question, a very small piece, for it was a silver toothpick!
At a dinner-party Archbishop Whately called out suddenly to the host, "Mr. ——!" There was silence. "Mr. ——, what is the proper female companion of this John Dory?" After the usual number of guesses an answer came, "Anne Chovy."
A friend of an artist was endeavoring to persuade him not to bestow so much time upon his works. "You do not know, then," said he, "that I have a master very difficult to please?"—"Who?"—"Myself."
Wilkes, one day in his later life, went to Court, when George III. asked him, in a good-natured tone of banter, how his friend Serjeant Glynn was. Glynn had been one of his most furious partisans. Wilkes replied, with affected gravity, "Nay, sire, don't call Serjeant Glynn a friend of mine; the fellow was a Wilkite, which your Majesty knows I never was."
A person came almost breathless to Lord Thurlow, and exclaimed, "My lord, I bring tidings of calamity to the nation!"—"What has happened, man?" said the astonished Chancellor. "My lord, a rebellion has broken out."—"Where? where?"—"In the Isle of Man."—"In the Isle of Man," repeated the enraged Chancellor. "A tempest in a teapot!"
An honorable member, speaking about the tax on tobacco, somewhat ludicrously called for certain returns.
A young chaplain had preached a sermon of great length. "Sir," said Lord Mulgrave, bowing to him, "there were some things in your sermon of to-day I never heard before."—"O, my lord!" said the flattered chaplain, "it is a common text, and I could not have hoped to have said anything new on the subject."—"I heard the clock strike twice," said Lord Mulgrave.
"I can't find bread for my family," said a lazy fellow in company. "Nor I," replied an industrious miller; "I am obliged to work for it."
Mr. Alexander, the architect of several fine buildings in the county of Kent, was under cross-examination at Maidstone, by Serjeant (afterwards Baron) Garrow, who wished to detract from the weight of his testimony. "You are a builder, I believe?"—"No, sir: I am not a builder; I am an architect!"—"Ah, well! architect or builder, builder or architect, they are much the same, I suppose?"—"I beg your pardon, sir; I cannot admit that: I consider them to be totally different!"—"O, indeed! perhaps you will state wherein this great difference consists?"—"An architect, sir, prepares the plans, conceives the design, draws out the specifications,—in short, supplies the mind. The builder is merely the bricklayer or the carpenter: the builder, in fact, is the machine,—the architect the power that puts the machine together, and sets it going!"—"O, very well, Mr. Architect, that will do! And now, after your very ingenious distinction without a difference, perhaps you can inform the court who was the architect for the Tower of Babel!"—"There was no architect, sir, and hence the confusion!"
A conceited young man asked Foote what apology he should make for not being one of a party the day before, to which he had been invited. "O, my dear sir," replied the wit, "say nothing about it, you were not missed."
On Dr. K——'s promotion to the bishopric of Down, an appointment in some quarters unpopular, Archbishop Whately observed, "The Irish government will not be able to stand many more such Knocks Down as this!"
A certain dramatic translator, introducing a well-known comedian to Madame Vestris, said: "Madame, this is Mr. B——, who is not such a fool as he looks."—"True, madame," said the comedian; "and that is the great difference between me and my friend."
During the interregnum after the death of King Charles I., the soldiers were accustomed to visit the theatres and rob the audience, so that it was said to be part of the stage directions,—"Enter the Red Coat: Exeunt Hat and Cloak."
"Pray, sir," said Lady Wallace to David Hume, "I am often asked what age I am; what answer should I make?" Mr. Hume, immediately guessing her ladyship's meaning, said, "Madam, when you are asked that question again, answer that you are not yet come to the years of discretion."
The motto which was inserted under the arms of William, Prince of Orange, on his accession to the English crown, was, Non rapui sed recepi ["I did not steal it, but I received it"]. This being shown to Dean Swift, he said, with a sarcastic smile, "The receiver is as bad as the thief."
(On ——'s declaring his detestation of all meanness).
"You have already read that section four times, Mr. ——," said Maule to a prosing counsel. "It's iteration! It's ——, I use no epithet, it is iteration;" his look implying the anathema.
When Admiral Cornwallis commanded the Canada, a mutiny broke out in the ship, on account of some accidental delay in paying the crew. The men signed a round robin, wherein they declared that they would not fire a gun till they were paid. Captain Cornwallis, on receiving this declaration, caused all hands to be called on deck, and thus addressed them: "My lads, the money cannot be paid till we return to port, and as to your not fighting, that is mere nonsense:—I'll clap you alongside the first large ship of the enemy I see, and I know that the Devil himself will not be able to keep you from it." The men all returned to their duty, better satisfied than if they had been paid the money ten times over.
Among a company of cheerful Irishmen, in the neighborhood of St. Giles, it was proposed by the host to make a gift of a couple of fowls to him that, off-hand, should write six lines in poetry of his own composing. Several of the merry crew attempted unsuccessfully to gain the prize. At length the wittiest among them thus ended the contest:—
It is said the Duke of Wellington bought a book of the "Hunchback" at Covent Garden Theatre, for which he gave a pound in gold, refusing to receive the difference. His Grace seemed very ready to sacrifice a sovereign, which he probably would have done had he at the time refused to take no change. The Reform Bill was under consideration.
An Irish crier at Ballinasloe being ordered to clear the court, did so by this announcement: "Now, then, all ye blackguards that isn't lawyers, must lave the coort."
An old shoemaker in Glasgow was sitting by the bedside of his wife, who was dying. She took him by the hand. "Weel, John, we're gawin to part. I hae been a gude wife to you, John."—"O, just middling, just middling, Jenny," said John, not disposed to commit himself. "John," says she, "ye maun promise to bury me in the auld kirk-yard at Stra'von beside my mither. I couldna rest in peace among unco folk, in the dirt and smoke o' Glasgow."—"Weel, weel, Jenny, my woman," said John soothingly, "we'll just pit you in the Gorbals first, and gin ye dinna lie quiet, we'll try you sine in Stra'von."
Sir Charles Wager always said, "that if a sea-fight lasted three days, he was sure the English suffered the most for the two first, for no other nation would stand beating for two days together."
Yesterday we had another hearing of the petition of the merchants, when Sir Robert Godschall (then Lord Mayor) shone brighter than even his usual. There was a copy of a letter produced, the original being lost; he asked whether the copy had been taken before the original was lost, or after!
This gold-chain came into parliament, cried up for his parts, but proves so dull, one would think he chewed opium. Earl says, "I have heard an oyster speak as well twenty times."
Mr. P——, a candidate for Berkshire, was said to have admitted his want of head, by demanding a poll.
A case of some great offence was tried before Lord Hermand (who was a great toper), and the counsel pleaded extenuation for his client in that he was drunk when he committed the offence. "Drunk!" exclaimed Lord Hermand, in great indignation; "if he could do such a thing when he was drunk, what might he not have done when he was sober?" evidently implying that the normal condition of human nature and its most hopeful one, was a condition of intoxication.