Quips and Quiddities: A Quintessence of Quirks, Quaint, Quizzical, and Quotable
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Title: Quips and Quiddities: A Quintessence of Quirks, Quaint, Quizzical, and Quotable
Editor: William Davenport Adams
Release date: December 27, 2012 [eBook #41713]
Most recently updated: October 23, 2024
Language: English
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK QUIPS AND QUIDDITIES: A QUINTESSENCE OF QUIRKS, QUAINT, QUIZZICAL, AND QUOTABLE ***
Transcriber's Notes:
Italic text is denoted by _underscores_.
No attempt at consistency of spelling or punctuation has been made,
as the entire text consists of direct quotations from other sources.
A few minor corrections have been made to the index or where the
original source has clearly been misprinted.
* * * * *
QUIPS AND QUIDDITIES
_Post 8vo, cloth limp, 2s. 6d. per volume._
THE MAYFAIR LIBRARY.
THE NEW REPUBLIC. By W. H. MALLOCK.
THE NEW PAUL AND VIRGINIA. By W. H. MALLOCK.
THE TRUE HISTORY OF JOSHUA DAVIDSON. By E.
LYNN LINTON.
OLD STORIES RE-TOLD. By WALTER THORNBURY.
PUNIANA. By the Hon. HUGH ROWLEY.
MORE PUNIANA. By the Hon. HUGH ROWLEY.
THOREAU: HIS LIFE AND AIMS. By H. A. PAGE.
BY STREAM AND SEA. By WILLIAM SENIOR.
JEUX D'ESPRIT. Collected and Edited by HENRY S. LEIGH.
GASTRONOMY AS A FINE ART. By BRILLAT-SAVARIN.
THE MUSES OF MAYFAIR. Edited by H. CHOLMONDELEY
PENNELL.
PUCK ON PEGASUS. By H. CHOLMONDELEY PENNELL.
ORIGINAL PLAYS by W. S. GILBERT. FIRST SERIES.
Containing--The Wicked World, Pygmalion and Galatea, Charity,
The Princess, The Palace of Truth, Trial by Jury.
ORIGINAL PLAYS by W. S. GILBERT. SECOND SERIES.
Containing--Broken Hearts, Engaged, Sweethearts, Dan'l Druce,
Gretchen, Tom Cobb, The Sorcerer, H.M.S. Pinafore,
The Pirates of Penzance.
CAROLS OF COCKAYNE. By HENRY S. LEIGH.
LITERARY FRIVOLITIES, FANCIES, FOLLIES, AND
FROLICS. By W. T. DOBSON.
PENCIL AND PALETTE. By ROBERT KEMPT.
THE BOOK OF CLERICAL ANECDOTES. By JACOB
LARWOOD.
THE SPEECHES OF CHARLES DICKENS.
THE CUPBOARD PAPERS. By FIN-BEC.
QUIPS AND QUIDDITIES. Selected by W. DAVENPORT ADAMS.
MELANCHOLY ANATOMISED: a Popular Abridgment of "Burton's Anatomy of
Melancholy."
THE AGONY COLUMN OF "THE TIMES," FROM 1800 TO 1870.
Edited by ALICE CLAY.
PASTIMES AND PLAYERS. By ROBERT MACGREGOR.
CURIOSITIES OF CRITICISM. By HENRY J. JENNINGS.
THE PHILOSOPHY OF HANDWRITING. By DON FELIX
DE SALAMANCA.
LATTER-DAY LYRICS. Edited by W. DAVENPORT ADAMS.
BALZAC'S COMÉDIE HUMAINE AND ITS AUTHOR.
With Translations by H. H. WALKER.
_Other Volumes are in preparation._
CHATTO AND WINDUS, PICCADILLY, W.
QUIPS AND QUIDDITIES
_A QUINTESSENCE OF QUIRKS
QUAINT, QUIZZICAL, AND
QUOTABLE_
SELECTED AND EDITED BY
W. DAVENPORT ADAMS
AUTHOR OF THE "DICTIONARY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE," ETC.
[Illustration]
"How now, how now, mad wag? what, in thy Quips and thy Quiddities?"
I _Henry IV._, i. 2
London
CHATTO AND WINDUS, PICCADILLY
1881
[_All rights reserved._]
PREFACE.
This is a modest little volume. It consists but
of selections from the Editor's note-book, and its
object is but to amuse. It does not even aspire
to be read consecutively. The Compiler's hope
is only that it may be found a pleasant companion
at spare moments--that it may be considered
handy for the pocket, and be thought agreeable to
dip into.
To that end, two things have been aimed at in
selecting--brevity and variety. There is scarcely
anything in the volume that cannot be read
almost at a glance, and the matter ranges over
a wide extent of literary effort--over play and
poem, over essay and novel, over maxim and epigram,
over memoir and diary. There is pun, and
there is parody; there is satire, and there is sarcasm.
In a word, the little book may say, with
Lafontaine, "Diversité c'est ma devise." There is
diversity even in the arrangement, which consists
merely of a general alternation of the prose and
verse. For the rest, the quips and quiddities are
in intentional disorder.
Let it be added that, though there are a few
anonymous passages, most are duly attributed to
their writers, together with references to the
volumes from which they have been taken. In
this, every care has been exercised to arrive at
accuracy. The idea of completeness is, of course,
foreign to a selection of this sort, and it may be
mentioned that the Editor has been specially
anxious to avoid as much as possible the ground
covered by Mr. Leigh in his "Jeux d'Esprit," and
by Mr. Dobson in his "Literary Frivolities." His
aim, indeed, has been to take the freshest and least
hackneyed of the passages in his collection, though
he has not hesitated to include a venerable saying
when it has seemed to him as good as it is venerable.
In conclusion, the Compiler desires to express
in the most hearty manner his indebtedness to
those numerous living writers whose bright and
airy fancies form, in his opinion, one of the chief
attractions of the book. He ought, perhaps, to
apologize to those writers for presenting their
fancies in a manner so generally fragmentary and
disconnected. But that the contents of the book
should be thus disconnected and fragmentary was
part and parcel of its plan and origin, and, that
being the case, the Editor hopes to be excused.
He may state that, in those few cases where a
piece of verse is given entire, it is distinguished
by the presence of a heading. The epigrams,
maxims, and anecdotes are, of course, reproduced
as written--being, in their very nature, of the
brevity essential to a quip.
Further: on the principle that no book, however
unpretending, should be without an Index, the
Compiler has supplied one for the present volume.
W.D.A.
"Shall I tell thee one thing, Poins?"
"Yes, faith; and let it be an excellent good thing."
I _Henry IV._, ii. 2.
QUIPS AND QUIDDITIES.
When Miss Callender, afterwards Mrs. Sheridan,
published a novel, the hero of which commits
forgery, that wicked wit, Sydney Smith, said he
knew she was a Callender, but did not know till then
that she was a Newgate Calendar.
FANNY KEMBLE, _Record of a Girlhood_.
An estate and beauty joined, are of an unlimited, nay, a power
pontifical; make one not only absolute, but infallible. A fine
woman's never in the wrong.
_Lady Betty_, in CIBBER's _Careless Husband_.
_THEOPHILUS._
When I'm drinking my tea
I think of my _The_;
When I'm drinking my coffee
I think of my _Offee_;
So, whether I'm drinking my tea or my coffee,
I'm always a-thinking of thee, my Theoffy.
ROGERS, _apud_ MOORE.
Bobus was very amusing. He is a great authority
on Indian matters. We talked of the insects
and the snakes, and he said a thing which
reminded me of his brother Sydney: "Always, sir,
manage to have at your table some fleshy blooming
young writer or cadet, just come out, that the mosquitoes
may stick to him, and leave the rest of the company
alone."
LORD MACAULAY, _Life_.
Lady Greenwich, in a conversation with
Lady Tweeddale, named the Saxons. "The
Saxons, my dear," cried the Marchioness; "who
were they?" "Lord, madam, did your ladyship never
read the History of England?" "No, my dear; pray,
who wrote it?"
HORACE WALPOLE, _Correspondence_.
_ON THE MARRIAGE OF A MR. LOT AND A MISS SALTER._
Because on her way she chose to halt,
Lot's wife, in the Scriptures, was turned into salt;
But though in her course she ne'er did falter,
This young Lot's wife, strange to say, was Salter.
HICKS, _apud_ J. C. YOUNG.
Hook was dining at Powell's one day, and the talk
fell upon _feu_ Jack Reeve. "Yes," said Theodore,
when they were speaking of his funeral,
"I met him in his private box, going to the pit."
H. F. CHORLEY, _Life and Letters_.
_TO A BAD FIDDLER._
Old Orpheus played so well, he moved old Nick,
While thou mov'st nothing but thy fiddlestick!
_A Collection of Epigrams_ (1727).
A lady from China who was dining with the
Archbishop [Whately] told him that English
flowers reared in that country lose their perfume
in two or three years. "Indeed!" was the immediate
remark, "I had no idea that the Chinese were such
de-scent-ers."
E. J. WHATELY's _Life of Whately_.
_ON THE ART UNIONS._
That Picture-Raffles will conduce to nourish
Design, or cause good colouring to flourish,
Admits of logic-chopping and wise-sawing:
But surely Lotteries encourage Drawing?
THOMAS HOOD, _Whims and Oddities_.
Robert Smith (brother of Sydney, and familiarly
called "Bobus") was a lawyer and an
ex-Advocate-General, and happened on one
occasion to be engaged in argument with an excellent
physician touching the merits of their respective professions.
"You must admit," urged Dr. ----, "that
your profession does not make angels of men." "No,"
was the retort, "there you have the best of it; yours
certainly gives them the first chance."
ABRAHAM HAYWARD, _Essays_.
In London I never know what I'd be at,
Enraptured with this, and enchanted by that;
I'm wild with the sweets of variety's plan,
And Life seems a blessing too happy for man.
But the Country, Lord help me! sets all matters right;
So calm and composing from morning to night;
Oh! it settles the spirits when nothing is seen
But an ass on a common, a goose on a green.
CHARLES MORRIS, _Lyra Urbanica_.
Parler d'amour, c'est faire amour.
BALZAC, _Physiologie du Mariage_.
At the Polish ball, the Lord Mayor said to Lady
Douglas, who squints, "Which do you prefer,
my lady, Gog or Magog?" "Of the _three_,"
said Lady Douglas, "I prefer your lordship!"
B. R. HAYDON, _Diary_.
_ON THE CAPPADOCIANS._
A viper bit a Cappadocian's hide;
But 'twas the viper, not the man, that died.
ANON., _from the Greek_.
The merits of a certain American diplomatist being
on the _tapis_, [Washington Irving] said, in allusion
to his pomposity, "Ah, he is a great man;
and, in his own estimation, a very great man--a man of
great weight. When he goes to the West, the East
tips up."
J. C. YOUNG, _Diary_.
When a rapt audience has encored "Fra Poco"
Or "Casta Diva," I have heard that then
The Prima Donna, smiling herself out,
Recruits her flagging powers with bottled stout.
C. S. CALVERLEY, _Verses and Translations_.
I believe everything. It saves one such a world
of bore from intelligent people who are anxious
to explain things you doubt about.
_Lucy Forrester_, in BROOKS' _Aspen Court_.
Rank so friendly now with trade is,
Bill discounters titled ladies
Stoop to raise.
Manners used to make the man,
It is only money can
Nowadays.
J. JEMMETT BROWNE, _Songs of Many Seasons_.
Black is a great fact. Want of fashion in the cut;
want of richness in the material; want of _chic_
in the wearer--all these it covers, like charity.
There's a sentiment about it which appeals to the feelings,
and it is becoming to the skin.
ANNA C. STEELE.
Are you quite sure that Pygmalion is the only
person who ever fell in love with his own
handiwork?
_Guesses at Truth._
Duty,--that's to say the complying
With whate'er's expected here,
On your unknown cousin's dying,
Straight be ready with the tear;
Upon etiquette relying,
Unto usage nought denying,
Lend your waist to be embraced,
Blush not even, never fear.
A. H. CLOUGH, _Poems_.
What Jenner said on hearing in Elysium that
complaints had been made of his having a statue
in Trafalgar Square:--
England, ingratitude still blots
The escutcheon of the brave and free:
I saved you many million spots,
And now you grudge one spot to me.
SHIRLEY BROOKS, _Wit and Humour_.
Deh! what are we sinners doing all our lives?
Making soup in a basket, and getting nothing
but the scum for our stomachs.
_Machiavelli_, in GEORGE ELIOT's _Romola_.
My idea of an agreeable person is a person who
agrees with me.
_Hugo Bohun_, in LORD BEACONSFIELD's _Lothair_.
"Will you walk a little faster?" said a whiting to a snail,
"There's the porpoise close behind us, and he's treading on my tail.
See how eagerly the lobsters and the turtles all advance!
They are waiting on the shingle--will you come and join the dance?
"You can really have no notion how delightful it will be
When they take us up and throw us, with the lobsters, out to sea!"
But the snail replied, "Too far, too far!" and gave a look askance,
Said he thanked the whiting kindly, but he would not join the dance.
LEWIS CARROLL, _Alice in Wonderland_.
I could draw on wood at a very tender age.
When a mere child I once drew a small cartload
of turnips over a wooden bridge. The people
of the village noticed me. I drew their attention.
C. F. BROWNE, _Artemus Ward's Lecture_.
That all-softening over-powering knell,
The tocsin of the soul--the dinner-bell.
LORD BYRON, _Don Juan_.
Now Darwin proves as clear as mud,
That, endless ages ere the Flood,
The Coming Man's primeval form
Was simply an Ascidian worm:
And having then the habit got
Of passing liquor down his throat,
He keeps it still, and shows full well
That Man--was--once----a leather bottèl.
LORD NEAVES, _Songs and Verses_.
"The ancients," quoth Paul, "were very great
men, Mr. MacGrawler."
"They were so, sir," returned the critic;
"we make it a rule in our profession to assert that fact."
"But, sir," said Paul, "they are wrong now and then."
"Never, Ignoramus, never."
"They praised poverty, Mr. MacGrawler," said Paul,
with a sigh.
"Hem," quoth the critic, a little staggered; but presently
recovering his characteristic acumen, he observed,
"It is true, Paul, but that was the poverty of other
people."
LORD LYTTON, _Paul Clifford_.
Yes, Fortune deserves to be chidden,
It is a coincidence queer--
Whenever one wants to be hidden
Some blockhead is sure to appear!
FREDERICK LOCKER, _London Lyrics_.
One day in the country [Sheridan Knowles] said to
Abbot, with whom he had been acting there,
"My dear fellow, I'm off to-morrow. Can I
take any letters for you?" "You're very kind," answered
Abbot; "but where are you going to?" "_I haven't
made up my mind._"
J. R. PLANCHÉ, _Recollections_.
_BLUE STOCKINGS._
The newspapers lately have taught us to know
How some strong-minded hens are beginning to crow.
But, dear ladies, beware: take the word of a friend,
That when rivalry comes, all affection must end.
With the brightest of _spoons_ would be war to the _knife_
In political contests 'twixt husband and wife;
And the sentence of doom might be sudden and brief
If a feminine subaltern jilted her chief.
We men take a pride in concealing our chains,
And would like to be thought to monopolize brains;
So I'll give you this maxim, my counsels to crown--
_If the stockings are blue, keep the petticoats down._
_Once a Week._
Talking of Kean, I mentioned his having told
me that he had eked out his means of living,
before he emerged from obscurity, by teaching
dancing, fencing, elocution, and boxing. "Elocution
and boxing!" (repeated Bobus Smith)--"a word and a
blow."
THOMAS MOORE, _Diary_.
_MILITARY._
Smart soldiers like to be well tightened in:
Loose habits would destroy all discipline.
H. J. BYRON, in _English Epigrams_.
Fontaine, the architect, who built the triumphal
arch in the Carrousel, placed upon it an empty
car, drawn by the famous bronze Venetian
horses. Talleyrand asked him, "_Qui avez vous l'intention
de mettre dans le char?_" The answer was, "_L'Empereur
Napoléon, comme de raison_." Upon which Talleyrand
said, "_Le char l'attend_."
GRONOW, _Recollections_.
'Tis doubtless well to be sometimes awake--
Awake to duty, and awake to truth,--
But when, alas! a nice review we take
Of our best deeds and days, we find, in sooth,
The hours that leave the slightest cause to weep
Are those we passed in childhood or asleep!
JOHN GODFREY SAXE, _Poems_.
_Sir Toby._ "Does not our life consist of the four
elements?"
_Sir Andrew._ "Faith, so they say; but I think
it rather consists of eating and drinking."
_Twelfth Night_, Act II., Scene 3.
She thought "Wives and Daughters" "_so_ jolly;"
"Had I read it?" She knew that I had:
Like the rest, I should dote upon "Molly;"
And "poor Mrs. Gaskell--how sad!"
"Like Browning?" "But so-so." His proof lay
Too deep for her frivolous mood,
That preferred your mere metrical _soufflé_
To the stronger poetical food;
Yet at times he was good--"as a tonic:"
Was Tennyson writing just now?
And was this new poet Byronic,
And clever, and naughty, or how?
AUSTIN DOBSON, _Vignettes in Rhyme_.
Old friends are best. King James used to call for
his old shoes; they were easiest for his feet.
SELDEN, _Table Talk_.
Let a coach be called,
And let the man who called it be the caller;
And in his calling let him nothing call,
But coach, coach, coach! Oh for a coach, ye gods!
CAREY, _Chrononhotonthologos_.
If you could make a pudding wi' thinking o' the
batter, it 'ud be easy getting dinner.
_Mrs. Poyser_, in GEORGE ELIOT's _Adam Bede_.
There's somewhat on my breast, father,
There's somewhat on my breast;
The livelong day I sigh, father,
And at night I cannot rest.
'Tis not the lack of gold, father,
Nor want of worldly gear;
My lands are broad, and fair to see,
My friends are kind and dear.
'Tis not that Janet's false, father,
'Tis not that she's unkind;
Though busy flatterers swarm around,
I know her constant mind.
'Tis not her coldness, father,
That chills my labouring breast:
It's that confounded cucumber
I've eat and can't digest.
R. H. BARHAM, _Ingoldsby Lyrics_.
Insolence is a charming quality, when, like
mercy, it is not strained.
_Once a Week._
Ancient Phillis has young graces,
'Tis a strange thing, but a true one!
Shall I tell you how?
She, herself, makes her own faces,
And each morning wears a new one;
Where's the wonder now?
_Lord Froth_, in CONGREVE's _Double Dealer_.
Célébrité--l'avantage d'être connu de ceux que
vous ne connaissez pas.
CHAMFORT, _Maximes_.
'Tis past all bearing, when a husband slights his bride,
Who last Christmas still was blushing at her elder sister's side;
Still on some minute allowance finding collars, boots, and gloves,
Still to cousinly flirtations limiting her list of loves,
Still by stern domestic edict charged on no account to read
Any of Miss Brontë's novels, or to finish _Adam Bede_.
_First Lady_, in TREVELYAN's _Ladies in Parliament_.
I differ from all the ordinary biographers of
that independent gentleman Don't Care. I
believe Don't Care came to a good end. At any
rate he came to some end. Whereas numbers of people
never have beginning, or ending, of their own.
_Ellesmere_, in HELPS's _Friends in Council_.
_DISTICH._
Wisely a woman prefers to a lover a man who neglects her.
This one may love her some day; some day the lover will not.
JOHN HAY, _Poems_.
One morning [Jerrold and Compton] proceeded
together to view the pictures in the Gallery of
Illustration. On entering the ante-room, they
found themselves opposite to a number of very long
looking-glasses. Pausing before one of these, [Compton]
remarked to Jerrold, "You've come here to admire
works of art! Very well, first feast your eyes on that
work of nature!"--pointing to his own figure reflected
in the glass; "look at it, there's a picture for you!"
"Yes," said Jerrold, regarding it intently, "very fine,
very fine indeed!" Then, turning to his friend: "Wants
hanging, though!"
_Memoir of Henry Compton._
Sing for the garish eye,
When moonless brandlings cling!
Let the froddering crooner cry,
And the braddled sapster sing.
For never, and never again,
Will the tottering beechlings play,
For bratticed wrackers are singing aloud,
And the throngers croon in May!
W. S. GILBERT.
Sydney Smith said of a certain quarrelsome
person that his very face was a breach of the
peace.
J. T. FIELDS, _Yesterdays with Authors_.
Kerchief in hand I saw them stand;
In every kerchief lurked a lunch;
When they unfurl'd them it was grand
To watch bronzed men and maidens crunch
The sounding celery-stick, or ram
The knife into the blushing ham.
Dash'd the bold fork through pies of pork;
O'er hard-boil'd eggs the saltspoon shook;
Leapt from its lair the playful cork:
Yet some there were, to whom the brook
Seemed sweetest beverage, and for meat
They chose the red root of the beet.
C. S. CALVERLEY, _Fly Leaves_.
Of all virtues, magnanimity is the rarest. There
are a hundred persons of merit for one who
willingly acknowledges it in another.
W. HAZLITT, _Characteristics_.
Bisness first, pleasure artervards, as King Richard
the Third said ven he stabbed the tother king in
the Tower, afore he murdered the babbies.
CHARLES DICKENS, _apud_ J. T. FIELDS.
We are all of us liable to this error of imagining
that we are grieved at a fault, when we are only
grieved at having done something to lower ourselves
in our own estimation.
E. M. SEWELL, _Margaret Percival_.
I trembled once beneath her spell
Whose spelling was extremely so-so.
FREDERICK LOCKER, _London Lyrics_.
It's easy finding reasons why other folks should be
patient.
_Bartle Massey_, in GEORGE ELIOT's _Adam Bede_.
_OUR TRAVELLER._
If thou wouldst stand on Etna's burning brow,
With smoke above, and roaring flames below;
And gaze adown that molten gulf reveal'd
Till thy soul shudder'd, and thy senses reel'd;--
If thou wouldst beard Niagara in his pride,
Or stem the billows of Propontic tide;
Scale all alone some dizzy Alpine _haut_,
And shriek "Excelsior!" amidst the snow;--
Wouldst tempt all deaths, all dangers that may be,
Perils by land, and perils on the sea,--
This vast round world, I say, if thou wouldst view it,
Then why the dickens don't you go and do it?
H. CHOLMONDELEY PENNELL, _Puck on Pegasus_.
I am saddest when I sing; so are those who hear
me. They are sadder even than I am.
C. F. BROWNE, _Artemus Ward's Lecture_.
An ape with a pliable thumb and big brain,
When the gift of the gab he had managed to gain,
As a lord of creation established his reign,
Which nobody can deny.
But I'm sadly afraid, if we do not take care,
A relapse to low life may our prospects impair,
So of beastly propensities let us beware,
Which nobody can deny.
Their lofty position our children may lose,
And, reduced to all-fours, must then narrow their views,
Which would shortly unfit them for wearing our shoes,
Which nobody can deny.
Their vertebræ next might be taken away,
When they'd sink to an oyster, or insect, some day,
Or the pitiful part of a polypus play,
Which nobody can deny.
LORD NEAVES, _Songs and Verses_.
It's dreadful to think on, people playing with their
own insides in that way! And it's flying i' the
face o' Providence; for what are the doctors for,
if we aren't to call 'em in?
_Mrs. Pullet_, in GEORGE ELIOT's _Mill on the Floss_.
Brief, in two rules he summed the ends of man--
Keep all you have, and try for all you can!
LORD LYTTON, _King Arthur_.
_LOVE SONG._
What mistress half so dear as mine,
Half so well dressed, so pungent, fragrant,
Who can such attributes combine,
To charm the constant, fix the vagrant?
Who can display such varied arts,
To suit the taste of saint and sinner,
Who go so near to touch their hearts,
As thou, my darling dainty dinner?
Still my breast holds a rival queen,
A bright-eyed nymph of sloping shoulders,
Whose ruddy cheeks and graceful mien
Entrance the sense of all beholders.
Oh! when thy lips to mine are pressed,
What transports titillate my throttle!
My love can find new life and zest,
In thee, and thee alone, my bottle!
HORACE SMITH, _The Tin Trumpet_.
Fashion with us is like the man in one of Le
Sage's novels, who was constantly changing his
servants, and yet had but one suit of livery,
which every newcomer, whether he was tall or short, fat
or thin, was obliged to wear.
_Wormwood_, in LORD LYTTON's _Pelham_.
Unmarketable maidens of the mart,
Who, plumpness gone, fine delicacy feint,
And hide your sins in piety and paint.
ALFRED AUSTIN, _The Season_.
Seeing O. Smith, the popular melodramatic actor,
on the opposite side of the Strand, Knowles
rushed across the road, seized him by the hand,
and inquired eagerly after his health. Smith, who only
knew him by sight, said, "I think, Mr. Knowles, you
are mistaken; I am O. Smith." "My dear fellow," cried
Knowles, "I beg you ten thousand pardons: I took
you for your _namesake_, T. P. Cooke!"
J. R. PLANCHÉ, _Recollections_.
_A PRACTICAL ANSWER._
_Says Hyam to Moses,
"Let's cut off our noses,"
Says Moses to Hyam,
"Ma tear, who would buy 'em?"_
SHIRLEY BROOKS, _Wit and Humour_.
Turnips should never be pulled: it injures them.
It is much better to send a boy up and let him
shake the tree.
MARK TWAIN, _Choice Works_.
He lived in a cave by the seas,
He lived upon oysters and foes,
But his list of forbidden degrees
An extensive morality shows;
Geological evidence goes
To prove he had never a pan,
But he shaved with a shell when he chose,--
'Twas the manner of Primitive Man.
He worshipped the rain and the breeze,
He worshipped the river that flows,
And the dawn, and the moon, and the trees,
And bogies, and serpents, and crows;
He buried his dead with their toes
Tucked-up, an original plan,
Till their knees came right under their nose,--
'Twas the manner of Primitive Man.
ANDREW LANG, _Ballades in Blue China_.
On ne loue d'ordinaire que pour être loué.
LA ROCHEFOUCAULD, _Réflexions_.
Would you adopt a strong logical attitude,
Bear this in mind, and, whatever you do,
Always allow your opponent full latitude,
Whether or not his assumption be true.
Then, when he manifests feelings of gratitude
Merely because you've not shut him up flat,
Turn his pet paradox into a platitude
With the remark, "Oh, of _course_, we know that!"
GODFREY TURNER.
The gentle reader, who may wax unkind,
And, caring little for the author's ease,
Insist on knowing what he means--a hard
And hapless situation for a bard.
LORD BYRON, _Beppo_.
My dear, when you have a clergyman in your
family you must accommodate your tastes: I
did that very early. When I married Humphrey,
I made up my mind to like sermons, and I set out by
liking the end very much. That soon spread to the
middle and the beginning, because I couldn't have the
end without them.
_Mrs. Cadwallader_, in GEORGE ELIOT's _Middlemarch_.
Great theologians, talk not of Trinity:
Heretics, plague us no more with your fibs;
One question only, Which is the Divinity,--
Willcox or Gibbs?
MORTIMER COLLINS, _The British Birds_.
"Is that the contents you are looking at?" inquired
an anxious author, who saw Rogers's eye
fixed on a table or list at the commencement
of a presentation copy of a new work. "No," said
Rogers, pointing to the list of subscribers, "the _dis_-contents."
A. HAYWARD, _Essays_.
The river's like glass--
As slowly I pass,
This sweet little lass
Raises two
Forget-me-not eyes
In laughing surprise--
From canoe.
And as I float by,
Said I, "Miss, O why?
O why may not I
Drift with you?"
Said she, with a start,
"I've no room in my heart--
Or canoe!"
J. ASHBY STERRY, _Boudoir Ballads_.
Kenny one day mentioned Charles Lamb's being
once bored by a lady praising to him "such a
charming man!" etc., etc.; ending with, "I know
him, bless him!" On which Lamb said, "Well, I don't,
but d---- him at a hazard."
THOMAS MOORE, _Diary_.
They sought it with thimbles, they sought it with care;
They pursued it with forks and hope;
They threatened its life with a railway share;
They charmed it with smiles and soap.
LEWIS CARROLL, _Hunting of the Snark_.
I remember being present at a dinner in
London, when a very severe and saturnine
Scotch Presbyterian was abusing Sunday newspapers,
and concluded a violent tirade by saying, "I
am determined to set my face against them." "So am I,"
said Theodore Hook, "every Sunday morning."
GRONOW, _Recollections_.
_ON A RADICAL REFORMER._
Tomkins will clear the land, they say,
From every foul abuse;
So chimneys in the olden time
Were cleansèd by a goose.
JAMES HANNAY, _Sketches and Characters_.
I was mentioning that some one had said of
Sharpe's very dark complexion that he looked
as if the dye of his old trade (hat making) had
got engrained into his face. "Yes," said Luttrell, "darkness
that may be _felt_!"
THOMAS MOORE, _Diary_.
It seems that poor Bruin has never had peace
'Twixt bald men in Bethel, and wise men in grease.
FREDERICK LOCKER, _London Lyrics_.
The term _sound divine_ being used, I said, "I do
not know what is a sound divine," quoting Pope--
"'Dulness is sacred in a sound divine.'"
"But I do," said Donaldson. "It is a divine who is
_vox et præterea nihil_."
CRABB ROBINSON, _Diary_.
Plain food is quite enough for me;
Three courses are as good as ten;
If Nature can subsist on three,
Thank heaven for three--Amen!
I always thought cold victual nice--
My _choice_ should be vanilla-ice.
I care not much for gold or land;
Give me a mortgage here or there;
Some good bank-stock, some note of hand,
Or trifling railroad share:--
I only ask that fortune send
A _little_ more than I shall spend.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES.
Some one saying to Sir F. Gould, "I am told you
eat three eggs _every day at breakfast_,"--"No,"
answered Gould, "on the contrary." Some of
those present asked, "What was the contrary of eating
three eggs?" "Laying three eggs, I suppose," said
Luttrell.
THOMAS MOORE, _Diary_.
Blossom of hawthorn whitens in May:
Never an end to true love's sway!
Blossom of hawthorn fades in June:
I shall be tired of my true love soon!
Blossom of hawthorn's gone in July:
Darling, I must be off,--good-bye!
ANON.
The late Mr. Nightingale was telling Horace Smith
of his having given a late royal duke an account
of an accident he had met with when he had been
run away with, and of the duke's exclaiming aloud to himself,
when he heard he had jumped out of the carriage,
"Fool! fool!" "Now," said the narrator to his auditor,
"it's all very well for him to call me a fool, but I can't
conceive why he should. Can you?" "No," replied
the wag, as if reflecting, "because he could not suppose
you ignorant of the fact."
J. C. YOUNG, _Diary_.
Such are the sylvan scenes that thrill
This heart! The lawns, the happy shade
Where matrons, whom the sunbeams grill,
Stir with slow spoon their lemonade;
And maidens flirt (no extra charge)
In comfort at the fountain's marge!
C. S. CALVERLEY, _Fly Leaves_.
The crow!--the crow!--the great black crow!
He loves the fat meadow--his taste is low;
He loves the fat worms, and he dines in a row
With fifty fine cousins all black as a sloe.
Sloe--sloe! you great black crow!
But it is jolly to fare like a great black crow!
P. J. BAILEY, _Festus_.
If a man's got a bit of property, a stake in the
country, he'll want to keep things square.
Where Jack isn't safe, Tom's in danger.
_Mr. Wace_, in GEORGE ELIOT'S _Felix Holt_.
Turn not from poor pussy in disdain,
Whose pride of ancestry may equal thine;
For is she not a blood descendant of
The ancient Catty line?
R. H. NEWELL, _Orpheus C. Kerr Papers_.
I heard the other day of Jekyll making the
following pun. He said, "Erskine used to
hesitate very much, and could not speak very
well after dinner. I dined with him once at the Fishmongers'
Company. He made such a sad work of
speechifying that I asked him whether it was in honour
of the Company that he _floundered_ so?"
CRABB ROBINSON, _Diary_.
Who knows if what Adam might speak
Was mono- or poly-syllabic;
Was Gothic, or Gaelic, or Greek,
Tartàric, Chinese, or Aràbic?
It may have been Sanskrit or Zend--
It must have been something or other;
But thus far I'll stoutly contend,--
It wasn't the tongue of his mother.
LORD NEAVES, _Songs and Verses_.
Men's natures are neither black nor white, but
_brown_.
CHARLES BUXTON, _Notes of Thought_.
Oh, Love's but a dance,
Where Time plays the fiddle!
See the couples advance,--
Oh, Love's but a dance!
A whisper, a glance,--
"Shall we twirl down the middle?"
Oh, Love's but a dance,
Where Time plays the fiddle!
AUSTIN DOBSON, _Proverbs in Porcelain_.
I met a man in Oregon who hadn't any teeth--not
a tooth in his head--yet that man could play on
the bass drum better than any man I ever met.
C. F. BROWNE, _Artemus Ward's Lecture_.
The Duke of Rutland, at one of his levées,
being at a loss for something to say to every
person he was bound in etiquette to notice,
remarked to Sir John Hamilton that there was a prospect
of an excellent crop. "The timely rain," observed
the duke, "will bring everything above ground." "God
forbid, your excellency!" exclaimed the courtier. His
excellency stared, whilst Sir John continued, sighing
heavily as he spoke, "Yes, God forbid! for I have
_three wives_ under it!"
SIR JONAH BARRINGTON, _Memoirs_.
"You are old," said the youth, "and your jaws are too weak
For anything tougher than suet;
Yet you finished the goose, with the bones and the beak,--
Pray, how did you manage to do it?"
"In my youth," said his father, "I took to the law,
And argued each case with my wife;
And the muscular strength which it gave to my jaw
Has lasted the rest of my life."
LEWIS CARROLL, _Alice in Wonderland_.
Le monde récompense plus souvent les apparances
du mérite que le mérite même.
LA ROCHEFOUCAULD, _Réflexions_.
Curran told an anecdote of an Irish parliament
man, who was boasting in the House of Commons
of his attachment to trial by jury. "Mr.
Speaker, by the trial by jury I have lived, and by the
blessing of God, with the trial by jury I will die!"
Curran sat near him, and whispered audibly, "What,
Jack! do you mean to be hanged?"
CRABB ROBINSON, _Diary_.
They roused him with muffins--they roused him with ice--
They roused him with mustard and cress--
They roused him with jam and judicious advice--
They set him conundrums to guess.
LEWIS CARROLL, _Hunting of the Snark_.
My old friend Maltby, the brother of the bishop, was
a very absent man. One day at Paris, in the
Louvre, we were looking at the pictures, when a
lady entered who spoke to me, and kept me some minutes
in conversation. On rejoining Maltby, I said, "That
was Mrs. ----. We have not met so long, she had
almost forgotten me, and asked me if my name was
Rogers." Maltby, still looking at the pictures, "And
was it?"
ROGERS, _apud_ J. R. PLANCHÉ.
No one likes to be disturbed at meals
Or love.
LORD BYRON, _Don Juan_.
What is man's end? To know and to be free.
Think you to compass it by tracts and tea?
ALFRED AUSTIN, _The Season_.
To preach long, loud, and damnation, is the way to
be cried up. We love a man that damns us, and
we run after him again to save us.
SELDEN, _Table Talk_.
It's such a very serious thing
To be a funny man!
JOHN GODFREY SAXE, _Poems_.
A bore cannot be a good man: for the better he
is, the greater bore he will be, and the more
hateful he will make goodness.
LADY ASHBURTON, _apud_ LORD HOUGHTON.
Parson Wilbur sez he never heerd in his life
Thet th' Apostles rigged out in their swaller-tail coats,
An' marched round in front of a drum and a fife,
To get some on 'em office, an' some on 'em votes;
But John P.
Robinson he
Sez they didn't know everythin' down in Judee.
J. R. LOWELL, _Biglow Papers_.
I could resign that eye of blue,
Howe'er its splendour used to thrill me;
And e'en that cheek of roseate hue--
To lose it, Chloe, would not kill me.
That sunny neck I ne'er should miss,
However much I raved about it;
And sweetly as that lip can kiss,
I think I could exist without it.
In short, so well I've learned to fast,
That, sooth, my love, I know not whether
I might not bring myself at last
To do without you altogether.
THOMAS MOORE.
L'art de plaire est l'art de tromper.
VAUVENARGUES, _Réflexions_.
We don't marry beggars, said she: why, no:
It seems that to make 'em is what you do;
And as I can cook, and scour, and sew,
I needn't pay half my victuals for you.
A man for himself should be able to scratch,
But tickling's a luxury:--love, indeed!
Love burns as long as a lucifer-match,
Wedlock's the candle! Now that's my creed.
GEORGE MEREDITH, _Modern Love_.
And while my schoolmates studied less,
I resolutely studied _Moore_.
_Songs of Singularity._
"One of my aides-de-camp," said Lord Wellesley
to Plunket on one occasion, "has written a
personal narrative of his travels,--pray, Chief
Justice, what is your definition of 'personal'?" "My
lord," replied Plunket, "we lawyers always consider
_personal_ as opposed to _real_."
LORD ALBEMARLE, _Fifty Years of my Life_.
I make the butter fly, all in an hour:
I put aside the preserves and cold meats,
Telling my master his cream has turned sour,
Hiding his pickles, purloining his sweets.
I never languish for husband or dower,
I never sigh to see gyps at my feet:
I make the butter fly, all in an hour,
Taking it home for my Saturday treat.
_Lydia_, in G. O. TREVELYAN's _Horace at Athens_.
English is an expressive language, but not
difficult to master. Its range is limited. It
consists, so far as I can observe, of four words:
"nice," "jolly," "charming," and "bore;" and some
grammarians add "fond."
_Pinto_, in LORD BEACONSFIELD's _Lothair_.
When Sir George Rose was appointed one of the
four judges of the now extinct Court of Review,
he came to Lincoln's Inn with his colleagues to
be sworn in. Some friend congratulating him on his
access of dignity, he observed, "Yes! here we are, you
see--_four by honours_!"
_Macmillan's Magazine._
Ah! who has seen the mailèd lobster rise,
Clap her broad wings, and, soaring, claim the skies?
When did the owl, descending from her bower,
Crop, 'midst the fleecy flocks, the tender flower;
Or the young heifer plunge, with pliant limb,
In the salt wave, and fish-like strive to swim?
The same with plants--potatoes 'tatoes breed,
The costly cabbage springs from cabbage-seed;
Lettuce to lettuce, leeks to leeks, succeed;
Nor e'er did cooling cucumbers presume
To flower like myrtle, or like violets bloom.
_The Anti-Jacobin._
Une femme d'esprit m'a dit un jour un mot qui
pourrait bien être le secret de son sexe; c'est
que toute femme, en prenant un amant, tient
plus de compte de la manière dont les autres femmes
voient cet homme que de la manière dont elle le voit
elle-même.
CHAMFORT, _Maximes_.
Here, waiter, I'll dine in this box;
I've looked at your long bill of fare:
A Pythagorean it shocks
To view all the rarities there.
I'm not o'erburdened with cash,
Roast beef is the dinner for me;
Then why should I eat _calipash_,
Or why should I eat _calipee_?
Your trifle's no trifle, I ween,
To customers prudent as I am;
Your peas in December are green,
But I'm not so green as to buy 'em.
With ven'son I seldom am fed--
Go, bring me a sirloin, you ninny;
Who dines at a guinea a head
Will ne'er by his head get a guinea.
JAMES SMITH, _Horace in London_.
One of Lord Dudley's eccentric habits was that of
speaking to himself or thinking aloud. Soon
after he succeeded to the title of Dudley and
Ward, a lady asked Lord Castlereagh how he accounted
for the custom. "It is only Dudley speaking to Ward,"
was the ready answer to her inquiry.
SINCLAIR, _Old Times and Distant Places_.
Le secret d'ennuyer est celui de tout dire.
VOLTAIRE, _Discours_, vi.
I never heard Rogers volunteer an opinion upon
Campbell, except after his death, when he had
been to see the poet's statue. "It is the first
time," said he, "that I have seen him stand straight for
many years."
BRYAN WALLER PROCTER.
"Vexation of spirit"--that is the part that
belongs to us; we leave the "vanity" to the
women.
_Vanecourt_, in L. OLIPHANT's _Piccadilly_.
I watched her as she stoop'd to pluck
A wild flower in her hair to twine;
And wish'd that it had been my luck
To call her mine.
Anon I heard her rate, with mad
Mad words, her babe within its cot;
And felt particularly glad
That it had not.
C. S. CALVERLEY, _Fly Leaves_.
Practice does not always make perfect. Curran,
when told by his physician that he seemed
to cough with more difficulty, replied, "That
is odd enough, for I have been practising all night."
HORACE SMITH, _The Tin Trumpet_.
We talk little if we do not talk about ourselves.
W. HAZLITT, _Characteristics_.
And how was the Devil drest?
O, he was in his Sunday's best;
His jacket was red and his breeches were blue,
And there was a hole where the tail came through.
_The Devil's Walk._
A closed glass bookcase provoked from Dr. Drake
the remark that he never could stand "Locke
on the Human Understanding."
LORD TEIGNMOUTH, _Reminiscences_.
There was a time, ere Trollope learned to spell,
When S. G. O. wrote seldom or wrote well;
When Swinburne only lusted after tarts,
When Beales was yet a Bachelor of Arts;
Ere Broad Church rose to make logicians stare,
That medley of St. Paul and St. Voltaire.
RICHARD CRAWLEY, _Horse and Foot_.
[Redmond Barry] said once to Corry, who
was praising Crompton's performance of some
particular character a night or two before,
"Yes, he played the part pretty well; he hadn't time to
study it!"
THOMAS MOORE, _Diary_.
If a daughter you have, she's the plague of your life,
No peace shall you know, though you've buried your wife!
At twenty she mocks at the duty you've taught her--
O, what a plague is an obstinate daughter!
Sighing and whining,
Dying and pining,
O, what a plague is an obstinate daughter!
When scarce in their teens, they have wit to perplex us,
With letters and lovers for ever they vex us;
While each still rejects the fair suitor you've brought her;
O, what a plague is an obstinate daughter!
Wrangling and jangling,
Flouting and pouting,
O, what a plague is an obstinate daughter!
R. B. SHERIDAN, _The Duenna_.
_Kitty_: What is your ladyship so fond of?
_Lady Bab's Servant_: Shickspur. Did you
never read Shickspur?
_Kitty_: Shickspur! Shickspur! Who wrote it? No,
I never read Shickspur.
_High Life Below Stairs_, Act II. Scene 1.
Nul n'est content de sa fortune
Ni mécontent de son esprit.
MADAME DESHOULIÈRES, _Réflexions_.
In courtship suppose you can't sing
Your Cara, your Liebe, your Zoë,
A kiss and a sight of the ring
Will more quickly prevail with your Chloe.
Or if you in twenty strange tongues
Could call for a beef-steak and bottle,
A purse with less learning and lungs
Would bring them much nearer your throttle.
LORD NEAVES, _Songs and Verses_.
The father of C----, a distinguished artist, was
complimented by a friend on the talents and
reputation of his son, and on the comfort he
must be to his father. "Yes," was the reply, "he is a
very good son--a very good son, if he did not swear at
his mother so."
W. H. HARRISON, _University Magazine_.
The old, old tale! ay, there's the smart;
Her heart, or what she call'd her heart,
Was hard as granite:
Who breaks a heart, and then omits
To gather up the broken bits
Is heartless, Janet.
FREDERICK LOCKER, _London Lyrics_.
The French don't know what they want, and will
never be satisfied till they get it.
WILLIAM HARNESS, _Life_.
She played the accordion divinely--accordionly I
praised her.
C. F. BROWNE, _Artemus Ward's Lecture_.
Should yours (kind heaven, avert the omen!)
Like the cravats of vulgar, low men,
Asunder start--and, yawning wide,
Disclose a chasm on either side;
Or should it stubbornly persist
To take some awkward tasteless twist,
Some crease, indelible, and look
Just like a dunce's dog-eared book,
How would you parry the disgrace?
In what assembly show your face?
How brook your rival's scornful glance,
Or partners' titter in the dance?
How in the morning dare to meet
The quizzers of the park and street?
Your occupation's gone; in vain
Hope to dine out, or flirt again.
The ladies from their lists would put you,
And even _I_, my friend, must cut you!
H. LUTTRELL, _Letters to Julia_.
A man can never manage a woman. Till a woman
marries, a prudent man leaves her to women;
when she does marry, she manages her husband,
and there's an end of it.
_Kenelm Chillingly_, in LORD LYTTON's novel.
_HOMAGE TO THE SCOTCH RIFLES, BY A SPITEFUL
COMPETITOR._
It seems that the Scots
Turn out much better shots
At long distance, than most of the Englishmen are:
But this we all knew
That a Scotchman could do--
Make a small piece of metal go awfully far.
SHIRLEY BROOKS, _Wit and Humour_.
Some one peevishly complaining, "You take the
words out of my mouth," Donaldson replied,
"You are very hard to please; would you have
liked it better if I had made you swallow them?"
CRABB ROBINSON, _Diary_.
I am lying, we'll say, in the nook I love,
Screened from the sunlight's scorching glow,
Watching the big clouds up above,
And blowing a lazy cloud below;
Blowing a cloud from my meerschaum black,
And thinking or not as I feel inclined,
With a light alpaca coat on my back,
And nothing particular on my mind.
_Once a Week._
There was a Presbyterian minister who married a
couple of his rustic parishioners, and had felt
exceedingly disconcerted, on his asking the
bridegroom if he were willing to take the woman for his
wedded wife, by his scratching his head and saying,
"Ay, I'm wullin'; but I'd rather hae her sister."
J. C. YOUNG, _Diary_.
The prospect's always fine in the Prospectus!
J. R. PLANCHÉ, _Songs and Poems_.
Animals are such agreeable friends--they ask no
questions, they pass no criticisms.
GEORGE ELIOT, _Mr. Gilfil's Love Story_.
There is a _tact_,
Which keeps, when pushed by questions rather rough,
A lady always distant from the fact:
The charming creatures lie with such a grace,
There's nothing so becoming to the face.
LORD BYRON, _Don Juan_.
Walked Corry over to Bowood. In looking at
the cascade, he mentioned what Plunket said,
when some one, praising his waterfall, exclaimed,
"Why, it's quite a cataract." "Oh, that's all
my eye," said Plunket.
THOMAS MOORE, _Diary_.
These panting damsels, dancing for their lives,
Are only maidens waltzing into wives.
ALFRED AUSTIN, _The Season_.
Another friend assured me it was policy to
"feed a cold and starve a fever." I had both.
So I thought it best to feed myself up for the
cold, and then keep dark and let the fever starve awhile.
In a case of this kind, I seldom do things by halves.
I ate pretty heartily. I conferred my custom upon a
stranger who had just opened his restaurant that morning.
He waited near me in respectful silence, until I had
finished feeding my cold, when he inquired if the people
about Virginia were much afflicted with colds? I told
him I thought they were. He then went out and took in
his sign.
MARK TWAIN, _Choice Works_.
A fine lady is like a cat; when young, the most
gamesome and lively of all creatures--when old,
the most melancholy.
ALEXANDER POPE, in LOCKER's _Patchwork_.
'Tis the voice of the lobster; I heard him declare
"You have baked me quite brown, I must sugar my hair."
As a duck with its eyelids, so he with his nose
Trims his belt and his buttons, and turns out his toes.
LEWIS CARROLL, _Alice in Wonderland_.
Poor relations are undeniably irritating--their
existence is so entirely uncalled for on our part,
and they are almost always very faulty people.
GEORGE ELIOT, _Mill on the Floss_.
There was an APE in the days that were earlier;
Centuries passed, and his hair became curlier:
Centuries more gave a thumb to his wrist--
Then he was MAN, and a Positivist.
MORTIMER COLLINS, _The British Birds_.
It was observed he never gave an opinion on any
subject, and never told an anecdote. Indeed,
he would sometimes remark, when a man fell
into his anecdotage it was a sign for him to retire from
the world.
LORD BEACONSFIELD, _Lothair_.
You cannot eat breakfast all day,
Nor is it the act of a sinner,
When breakfast is taken away,
To turn your attention to dinner;
And it's not in the range of belief,
That you could hold him as a glutton,
Who, when he is tired of beef,
Determines to tackle the mutton.
_Defendant_, in W. S. GILBERT's _Trial by Jury_.
Had the Romans public dinners? Answer me
that. Imagine a Roman--whose theory at least
of a dinner was that it was a thing for enjoyment,
whereas we often look on it as a continuation of the
business of the day,--I say, imagine a Roman girding
himself up, literally girding himself up, to make an after
dinner speech.
_Ellesmere_, in HELPS's _Friends in Council_.
Folks will teach you when at school--
"Never tell a lie!"
Nonsense: if you're not a fool
You may always break the rule,
But you must be sly;
For they'll whip you, past a doubt,
If they ever find you out.
Folks say, "Children should not let
Angry passions rise."
Humbug! When you're in a pet
Why on earth should you regret
Blacking some one's eyes?
Children's eyes are made, in fact,
Just on purpose to be black'd.
H. S. LEIGH, _Carols of Cockayne_.
It is not now "We have seen his star in the East,"
but "We have seen the star on his breast, and
are come to worship him."
SHENSTONE, _Essays_.
_A FAITHFUL PAGE._
Nearly one hundred years ago, my grandfather,
Captain William Locker, was at dinner, and a
servant-boy, lately engaged, was handing him a
tray of liqueurs, in different-sized glasses. Being in the
middle of an anecdote to his neighbour, he mechanically
held out his hand towards the tray, but, as people often
do when they are thinking of something else, he did not
take a glass. The boy thought he was hesitating which
liqueur he would have, and, like a good fellow, wishing
to help his master, he pointed to one particular glass,
and whispered, "That's the biggest, sir."
FREDERICK LOCKER, _Patchwork_.
All men are equal, the Frenchman says;
Most men will gladly receive
What a fervid fool, with a flattering phrase,
Tricks out for fools to believe;
But these men have less brains than a wren!
When a larch is a lily,
And Bessy like Billy
A beard shall achieve,
Then I will believe
That equality reigns among men!
J. S. BLACKIE, _Musa Burschicosa_.
I'm not one o' those who can see the cat i' the
dairy, an' wonder what she's come after.
_Mrs. Poyser_, in GEORGE ELIOT's _Adam Bede_.
I called him Selim, to express
The marked s(e)limness of his form.
_Songs of Singularity._
"Yes," he exclaimed, "as the sublime Tyndall tells
us, let us struggle to attain to a deeper knowledge
of matter, and a more faithful conformity
to its laws!"
The professor would have proceeded, but the weather
had been rapidly growing rough, and he here became
violently sea-sick.
"Let us," he exclaimed hurriedly, "conform to the
laws of matter and go below."
W. H. MALLOCK, _The New Paul and Virginia_.
What can Tommy Onslow do?
He can drive a curricle and two.
Can Tommy Onslow do no more?
Yes, he can drive a phaeton and four.
ANON., in GRONOW's _Recollections_.
Hicks and Thackeray, walking together, stopped
opposite a doorway, over which was inscribed in
gold letters these words: "Mutual Loan Office."
They both seemed equally puzzled. "What on earth can
that mean?" asked Hicks. "I don't know," answered
Thackeray, "unless it means, that two men, who have
nothing, agree to lend it to one another."
J. C. YOUNG, _Diary_.
A clod--a piece of orange-peel--
An end of a cigar,--
Once trod on by a princely heel,
How beautiful they are!
C. S. CALVERLEY, _Fly Leaves_.
In the onion is the hope of universal brotherhood.
Look at Italy. In the churches all are alike;
there is one faith, one smell.
C. D. WARNER, _My Summer in a Garden_.
He was "free to confess" (whence comes this phrase?
Is't English? No--'tis only parliamentary).
LORD BYRON, _Don Juan_.
"Ah!" says my languid Oxford gentleman, "nothing
new, and nothing true, and no matter."
R. W. EMERSON.
He dropt a tear on Susan's bier,
He seem'd a most despairing swain;
Yet bluer sky brought newer tie,
And would he wish her back again?
The moments fly, and when we die
Will Philly Thistletop complain?
She'll cry and sigh, and--dry her eye,
And let herself be woo'd again.
FREDERICK LOCKER, _London Lyrics_.
One 'ud think, an hear some folks talk, as the
men war 'cute enough to count the corns in a
bag o' wheat wi' only smelling at it. They can
see through a barn door, they can. Perhaps that's the
reason they see so little o' this side on't.
_Mrs. Poyser_, in GEORGE ELIOT's _Adam Bede_.
Thy flattering picture, Phryne, 's like to thee
Only in this--that you both painted be.
JOHN DONNE.
Without black velvet breeches, what is man?
JOHN BRAMSTON, _Man of Taste_.
_A KISS._
Rose kissed me to-day,--
Will she kiss me to-morrow?
Let it be as it may,
Rose kissed me to-day.
But the pleasure gives way
To a savour of sorrow;--
Rose kissed me to-day,--
_Will_ she kiss me to-morrow?
AUSTIN DOBSON, _Proverbs in Porcelain_.
Humility is a virtue all preach, none practise,
and yet everybody is content to hear.
SELDEN, _Table Talk_.
Some say that the primitive tongue
Expressed but the simplest affections;
And swear that the words said or sung
Were nothing but mere interjections.
_Oh! Oh!_ was the signal of pain;
_Ha! Ha!_ was the symptom of laughter;
_Pooh! Pooh!_ was the sign of disdain,
And _Hillo!_ came following after.
Some, taking a different view,
Maintain the old language was fitted
To mark out the objects we knew,
By mimicking sounds they emitted.
_Bow, wow_, was the name of a dog,
_Quack, quack_, was the word for a duckling,
_Hunc, hunc_, would designate a hog,
And _wee, wee_, a pig and a suckling.
LORD NEAVES, _Songs and Verses_.
_A PRACTICAL MAN._--One whose judgment is
not distracted by the power of seeing far before
him.
ANNE EVANS, _Poems and Music_.
For conversation well endued,
She thinks it witty to be rude,
And, placing raillery in railing,
Proclaims aloud your greatest failing.
SWIFT, _A Woman's Mind_.
I have always been more or less mixed up with
Art. I have an uncle who takes photographs--and
I have a servant who takes anything he can
get his hands on.
C. F. BROWNE, _Artemus Ward's Lecture_.
If a man who turnips cries
Cry not when his father dies,
'Tis a proof that he would rather
Have a turnip than a father.
DR. JOHNSON.
The greatest happiness of the greatest number is
best secured by a prudent consideration for
Number One.
_Kenelm Chillingly_, in LORD LYTTON's novel.
"You are old, Father William," the young man said,
"And your hair has become very white;
And yet you incessantly stand on your head--
Do you think, at your age, it is right?"
"In my youth," Father William replied to his son,
"I feared it might injure my brain;
But now that I'm perfectly sure I have none,
Why, I do it again and again."
LEWIS CARROLL, _Alice in Wonderland_.
When the question arose how the title of Herold's
charming opera, "Le Pré aux Clercs," should be
rendered into English, [Beazley] quietly suggested
"Parson's Green."
J. R. PLANCHÉ, _Recollections_.
When I left the man in gaiters,
He was grumbling, o'er his gin,
At the charges of the hostess
Of that famous Flemish inn;
And he looked a very Briton
(So, methinks, I see him still)
As he pocketed the candle
That was mentioned in the bill!
JOHN GODFREY SAXE, _Poems_.
Morality--keeping up appearances in this world,
or becoming suddenly devout when we imagine
that we may be shortly summoned to appear in
the next.
HORACE SMITH, _The Tin Trumpet_.
_ON PATRONS' PROMISES._
A minister's answer is always so kind!
I starve, and he tells me he'll keep me in mind.
Half his promise, God knows, would my spirits restore--
Let him keep me, and, faith, I will ask for no more.
LORD HOLLAND, in MOORE's _Diary_.
I know there's a stage of speculation in which a
man may doubt whether a pickpocket is blameworthy--but
I'm not one of your subtle fellows
who keep looking at the world through their own legs.
_Felix Holt_, in GEORGE ELIOT's novel.
"A knock-me-down sermon, and worthy of Birch,"
Says I to my wife, as we toddle from church.
"Convincing, indeed!" is the lady's remark;
"How logical, too, on the size of the Ark!"
Then Blossom cut in, without begging our pardons,
"Pa, was it as big as the 'Logical Gardens?"
"Miss Blossom," says I, to my dearest of dearies,
"Papa disapproves of nonsensical queries;
The Ark was an Ark, and had people to build it,
Enough we are told Noah built it and fill'd it:
Mamma does not ask how he caught his opossums."
--Said she, "That remark is as foolish as Blossom's!"
FREDERICK LOCKER, _London Lyrics_.
Books are fatal: they are the curse of the human
race. Nine-tenths of existing books are nonsense,
and the clever books are the refutation of
that nonsense. The greatest misfortune that ever befell
man was the invention of printing.
Phoebus, in LORD BEACONSFIELD's _Lothair_.
We can't assume, so Comte declares, a first or final cause, sir;
Phenomena are all we know, their order and their laws, sir;
While Hegel's modest formula, a single line to sum in,
Is "Nothing is, and nothing's not, but everything's becomin'."
F. D., in _Pall Mall Gazette_.
If you wish particularly to gain the good graces and
affection of certain people, men or women, try
to discover their most striking merit, if they have
one, and their dominant weakness, for every one has his
own. Then do justice to the one, and a little more than
justice to the other.
LORD CHESTERFIELD, _Letters to his Son_.
Tender ten may dote on toys,
While for twelve jam tarts have joys,
Feat fourteen's in love with boys--
Not a few.
J. ASHBY STERRY, _Boudoir Ballads_.
Juliet was a fool to kill herself. In three
months she'd have married again, and been glad
to be quit of Romeo.
CHARLES BUXTON, _Notes of Thought_.
A cornet waltzes, but a colonel weds.
ALFRED AUSTIN, _The Season_.
In the days when Pam retained the wheel,
We knew the men with whom we had to deal;
Then sucking statesmen seldom failed in seeing
The final cause and import of their being.
They dressed; they drove a drag; nor sought to shirk
Their portion of the matrimonial work.
They flocked to rout and drum by tens and twelves;
Danced every dance, and left their cards themselves,
While some obliging senatorial fag
Slipped their petitions in the Speaker's bag.
_Lady Matilda_, in G. O. TREVELYAN's _Ladies in Parliament_.
Monk Lewis was a great favourite at Oatlands.
One day after dinner, as the duchess was leaving
the room, she whispered something in Lewis's
ear. He was much affected, his eyes filling with tears.
We asked him what was the matter. "Oh," replied
Lewis, "the duchess spoke so _very_ kindly to me!"
"My dear fellow," said Colonel Armstrong, "pray don't
cry; I dare say she didn't mean it."
ROGERS, _Table Talk_.
Sweet is revenge--especially to women.
LORD BYRON, _Don Juan_.
A plain leg of mutton, my Lucy,
I prithee get ready at three;
Have it smoking and tender and juicy,
And what better meat can there be?
And when it has feasted the master,
'Twill amply suffice for the maid;
Meanwhile, I will smoke my canaster,
And tipple my ale in the shade.
W. M. THACKERAY.
L'amour est comme les maladies épidémiques;
plus on les craint, plus on y est exposé.
CHAMFORT, _Maximes_.
_MARRY_ (_AND_ DON'T) _COME UP_.
A fellow that's single, a fine fellow's he;
But a fellow that's married's a _felo de se_.
SHIRLEY BROOKS, _Wit and Humour_.
A brother actor, who had not exactly "taken
the house by storm" at his first appearance in
London, very stupidly asked Compton: "Was
my acting good?" "Well," was the reply, delivered
in his inimitable style, "hum! ha! _Good_ is not the
word!"
H. HOWE, in _Memoir of Henry Compton_.
So when two dogs are fighting in the streets,
When a third dog one of the two dogs meets,
With angry tooth he bites him to the bone,
And this dog smarts for what that dog has done.
FIELDING, _Tom Thumb_.
I recollect a humorous M.P. pointing out to
me a retired West Indian judge not very remarkable
for sagacity on the bench. There was a
ball at Government House, and the judge began to criticise
the dancing of a witty member of the Indian bar.
"Ah, my friend, you are a bad waltzer!" "Ah, but you
are a bad judge."
MARK BOYD, _Reminiscences_.
_Mrs. Cripps_: Things are seldom what they seem:
Skim milk masquerades as cream;
Highlows pass as patent leathers;
Jackdaws strut in peacocks' feathers.
_Captain_: Very true,
So they do.
_Mrs. Cripps_: Black sheep dwell in every fold;
All that glitters is not gold;
Storks turn out to be but logs;
Bulls are but inflated frogs.
_Captain_: So they be,
Frequentlee.
W. S. GILBERT, _H.M.S. Pinafore_.
A friend meeting Sir George Rose one day in
Lincoln's Inn Fields, with his left eye greatly
swollen and inflamed, remonstrated with him,
adding that he was surprised Lady Rose should have let
him go out of doors in such a condition. "Ah," replied
Sir George, "I am out _jure mariti_" (my right eye).
_Macmillan's Magazine._
It is no comfort to the _short_
To know you cannot love _at all_!
ROBERT REECE, in _Comic Poets_.
"Edwin and Morcar, the Earls of Mercia and
Northumbria, declared for him; and even
Stigand, the patriotic Archbishop of Canterbury,
found it advisable----"
"Found _what?_" said the Duck.
"Found _it_," the Mouse replied, rather crossly; "of
course you know what 'it' means."
"I know what 'it' means well enough, when _I_ find a
thing," said the Duck; "it's generally a frog or a worm.
The question is, what did the archbishop find?"
LEWIS CARROLL, _Alice in Wonderland_.
I've read in many a novel, that, unless they've
souls that grovel,
Folks _prefer_, in fact, a hovel
to your dreary marble halls.
C. S. CALVERLEY, _Fly Leaves_.
Marriage is a Bishop, choral service, Messrs.
Hancock, and Brussels lace.
ANNA C. STEELE.
How beautifully blue the sky,
The glass is rising very high,
Continue fine I hope it may,
And yet it rained but yesterday;
To-morrow it may pour again
(I hear the country wants some rain);
Yet people say, I know not why,
That we shall have a warm July.
W. S. GILBERT, _Pirates of Penzance_.
The Dowager-Duchess of Richmond went one Sunday
with her daughter to the Chapel Royal at
St. James's, but, being late, they could find no
places. After looking about some time, and seeing the
case was hopeless, she said to her daughter, "Come
away, Louisa; at any rate we have done the civil thing."
R. R. HAYDON, _Diary_.
_ON NORTHERN LIGHTS._
To roar and bore of Northern wights
The tendency so frail is,
That men do call those Northern Lights
Au-ror-a Bor-ealis.
JEKYLL, in MISS MITFORD's _Letters_.
I'm forced to wink a good deal, for fear of seeing
too much, for a neighbourly man must let himself
be cheated a little.
_Parson Lingon_, in GEORGE ELIOT's _Felix Holt_.
_Dulce_ it is, and _decorum_, no doubt, for the country to fall,--to
Offer one's blood an oblation to Freedom, and die for the Cause; yet
Still, individual culture is also something, and no man
Finds quite distinct the assurance that he of all others is called on,
Or would be justified even, in taking away from the world that
Precious creature himself.
_Claude_, in CLOUGH's _Amours de Voyage_.
Notre repentir n'est pas tant un regret du mal
que nous avons fait, qu'une crainte de celui qui
nous en peut arriver.
LA ROCHEFOUCAULD, _Réflexions_.
_ON AN INANIMATE ACTRESS._
Thou hast a score of parts not good,
But two divinely shown:
Thy Daphne a true piece of wood,
Thy Niobe a stone.
PALLADAS, trans. by R. GARNETT.
We as often repent the good we have done as the
ill.
W. HAZLITT, _Characteristics_.
The speech of Old England for me;
It serves us on every occasion;
Henceforth, like our soil, let it be
Exempted from foreign invasion.
It answers for friendship and love,
For all sorts of feeling and thinking,
And lastly, all doubt to remove--
It answers for singing and drinking.
LORD NEAVES, _Songs and Verses_.
A compliment is usually accompanied with a
bow, as if to beg pardon for paying it.
_Guesses at Truth._
_THE TRAVELLER AND THE GORILLA._
The gifts by Nature boon supplied
This pair unequally divide:
The traveller's tale is far from small,
The monkey has no tail at all.
R. GARNETT, _Idylls and Epigrams_.
The more a man's worth, the worthier man he
must be.
_Dudley Smooth_, in LORD LYTTON's _Money_.
Now to the banquet we press,
Now for the eggs and the ham!
Now for the mustard and cress,
Now for the strawberry jam!
Now for the tea of our host,
Now for the rollicking bun,
Now for the muffin and toast,
And now for the gay Sally Lunn!
W. S. GILBERT, _The Sorcerer_.
It was in my schoolboy days that I failed as an
actor. The play was the "Ruins of Pompeii."
I played the Ruins. It was not a very successful
performance, but it was better than the "Burning Mountains."
He was not good. He was a bad Vesuvius.
C. F. BROWNE, _Artemus Ward's Lecture_.
He cannot be complete in aught
Who is not humorously prone,--
A man without a merry thought
Can hardly have a funny bone.
FREDERICK LOCKER, _London Lyrics_.
An actor named Priest was playing at one of the
principal theatres. Some one remarked at the
Garrick Club that there were a great many more
in the pit--"Probably clerks who have taken Priest's
orders."
ABRAHAM HAYWARD, _Essays_.
And she? she marries money and a man.
ALFRED AUSTIN, _The Season_.
A lady of my acquaintance, a brunette, happened
to show her maid one of those little sticking-plaster
profiles which they used to call _silhouettes_.
It was the portrait of the lady's aunt, whom the girl had
never seen, and she said quite innocently, "La, ma'am,
I always thought as how you had some black relations,
you are so dark-like yourself, you know!"
FREDERICK LOCKER, _Patchwork_.
He pored upon the leaves, and on the flowers,
And heard a voice in all the winds; and then,
He thought of wood nymphs and immortal bowers,
And how the goddesses came down to men:
He miss'd the pathway, he forgot the hours,
And when he look'd upon his watch again,
He found how much old Time had been a winner--
He also found that he had lost his dinner.
LORD BYRON, _Don Juan_.
Ward had been a Whig, and became ministerial.
"I wonder what could make me turn Whig
again," said Ward. "That I can tell you," said
[Lord] Byron. "They have only to _re-Ward_ you."
CRABB ROBINSON, _Diary_.
_DISTICH._
As the meek beasts in the Garden came flocking for Adam to name them,
Men for a title to-day crawl to the feet of a king.
JOHN HAY, _Poems_.
You cannot have everything, as the man said when
he was down with small-pox and cholera, and
the yellow fever came into the neighbourhood.
C. D. WARNER, _My Summer in a Garden_.
Whene'er I take my walks abroad,
How many _rich_ I see!
There's A. and B. and C. and D.
All better off than me!
R. H. BARHAM, _Life_.
At one period of his boyhood, Macaulay's fancy
was much exercised by the threats and terrors of
the law. He had a little plot of ground at the
back of the house, marked out as his own by a row of
oyster-shells, which a maid one day threw away as rubbish.
He went straight to the drawing-room, where his
mother was entertaining some visitors, walked into the
circle, and said very solemnly: "Cursed be Sally; for it
is written, 'Cursed is he that removeth his neighbour's
landmark.'"
G. O. TREVELYAN, _Life of Macaulay_.
If care were not the waiter
Behind a fellow's chair,
When easy-going sinners
Sit down to Richmond dinners,
And life's swift stream flows straighter--
By Jove, it would be rare,
If care were not the waiter
Behind a fellow's chair.
If wit were always radiant,
And wine were always iced,
And bores were kicked out straightway
Through a convenient gateway;
Then down the years' long gradient
'Twere sad to be enticed,
If wit were always radiant,
And wine were always iced.
MORTIMER COLLINS, in _The Owl_.
Building a staircase for Sir Henry Meux, [Beazley]
called it making a new "Gradus ad Parnassum,"
because it was steps for the _muses_.
J. R. PLANCHÉ, _Recollections_.
I cannot clear the five-bar gate,
But, trying first its timber's state,
Climb stiffly up, take breath, and wait
To trundle over.
WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR.
La constance est la chimère de l'amour.
VAUVENARGUES, _Réflexions_.
_ON AN INTEMPERATE HUSBAND._
Whence comes it that in Clara's face
The lily only has a place?
Is it because the absent rose
Has gone to paint her husband's nose?
_A Collection of Epigrams_ (1727).
[Charles] Sheridan told me that his father,
being a good deal plagued by an old maiden
relation of his always going out to walk with
him, said one day that the weather was bad and rainy;
to which the old lady answered that, on the contrary, it
had cleared up. "Yes," said Sheridan, "it has cleared
enough for _one_, but not for _two_."
THOMAS MOORE, _Diary_.
To Urn, or not to Urn? that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler for our frames to suffer
The shows and follies of outrageous custom,
Or to take fire--against a sea of zealots--
And, by consuming, end them? To Urn--to keep--
No more: and while we keep, to say we end
Contagion and the thousand graveyard ills
That flesh is heir to--'tis a consume-ation
Devoutly to be wished!
WILLIAM SAWYER.
_ANSWER TO AN INQUIRY._
"_Young author._"--Yes, Agassiz _does_ recommend
authors to eat fish, because the phosphorus
in it makes brains. So far you are
correct. But I cannot help you to a decision about the
amount you need to eat--at least, not with certainty. If
the specimen composition you send is about your fair
usual average, I should judge that perhaps a couple of
whales would be all you would want for the present.
Not the largest kind, but simply good, middling-sized
whales.
MARK TWAIN, _Choice Works_.
The firm of Baxter, Rose, and Norton,
Deny the plaintiffs Arthur Orton;
But can't deny, what's more important,
That he has done what Arthur oughtn't.
ANON.
Hume and his wife and several of their children
were with me. Hume repeated the old saying,
"One fool makes many." "Ay, Mr. Hume,"
said I, pointing to the company, "you have a fine
family."
CHARLES LAMB, _apud_ CRABB ROBINSON.
Plus on juge, moins on aime.
BALZAC, _Physiologie du Mariage_.
George the Third scolded Lord North for
never going to the concert of antient music:
"Your brother, the bishop," said the king,
"never misses them, my lord." "Sir," answered the
premier, "if I were as deaf as my brother, the bishop, I
would never miss them either!"
R. H. BARHAM, _Life_.
_ON A MODERN ACTRESS._
"Miss Neilson's 'benefit'," one says;
I ask to what the phrase refers;
For, sure, when such an artist plays,
The "benefit" is ours, not hers.
W. D. A.
Our king [William IV.] is _ultra_-popular. Have
you heard Lord Alvanley's _bon mot_ concerning
him? He was standing at the window at White's,
when the king, with a thousand of his loving subjects at
his heels, was walking up St. James's Street. A friend
said to him, "What are you staring at, Alvanley?" "I
am waiting to see his Majesty's pocket picked," was the
reply.
MISS MITFORD, _Life and Letters_.
Methinks the lays of now-a-days
Are painfully in earnest.
FREDERICK LOCKER, _London Lyrics_.
Hicks was talking to Thackeray of a certain
gentleman's strange addiction to beer. "It's a
great pity," said Hicks, "that he does not keep a
check-rein on himself, for he is a marvellous fellow otherwise--I
mean, for talent I hardly know his equal."
"No," retorted Thackeray, "he is a remarkable man.
Take him for half-and-half, we ne'er shall look upon his
like again."
J. C. YOUNG, _Diary_.
Pro conibus calidis, conibus frigidis,
Pro conibus mollibus, conibus rigidis,
Pro conibus senibus
Atque juvenibus,
Gratias agimus fatis,
Habuimus satis.
ANON.
One of the "Hooks and Eyes" was expatiating on
the fact that he had dined three times at the
Duke of Devonshire's, and that on neither occasion
had there been any fish at table. "I cannot account
for it," he added. "I can," said Jerrold: "they ate it all
upstairs."
CHARLES MACKAY, _Recollections_.
Veracity is a plant of paradise, and its seeds
have never flourished beyond the walls.
_Machiavelli_, in GEORGE ELIOT's _Romola_.
I know not why my soul is rack'd:
Why I ne'er smile as was my wont:
I only know that, as a fact,
I don't.
I used to roam o'er glen and glade,
Buoyant and blithe as other folk:
And not unfrequently I made
A joke.
All day I sang; of love, of fame,
Of fights our fathers fought of yore,
Until the thing almost became
A bore.
I cannot sing the old songs now
It is not that I deem them low;
'Tis that I can't remember how
They go.
C. S. CALVERLEY, _Fly Leaves_.
During [a] drive, Lord William L----, a man
of fashion, but, like other of the great men of
the day, an issuer of paper money discounted at
high rates by the usurers, was thrown off his horse.
Mr. and Mrs. King immediately quitted the carriage, and
placed the noble lord within. On this circumstance
being mentioned in the clubs, Brummell observed it was
only "a Bill _Jewly_ (duly) taken up and honoured."
GRONOW, _Recollections_.
She made the cleverest people quite ashamed,
And even the good with inward envy groaned,
Finding themselves so very much exceeded
In their own way by all the things that she did.
LORD BYRON, _Don Juan_.
On the elevation of some childless person to the
peerage, [Lady Charlotte Lindsay] remarked
that he was "of the new Order, which seemed
the popular one, not of the Barons, but the Barrens."
LORD HOUGHTON, _Monographs_.
Oft when petty annoyances ruffle the soul,
And the temper defies philosophic control,
The emotion is quelled, and a calm will succeed,
Through the simple device of inhaling the Weed:
Such magical power has the soothing Canaster
To bring balmy content and good humour to Gaster.
LORD NEAVES, _Songs and Verses_.
Morgan John O'Connell had the ready
wit of his country in a remarkable degree. We
were walking by the Wey one day, when an
Oxford graduate, who had a taste for botany, plucked a
flower (_Balsamum impatiens_) from the river, remarking
that it was a very rare plant. "It is an out-of-the-_Wey_
one, at any rate," was the instantaneous reply.
W. H. HARRISON, _University Magazine_.
Oh! 'tis the most tremendous bore
Of all the bores I know,
To have a friend who's lost his heart
A short time ago.
_Bon Gaultier Ballads._
I never on any account allow my business to
interfere with my drinking.
C. F. BROWNE, _Artemus Ward's Lecture_.
_NURSERY RHYME._
What is an Englishman made of?
Roast beef and jam tart,
And a pint of good Clar't,
And that's what an Englishman's made of.
What is a Frenchman, pray, made of?
Horse steak, and frog fritter,
And absinthe so bitter,
And that's what a Frenchman is made of.
SHIRLEY BROOKS, _Wit and Humour_.
Marriage is a desperate thing. The frogs in
Æsop were extreme wise; they had a great mind
to some water, but they would not leap into the
well, because they could not get out again.
SELDEN, _Table Talk_.
("Don't speak so hard of ----; he lives on your
good graces.") That accounts for his being
so thin.
LADY ASHBURTON, _apud_ LORD HOUGHTON.
We are wise--and we make ourselves hazy;
We are foolish--and so, go to church;
While Sambo but laughs, and is lazy
(Vile discipline! lend me thy birch);
He dreams of no life save the present,
His virtue is but when it suits;
Sometimes, which is not quite so pleasant,
I miss coat or boots.
_Once a Week._
You remember Thurlow's answer to some one complaining
of the injustice of a company, "Why,
you never expected justice from a company, did
you? They have neither a soul to save, nor a body to
kick."
SYDNEY SMITH, _Life and Letters_.
Elliston, the actor, a self-educated man, was
playing cribbage one evening, with Lamb, and
on drawing out his first card, exclaimed, "When
Greek meets Greek, then comes the tug of war." "Yes,"
replied Lamb, "and when _you_ meet Greek, you don't
understand it."
_Life of Rev. W Harness._
To Justice Park's brother, who was a great church-goer,
some one applied the words, "_Parcus_
deorum cultor."
THOMAS MOORE, _Diary_.
"You'll soon get used to her looks," said he,
"And a very nice girl you'll find her;
She may very well pass for forty-three,
In the dusk, with a light behind her!"
_Judge_, in W. S. GILBERT's _Trial by Jury_.
"My brethren," said Swift in a sermon, "there are
three sorts of pride--of birth, of riches, and of
talents. I shall not now speak of the latter,
none of you being liable to that abominable vice."
HORACE SMITH, _The Tin Trumpet_.
No doubt this patience, when the world is damning us,
Is philosophic in our former friends;
It is also pleasant to be deem'd magnanimous,
The more so in obtaining our own ends.
Revenge in person's certainly no virtue,
But then 'tis not _my_ fault if _others_ hurt you.
LORD BYRON, _Don Juan_.
He was not an intellectual Croesus, but his pockets
were full of sixpences.
LORD BEACONSFIELD, _Lothair_.
It's after a dinner at Freemason's Hall
That the orator's talent shines brightest of all;
When his eye becomes glazed, and his voice becomes thick,
And he's had so much hock he can only say _hic_.
So the company leave him to slumber and snore
Till he's put in a hat and conveyed to the door;
And he finds, upon reaching his home in a cab,
That his wife rather shines in the gift of the gab.
H. S. LEIGH, _Carols of Cockayne_.
One of our countrymen having been introduced by
M. de la Rochefoucauld to Mademoiselle Bigottini,
the beautiful and graceful dancer, in the
course of conversation with this gentleman, asked him in
what part of the theatre he was placed; upon which he
replied, "Mademoiselle, _dans un loge róti_," instead of
"_grillé_." The lady could not understand what he meant,
until his introducer explained the mistake, observing,
"_Ces diables d'Anglais pensent toujours à leur Rosbif_."
GRONOW, _Recollections_.
The sea was wet as wet could be,
The sands were dry as dry,
You could not see a cloud, because
No cloud was in the sky:
No birds were flying overhead--
There were no birds to fly.
LEWIS CARROLL, _Through the Looking-Glass_.
A man of business should always have his eyes
open, but must often seem to have them shut.
LORD CHESTERFIELD, _Maxims_.
Next morning twelve citizens came
('Twas the coroner bade them attend)
To the end that it might be determined
How the man had determined his end!
JOHN GODFREY SAXE, _Poems_.
I remember on one occasion acting in "Venice
Preserved." A long and rather drowsy dying
speech of my poor friend Jaffier was "dragging
its slow length along," when one of the gallery, in a tone
of great impatience, called out very loudly, "Ah now, die
at once;" to which another from the other side immediately
replied, "Be quiet, you blackguard," then, turning
with a patronizing tone to the lingering Jaffier, "Take
your time!"
W. C. MACREADY, _Diary_.
The days they grow shorter and shorter,
The town's worse than ever for smoke,
Invention, Necessity's daughter!
How long must we blacken and choke?
Much longer we ne'er can endure it,
The smother each resident damns;
Unless something's done to cure it,
'Twill cure _us_ like so many hams.
J. R. PLANCHÉ, _Songs and Poems_.
A kind Providence furnishes the limpest personality
with a little gum or starch in the form of
tradition.
GEORGE ELIOT, _Middlemarch_.
Oil and water--woman and a secret--
Are hostile properties.
_Baradas_, in LORD LYTTON's _Richelieu_.
At a musical _soirée_ in Paris, a lady, possessing a
magnificent soprano voice and remarkable facility
of execution, sang the great Maestro's well-known
aria, "Una Voce," with great effect, but overladen
with fiorituri of the most elaborate description. Rossini,
at its conclusion, advanced to the piano and complimented
the lady most highly upon her vocal powers, terminating
his encomiums with the cruel inquiry: "Mais
de qui est la musique?"
J. R. PLANCHÉ, _Recollections_.
_ON A BAD SINGER._
Swans sing before they die; 'twere no bad thing
Did certain persons die before they sing.
S. T. COLERIDGE.
"Is life worth living?" That depends upon the
liver.
_The World._
_OLD LOVES._
"Then, you liked little Bowes."--
"And you liked Jane Raby!"
"But you like _me_ now, Rose?"--
"As I liked 'little Bowes'!"
"Am I then to suppose----"
"_Hush!--you mustn't wake baby!_"
"_Did_ you like little Bowes?"--
"If you liked Jane Raby!"
AUSTIN DOBSON, _Proverbs in Porcelain_.
Women, when left to themselves, talk chiefly about
their dress; they think more about their lovers
than they talk about them.
W. HAZLITT, _Characteristics_.
O if billows and pillows, and bowers and flowers,
And all the brave rhymes of an elder day,
Could be furled together, this genial weather,
And carted, or carried on "wafts" away,
Nor ever again trotted out--ah me!
How much fewer volumes of verse there'd be!
C. S. CALVERLEY, _Fly Leaves_.
_Miss Prue._ Must I tell a lie, then?
_Tattle._ Yes, if you'd be well-bred. All well-bred
persons lie.
CONGREVE, _Love for Love_.
Some attacks on the lungs, that of woe would be full,
Are repelled by a filter of loose Cotton Wool;
But a barrier of brass, or a _chevaux-de-frise_,
Won't exclude some descriptions of Dust and Disease.
LORD NEAVES, _Songs and Verses_.
When an acquaintance came up to him and said,
"Why, Jerrold, I hear you said my nose was like
the ace of clubs!" Jerrold returned, "No, I
didn't; but now I look at it, I see it is very like."
MRS. COWDEN CLARKE.
_WUS, EVER WUS._
Wus, ever wus! By freak of Puck's
My most exciting hopes are dashed;
I never wore my spotless ducks
But madly--wildly!--they were splashed.
I never roved by Cynthia's beam,
To gaze upon the starry sky,
But some old stiff-backed beetle came,
And charged into my pensive eye.
And oh! I never did the swell
In Regent Street, amongst the beaus,
But smuts the most prodigious fell,
And always settled on my nose!
H. CHOLMONDELEY PENNELL, _Puck on Pegasus_.
L'hymen vient après l'amour, comme la fumée
après la flamme.
CHAMFORT, _Maximes_.
It may be so--perhaps thou hast
A warm and loving heart;
I will not blame thee for thy face,
Poor devil as thou art.
That thing thou fondly deem'st a nose,
Unsightly though it be--
In spite of all the cold world's scorn,
It may be much to thee.
Those eyes--among thine elder friends
Perhaps they pass for blue;
No matter--if a man can see,
What more have eyes to do?
Thy mouth--that fissure in thy face,
By something like a chin,
May be a very useful place
To put thy victuals in.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES.
Nothing shows one who his friends are, like
prosperity and ripe fruit. I had a good friend
in the country whom I almost never visited
except in cherry time. By your fruits you shall know
them.
C. D. WARNER, _My Summer in a Garden_.
_AN EPITAPH._
A lovely young lady I mourn in my rhymes:
She was pleasant, good-natured, and civil sometimes.
Her figure was good: she had very fine eyes,
And her talk was a mixture of foolish and wise.
Her adorers were many, and one of them said,
"She waltzed rather well! It's a pity she's dead!"
G. J. CAYLEY, in _Comic Poets_.
Anybody amuses me for once. A new acquaintance
is like a new book. I prefer it, even if
bad, to a classic.
_Lady Montfort_, in LORD BEACONSFIELD's _Endymion_.
Now I hold it is not decent for a scientific gent
To say another is an ass,--at least, to all intent;
Nor should the individual who happens to be meant
Reply by heaving rocks at him to any great extent.
BRET HARTE, _Complete Works_.
Story of Edward Walpole, who, being told, one
day at the "Garrick," that the confectioners had
a way of discharging the ink from old parchment
by a chemical process, and then making the parchment
into isinglass for their jellies, said, "Then I find a man
may now eat his deeds as well as his words."
R. H. BARHAM, _Life_.
What is the spell that 'twixt a saint and sinner
The diff'rence makes?--a sermon? Bah! a dinner.
ALFRED AUSTIN, _The Season_.
"I vent to the club this mornin', sir. There
vorn't no letters, sir." "Very good, Topping."
"How's missus, sir?" "Pretty well, Topping."
"Glad to hear it, sir. _My_ missus ain't very well,
sir." "No!" "No, sir, she's agoin', sir, to have a hincrease
werry soon, and it makes her nervous, sir; and
ven a young voman gets down at sich a time, sir, she
goes down werry deep, sir." To this sentiment I reply
affirmatively, and then he adds, as he stirs the fire (as if
he were thinking out loud), "Wot a mystery it is! Wot
a go is natur'!"
CHARLES DICKENS, _apud_ J. T. FIELDS.
The most forlorn--what worms we are!--
Would wish to finish this cigar
Before departing.
FREDERICK LOCKER, _London Lyrics_.
Mrs. Cadwallader says it is nonsense, people
going a long journey when they are married.
She says they get tired to death of each other,
and can't quarrel comfortably, as they would at home.
_Celia Brooke_, in GEORGE ELIOT's _Middlemarch_.
Some think that man from a monkey grew
By steps of long generation,
When, after many blunders, a few
Good hits were made in creation;
But I can't comprehend this at all;
Of blind groping forces
Though Darwin discourses,
I rather incline
To believe in design
With Plato, and Peter, and Paul.
J. S. BLACKIE, _Musa Burschicosa_.
In a trial, where a German and his wife were giving
evidence, the former was asked by the counsel,
"How old are you?" "I am _dirty_." "And
what is your wife?" "Mine wife is _dirty-two_." "Then,
sir, you are a very nasty couple, and I wish to have
nothing further to say to either of you."
HORACE SMITH, _The Tin Trumpet_.
He'd better be apt with his pen
Than well-dressed, and well-booted and gloved,
Who likes to be liked by the men,
By the women who loves to be loved:
And Fashion full often has paid
Her good word in return for a gay word,
For a song in the manner of Praed,
Or an anecdote worthy of Hayward.
G. O. TREVELYAN, _Ladies in Parliament_.
Oh, my Maria! Alas! she married another. They
frequently do. I hope she is happy--because I
am.
C. F. BROWNE, _Artemus Ward's Lecture_.
Rise up, cold reverend, to a see;
Confound the unbeliever!
Yet ne'er 'neath thee my seat shall be
For ever and for ever.
Preach, softly preach, in lawn and be
A comely, model liver,
But ne'er 'neath thee my seat shall be
For ever and for ever.
And here shall sleep thy Alderman,
And here thy pauper shiver,
And here by thee shall buzz the "she,"
For ever and for ever.
A thousand men shall sneer at thee,
A thousand women quiver,
But ne'er 'neath thee my seat shall be
For ever and for ever.
_The Shotover Papers._
For people to live happily together, the real secret
is, that they should not live too much together.
_Ellesmere_, in HELPS's _Friends in Council_.
Lord Ellenborough's saying to a witness;
"Why, you are an industrious fellow; you must
have taken pains with yourself; no man was
ever _naturally_ so stupid."
THOMAS MOORE, _Diary_.
If you've a thousand a year or a minute;
If you're a D'Orsay, whom every one follows;
If you've a head (it don't matter what's in it)
Fair as Apollo's;
If you approve of flirtations, good dinners,
Seascapes divine which the merry winds whiten,
Nice little saints and still nicer young sinners,--
Winter in Brighton!
MORTIMER COLLINS.
He [Bagehot] used to say, banteringly, to his mother,
by way of putting her off at a time when she was
anxious for him to marry, "A man's mother is
his misfortune, but his wife is his fault!"
R. H. HUTTON, _Memoir of W. Bagehot_.
_A LADY ON THE PRINCESSE DRESS._
My dress, you'll aver, is Economy's own,
Designed with most exquisite taste;
From zone unto hem, and from tucker to zone,
You can't find a vestige of _waist_!
J. ASHBY STERRY, in _English Epigrams_.
Lord Palmerston, during his last attack of
gout, exclaimed, playfully, "_Die_, my dear
doctor! That's the _last_ thing I think of doing."
J. C. JEAFFRESON, _About Lawyers_.
_ON POVERTY._
He who in his pocket has no money
Should, in his mouth, be never without honey.
_Epigrams in Distich._
Tavern--a house kept for those who are not
housekeepers.
HORACE SMITH, _The Tin Trumpet_.
When the breakfast is spread,
When the topers are mellow,
When the foam of the bride-cake is white, and
the fierce orange-blossoms are yellow.
LEWIS CARROLL, _Phantasmagoria_.
On [one] occasion, at a concert, a very indifferent
tenor, who sang repeatedly out of tune, was indiscreet
enough to express his regret to Rossini
that he should have heard him for the first time in that
room, as, he complained, "Le plafond est si sourd."
Rossini raised his eyes to the abused ceiling, and simply
ejaculated, "Heureux plafond!"
J. R. PLANCHÉ, _Recollections_.
If, sick of home and luxuries,
You want a new sensation,
And sigh for the unwonted ease
Of _un_accommodation,--
If you would taste, as amateur,
And vagabond beginner,
The painful pleasures of the poor--
Get up a picnic dinner.
HORACE SMITH, _The Tin Trumpet_.
A country rector, coming up to preach at
Oxford in his turn, complained to Dr. Routh,
the venerable Principal of Maudlin, that the
remuneration was very inadequate, considering the
travelling expenses and the labour necessary for the
composition of the discourse. "How much did they
give you?" inquired Dr. Routh. "Only five pounds,"
was the reply. "Only five pounds?" repeated the
doctor; "why, I would not have preached that sermon
for fifty!"
_Life of Rev. W. Harness._
Dey vented to de Voman's Righds,
Vere laties all agrees,
De gals should pe de voters,
And deir beaux all de votées.
"For efery man dat nefer vorks,
Von frau should vranchised pe:
Dat ish de vay I solf dis ding,"
Said Breitmann, said he.
C. G. LELAND, _Breitmann Ballads_.
There is nothing more universally commended
than a fine day; the reason is, that people can
commend it without envy.
SHENSTONE, _Essays_.
Let the singing singers,
With vocal voices, most vociferous,
In sweet vociferation out-vociferize
Even sound itself.
_Chrononhotonthologos_, in CAREY's farce.
Giving advice is, many times, only the privilege
of saying a foolish thing one's self, under pretence
of hindering another from doing one.
POPE, _Thoughts on Various Subjects_.
Of pay or play may preach this knot--
Of death or duns or love's devotion--
I tied it yesterday, but what
It means, I've not the faintest notion.
H. CHOLMONDELEY PENNELL, _Pegasus Resaddled_.
_René._ Qu'est ce que c'est donc que les affaires,
Monsieur Giraud?
_Giraud._ Les affaires? c'est bien simple; c'est
l'argent des autres.
DUMAS fils, _La Question d'Argent_.
Tous les méchants sont buveurs d'eau.
COMTE DE SÉGUR.
Miss Pellingle commences "Rousseau's
Dream," with variations. Beautiful melody, by
itself first, clear and distinct.
Now the air tries to break out between alternate notes,
like a prisoner behind bars. Then we have a variation
entirely bass.
_Happy thought._--Rousseau snoring.
Then a scampering up, a meeting with the right
hand, a scampering down, and a leap off one note into
space. Then both in the middle, wobbling; then down
into the bass again.
_Happy thought._--Rousseau after a heavy supper.
A plaintive variation.--Rousseau in pain.
Light strain: Mazurka time.--Rousseau kicking in his
sleep.
F. C. BURNAND, _Happy Thoughts_.
Sad is that woman's lot who, year by year,
Sees, one by one, her beauties disappear,
When Time, grown weary of her heart-drawn sighs,
Impatiently begins to "dim her eyes!"
Compelled at last, in life's uncertain gloamings,
To wreathe her wrinkled brow with well-saved "combings,"
Reduced with rouge, lip-salve, and pearly gray,
To "make up" for lost time, as best she may!
_Lady Jane_, in W. S. GILBERT's _Patience_.
No coinage in circulation so fluctuates in value as
the worth of a marriageable man.
LORD LYTTON, _What will he do with it?_
_ANATHEMA IN EXCELSIS._
Creed of St. Anathasius? No, indeed.
Call it, good priests, the Anathemasian Creed.
SHIRLEY BROOKS, _Wit and Humour_.
Mistrust all those who love you extremely upon
a very slight acquaintance, and without any
visible reason.
LORD CHESTERFIELD, _Maxims_.
_BENEVOLENT NEUTRALITY._
When man and wife at odds fall out,
Let Syntax be your tutor;
'Twixt masculine and feminine,
What should one be but neuter?
ANON.
MY friend the late Sam Phillips one day met Douglas
Jerrold, and told him he had seen, the day before,
Payne Collier looking wonderfully gay and
well--quite an evergreen. "Ah," said Jerrold, "he may
be evergreen, but he's never _read_." On my repeating
this to Hicks, he smiled and said, "Now that's what I
call 'ready wit.'"
J. C. YOUNG, _Diary_.
One day, when conversing with [a] friend, something
was said on the subject of religious persecution,
on which [Whately] remarked, "It is no wonder
that some English people have a taste for persecuting on
account of religion, since it is the first lesson that most
are taught in their nurseries." His friend expressed his
incredulity, and denied that _he_, at least, had been taught
it. "Are you sure?" replied Dr. Whately. "What
think you of this--
'Old Daddy Longlegs _won't say his prayers_,
Take him by the left leg, and throw him downstairs'?
If that is not religious persecution, what is?"
E. J. WHATELY, _Life of Whately_.
_ON A PUBLIC-HOUSE._
Of this establishment how can we speak?
Its cheese is mity, and its ale is weak.
ANON.
At a fête at Hatfield House, _tableaux vivants_ were
among the chief amusements, and scenes from
_Ivanhoe_ were among the selections. All the
parts were filled up but that of _Isaac of York_. Lady
Salisbury begged Lord Alvanley "to make the set complete,
by doing the Jew." "Anything in my power your
ladyship may demand," replied Alvanley; "but though
no man in England has tried oftener, I never could _do a
Jew_ in my life."
R. H. BARHAM, _Life_.
There's nothing we read of in torture's inventions,
Like a well-meaning dunce with the best of intentions.
J. R. LOWELL, _A Fable for Critics_.
_THE POPE._
Miss D., on her return to the Highlands of Scotland,
from Rome, went to see an auld Scottish
wife, and said, to interest the old woman, "I
have been to Rome since I saw you--I have seen all
sorts of great people--I have seen the Pope." The sympathetic
old dame replied with animation, "The Pope of
Rome!--Honest marn!--haze he ony family?"
FREDERICK LOCKER, _Patchwork_.
Nay, tempt me not, Arab, again to stay;
Since I crave neither _Echo_ nor _Fun_ to-day,
For thy _hand_ is not Echoless--there they are,
_Fun_, _Glowworm_, and _Echo_, and _Evening Star_:
And thou hintest withal that thou fain wouldst shine,
As I con them, these bulgy old boots of mine.
But I shrink from thee, Arab! Thou eat'st eel-pie,
Thou evermore hast at least one black eye;
There is brass on thy brow, and thy swarthy hues
Are due not to nature but handling shoes;
And the bit in thy mouth, I regret to see,
Is a bit of tobacco-pipe--Flee, child, flee!
C. S. CALVERLEY, _Fly Leaves_.
The bulk of men in our days are just as immoral as
they were in Charles the Second's; the only
difference is that they are incomparably more
stupid, and that instead of decking their immorality with
the jewels of wit, they clumsily try to cover it with the
tarpaulin of respectability.
_Mr. Luke_, in MALLOCK's _New Republic_.
_WHY WIVES MAKE NO WILLS._
Men dying make their wills, why cannot wives?
Because wives have their wills during their lives.
R. HUGMAN (_circa_ 1628).
What the mischief do you suppose you want with a
post-office at Baldwin's Ranch? It would not
do you any good. If any letters came there,
you couldn't read them, you know; and besides, such
letters as ought to pass through, with money in them, for
other localities, would not be likely to _get_ through, you
must perceive at once; and that would make trouble for
us all. No; don't bother about a post-office at your
camp. What you want is a nice jail, you know--a nice,
substantial jail, and a free school. These will be a
lasting benefit to you. These will make you really contented
and happy.
MARK TWAIN, _Choice Works_.
Nous avons tous assez de force pour supporter les
maux d'autrui.
LA ROCHEFOUCAULD, _Réflexions_.
Rogers happened to ask Macaulay what he
thought of Miss Harriet Martineau's wonderful
cures by mesmerism. He said, with one of his
rare smiles, "Oh, it's all my eye, and Hetty Martineau!"
LADY CHATTERTON, _Life_.
Tame is Virtue's school;
Paint, as more effective,
Villain, knave, and fool,
With always a Detective.
Hate for Love may sit;
Gloom will do for Gladness;
Banish Sense and Wit,
And dash in lots of Madness.
Stir the broth about;
Keep the furnace glowing;
Soon we'll pour it out
In three bright volumes flowing.
Some may jeer and jibe:
_We_ know where the shop is,
Ready to subscribe
For a thousand copies!
LORD NEAVES, _Songs and Verses_.
Th' young men noo-a-days, they're poor squashy
things--the' looke well anoof, but the' woon't
wear, the' woon't wear.
_"Mester" Ford_, in GEORGE ELIOT's _Mr. Gilfil_.
"Where are the boys of my youth?" I assure you
this is not a conundrum. Some are amongst
you here--some in America--some are in
gaol.
Hence arises a most touching question: "Where are
the girls of my youth?" Some are married--some
would like to be.
C. F. BROWNE, _Artemus Ward's Lecture_.
Mark how the lorgnettes cautiously they raise
Lest points, no pose so thoughtless but displays,
A too quick curiosity should hide--
For they who gaze must gazed-at be beside.
ALFRED AUSTIN, _The Season_.
I sent the book down to the Dean, from Saunders
and Otley's. Speaking of that firm, I don't know
whether I told you of young Sutton, Lord
Canterbury's son, calling there one day very angry,
because they had not sent him some books he had
ordered. He was, as usual, pretty warm, and so much
so that one of the partners could bear it no longer, and
told him as much. "I don't know who you are," was
the answer, "but I don't want to annoy you _personally_,
as you may not be the one in fault: it's your confounded
house that I blame. You may be Otley, or you may be
Saunders; if you are Saunders, d---- Otley; if you are
Otley, d---- Saunders. I mean nothing personal _to you_."
R. H. BARHAM, _Life_.
Of all actions of a man's life, his marriage does
least concern other people, yet of all actions of
our life 'tis most meddled with by other people.
SELDEN, _Table Talk_.
A grave and quiet man was he,
Who loved his book and rod,--
So even ran his line of life
His neighbours thought it odd.
He ne'er aspired to rank or wealth,
Nor cared about a name,
For though much famed for fish was he,
He never fished for fame!
Let others bend their necks at sight
Of Fashion's gilded wheels,
He ne'er had learned the art to "bob"
For anything but eels!
JOHN GODFREY SAXE, _Poems_.
A little knowledge of the world is a very
dangerous thing, especially in literature.
_Lord Montfort_, in LORD BEACONSFIELD's _Endymion_.
Si les hommes ne se flattaient pas les uns les autres,
il n'y aurait guère de société.
VAUVENARGUES, _Réflexions_.
The gravest aversion exists among bears
From rude forward persons who give themselves airs,--
We know how some graceless young people were maul'd
For plaguing a Prophet, and calling him _bald_.
Strange ursine devotion! their dancing-days ended,
Bears die to "remove" what, in life, they defended:
They succour'd the Prophet, and, since that affair,
The bald have a painful regard for the bear.
FREDERICK LOCKER, _London Lyrics_.
Heaven knows what would become of our sociality
if we never visited people we speak ill of; we
should live, like Egyptian hermits, in crowded
solitude.
GEORGE ELIOT, _Janet's Repentance_.
Methinks the older that one grows
Inclines us more to laugh than scold, though laughter
Leaves us so doubly serious shortly after.
LORD BYRON, _Beppo_.
We ought never to contend for what we are not
likely to obtain.
CARDINAL DE RETZ, _Memoirs_.
"I will never marry a woman who cannot carve,"
said M----. "Why?" "Because she would
not be a help-meat for me."
_Literary Gazette._
Twinkle, twinkle, little bat!
How I wonder what you're at!
Up above the world you fly,
Like a tea-tray in the sky.
LEWIS CARROLL, _Alice in Wonderland_.
We had for dinner, among other things, a ham which
was not well flavoured; and Mrs. Frederick
Mackenzie, who was annoyed about it, began
apologizing, and saying that Ellerton, the local grocer,
had sold it to her as something very excellent, and as a
genuine Westphalia. "Ah!" said Compton, "I cannot
determine precisely whether it is east or west, but it is a
_failure_ of some sort."
R. B. CARTER, in _Memoir of H. Compton_.
One of the company asserting that he had seen a
pike caught, which weighed thirty-six pounds,
and was four feet in length,--"Had it been a
sole," said Harry [Sandford], "it would have surprised
me less, as Shakespeare tells us, 'All the _souls_ that are,
were _four feet_ (forfeit) once.'"
R. H. BARHAM, _Life_.
There is safety in numbers, especially in odd
numbers. The Three Graces never married,
neither did the Nine Muses.
_Kenelm Chillingly_, in LORD LYTTON's novel.
_DISTICH._
There are three species of creatures who when
they seem coming are going,
When they seem going they come: Diplomats,
women, and crabs.
JOHN HAY, _Poems_.
If a man might know
The ill he must undergo,
And shun it so,
Then were it good to know.
But if he undergo it,
Though he know it,
What boots him know it?
He must undergo it.
SIR JOHN SUCKLING.
Barry Cornwall told me that when he and
Charles Lamb were once making up a dinner-party
together, Charles asked him not to invite
a certain lugubrious friend of theirs. "Because," said
Lamb, "he would cast a damper even over a funeral."
J. T. FIELDS, _Yesterdays with Authors_.
L'amour plaît plus que le mariage, par la
raison que les romans sont plus amusants que
l'histoire.
CHAMFORT, _Maximes_.
The farmers daughter hath frank blue eyes;
(_Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese_)
She hears the rooks caw in the windy skies,
As she sits at her lattice and shells her peas.
The farmer's daughter hath ripe red lips;
(_Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese_)
If you try to approach her, away she skips
Over tables and chairs with apparent ease.
The farmer's daughter hath soft brown hair;
(_Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese_)
And I met with a ballad, I can't say where,
Which wholly consisted of lines like these.
C. S. CALVERLEY, _Fly Leaves_.
Macready told a story of George B----, the
actor, who, it seems, was not popular in the profession,
being considered a sort of time-server:
"There goes Georgius," said some one. "Not Georgium
Sidus?" replied Keeley. "Yes," added Power, "Georgium
_Any_-sidus."
R. H. BARHAM, _Life_.
I'm weary, and sick, and disgusted
With Britain's mechanical din;
Where I'm much too well known to be trusted,
And plaguily pestered for tin;
Where love has two eyes for your banker,
And one chilly flame for yourself;
Where souls can afford to be franker,
But where they're well garnished with pelf.
I'm sick of the whole race of poets,
Emasculate, misty, and fine;
They brew their small beer, and don't know its
Distinction from full-bodied wine.
I'm sick of the prosers, that house up
At drowsy St. Stephen's--ain't you?
I want some strong spirits to rouse up
A good resolution or two!
_Bon Gaultier Ballads_.
"On one occasion," said Brummell, "I called to
inquire after a young lady who had sprained
her ankle. Lewis, on being asked how she
was, had said in the black's presence, 'The doctor has
seen her, put her legs straight, and the poor chicken is
doing well.' The servant, therefore, told me, with a very
mysterious and knowing look, 'Oh, sir, the doctor has
been here; she has laid eggs, and she and the chickens
are doing well.'"
GRONOW, _Recollections_.
A Scottish clergyman had some years since
been cited before the Ecclesiastical Assembly
at Edinburgh, to answer to a charge brought
against him of great irreverence in religious matters, and
Sir Walter [Scott] was employed by him to arrange his
defence. The principal fact alleged against him was his
having asserted, in a letter which was produced, that "he
considered Pontius Pilate to be a very ill-used man, as
he had done more for Christianity than all the other _nine
Apostles_ put together." The fact was proved, and suspension
followed.
R. H. BARHAM, _Life_.
_ON DIDACTICS IN POETRY._
Parnassus' peaks still catch the sun;
But why--O lyric brother!--
Why build a Pulpit on the one,
A Platform on the other?
AUSTIN DOBSON, in _Latter-Day Lyrics_.
My old fellow-traveller in Germany, himself an Irishman,
being on the box of an Irish mail-coach on
a very cold day, and observing the driver enveloping
his neck in the voluminous folds of an ample
"comforter," remarked, "You seem to be taking very
good care of yourself, my friend." "Och, to be shure I
am, sir," answered the driver; "what's all the world to a
man when his wife's a widdy?"
J. R. PLANCHÉ, _Recollections_.
---- has nothing truly human about him; he can't
even yawn like a man.
LADY ASHBURTON, _apud_ LORD HOUGHTON.
We are apt to be kinder to the brutes that love us
than to the women that love us. Is it because
the brutes are dumb?
GEORGE ELIOT, _Adam Bede_.
A frontispiece of a new magazine,
With all the fashions which the last month wore,
Colour'd, and silver-paper leaved between
That and the title page, for fear the press
Should soil with parts of speech the parts of dress.
LORD BYRON, _Beppo_.
"I wish to consult you upon a little project I
have formed," said a noodle to his friend. "I
have an idea in my head----" "Have you?"
interposed the friend, with a look of great surprise;
"then you shall have my opinion at once: _keep it there_!--it
may be some time before you get another."
HORACE SMITH, _The Tin Trumpet_.
On aime mieux dire du mal de soi-même que de
n'en point parler.
LA ROCHEFOUCAULD, _Réflexions_.
And I said, "Why is this thus? What is the reason
of this thusness?"
C. F. BROWNE, _Artemus Ward's Lecture_.
_THEOLOGICAL HOROLOGY._
There's this to say about the Scotch,
So bother bannocks, braes, and birks,
They can't produce a decent watch,
For Calvinists despise good works.
SHIRLEY BROOKS, _Wit and Humour_.
Dawson told a good story about the Irish landlord
counting out the change of a guinea. "12,
13, 14" (a shot heard); "Bob, go and see who's
that that's killed; 15, 16, 17" (enter Bob). "It's Kelly,
sir." "Poor Captain Kelly, a very good customer of
mine; 18, 19, 20--there's your change, sir."
THOMAS MOORE, _Diary_.
Can this be Balbus, household word for all,
Whose earliest exploit was to build a wall:
Who, with a frankness that I'm sure must charm ye,
Declared it was all over with the army?
Can this be he who feasted, as 'twas said,
The town at forty sesterces a head?
But, while the thankless mob his bounty quaffed,
Historians add--that there were some who laughed.
_Horace_, in G. O. TREVELYAN's _Horace at Athens_.
I should never like scolding any one else so
well; and that is a point to be thought of in a
husband.
_Mary Garth_, in GEORGE ELIOT's _Middlemarch_.
In Logic a woman may seldom excel;
But in Rhetoric always she bears off the bell.
Fair Portia will show woman's talent for law,
When in old Shylock's bond she could prove such a flaw.
She would blunder in physic no worse than the rest,
She could leave things to Nature as well as the best,
She could feel at your wrist, she could finger your fee;
Then why should a woman not get a degree?
LORD NEAVES, _Songs and Verses_.
_Quam parvâ sapientiâ regitur mundus._ Say rather,
_quam magnâ stultitiâ_.
CHARLES BUXTON, _Notes of Thought_.
The padded corsage and the well-matched hair,
Judicious jupon spreading out the spare,
Sleeves well designed soft plumpness to impart,
Leave vacant still the hollows of the heart.
ALFRED AUSTIN, _The Season_.
A Tailor is partly an alchemist, for he extracteth
his own apparel out of other men's clothes.
SIR THOMAS OVERBURY, _Characters_.
I am quite ashamed to take people into my garden,
and have them notice the absence of onions. In
onion is strength; and a garden without it lacks
flavour.
C. D. WARNER, _My Summer in a Garden_.
Torbay had incurred a good deal of expense
To make him a Scotchman in every sense
But this is a matter, you'll readily own,
That isn't a question of tailors alone.
A Sassenach chief may be bonily built,
He may purchase a sporran, a bonnet, and kilt,
Stick a skean in his hose--wear an acre of stripes--
But he cannot assume an affection for pipes.
W. S. GILBERT, _Bab Ballads_.
When you have found the master-passion of a man,
remember never to trust him where that passion
is concerned.
LORD CHESTERFIELD, _Letters to his Son_.
_ON ONE WHO SPOKE LITTLE._
"I hardly ever ope my lips," one cries:
"Simonides, what think you of my rule?"
"If you're a fool, I think you're very wise;
If you are wise, I think you are a fool."
R. GARNETT, _Idylls and Epigrams_.
Nous aimons mieux voir ceux à qui nous faisons
du bien que ceux qui nous en font.
LA ROCHEFOUCAULD, _Réflexions_.
_ALL SAINTS'_.
In a church which is furnish'd with mullion and gable,
With altar and reredos, with gargoyle and groin,
The penitents' dresses are sealskin and sable,
The odour of sanctity's eau-de-Cologne.
But only could Lucifer, flying from Hades,
Gaze down on this crowd with its panniers and paints,
He would say, as he look'd at the lords and the ladies,
"Oh, where is All Sinners', if this is All Saints'?"
EDMUND YATES.
If we are long absent from our friends, we forget
them; if we are constantly with them, we despise
them.
W. HAZLITT, _Characteristics_.
A well-known _litterateur_, on seeing [Lady
Ruthven], after breakfast, feeding her pheasants
with crumbs and milk, exclaimed, "Ah! I see
your ladyship is preparing them _here_, for bread-sauce
_hereafter_."
J. C. YOUNG, _Diary_.
The second canto of the "Pleasures of Memory,"
as published in the first edition, commenced
with the lines--
"Sweet memory, wafted by thy gentle gale,
Oft up the tide of Time I turn my sail."
[A] critic remarked on this passage that it suggested the
alliteration--
"Oft up the tide of Time I turn my _tail_."
ROGERS, _Table Talk_.
I like the man who makes a pun,
Or drops a deep remark;
I like philosophy or fun--
A lecture or a lark;
But I despise the men who gloat
Inanely over anecdote.
Ah me! I'd rather live alone
Upon a desert isle,
Without a voice except my own
To cheer me all the while,
Than dwell with men who learn by rote
Their paltry funds of anecdote.
H. S. LEIGH, _Carols of Cockayne_.
No woman is too silly not to have a genius for
spite.
ANNA C. STEELE.
That's what a man wants in a wife mostly; he
wants to make sure o' one fool as 'ull tell him
he's wise.
_Mrs. Poyser_, in GEORGE ELIOT's _Adam Bede_.
The characters of great and small
Come ready-made, we can't bespeak one;
Their sides are many, too,--and all
(Except ourselves) have got a weak one.
Some sanguine people love for life,
Some love their hobby till it flings them.--
How many love a pretty wife
For love of the _éclat_ she brings them!
FREDERICK LOCKER, _London Lyrics_.
Conscience, in most souls, is like an English
Sovereign--it reigns, but it does not govern.
Its function is merely to give a formal assent to
the Bills passed by the passions; and it knows, if it
opposes what those are really bent upon, that ten to one
it will be obliged to abdicate.
_Leslie_, in MALLOCK's _New Republic_.
If you are pious (mild form of insanity),
Bow down and worship the mass of humanity.
Other religions are buried in mists;
We're our own Gods, say the Positivists.
MORTIMER COLLINS, _The British Birds_.
We were sitting in the green-room one evening
during the performance, chatting and laughing,
she [Mrs. Nesbitt] having a book in her hand
which she had to take on the stage with her in the next
scene, when Brindal, a useful member of the company,
but not particularly remarkable for wit or humour, came
to the door, and, leaning against it, in a sentimental
manner drawled out,--
"If to her share some female errors fall,
Look in her face----"
He paused. She raised her beautiful eyes to him, and
consciously smiled--_her_ smile--in anticipation of the
well-known complimentary termination of the couplet,
when, with a deep sigh, he added--
"----and you'll _believe_ them all!"
J. R. PLANCHÉ, _Recollections_.
_THE MAIDENS._
Perhaps, O lovers, if we did our hair
_A la_ Medea, and if our garments were
Draped classically, we should seem more fair.
_THE YOUTHS._
By doing this ye would not us befool;
Medea! the idea makes our blood run cool;
Besides, of classics we'd enough at school.
_Once a Week_.
Pledge me round, I bid ye declare,
All good fellows whose beards are grey,
Did not the fairest of the fair
Common grow and wearisome ere
Ever a month was passed away?
The reddest lips that ever have kissed,
The brightest eyes that ever have shone,
May pray and whisper, and we not list,
Or look away, and never be missed,
Ere yet ever a month is gone.
W. M. THACKERAY.
It was known that Lord St. Jerome gave at his
ball suppers the same champagne that he gave
at his dinners, and that was of the highest class:
in short, a patriot. We talk with wondering execration
of the great poisoners of past ages, the Borgias, the
inventor of Aqua tofana, and the amiable Marchioness
de Brinvilliers; but Pinto was of opinion that there
were more social poisoners about in the present day than
in the darkest and most demoralized periods, and then
none of them are punished; which is so strange, he
would add, as they are all found out.
LORD BEACONSFIELD, _Lothair_.
Seared is, of course, my heart:--but unsubdued
Is, and shall be, my appetite for food.
C. S. CALVERLEY, _Verses and Translations_.
Sheil had learnt and forgotten the exordium of a
speech which began with the word "Necessity."
This word he had repeated three times, when
Sir Robert Peel broke in--"is not _always_ the mother of
invention."
ABRAHAM HAYWARD, _Essays_.
_ON MR. FROUDE AND CANON KINGSLEY._
Froude informs the Scottish youth
Parsons have small regard for truth;
The Reverend Canon Kingsley cries
That History is a pack of lies.
What cause for judgment so malign?
A brief reflection solves the mystery:
Froude believes Kingsley a divine,
And Kingsley goes to Froude for history.
ANON.
Dined with Sydney Smith. He said that his brother
Robert had, in King George III.'s time, translated
the motto, "_Libertas sub rege pio_," "The
pious king has got liberty under."
R. H. BARHAM, _Life_.
_Landlord_: He's only a genus.
_Glavis_: A what?
_Landlord_: A genus!--a man who can do everything
in life except anything that's useful--that's a genus.
LORD LYTTON, _The Lady of Lyons_.
First love is a pretty romance,
But not half so sweet as 'tis reckoned;
And when one wakes from the trance,
There's a vast stock of bliss in the second.
And e'en should a second subside,
A lover should never despair;
The world is uncommonly wide,
And the women uncommonly fair.
The poets their raptures may tell,
Who have never been put to the test;
A first love is all very well,
But, believe me, the last love's the best.
MR. BERNAL.
I've nothing to say again' her piety, my dear; but
I know very well I shouldn't like her to cook
my victual. When a man comes in hungry an'
tired, piety won't feed him, I reckon. Hard carrots
'ull lie heavy on his stomach, piety or no piety. It's
right enough to be speritial--I'm no enemy to that; but
I like my potatoes mealy.
_Mrs. Linnet_, in GEORGE ELIOT's _Janet's Repentance_.
Somehow, sitting cosily here,
I think of the sunny summertide hours,
When the what-do-you-call-'em warbles clear,
And the breezes blow--likewise the flowers.
_Once a Week._
A lawyer's brief will be brief, before a freethinker
thinks freely.
_Guesses at Truth._
Juxtaposition, in fine; and what is juxtaposition?
Look you, we travel along in the railway, carriage or steamer,
And, _pour passer le temps_, till the tedious journey be ended,
Lay aside paper or book, to talk to the girl who is next one;
And, _pour passer le temps_, with the terminus all but in prospect,
Talk of eternal ties and marriages made in heaven.
_Claude_, in CLOUGH's _Amours de Voyage_.
We measure the excellency of other men by some
excellency we conceive to be in ourselves.
SELDEN, _Table Talk_.
Oh! spare those Gardens where the leafy glade
Prompts the proposal dalliance delayed;
Where tear-dewed lids, choked utterance, sobs suppressed,
Tear the confession from a doubting breast;
Whence they, who vainly haunted rout and ride,
Emerge triumphant from a suitor's side.
ALFRED AUSTIN, _The Season_.
They have queer hotels in Oregon. I remember
one where they gave me a bag of oats for a
pillow. I had night mares, of course.
C. F. BROWNE, _Artemus Ward's Lecture_.
The man who would Charybdis shun
Must make a cautious movement,
Or else he'll into Scylla run--
Which would be no improvement.
The fish that left the frying-pan,
On feeling that desire, sir,
Took little by their change of plan,
When floundering in the fire, sir.
LORD NEAVES, _Songs and Verses_.
The flattery which is most pleasing to really beautiful
or decidedly ugly women is that which is
addressed to the intellect.
LORD CHESTERFIELD, _Letters to his Son_.
Johnson's folly--to be candid--was a wild desire to treat
Every able male white citizen he met upon the street;
And there being several thousand--but this subject why pursue?
'Tis with Perkins, and not Johnson, that to-day we have to do.
BRET HARTE, _Complete Works_.
Good little girls ought not to make mouths at
their teachers for every trifling offence. This
kind of retaliation should only be resorted to
under peculiarly aggravating circumstances.
If you have nothing but a rag-doll stuffed with sawdust,
while one of your more fortunate little playmates
has a costly china one, you should treat her with a show
of kindness nevertheless. And you ought not to attempt
to make a forcible swap with her, unless your conscience
would justify you in it, and you know you are able to
do it.
If your mother tells you to do a thing, it is wrong to
reply that you won't. It is better and more becoming
to intimate that you will do as she bids you, and then
afterwards act quietly in the matter according to the
dictates of your better judgment.
MARK TWAIN, _Choice Works_.
We count mankind, and keep our census still,
We count the stars that populate the night;
But who, with all his computation, can
Con catty nations right?
R. H. NEWELL, _Orpheus C. Kerr Papers_.
I think it was Jekyll who used to say that "the
further he went West, the more convinced he
was that the wise men did come from the East."
SYDNEY SMITH, _Life and Letters_.
Ce qui nous empêche souvent de nous abandonner
à un seul vice est que nous en avons plusieurs.
LA ROCHEFOUCAULD, _Réflexions_.
I have observed that if people's vanity is pleased,
they live well enough together. Offended vanity
is the great separator.
_Ellesmere_, in HELPS's _Friends in Council_.
_ON EDINBURGH._
Pompous the boast, and yet a truth it speaks:
A "Modern Athens"--fit for modern Greeks.
JAMES HANNAY, _Sketches and Characters_.
Lord Andover, a very fat man, was greatly
plagued at a fancy bazaar to buy some trifle or
other from the ladies' stalls. At length he rather
rudely said, "I am like the Prodigal Son, persecuted by
ladies." "No, no," retorted Mrs. ----, "say, rather, the
fatted calf."
B. R. HAYDON, _Diary_.
A quiet conscience makes one so serene!
Christians have burnt each other, quite persuaded,
That all the Apostles would have done as they did.
LORD BYRON, _Don Juan_.
"Were you born in wedlock?" asked a counsel of
a witness. "No, sir, in Devonshire," was the
reply.
HORACE SMITH, _The Tin Trumpet_.
Evanson, in his "Dissonance of the Gospels,"
thinks Luke is most worthy of credence. P----
said that Evanson was a _luke_-warm Christian.
CRABB ROBINSON, _Diary_.
_ONE FOR HIM._
Reading the paper Laura sat,
"Greenwich _mean_ time, mamma, what's that?"
"My love, it's when your stingy Pa
Won't take us to the Trafalgàr."
SHIRLEY BROOKS, _Wit and Humour_.
I was once as desperately in love as you are now.
I adored, and was rejected. "You are in love
with certain attributes," said the lady. "Damn
your attributes, madam," said I; "I know nothing of
attributes." "Sir," she said, with dignity, "you have
been drinking." So we parted. She was married afterwards
to another, who knew something about attributes,
I suppose. I have seen her once, and only once. She
had a baby in a yellow gown. I hate a baby in a yellow
gown!
_Berkley_, in LONGFELLOW's _Hyperion_.
A man has generally the good or ill qualities which
he attributes to mankind.
SHENSTONE, _Essays_.
How doth the little crocodile
Improve his shining tail,
And pour the waters of the Nile
On every shining scale!
How cheerfully he seems to grin,
How neatly spreads his claws,
And welcomes little fishes in
With gently smiling jaws!
LEWIS CARROLL, _Alice in Wonderland_.
_Apropos_ of cutlets, I once called upon an old
lady, who pressed me so urgently to stay and
dine with her that, as I had no engagement, I
could not refuse. On sitting down, the servant uncovered
a dish which contained two mutton chops; and
my old friend said, "Mr. Hook, you see your dinner."
"Thank you, ma'am," said I; "but where is yours?"
THEODORE HOOK, _apud_ PLANCHÉ.
In all distresses of our friends,
We first consult our private ends;
While nature, kindly bent to ease us,
Points out some circumstance to please us.
SWIFT, _Verses on his own Death_.
On ne donne rien si libéralement que ses conseils.
LA ROCHEFOUCAULD, _Réflexions._
_A NUTSHELL NOVEL._
FOR A MINIATURE MUDIE.
VOL. I.
A winning wile,
A sunny smile,
A feather:
A tiny talk,
A pleasant walk,
Together!
VOL. II.
A little doubt,
A playful pout,
Capricious:
A merry miss,
A stolen kiss,
Delicious!!
VOL. III.
You ask mamma,
Consult papa,
With pleasure:
And both repent
This rash event,
At leisure!!!
J. ASHBY STERRY, _Boudoir Ballads_.
Woman consoles us, it is true, while we are young
and handsome! When we are old and ugly,
woman snubs and scolds us.
LORD LYTTON, _What will he do with it?_
La société est composée de deux grandes classes:
ceux qui ont plus de dîners que d'appétit, et
ceux qui ont plus d'appétit que de dîners.
CHAMFORT, _Maximes_.
Has she wedded some gigantic shrimper,
That sweet mite with whom I loved to play?
Is she girt with babes that whine and whimper,
That bright being who was always gay?
Yes--she has at least a dozen wee things!
Yes--I see her darning corduroys,
Scouring floors, and setting out the tea-things,
For a howling herd of hungry boys.
C. S. CALVERLEY, _Fly Leaves_.
"You may report to your Government that the
British youth of the present day, hot from the
University, are very often prigs."
"Most certainly I will," said Mr. Wog; "the last
word, however, is one with which I am not acquainted."
"It is an old English term for profound thinker," I
replied.
L. OLIPHANT, _Piccadilly_.
Woman takes the lead in all the departments,
leaving us politics only. While we are being
amused by the ballot, woman is quietly taking
things into her own hands.
C. D. WARNER, _My Summer in a Garden_.
Would it were wind and wave alone!
The terrors of the torrid zone,
The indiscriminate cyclone,
A man might parry;
But only faith, or "triple brass,"
Can help the "outward-bound" to pass
Safe through that eastward-faring class
Who sail to marry.
For him fond mothers, stout and fair,
Ascend the tortuous cabin stair
Only to hold around his chair
Insidious sessions;
For him the eyes of daughters droop
Across the plate of handed soup,
Suggesting seats upon the poop,
And soft confessions.
AUSTIN DOBSON, _Vignettes in Rhyme_.
It's poor work allays settin' the dead above the
livin'. It 'ud be better if folks 'ud make much
of us beforehand, isted o' beginnin' when we're
gone.
_Mrs. Poyser_, in GEORGE ELIOT's _Adam Bede_.
The authoress of the "Wild Irish Girl," Lady
Morgan, justly proud of her gifted sister Olivia,
was in the habit of addressing every new-comer
with, "I must make you acquainted with my Livy." She
once used this form of words to a gentleman who had
just been worsted in an encounter of wits with the lady
in question. "Yes, ma'am," was the reply; "I happen
to know your _Livy_, and I would to Heaven your _Livy_
was _Tacitus_."
LORD ALBEMARLE, _Fifty Years of my Life._
"Rise with the lark, and with the lark to bed,"
Observes some solemn, sentimental owl;
Maxims like these are very cheaply said;
But e'er you make yourself a fool or fowl,
Pray just inquire about his rise and fall,
And whether larks have any bed at all!
The "time for honest folks to be in bed"
Is in the morning, if I reason right;
And he who cannot keep his precious head
Upon its pillow till it's fairly light,
And so enjoy his forty morning winks,
Is up to knavery; or else--he drinks!
JOHN GODFREY SAXE, _Poems._
_A Popular Man._--One who is so boldly vulgar
that the timidly vulgar admire him.
ANNE EVANS, _Poems and Music._
We can't for a certainty tell
What mirth may molest us on Monday;
But, at least, to begin the week well,
Let us all be unhappy on Sunday.
These gardens, their walks and green bowers,
Might be free to the poor man for one day;
But no, the glad plants and gay flowers
Mustn't bloom or smell sweetly on Sunday.
Abroad we forbid folks to roam
For fear they get social or frisky;
But of course they can sit still at home,
And get dismally drunk upon whiskey.
LORD NEAVES, _Songs and Verses_.
La haine des faibles n'est pas si dangereuse que
leur amitié.
VAUVENARGUES, _Réflexions_.
To Matthew Arnold we must go to put us in the right, sir,
About his elevating scheme of "sweetness" and of "light," sir,
Which some folks say will one fine day achieve a marked ascendancy,
Though "Providence" it waters down into a "stream of tendency."
F. D., in _Pall Mall Gazette_.
Chambermaids use up more hair-oil than any
six men. If charged with purloining the same,
they lie about it. What do they care about a
hereafter? Absolutely nothing.
MARK TWAIN, _Choice Works_.
When sorely tempted to purloin
Your _pietà_ of Marc Antoine,
Fair virtue doth fair play enjoin,
Fair Virtuoso!
FREDERICK LOCKER, _London Lyrics_.
No man can be wise on an empty stomach.
_Bartle Massey_, in GEORGE ELIOT's _Adam Bede_.
All tragedies are finished by a death,
All comedies are ended by a marriage;
The future states of both are left to faith,
For authors fear description might disparage
The worlds to come of both, or fall beneath.
LORD BYRON, _Don Juan_.
The Bailli de Ferrette was always dressed in knee-breeches,
with a cocked hat and sword, the
slender proportions of which greatly resembled
those of his legs. "Do tell me, my dear Bailli," said
Montrond one day, "have you got three legs or three
swords?"
GRONOW, _Recollections_.
A Mexican lady's hair never curls--it's as straight
as an Indian's. Some people's hair won't curl
under any circumstances. My hair won't curl
under two shillings.
C. F. BROWNE, _Artemus Ward's Lecture_.
I've read the poets of our land,
Who sing of beauty and of love,
Who rave about a dimpled hand,
And write sweet sonnets on a glove.
But sweeter far than maiden's kiss,
And fairer far than Jouvin's best,
Is one red-labelled quart, I wis,
With Bass's well-known mark imprest.
And years may come, and years may go,
And fortune change as fortune will,
But may my Burton fountain flow,
In shade and sunshine clearly still,
And till life's night is closing grey,
My heart shall ever hold most dear
The liquor that I sing to-day--
My childhood's friend! my Bass's beer!
H. SAVILE CLARKE.
Women are much more like each other than men;
they have, in truth, but two passions: vanity and
love: these are their universal characteristics.
LORD CHESTERFIELD, _Letters to his Son_.
"After all, are not women necessary to your
happiness?"
"Alas!" sighed Maximilian, "it is but too
true. But women have unfortunately only one way of
making us happy, whilst they have thirty thousand
different modes of rendering us miserable."
HEINRICH HEINE, _The Florentine Nights_.
I love you! ay! it seems absurd,
Altho' to prove it I was sedulous;
The _ink_ is _black_ that writes the word,
Yet you will read it all _inc-red_-ulous.
Where was my sense, once so acute,
To dream myself a hopeful suitor?
I should have been much more _astute_;
I came to you, you know, _as tutor_!
My passion on an instant grew--
(Spontaneous love is scarce a crime!).
How swift those early minutes flew!
And, _odd_ to say, 'twas _even_-time!
Maddened with love, I penned a note,
And placed it where 'twould catch your sight;
Alas for me! but when I _wrote_,
Of course I thought that I _did right_!
ROBERT REECE, in _Comic Poets_.
The most dreadful thing against women is the
character of the men that praise them.
LADY ASHBURTON, _apud_ LORD HOUGHTON.
There's one Thomas Buckle, a London youth,
Who taught that the world was blind
Till he was born to proclaim the truth,
That matter is moulder of mind;
But I really can't fancy at all
How wheat, rice, and barley,
Made Dick, Tom, and Charlie
So tidy and trim,
Without help from Him
Who was preached both by Plato and Paul.
J. S. BLACKIE, _Musa Burschicosa_.
Sheridan's answer to Lord Lauderdale was excellent,
on the latter saying he would repeat
some good thing I had mentioned to him:
"Pray don't, my dear Lauderdale; a joke in your mouth
is no laughing matter."
THOMAS MOORE, _Diary_.
Do you know why the rabbits are caught in the snare,
Or the tabby cat's shot on the tiles?
Why the tigers and lions creep out of their lair?
Why an ostrich will travel for miles?
Do you know why a sane man will whimper and cry,
And weep o'er a ribbon or glove?
Why a cook will put sugar for salt in a pie?
Do you know? Well, I'll tell you--it's Love.
_Flapper_, in H. P. STEPHENS's _Billee Taylor_.
I remember Curran once--in an action for
breach of promise of marriage, in which he was
counsel for the defendant, a young clergyman--thus
appealing to the jury: "Gentlemen, I entreat of
you not to ruin this young man by a vindictive verdict,
for though he has talents, and is in the Church, he may
rise!"
PHILLIPS, _Life of Curran_.
There are female women, and there are male
women.
CHARLES BUXTON, _Notes of Thought_.
I own fair faces not more fair
In Ettrick than in Portman Square,
And silly danglers just as silly
In Sherwood, as in Piccadilly.
W. M. PRAED.
I heard an anecdote at Oxford, of a porter encountering
on his rounds two undergraduates,
who were without their gowns, or out of bounds,
or out of hours. He challenged one: "Your name and
college?" They were given. Turning to the other: "And
pray, sir, what might your name be?" "Julius Cæsar,"
was the reply. "What, sir, do you mean to say your
name is Julius Cæsar?" "Sir, you did not ask me what
it is, but what it _might_ be."
W. H. HARRISON, _Reminiscences_.
I always can tell a
Preoccupied man by his tumbled umbrella.
_Lady Matilda_, in G. O. TREVELYAN's _Ladies in Parliament_.
Talking of Doctor [Parr's] illegible manuscript,
"Ay," said [Basil Montagu], "his letters are
illegible, except they contain a commission or an
announcement that he is coming to see you, and then no
man can write plainer."
MISS MITFORD, _Life and Letters_.
I never nursed a dear gazelle;
But I was given a parroquet--
(How I did nurse him if unwell!)
He's imbecile, but lingers yet.
He's green, with an enchanting tuft;
He melts me with his small black eye;
He'd look inimitable stuff'd,
And knows it--but he will not die!
C. S. CALVERLEY, _Fly Leaves_.
Some reformer was clamouring for the expulsion
of the Bishops from the House of Lords, but
said he would not have them all go; he would
leave two. "To keep up the breed, I suppose," said
Alvanley.
CHARLES GREVILLE, _Diary_.
You women regard men just as you buy books--you
never care about what is in them, but how
they are bound and lettered.
_Damas_, in LORD LYTTON's _Lady of Lyons_.
_EPITAPH ON LORD L----._
Here lies L.'s body, from his soul asunder:
He once was on the turf, and now is _under_.
SCROPE DAVIES, _apud_ MOORE.
_A SUITABLE BRIDE._
My friend Admiral E. E., shortly after his return
from a cruise, met an old acquaintance in the
streets of ----, who said, after the usual salutations
had passed, "They telt me, Admiral, that ye had
got married." The Admiral, hoping for a compliment,
replied, "Why, Bailie, I am getting on; I'm not so young
as I was, you see, and none of the girls will have me."
On which the Bailie, with perfect good faith and simplicity,
replied, "'Deed, Admiral, I was na evenin' yer to
a lassie, but there's mony a fine, respeckit, _half-worn_
wumman wad be glad to tak ye."
FREDERICK LOCKER, _Patchwork_.
_ON THE WORKS OF THE LAKE POETS._
They come from the Lakes--an appropriate quarter
For poems diluted with plenty of water.
REV. HENRY TOWNSHEND.
And I whispered, "I guess
The sweet secret thou keepest,
And the dainty distress
That thou wistfully weepest;
And the question is, 'Licence or banns?' though undoubtedly
banns are the cheapest."
Then her white hand I clasped,
And with kisses I crowned it.
But she glared and she gasped,
And she muttered, "Confound it!"
Or at least it was something like that, but the noise of
the omnibus drowned it.
LEWIS CARROLL, _Phantasmagoria_.
It was Lady Cork who had originated the idea that,
after all, heaven would perhaps turn out very
dull to her _when she got there; sitting on damp
clouds_, and _singing "God save the King,"_ being her idea
of the principal amusements there.
FANNY KEMBLE, _Record of a Girlhood_.
_ON FEMININE TALKATIVENESS._
How wisely Nature, ordering all below,
Forbade a beard on woman's chin to grow!
For how could she be shaved, whate'er the skill,
Whose tongue would never let her chin be still?
ANON.
When Tennyson entered the Oxford Theatre to
receive his honorary degree of D.C.L., his locks
hanging in admired disorder on his shoulders,
dishevelled and unkempt, a voice from the gallery was
heard crying out to him, "Did your mother call you
early, dear?"
J. C. YOUNG, _Diary_.
"Ha! ha!" he said, "you loathe your ways,
You writhe at these my words of warning,
In agony your hands you raise!"
(And so they did, for they were yawning.)
"Ho! ho!" he cries, "you bow your crests--
My eloquence has set you weeping;
In shame you bend upon your breasts!"
(And so they did, for they were sleeping.)
W. S. GILBERT, _Bab Ballads_.
You may safely flatter any woman, from her understanding
down to the exquisite taste of her fan.
LORD CHESTERFIELD, _Letters to his Son_.
_ON LADIES' ACCOMPLISHMENTS._
Your dressing, dancing, gadding, where's the good in?
Sweet lady, tell me--can you make a pudding?
_Epigrams in Distich._
Lord Braxfield, at whist, exclaimed to a lady
with whom he was playing, "What are ye doing,
ye damned auld ----?" and then, recollecting
himself, "Your pardon's begged, madam; I took ye for
my ain wife."
LORD MACAULAY, _Life_.
Then life was thornless to our ken,
And, Bramble-Rise, thy hills were then
A rise without a bramble.
FREDERICK LOCKER, _London Lyrics_.
John Hamilton Reynolds was specially
distinguished for the aptness of his quotations.
Finding him one day lunching at the Garrick,
I asked him if the beef he was eating was good. "It
would have been," he answered, "if damned custom had
not _brazed_ it so."
J. R. PLANCHÉ, _Recollections_.
While spending an evening at [Mendelssohn's]
house, a note, with a ticket enclosed, was put in
my hands. The note ran thus: "The Directors
of the Leipzig Concerts beg leave to present to Mr.
_Shurely_ a ticket of the concert of to-morrow." Whereupon
Mendelssohn ran to the pianoforte, and immediately
began to play the subject from the chorus of the "Messiah,"
"_Surely_ he hath borne," etc.
H. F. CHORLEY, _Life_.
Fhairshon had a son,
Who married Noah's daughter,
And nearly spoilt ta flood,
By trinking up ta water:
Which he would have done,
I at least believe it,
Had ta mixture peen
Only half Glenlivet.
_Bon Gaultier Ballads._
After the execution of the eighteen malefactors
[in 1787], a female was bawling an account of
them, but called them nineteen. A gentleman
said to her, "Why do you say nineteen? There were
but eighteen hanged." She replied, "Sir, I did not know
you had been reprieved."
HORACE WALPOLE, _Correspondence_.
_ON THE MARRIAGE OF JOB WALL AND MARY BEST._
Job, wanting a partner, thought he'd be blest,
If, of all womankind, he selected the Best;
For, said he, of all evils that compass the globe,
A bad wife would most try the patience of Job.
The Best, then, he chose, and made bone of his bone,
Though 'twas clear to his friends she'd be Best left alone;
For, though Best of her sex, she's the weakest of all,
If it's true that the weakest must go to the Wall.
HICKS, _apud_ J. C. YOUNG.
La vertu des femmes est peut-être une question du
tempérament.
BALZAC, _Physiologie du Mariage_.
_ON ONE STEALING A POUND OF CANDLES._
Light-fingered Catch, to keep his hands in ure,
Stole anything,--of this you may be sure,
That he thinks all his own that once he handles,--
For practice' sake did steal a pound of candles;
Was taken in the act:--oh, foolish wight!
To steal such things as needs must come to light!
_A Collection of Epigrams_ (1727).
At Hook's, one day the conversation turned on the
Duke of Cumberland, and a question asked who
he married. "Don't you know?" said Cannon;
"the Princess de _Psalms_ (Salms),--good enough for
_Hymn_ (him)."
W. JERDAN, _Memoirs_.
For me, I neither know nor care
Whether a parson ought to wear
A black dress or a white dress;
Fill'd with a trouble of my own--
A wife who preaches in her gown,
And lectures in her night-dress!
THOMAS HOOD.
Madame de ---- having said, in her intense
style, "I should like to be married in _English_,
in a language in which vows are so faithfully
kept," some one asked Frere, "What language, I wonder,
was _she_ married in?" "_Broken_ English, I suppose," answered
Frere.
THOMAS MOORE, _Diary_.
Your magpies and stock-doves may flirt among trees,
And chatter their transports in groves, if they please;
But a house is much more to my taste than a tree,
And for groves, O! a good grove of chimneys for me.
CHARLES MORRIS, _Lyra Urbanica_.
Again they asked me to marry them, and again I
declined, when they cried,--"Oh, cruel man!
This is too much--too much!" I told them
that it was on account of the muchness that I declined.
C. F. BROWNE, _Artemus Ward's Lecture_.
On one of the country gentlemen saying in Parliament,
"We must return to the food of our ancestors,"
somebody asked, "What food does he
mean?" "Thistles, I suppose," said Tierney.
THOMAS MOORE, _Diary_.
Maidens then were innocent,
Blushing at a compliment,
Or a gaze.
But a blush a vanish'd grace is,
For young ladies paint their faces
Now-a-days,
Black their eyelids till they stare,
Wash with soda, till their hair
Looks like maize;
'Tis the fashion to be blonde
_À la mode du demi-monde_
Now-a-days.
J. JEMMETT BROWNE, _Songs of Many Seasons_.
[Lady Charlotte Lindsay] said she had
"sprained her ankle so often, and been told
that it was worse than breaking her leg, that
she said she had come to look upon a broken leg as a
positive advantage."
LORD HOUGHTON, _Monographs_.
Blows are sarcasms turned stupid.
GEORGE ELIOT, _Felix Holt_.
They grieved for those who perished with the cutter,
And also for the biscuit-casks and butter.
LORD BYRON, _Don Juan_.
Social arrangements are awful miscarriages;
Cause of all crime is our system of marriages.
Poets with sonnets, and lovers with trysts,
Kindle the ire of the Positivists.
Husbands and wives should be all one community:
Exquisite freedom with absolute unity.
Wedding-rings worse are than manacled wrists--
Such is the creed of the Positivists.
MORTIMER COLLINS, _The British Birds_.
Fox, whose pecuniary embarrassments were universally
recognized, being attacked by a severe
indisposition, which confined him to his apartment,
Dudley frequently visited him. In the course of
conversation, Fox, alluding to his complaints, remarked
that he was compelled to observe much regularity in his
diet and hours; adding, "I live by rule, like clockwork."
"Yes," replied Dudley; "I suppose you mean you go
by _tick, tick, tick_."
SIR NATHANIEL WRAXALL, _Memoirs_.
_PROBATUM EST._
One loss has a companion always. _Semper_,
When people lose their train, they lose their temper.
SHIRLEY BROOKS, _Wit and Humour_.
Working by the hour tends to make one moral.
A plumber working by the job, trying to unscrew
a rusty, refractory nut, in a cramped position, where
the tongs continually slipped off, would swear; but I
never heard one of them swear, or exhibit the least
impatience at such a vexation, working by the hour.
Nothing can move a man who is paid by the hour. How
sweet the flight of time seems to his calm mind!
C. D. WARNER, _My Summer in a Garden_.
It greets me in my festal hours,
It brings my gloom relief;
It sprinkles life with loveliest flowers
And plucks the sting from grief.
I'd smile at poverty and pain;
I'd welcome death with glee--
If to the last I might retain
My own--my upper G!
H. S. LEIGH, _Carols of Cockayne_.
"Milton Perkins," said the Siren, "not thy wealth do I admire,
But the intellect that flashes from those eyes of opal fire;
And methinks the name thou bearest cannot surely be misplaced;
And--embrace me, Mister Perkins!" Milton Perkins her embraced.
BRET HARTE, _Complete Works_.
Truth-vendors and medicine-vendors usually
recommend swallowing. When a man sees his
livelihood in a pill or a proposition, he likes to
have orders for the dose, and not curious inquiries.
_Felix Holt_, in GEORGE ELIOT's novel.
Stuart Mill on Mind and Matter
All our old Beliefs would scatter:
Stuart Mill exerts his skill
To make an end of Mind and Matter.
But had I skill, like Stuart Mill,
His own position I could shatter:
The weight of Mill I count as Nil--
If Mill has neither Mind nor Matter.
LORD NEAVES, _Songs and Verses_.
"And how many hours a day did you do lessons?"
said Alice.
"Ten hours the first day," said the Mock
Turtle; "nine the next, and so on."
"What a curious plan!" exclaimed Alice.
"That's the reason they're called lessons," the Gryphon
remarked "because they lessen from day to day."
LEWIS CARROLL, _Alice in Wonderland_.
Quiconque n'a pas de caractère n'est pas un
homme: c'est une chose.
CHAMFORT, _Maximes_.
It's hard work to tell which is Old Harry when
everybody's got boots on.
_Mrs. Poyser_, in GEORGE ELIOT's _Adam Bede_.
I want you to come and pass sentence
On two or three books with a plot;
Of course you know "Janet's Repentance"?
I'm reading Sir _Waverley_ Scott,
The story of Edgar and Lucy,
How thrilling, romantic, and true!
The Master (his bride was a _goosey_!)
Reminds me of you.
They tell me Cockayne has been crowning
A poet whose garland endures:
It was you who first spouted me Browning--
That stupid old Browning of yours!
His vogue and his verve are alarming;
I'm anxious to give him his due,
But, Fred, he's not nearly so charming
A poet as you!
FREDERICK LOCKER, _London Lyrics_.
Joseph Gillon was a Writer to the Signet. Calling
on him one day in his writing office, Sir Walter
Scott said, "Why, Joseph, this place is as hot as
an oven." "Well," quoth Gillon, "and isn't it here that
I make my bread?"
LOCKHART, _Life of Scott_.
Forever! 'tis a single word!
Our rude forefathers deem'd it two;
Can you imagine so absurd
A view?
Forever! what abysms of woe
The word reveals, what frenzy, what
Despair! For ever (printed so)
Did not.
And nevermore must printer do
As men did longago; but run
"For" into "ever," bidding two
Be one.
Forever! passion-fraught, it throws
O'er the dim page a gloom, a glamour:
It's sweet, it's strange, and I suppose
It's grammar.
C. S. CALVERLEY, _Fly Leaves_.
Walking down St. James's Street, Lord Chelmsford
was accosted by a stranger, who exclaimed,
"Mr. Birch, I believe?" "If you believe that,
sir, you'll believe anything," replied the ex-chancellor, as
he passed on.
BERKELEY, _Life and Recollections_.
You snared me, Rose, with ribbons,
Your rose-mouth made me thrall.
Brief--briefer far than Gibbon's,
Was my "Decline and Fall."
AUSTIN DOBSON, _Vignettes in Rhyme_.
The reason we dislike vanity in others is because
it is perpetually hurting our own.
LORD LYTTON's _Pelham_.
Then nymphs had bluer eyes than hose,
England then measured men by blows,
And measured time by candles.
FREDERICK LOCKER, _London Lyrics_.
A woman's choice usually means taking the only
man she can get.
_Mrs. Cadwallader_, in GEORGE ELIOT's _Middlemarch_.
To charm the girls he never spoke--
Although his voice was fine;
He found the most convenient way
Was just to drop a line.
And many a gudgeon of the pond,
If they could speak to-day,
Would own, with grief, this angler had
A mighty "taking" way.
JOHN GODFREY SAXE, _Poems_.
I am always afraid of a fool: one cannot be sure
that he is not a knave as well.
W. HAZLITT, _Characteristics_.
The people is much given to stoning its prophets
that it may worship their reliques with the greater
fervency: dogs that bark at us to-day lick our
bones to-morrow with true canine fidelity.
HEINRICH HEINE, _Ludwig Beorne_.
Money makes a man laugh. A blind fiddler
playing to a company, and playing but scurvily,
the company laughed at him. His boy that led
him, perceiving it, cried, "Father, let us begone; they
do nothing but laugh at you." "Hold peace, boy," said
the fiddler; "we shall have their money presently, and
then we will laugh at them."
SELDEN, _Table Talk_.
In candent ire the solar splendour flames;
The foles, languescent, pend from arid rames;
His humid front the cive, anheling, wipes,
And dreams of erring on ventiferous ripes.
How dulce to vive occult from mortal eyes,
Dorm on the herb with none to supervise,
Carp the suave berries from the crescent vine,
And bibe the flow from longicaudate kine!
Me wretched! Let me curr to quercine shades!
Effund your albid hausts, lactiferous maids!
Oh, might I vole to some umbrageous clump,--
Depart--be off--exude--evade--erump!
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES.
He slaps me gently on the back. He's stopped too
long in the wine-cellar. A little tasting is a
dangerous thing.
F. C. BURNAND, _Happy Thoughts_.
_THE MAIDENS._
Lovers, we pray you, gaining our consents,
Let us, too, have _our_ mediæval bents;
Give us, for cricket matches, tournaments.
_THE WIDOWERS._
We are stout, nor will uncomfortably truss
Our arms and legs, like fowls; no jousts for us;
In armour we should look ridiculous.
_THE FATHERS._
Of money, tournaments would cost a heap;
Humour your sweethearts, sons, with something cheap;
But look to settlements before you leap.
_Once a Week._
He [Samuel Beazley] suffered considerably a short
time before his decease, and, his usual spirits
occasionally forsaking him, he one day wrote
so melancholy a letter that the friend to whom it was
addressed, observed, in his reply, that it was "like the
first chapter of Jeremiah." "You are mistaken, my
dear fellow," retorted the wit; "it is the last chapter of
Samuel."
J. R. PLANCHÉ, _Recollections_.
No one can perceive, as I'm a sinner,
A very marked improvement in the dinner.
We still consume, with mingled shame and grief,
Veal that is tottering on the verge of beef,
Veal void of stuffing, widowed of its ham,
Or the roast shoulder of an ancient ram.
_Decius Mus_, in G. O. TREVELYAN's _Horace at Athens_.
"As for that," said Waldershare, "sensible men are
all of the same religion."
"And pray what is that?" inquired the
prince.
"Sensible men never tell."
LORD BEACONSFIELD, _Endymion_.
_ON AN OLD LOVE._
Upon the cabin stairs we met, the voyage nearly over;
You leant upon his arm, my pet, from Calais unto Dover!
And _he_ is looking very glad, tho' I am feeling sadder,
That _I'm_ not your companion-lad on that companion-ladder!
J. ASHBY STERRY, in _English Epigrams_.
It strikes me that one mother-in-law is about
enough to have in a family--unless you're very
fond of excitement.
C. F. BROWNE, _Artemus Ward's Lecture_.
"Come here, my boy, hould up your head,
And look like a jintleman, sir;
Jist tell me who King Jonah was;
Now tell me, if you can, sir."
"King Jonah was the strongest man
That ever wore a crown, sir;
For though the whale did swallow him,
It couldn't keep him down, sir."
"You're right, my boy, hould up your head,
And look like a jintleman, sir;
Just tell me who that Moses was;
Now tell me, if you can, sir."
"Shure Moses was the Christian name
Of good King Pharaoh's daughter;
She was a milkmaid, and she took
A _profit_ from the water."
J. A. SIDEY, _Mistura Curiosa_.
A little incident Charlotte Cushman once related
to me. She said a man in the gallery of
a theatre made such a disturbance that the play
could not proceed. Cries of "Throw him over" arose
from all parts of the house, and the noise became furious.
All was tumultuous above until a sweet and gentle female
voice was heard in the pit, exclaiming, "No! I pray
you, don't throw him over! I beg of you, dear friends,
don't throw him over, but--_kill him where he is_."
J. T. FIELDS, _Yesterdays with Authors_.
With all his conscience and one eye askew,
So false, he partly took himself for true;
Whose pious talk, when most his heart was dry,
Made wet the crafty crowsfoot round his eye;
Who, never naming God except for gain,
So never took that useful name in vain;
Made Him his catspaw and the Cross his tool,
And Christ the bait to trap his dupe and fool;
Nor deeds of gift, but deeds of grace he forged,
And snake-like slimed his victim ere he gorged;
And oft at Bible meetings, o'er the rest
Arising, did his holy oily best,
Dropping the too rough H in Hell and Heaven,
To spread the Word by which himself had thriven.
ALFRED TENNYSON, _Sea Dreams_.
Please the eyes and the ears, they will introduce
you to the heart, and, nine times in ten,
the heart governs the understanding.
LORD CHESTERFIELD, _Letters to his Son_.
The cup with trembling hands he grasps,
Close to his thirsty lips he clasps,
Ringed with its pewter rim--he gasps.
The eddying floor beneath him crawls,
He clutches at the flying walls,
Then like a lump of lead he falls.
_The Shotover Papers._
On fait souvent du bien pour pouvoir impunément
faire du mal.
LA ROCHEFOUCAULD, _Réflexions_.
There's a joy without canker or cark,
There's a pleasure eternally new,
'Tis to gloat on the glaze and the mark
Of china that's ancient and blue;
Unchipp'd all the centuries through
It has pass'd, since the chime of it rang,
And they fashion'd it, figure and hue,
In the reign of the Emperor Hwang.
ANDREW LANG, _Ballades in Blue China_.
Ceremony.--All that is considered necessary by
many in religion and friendship.
HORACE SMITH, _The Tin Trumpet_.
Rogues meet their due when out they fall,
And each the other blames, sir,
The pot should not the kettle call
Opprobrious sorts of names, sir.
LORD NEAVES, _Songs and Verses_.
I have nothing to say again' Craig, on'y it is a
pity he couldna be hatched o'er again, an'
hatched different.
_Mrs. Poyser_, in GEORGE ELIOT's _Adam Bede_.
Let us have wine and women, mirth and laughter,
Sermons and soda-water the day after.
LORD BYRON, _Don Juan_.
[Dr. Busby] was once invited, during a residence at
Deal, by an old Westminster--who, from being
a very idle, well-flogged boy, had, after a course
of distinguished service, been named to the command
of a fine frigate in the Downs--to visit him on board
his ship. The doctor accepted the invitation; and,
after he had got up the ship's side, the captain piped all
hands for punishment, and said to the astonished doctor,
"You d--d old scoundrel, I am delighted to have the
opportunity of paying you off at last. Here, boatswain,
give him three dozen."
GRONOW, _Recollections_.
_GOOD AND BAD LUCK._
Good Luck is the gayest of all gay girls;
Long in one place she will not stay:
Back from your brow she strokes the curls,
Kisses you quick and flies away.
But Madame Bad Luck soberly comes
And stays--no fancy has she for flitting--
Snatches of true-love songs she hums,
And sits by your bed, and brings her knitting.
JOHN HAY, _Poems_.
I wish nine-tenths of the pictures that have been
painted had never been preserved; it is such a
nuisance having to go and see them.
_Ellesmere_, in HELPS's _Friends in Council_.
Victor Hugo is an Egoist, or, to use a stronger
term, he is a Hugoist.
HEINRICH HEINE, _Musical Notes from Paris_.
_ON WOMEN AS UNIONISTS._
Among the men, what dire divisions rise--
For "Union" one, "No Union" t'other cries.
Shame on the sex that such dispute began--
Ladies are all for union--to a man!
ANON.
Si c'est un crime de l'aimer,
On n'en doit justement blâmer
Que les beautés qui sont en elle;
La faute en est au dieux
Qui la firent si belle,
Et non pas à mes yeux.
JEAN DE LINGENDES.
"Was not ---- very disagreeable?" "Why, he was
as disagreeable as the occasion would permit,"
Luttrell said.
SYDNEY SMITH, _Life and Letters_.
"I believe that nothing in the newspapers is
ever true," said Madame Phoebus.
"And that is why they are so popular,"
added Euphrosyne; "the taste of the age being so
decidedly for fiction."
LORD BEACONSFIELD, _Lothair_.
He that would shine, and petrify his tutor,
Should drink draught Allsopp in its "native pewter."
C. S. CALVERLEY, _Verses and Translations_.
Lauk, sir! Love's all in the fancy. One does
not eat it, nor drink it: and as for the rest--why,
it's a bother.
_Corporal Bunting_, in LYTTON's _Eugene Aram_.
"Mr. O----'s affairs turn out so sadly that he
cannot have the pleasure of waiting upon his
lordship at his agreeable house on Monday
next.--N.B. His wife is dead."
J. C. YOUNG, _Diary_.
Why, the Scotch tunes are just like a scolding,
nagging woman. They go on with the same
thing over and over again, and never come to a
reasonable end. Anybody 'ud think the Scotch tunes
had always been asking a question of somebody as deaf
as old Taft, and had never got an answer yet.
_Bartle Massey_, in GEORGE ELIOT's _Adam Bede_.
_SOUL OF LADY._
Tell me, in this night of snow,
Of happy Almack's, or the Row!
Say in what carriages what fair
Consume the ice in Berkeley Square;
Or who in shops, with doubtful eye,
Explore the silks they never buy;
And how the hair is dressed in town,
And what the shape of boot and gown?
_WINDBAG._
Snow-mantled shadow, would you know
The fashions of the world below?
Still the coiled chignon starward towers,
Still false back-hair falls down in showers;
But now all subtle souls revert
To the abbreviated skirt,
Whose velvet _paniers_ just denote
The gown, that else were petticoat.
Nor is such _naïve_ attire enough:
Elizabeth's archaic ruff
Rings every neck; besides, they rival,
With a High-Gothic-Hat-Revival,
Old Mother Hubbard, and renew
Arcadianly the buckled shoe,
To show, what's just a trifle shocking,
The dimple of a snowy stocking.
W. J. COURTHOPE, _The Paradise of Birds_.
Be virtuous, and you will be eccentric.
MARK TWAIN, _Choice Works_.
_DON'T WE?_
We're informed that, in Happy Japan,
Folks are free to believe what they can;
But if they come teaching,
And preaching and screeching,
They go off to gaol in a van.
Don't you wish _this_ was Happy Japan?
SHIRLEY BROOKS, _Wit and Humour_.
I hope I appreciate the value of children. We
should soon come to nothing without them.
Without them the common school would languish.
But the problem is, what to do with them in a
garden. For they are not good to eat, and there is a law
against making away with them. The law is not very
well enforced, it is true; for people do thin them out
with constant dosing, paregoric, and soothing-syrups, and
scanty clothing. But I, for one, feel it would not be
right, aside from the law, to take the life, even of the
smallest child, for the sake of a little fruit, more or less,
in the garden. I may be wrong; but these are my sentiments,
and I am not ashamed of them.
C. D. WARNER, _My Summer in a Garden_.
_ON DR. TRAPP'S TRANSLATION OF VIRGIL._
Mind but thy preaching, Trapp; translate no further:
Is it not written, "Thou shall do no murder"?
_The Poetical Farrago_ (1794).
Shortly before his death, being visited by a
clergyman whose features as well as language
were more lugubrious than consoling, Hood
looked up at him compassionately, and said, "My dear
sir! I'm afraid your religion doesn't agree with you."
J. R. PLANCHÉ, _Recollections_.
_ON GRAPES AND GRIPES._
In Spain, that land of monks and apes,
The thing called wine doth come from grapes;
But, on the noble river Rhine,
The thing called gripes doth come from wine.
S. T. COLERIDGE, _apud_ J. C. YOUNG.
Of Diggle, Barham used to tell many absurd stories.
The most amusing of his practical jokes was one
in which Barham had a share. The two boys
having, in the course of one of their walks, discovered a
Quakers' meeting-house, forthwith procured a penny tart
of a neighbouring pastry-cook; furnished with this,
Diggle marched boldly into the building, and, holding up
the delicacy in the midst of the grave assembly, said with
perfect solemnity, "Whoever speaks first shall have this
pie." "Friend, go thy way," commenced a drab-coloured
gentleman, rising, "go thy way, and----" "The pie's
yours, sir!" exclaimed Master Diggle, politely, and
placing it before the astounded speaker, hastily effected
his escape.
R. H. D. BARHAM, _Life of Barham_.
Talking of some poor relations who had been
recipients of his bounty for years, Compton
said, "Yes, sir, the whole tribe of them leaned
on me for years;" and then added, in his own peculiar
manner, "Forty years long was I grieved with this generation."
_Memoir of Henry Compton._
_THE ORANGE._
It ripen'd by the river banks,
Where, mask and moonlight aiding,
Dons Blas and Juan play their pranks,
Dark Donnas serenading.
By Moorish damsel it was pluck'd,
Beneath the golden day there;
By swain 'twas then in London suck'd--
Who flung the peel away there.
He could not know in Pimlico,
As little she in Seville,
That _I_ should reel upon that peel,
And--wish them at the devil.
FREDERICK LOCKER, _London Lyrics_.
Kenny said that Anthony Pasquin (who was a
very dirty fellow) "died of a cold caught by
washing his face."
THOMAS MOORE, _Diary_.
_ON THE PRINCE REGENT'S ILLNESS._
The Regent, sir, is taken ill;
And all depends on Halford's skill;
"Pray what," inquired the sage physician,
"Has brought him to this sad condition?"
When Bloomfield ventured to pronounce,
"A little too much Cherry Bounce,"
The Regent, hearing what was said,
Raised from his couch his aching head,
And cried, "No, Halford, 'tis not so!
_Cure us, O_ doctor,--_Curaçoa!_"
H. LUTTRELL, _apud_ BARHAM.
Brigham Young has two hundred wives. He
loves not wisely, but two hundred well. He's
dreadfully married. He's the most married man
I ever saw in my life. He says that all he wants now is
to live in peace for the remainder of his days, and have
his dying pillow soothed by the loving hands of his
family. Well, that's all right, I suppose; but if all his
family soothe his dying pillow, he'll have to go out-doors
to die.
C. F. BROWNE, _Artemus Ward's Lecture_.
And I said, "What is written, sweet sister,
At the opposite end of the room?"
She sobbed, as she answered, "All liquors
Must be paid for ere leaving the room."
BRET HARTE, _Complete Works_.
Be wiser than other people if you can, but do not
tell them so.
LORD CHESTERFIELD, _Letters to his Son_.
The Walrus and the Carpenter
Were walking close at hand;
They wept like anything to see
Such quantities of sand:
"If this were only cleared away,"
They said, "It _would_ be grand!"
"If seven maids, with seven mops,
Swept it for half a year,
Do you suppose," the Walrus said,
"That they could get it clear?"
"I doubt it;" said the Carpenter,
And shed a bitter tear.
LEWIS CARROLL, _Through the Looking-Glass_.
We easily convert our own vices into other people's
virtues, the virtues of others into vices.
W. HAZLITT, _Characteristics_.
You'd better keep clear of love-letters,
Or write them with caution and care;
In faith, they may fasten your fetters,
If wearing a conjugal air.
LORD NEAVES, _Songs and Verses_.
Against stupidity the gods themselves combat in
vain.
HEINRICH HEINE, _Art Notes from Paris_.
_ON LOVE AND MARRIAGE._
'Tis highly rational, we can't dispute,
That Love, being naked, should promote a suit;
But doth not oddity to him attach
Whose fire's so oft extinguished by a match?
R. GARNETT, _Idylls and Epigrams_.
Lord Shelburne could say the most provoking
things, and yet appear unconscious of
their being so. In one of his speeches, alluding
to Lord Carlisle, he said, "The noble lord has written
a comedy." "No, a tragedy." "Oh, I beg pardon, I
thought it was a comedy."
ROGERS, _Table Talk_.
There's nought, no doubt, so much the spirit calms
As rum and true religion.
LORD BYRON, _Don Juan_.
She never speaks to any one, which is of course a
great advantage to any one.
LADY ASHBURTON, _apud_ LORD HOUGHTON.
I'm not denyin' the women are foolish: God Almighty
made 'em to match the men.
_Mrs. Poyser_, in GEORGE ELIOT's _Adam Bede_.
"You didn't know I drew? I learnt at school."
"Perhaps you only learnt to draw your sword?"
"Why, that I can, of course--and also corks--
And covers--haw! haw! haw! But what I mean,
Fortification--haw!--in Indian ink,
That sort of thing--and though I draw it mild,
Yet that--haw! haw!--that may be called my _forte_."
"Oh fie! for shame! where do you think you'll go
For making such a heap of foolish puns?"
"Why, to the Punjaub, I should think--haw! haw!
That sort of job, you know, would suit me best."
C. J. CAYLEY, _Las Alforgas_.
Tout le monde se plaint de sa mémoire, et
personne ne se plaint de son jugement.
LA ROCHEFOUCAULD, _Réflexions_.
_ON THE HOUSE OF COMMONS_.
When lately Pym descended into Hell,
Ere he the cups of Lethè did carouse,
What place that was, he callèd loud to tell;
To whom a Devil--"This is the Lower House."
WILLIAM DRUMMOND (1585-1649).
The working-man is a noble creature--when he is
quite sober.
_Alexis_, in W. S. GILBERT's _Sorcerer_.
_DEFENDANT'S SONG._
When first my old, old love I knew,
My bosom swelled with joy;
My riches at her feet I threw,--
I was a love-sick boy!
No terms seemed too extravagant
Upon her to employ--
I used to mope, and sigh, and pant,
Just like a love-sick boy!
But joy incessant palls the sense,
And love, unchanged, will cloy,
And she became a bore intense
Unto her love-sick boy!
With fitful glimmer burnt my flame,
And I grew cold and coy,
At last, one morning, I became
Another's love-sick boy!
W. S. GILBERT, _Trial by Jury_.
Dining one day where the host became exceedingly
excited and angry at not being able to
find any stuffing in a roasted leg of pork, Poole
quietly suggested, "Perhaps it is in the other leg?"
J. R. PLANCHÉ, _Recollections_.
In 1848, Feargus O'Connor was charged in the
House with being a republican. He denied it,
and said he did not care whether the Queen or
the Devil was on the throne. Peel replied: "When the
honourable gentleman sees the sovereign of his choice on
the throne of these realms, I hope he'll enjoy, and I'm
sure he'll deserve, the confidence of the Crown."
ABRAHAM HAYWARD, _Essays_.
I loiter down by thorp and town;
For any job I'm willing;
Take here and there a dusty brown,
And here and there a shilling.
I deal in every ware in turn,
I've rings for buddin' Sally,
That sparkle like those eyes of her'n;
I've liquor for the valet.
The things I've done 'neath moon and stars
Have got me into messes;
I've seen the sky through prison bars,
I've torn up prison dresses.
But out again I come, and show
My face, nor care a stiver;
For trades are brisk and trades are slow,
But mine goes on for ever.
C. S. CALVERLEY, _Fly Leaves_.
They may talk of the devotion of the sex, but the
most faithful attachment in life is that of a
woman in love--with herself.
_Damas_, in LORD LYTTON's _Lady of Lyons_.
They may talk as they please about what they call pelf,
And how one ought never to think of one's self,
And how pleasures of thought surpass eating and drinking--
My pleasure of thought is the pleasure of thinking
How pleasant it is to have money, heigh ho!
How pleasant it is to have money!
_Spirit_, in A. H. CLOUGH's _Dipsychus_.
Women are generally consistent in their insincerity,
if in nothing else.
ANNA C. STEELE.
La plus perdue de toutes les journées est celle où
l'on n'a pas ri.
CHAMFORT, _Maximes_.
Oh, how can a modest young man
E'er hope for the smallest progression--
The profession's already so full
Of lawyers so full of profession?
JOHN GODFREY SAXE, _Poems_.
I was speaking [to Charles Lamb] of my first brief,
when he asked, "Did you not exclaim--
'Thou great first cause, least understood'?"
CRABB ROBINSON, _Diary_.
Eye-glass--a toy which enables a coxcomb to
see others, and others to see that he is a
coxcomb.
HORACE SMITH, _The Tin Trumpet_.
Some brag of telegraphs and rails,
Coals, steam, and gas, and a' that,
But rattling mails and cotton bales
Ne'er made a man for a' that;
For a' that, and a' that,
Their figures, facts, and a' that,
The first of facts is Thought, and what
High Thought begets, for a' that!
J. S. BLACKIE, _Musa Burschicosa_.
Virginia city--the wild young metropolis of the
new Silver State. Fortunes are made there in
a day. There are instances on record of young
men going to this place without a shilling--poor and
friendless--yet by energy, intelligence, and a careful
disregard to business, they have been enabled to leave
there, owing hundreds of pounds.
C. F. BROWNE, _Artemus Ward's Lecture_.
Nothing is accounted so proper in England as
property.
_Guesses at Truth._
As the husband is, the wife is,--he is stomach-plagued and old;
And his curry soups will make thy cheek the colour of his gold.
When his feeble love is sated, he will hold thee surely then
Something lower than his hookah,--something less than his cayenne.
What is this? His eyes are pinky. Was't the claret? Oh, no, no--
Bless your soul! it was the salmon--salmon always makes him so.
_Bon Gaultier Ballads._
A clergyman had commenced an able discourse,
when one of the hearers exclaimed,
"That's Tillotson!" This was allowed to pass;
but very soon another exclamation followed, "That's
Paley." The preacher then addressed the disturber: "I
tell you, sir, if there is to be a repetition of such conduct,
I shall call on the churchwarden to have you removed
from the church." "That's your own," was the ready
reply.
MARK BOYD, _Reminiscences_.
College mostly makes people like bladders--just
good for nothing but t' hold the stuff as is poured
into 'em.
_Bartle Massey_, in GEORGE ELIOT's _Adam Bede_.
Werther had a love for Charlotte
Such as words could never utter;
Would you know how first he met her?
She was cutting bread and butter.
So he sighed and pined and ogled,
And his passion boiled and bubbled,
Till he blew his silly brains out,
And no more was by it troubled.
Charlotte, having seen his body
Borne before her on a shutter,
Like a well-conducted person,
Went on cutting bread and butter.
W. M. THACKERAY.
Perhaps the best illustration I can give of
[Bagehot's] more sardonic humour, was his
remark to a friend who had a church on the
grounds near his house:--"Ah, you've got the church
in the grounds! I like that. It's well the tenants
shouldn't be _quite_ sure that the landlord's power stops
with this world."
R. H. HUTTON, _Memoir of W. Bagehot_.
_ON WIVES._
All wives are bad,--yet two blest hours they give,
When first they wed, and when they cease to live.
PALLADAS, trans. by J. H. MERIVALE.
"Yes, my dear curate," said the Professor, "what
I am enjoying is the champagne that you
drink, and what you are enjoying is the champagne
that I drink. This is altruism; this is benevolence;
this is the sublime outcome of enlightened
modern thought. The pleasures of the table, in themselves,
are low and beastly ones; but if we each of us
are only glad because the others are enjoying them, they
become holy and glorious beyond description."
"They do," cried the curate rapturously, "indeed they
do. I will drink another bottle for your sake."
W. H. MALLOCK, _The New Paul and Virginia_.
Some d--d people have come in, and I must stop.
By d--d, I mean deuced.
LAMB to WORDSWORTH.
Ours is so far-advanced an age!
Sensation-tales, a classic stage,
Commodious villas!
We boast high art, an Albert Hall,
Australian meats, and men who call
Their sires gorillas!
AUSTIN DOBSON, _Vignettes in Rhyme_.
It being asked at Paris whom they would have as
godfather for Rothschild's baby--"Talleyrand,"
said a Frenchman. "Pourquoi, monsieur?"
"Parcequ'il est le moins chrétien possible."
B. R. HAYDON, _Diary_.
Before the blast are driven the flying clouds--
(And I should like to blow a cloud as well,)
The vapours wrap the mountain-tops in shrouds--
(I left my mild cheroots at the hotel.)
Dotting the glassy surface of the stream,
(Oh, here's a cigarette--my mind's at ease.)
The boats move silently, as in a dream--
(Confound it! where on earth are my fusees?)
H. S. LEIGH, _Carols of Cockayne_.
Emile de Girardin, the famous political writer, a
natural son of Alexandre de Girardin, becoming
celebrated, Montrond said to his father,
"Dépêchez-vous de le reconnaître, ou bientôt il ne
vous reconnaîtra pas."
GRONOW, _Recollections_.
Marriage from love, like vinegar from wine--
A sad, sour, sober beverage,--by time
Is sharpen'd from its high celestial flavour,
Down to a very homely household savour.
LORD BYRON, _Don Juan_.
Lettuce is like conversation; it must be fresh,
and crisp, so sparkling that you scarcely notice
the bitter in it. Lettuce, like conversation,
requires a good deal of oil, to avoid friction, and
keep the company smooth; a pinch of attic salt; a
dash of pepper; a quantity of mustard and vinegar, by
all means, but so mixed that you will notice no sharp
contrasts; and a trifle of sugar.
C. D. WARNER, _My Summer in a Garden_.
_MARTIAL IN LONDON._
Exquisite wine and comestibles
From Slater, and Fortnum and Mason;
Billiards, écarté, and chess-tables;
Water in vast marble basin;
Luminous books (not voluminous)
To read under beech-trees cacuminous;
One friend, who is fond of a distich,
And doesn't get too syllogistic;
A valet who knows the complete art
Of service--a maiden, his sweetheart;--
Give me these, in some rural pavilion,
And I'll envy no Rothschild his million.
MORTIMER COLLINS, in _The Owl_.
He was much too disliked not to be sought after.
Whatever is once notorious, even for being
disagreeable, is sure to be coveted.
LORD LYTTON's _Pelham_.
_TO GIBBS, CONCERNING HIS POEMS._
You ask me if I think your poems good;
If I could praise your poems, Gibbs,--I would.
EGERTON WEBBE, _apud_ LEIGH HUNT.
What I admire in the order to which you belong
[the aristocracy], is that they do live in the air,
that they excel in athletic sports; that they can
only speak one language; and that they never read.
This is not a complete education, but it is the highest
education since the Greek.
_Phoebus_, in LORD BEACONSFIELD's _Lothair_.
_RELIABLE._
(A MILD PROTEST.)
Shut up a party who uses "Reliable"
When he means "Trustworthy;" 'tis undeniable
That his excuses are flimsy and friable,
And his conceptions of grammar most pliable.
No doubt he'd pronounce this line's last word "enviable:"
Invent, for bad fish (which he'd sell) the word "criable,"
Say that his faded silk hat might be dyeable,
And accent French vilely--allude to _le diable_.
If his name's William, 'twould be most enj'yable
To see Mr. Calcraft preparing to tie a Bill.
Now let Punch hope he has stamped out "Reliable."
SHIRLEY BROOKS, _Wit and Humour_.
"I see," said my clerical neighbour, addressing
myself, "you stick to port." "Yes," I said,
"and so am safe from being half-seas over."
W. H. HARRISON, _Reminiscences_.
All tradesmen cry up their own wares:
In this they agree well together:
The Mason by stone and lime swears;
The Tanner is always for leather;
The Smith still for iron would go;
The Schoolmaster stands up for teaching;
And the Parson would have you to know
There's nothing on earth like his preaching.
LORD NEAVES, _Songs and Verses_.
Matrimony--the high sea for which no compass
has yet been invented.
HEINRICH HEINE, _Musical Notes from Paris_.
O daughters! make your markets while you can,
For bloom soon groweth as the water wan;
The early bird picks up the marrying man.
_Once a Week._
He was the most even-tempered man I ever knew:
he was always cross.
MRS. JENKINS, _Within an Ace_.
I have a horse--a ryghte good horse--
Ne doe I envie those
Who scour ye plaine in headie course,
Tyll soddaine on theyre nose
They lyghte wyth unexpected force--
It ys--a horse of clothes.
I have a saddel--"Sayst thou soe?
With styrruppes, knyghte, to boote?"
I sayde not that--I answere "Noe,"--
Yt lacketh such, I woot--
It ys a mutton-saddel, loe!
Parte of ye fleecie brute.
LEWIS CARROLL, _Phantasmagoria_.
Story of Lord Middleton, out hunting, calling to
Gunter the confectioner to "Hold hard," and
not ride over the hounds. "My horse is so hot,
my Lord, that I don't know what to do with him." "Ice
him, Gunter, ice him."
R. H. BARHAM, _Life_.
She's rising now, and taking off her bonnet,
And probably will end by sitting on it;
For oft, as sad experiences teach,
The novice, trembling from his maiden speech,
Drops flustered in his place, and crushes flat
His innocent and all-unconscious hat.
_2nd Lady_, in G. O. TREVELYAN's _Ladies in Parliament_.
_ON A LEFT-HANDED WRITING-MASTER._
Though Nature thee of thy right hand bereft,
Right well thou writest with the hand that's left.
FRANCIS FULLER, _apud_ NICHOLLS.
We are never so much disposed to quarrel with
others, as when we are dissatisfied with ourselves.
W. HAZLITT, _Characteristics_.
The cockney, met in Middlesex, or Surrey,
Is often cold, and always in a hurry.
FREDERICK LOCKER, _London Lyrics_.
Speaking one day of a newly risen sect of religionists
who proscribed the use of animal food,
the Archbishop [Whately] said to Dr. Wilson,
"Do you know anything, Wilson, of this new sect?"
"Yes, my Lord; I have seen their confession of faith,
which is a book of cookery."
E. J. WHATELY's _Life of Whately_.
And I do think the amateur cornopean
Should be put down by law--but that's perhaps Utopian.
C. S. CALVERLEY, _Verses and Translations_.
Le premier soupir de l'amour est le dernier de la
sagesse.
CHARRON, _La Sagesse_.
For he himself has said it,
And it's greatly to his credit,
That he is an Englishman!
For he might have been a Roosian,
A French, or Turk, or Proosian,
Or perhaps Italian!
But in spite of all temptations
To belong to other nations,
He remains an Englishman!
W. S. GILBERT, _H.M.S. Pinafore_.
Baron Alderson being asked by the chaplain
of the High Sheriff at the assizes over which he
was to preside, how long he would like him to
preach, replied, "About half an hour, with a leaning to
mercy."
J. C. YOUNG, _Diary_.
_ON EVENING DRESS._
When dress'd for the evening, girls, nowadays,
Scarce an atom of dress on them leave;
Nor blame them--for what is an Evening Dress,
But a dress that is suited to Eve?
ANON.
It's the silliest lie a sensible man like you ever
believed, to say a woman makes a house comfortable.
It's a story got up, because the women
are there, and something must be found for 'em to do.
I tell you there isn't a thing under the sun that needs to
be done at all, but what a man can do better than a
woman, unless it's bearing children, and they do that in
a poor make-shift way. It had better ha' been left to
the men.
_Bartle Massey_, in GEORGE ELIOT's _Adam Bede_.
To sniggle or to dibble, that's the question!
Whether to bait a hook with worm or bumble,
Or to take up arms of any sea, some trouble
To fish, and then home send 'em. To fly--to whip--
To moor and tie my boat up by the end
To any wooden post, or natural rock
We may be near to, on a Preservation
Devoutly to be fished. To fly--to whip--
To whip! perchance two bream;--and there's the chub!
F. C. BURNAND, _Happy Thoughts_.
Anecdote of Phil Stone, the property-man of
Drury Lane:--"Will you be so good, sir, as to
stand a little backer?" said Phil to a gentleman
behind the scenes, who had placed himself so forward as
to be seen by the audience. "No, my fine fellow," returned
the exquisite, who quite mistook his meaning;
"but here is a pinch of snuff at your service."
R. H. BARHAM, _Life_.
At a friend's house Charles Lamb was presented
with a cheese; it was a very ripe, not to say a
lively cheese, and, as Lamb was leaving, his
friend offered him a piece of paper in which to wrap it,
so that he might convey it more conveniently. "Thank
you," said Charles, "but would not several yards of
twine be better, and then, you know, I could _lead_ it
home?"
FREDERICK LOCKER, _Patchwork_.
"A loaf of bread," the Walrus said,
"Is what we chiefly need;
Pepper and vinegar besides
Are very good indeed--
Now, if you're ready, Oysters dear,
We can begin to feed."
"But not on us," the Oysters cried,
Turning a little blue.
"After such kindness, that would be
A dismal thing to do!"
"The night is fine," the Walrus said;
"Do you admire the view?"
LEWIS CARROLL, _Through the Looking-Glass_.
Religion is like the fashion. One man wears
his doublet slashed, another laced, another plain;
but every man has a doublet: so every man has
his religion. We differ about the trimming.
SELDEN, _Table Talk_.
Romances paint at full length people's wooings,
But only give a bust of marriages;
For no one cares for matrimonial cooings,
There's nothing wrong in a connubial kiss.
LORD BYRON, _Don Juan_.
A young lady decorously brought up should only
have two considerations in her choice of a
husband: first, is his birth honourable? secondly,
will his death be advantageous? All other trifling details
should be left to parental anxiety.
_Madame Deschappelles_, in LORD LYTTON's _Lady of Lyons_.
"The doctor's as drunk as the d----," we said,
And we managed a shutter to borrow;
We rais'd him, and sigh'd at the thought that his head
Would consumedly ache on the morrow.
We bore him home and we put him to bed,
And we told his wife and his daughter
To give him next morning a couple of red-
Herrings with soda-water.
Slowly and sadly we all walked down
From his room in the uppermost story;
A rush-light we placed on the cold hearth-stone,
And left him alone in his glory.
R. H. BARHAM, _Ingoldsby Lyrics_.
Benjamin Franklin was always proud of
telling how he entered Philadelphia, for the first
time, with nothing in the world but two shillings
in his pocket and four rolls of bread under his arm. But
really, when you come to examine it critically, it was
nothing. Anybody could have done it.
MARK TWAIN, _Choice Works_.
I've thought very often 'twould be a good thing
In all public collections of books, if a wing
Were set off by itself, like the seas from the dry lands,
Marked "_Literature suited to desolate islands_",14113
And filled with such books as could never be read
Save by readers of proofs, forced to do it for bread,--
Such books as one's wrecked on in small country taverns,
Such as hermits might mortify over in caverns,
Such as Satan, if printing had then been invented,
As a climax of woe, would to Jove have presented,
Such as Crusoe might dip in, although there are few so
Outrageously cornered by fate as poor Crusoe.
J. R. LOWELL, _A Fable for Critics_.
_Bellmour._ Ah! courtship to marriage is but
as the music in the play-house till the curtain's
drawn; but that once up, then opens the scene
of pleasure.
_Belinda._ Oh, foh--no; rather, courtship to marriage
is a very witty prologue to a very dull play.
CONGREVE, _The Old Bachelor_.
_ON HEARING A LADY PRAISE A CERTAIN
REV. DOCTOR'S EYES._
I cannot praise the Doctor's eyes;
I never saw his glance divine;
He always shuts them when he prays,
And when he preaches he shuts mine.
G. OUTRAM, _Lyrics: Legal, etc._
This picture is a great work of art. It is an oil
painting--done in petroleum. It is by the Old
Masters. It was the last thing they did before
dying. They did this and then they expired.
Some of the greatest artists in London come here
every morning before daylight with lanterns to look at it.
They say they never saw anything like it before--and
they hope they never shall again.
C. F. BROWNE, _Artemus Ward's Lecture_.
_THE WORLD._
The world is like a rink, you know:
You lose your _wheel_, and come to woe!
J. ASHBY STERRY, in _English Epigrams_.
Men will sooner forgive an injury than an insult.
LORD CHESTERFIELD, _Letters to his Son_.
Why is it that stupid people are always so much
more anxious to talk to one, than clever people?
CHARLES BUXTON, _Notes of Thought_.
And Darwin, too, who leads the throng "in vulgum voces spargere,"
Maintains Humanity is nought except a big menagerie,
The progeny of tailless apes, sharp-eared but puggy-nosed, sir,
Who nightly climbed their "family trees," and on the top reposed, sir.
There's Carlyle, on the other hand, whose first and last concern it is
To preach up the "immensities" and muse on the "eternities";
But if one credits what one hears, the gist of all his brag is, sir,
That "Erbwürst," rightly understood, is transcendental haggis, sir.
F. D., in _Pall Mall Gazette_.
_DUNSFORD._ Travelling is a great trial of people's
inability to live together.
_Ellesmere._ Yes. Lavater says that you do
not know a man until you have divided an inheritance
with him; but I think a long journey with him will do.
ARTHUR HELPS, _Friends in Council_.
_ON AN ALDERMAN._
That he was born it cannot be denied;
He ate, drank, slept, talk'd politics, and died.
JOHN CUNNINGHAM (1729-1773).
At a large dinner party at Jerdan's, one of the
guests indulged in some wonderful accounts of
his shooting. The number of birds he had
killed, and the distances at which he had brought them
down, were extraordinary. Hood quietly remarked,--
"What he hit is history,
What he missed is mystery."
J. R. PLANCHÉ, _Recollections_.
I'm very fond of water:
It ever must delight
Each mother's son or daughter--
When qualified aright.
LORD NEAVES, _Songs and Verses_.
An epicure, while eating oysters, swallowed one that
was not fresh. "Zounds, waiter!" he ejaculated,
making a wry face; "what sort of an oyster do
you call this?" "A native, sir," replied the wielder of the
knife. "A native!--I call it a _settler_, so you need not
open any more."
HORACE SMITH, _The Tin Trumpet_.
Once Uncle went astray,
Smoked, joked, and swore away--
Sworn by he's now, by a
Large congregation.
FREDERICK LOCKER, _London Lyrics_.
You've heard what a lady in Italy did--
How to vex a cross husband she buried a "kid!"
Sam swears she'd have managed things better by half
If, instead of the "kid," she had buried the calf!
R. H. BARHAM, _Ingoldsby Lyrics_.
Il est plus facile de légaliser certaines choses que
de les légitimer.
CHAMFORT, _Maximes_.
Wilt thou love me, fairest?
Though thou art not fair,
And I think thou wearest
Some one else's hair.
Thou couldst love, though, dearly:
And, as I am told,
Thou art very nearly
Worth thy weight, in gold.
Dost thou love, sweet one?
Tell me if thou dost!
Women fairly beat one,
But I think thou must.
Thou art loved so dearly:
I am plain, but then
Thou (to speak sincerely)
Art as plain again.
C. S. CALVERLEY, _Fly Leaves_.
"Certainly, my Lord," said the attendant.
"He knows me," thought Lothair; but it
was not so. When the British nation is at
once grateful and enthusiastic, they always call you "my
Lord."
LORD BEACONSFIELD's _Lothair_.
_THE RECOGNITION._
Home they brought her sailor son,
Grown a man across the sea,
Tall and broad and black of beard,
And hoarse of voice as man may be.
Hand to shake and mouth to kiss,
Both he offered ere he spoke;
And she said--"What man is this
Comes to play a sorry joke?"
Then they praised him--call'd him "smart,"
"Tightest lad that ever stept;"
But her son she did not know,
And she neither smiled nor wept.
Rose, a nurse of ninety years,
Set a pigeon-pie in sight;
She saw him eat--"'Tis he! 'tis he!"
She knew him--by his appetite!
WILLAM SAWYER.
Lord Allen, being rather the worse for drinking
too much wine at dinner, teased Count D'Orsay,
and said some very disagreeable things, which
irritated him; when suddenly John Bush entered the
club and shook hands with the Count, who exclaimed,
"Voilà, la différence entre une bonne _bouche_ et une mauvaise
_haleine_."
GRONOW, _Recollections_.
_ANOTHER WAY._
When lovely woman,
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