JAMES SMITH one night took old Mr. Twiss to hear Mathews in his At Home, to the whole of which the mathematician gave devoted attention. At the close, Mr. Smith asked him whether h...
JERROLD one day met a Scotch gentleman, whose name was Leitch, and who explained that he was not the popular caricaturist, John Leech. I'm aware of that; you're the Scotchman with...
LORD BRAXFIELD (a Scotch judge) once said to an eloquent culprit at the bar, You're a vera clever chiel, mon, but I'm thinking ye wad be nane the waur o' a hanging.
THE household furniture of an English barrister, then recently deceased, was being sold, in a country town, when one neighbor remarked to another that the stock of goods and chatte...
On the Statue of George I. being placed on the top of Bloomsbury Church. The King of Great Britain was reckoned before The head of the Church by all Protestant people; His Bloomsbu...
A FRIEND, crossing Putney Bridge with Theodore Hook, observed that he had been informed that it was a very good investment, and inquired if such were the case?--I don't know, was t...
AS the late Trades Unions, by way of a show, Over Westminster-bridge strutted five in a row, I feel for the bridge, whispered Dick, with a shiver; Thus tried by the mob, it may sin...
IN the cloisters of Trinity College, beneath the library, are grated windows, through which many of the students have occasionally, after the gates were locked, taken the liberty o...
TO gull the public two contractors come, One pilfers corn,--the other cheats in rum. Which is the greater knave, ye wits explain, A rogue in spirit, or a rogue in grain?
A GENTLEMAN of Maudlin, whose name was Nott, returning late from his friend's rooms, attracted the attention of the proctor, who demanded his name and college. I am Nott of Maudlin...
MACKLIN one night sitting at the back of the front boxes, with a gentleman of his acquaintance, an underbred lounger stood up immediately before him, and covered the sight of the s...
WHILST a country parson was preaching, the chief of his parishioners sitting near the pulpit was fast asleep: whereupon he said, Now, beloved friends, I am in a great strait; for i...
A SCOTCH lady gave her servant very particular instructions regarding visitors, explaining, that they were to be shown into the drawing-room, and no doubt used the Scotticism, Carr...
MRS. MONTGOMERY was the only--the motherless--daughter of the stern General Campbell, who early installed her into the duties of housekeeper, and it sometimes happened that, in set...
A SPENDTHRIFT, who had nearly wasted all his patrimony, seeing an acquaintance in a coat not of the newest cut, told him that he thought it had been his great-grandfather's coat. S...
WHEN the Earl of Bradford was brought before the Lord Chancellor, to be examined upon application for a statute of lunacy against him, the chancellor asked him, How many legs has a...
LORD CHESTERFIELD one day, at an inn where he dined, complained very much that the plates and dishes were very dirty. The waiter, with a degree of pertness, observed, It is said ev...
AN old woman received a letter, and, supposing it to be from one of her absent sons, she called on a person near to read it to her. He accordingly began and read, Charleston, June...
ASK you why gold and velvet bind The temples of that cringing thief? Is it so strange a thing to find A toad beneath a strawberry leaf?
A LOVING husband once waited on a physician to request him to prescribe for his wife's eyes, which were very sore. Let her wash them, said the doctor, every morning with a small gl...
A CERTAIN learned serjeant, who is apt to be testy in argument, was advised by the Court not to show temper, but to show cause.
A SCHOLAR and a courtier meeting in the street, seemed to contest the wall. Says the courtier, I do not use to give every coxcomb the wall. The scholar answered, But I do, sir; and...
A CERTAIN Lord Mayor hearing of a gentleman who had had the small-pox twice, and died of it, asked, if he died the first time or the second.
A PHYSICIAN of an acrimonious disposition, and having a thorough hatred of lawyers, reproached a barrister with the use of phrases utterly unintelligible. For example, said he, I n...
SIR ROBERT WALPOLE having misquoted a passage in Horace, Mr. Pulteney said the honorable gentleman's Latin was as bad as his politics. Sir Robert adhered to his version, and bet hi...
A QUAKER being asked his opinion of phrenology, replied indignantly, Friend, there can be no good in a science that compels a man to take off his hat!
A'BECKETT once said, It seems that anything likely to have an annual increase is liable to be tithed. Could not Lord S----, by virtue of this liability, contrive to get rid of a pa...
A PERSON deeply in debt, was walking through the streets in a melancholy way, when a friend asked him the cause of his sadness. I owe money and cannot pay it, said the man, in a to...
TWO gentlemen having a difference, one went to the other's door and wrote Scoundrel! upon it. The other called upon his neighbor, and was answered by a servant that his master was...
AN artist named Forfeit, having some job to do for Foote, got into a foolish scrape about the antiquity of family with another artist, who gave him such a drubbing as confined him...