YOU beat your pate, and fancy wit will come: Knock as you will, there's nobody at home.
A STRANGER to law courts hearing a judge call a sergeant brother, expressed his surprise. Oh, said one present, they are brothers--brothers-in-law.
ON the approach of Holy Week, a great lady said to her friend, We must, however, mortify ourselves a little.--Well, replied the other, let us make our servants fast.
A REGULAR physician being sent for by a quack, expressed his surprise at being called in on an occasion apparently trifling. Not so trifling, neither, replied the quack; for, to te...
A FEW years ago, when Billy Burton, the American actor, was in his trouble, a young lawyer was examining him as to how he had spent his money. There was about three thousand pounds...
GEORGE THE THIRD once said to Sir J. Irwin, a famous bon-vivant, They tell me, Sir John, you love a glass of wine.--Those, sire, who have so reported me to your Majesty, answered h...
FOOTE went to spend his Christmas with Mr. B----, when, the weather being very cold, and but bad fires, occasioned by a scarcity of wood in the house, Foote, on the third day after...
ROGERS, when a certain M.P., in a review of his poems, said he wrote very well for a banker, wrote, in return, the following:-- They say he has no heart, and I deny it: He has a he...
A PERSON was boasting that he had never spoken the truth. Then, added another, you have now done it for the first time.
HOPE is the dream of those who are awake.
SIR FREDERICK FLOOD had a droll habit, of which he could never effectually break himself. Whenever a person at his back whispered or suggested anything to him whilst he was speakin...
MAN is a sort of tree which we are too apt to judge of by the bark.
ONE of Cromwell's granddaughters was remarkable for her vivacity and humor. One summer, being in company at Tunbridge Wells, a gentleman having taken great offence at some sarcasti...
A QUAKER was examined before the Board of Excise, respecting certain duties; the commissioners thinking themselves disrespectfully treated by his theeing and thouing, one of them w...
A GENTLEMAN waited upon Jerrold one morning to enlist his sympathies in behalf of a mutual friend, who was constantly in want of a round sum of money. Well, said Jerrold, who had c...
A NOTORIOUS egotist, indirectly praising himself for a number of good qualities which it was well known he had not, asked Macklin the reason why he should have this propensity of i...
I NEVER by chance hear the rattling of dice that it doesn't sound to me
FORMERLY, it was customary, on emergencies, for the Judges to swear affidavits at their dwelling-houses. Smith was desired by his father to attend a Judge's chambers for that purpo...
A LAIRD riding past a high, steep bank, stopped opposite a hole in it, and said, John, I saw a brock gang in there.--Did ye, said John; wull ye haud my horse, sir?--Certainly, said...
HOPKINS once lent Simpson, his next door neighbor, an umbrella, and having an urgent call to make on a wet day, knocked at Simpson's door. I want my umbrella.--Can't have it, said...
WELL, Will, said an Earl one day to Will Speir, seeing the latter finishing his dinner, have you had a good dinner to-day? (Will had been grumbling some time before.) Ou, vera gude...
SHERIDAN was once staying at the house of an elderly maiden lady in the country, who wanted more of his company than he was willing to give. Proposing one day to take a stroll with...
A RETIRED vocalist, who had acquired a large fortune by marriage, was asked to sing in company. Allow me, said he, to imitate the nightingale, which does not sing after it has made...
LADY HARDWICKE, the lady of the Chancellor, loved money as well as he did, and what he got she saved. The purse in which the Great Seal is carried is of very expensive embroidery,...
MRS. BRAY relates the following of a Devonshire physician, happily named Vial, who was a desperate lover of whist. One evening in the midst of a deal, the doctor fell off his chair...
ONE being asked whom it was that he judged to be the chiefest actor in the murder of the king, he answered in this short enigma or riddle:-- The heart of the loaf, and the head of...
QUEEN CAROLINE, when Princess of Wales, in one of her shrewd letters, says, My better half, or my worse, which you choose, has been ill, I hear, but nothing to make me hope or fear...
DR. YOUNG was walking in his garden at Welwyn, in company with two ladies (one of whom he afterwards married), when the servant came to acquaint him a gentleman wished to speak wit...