WHILE Commodore Anson's ship, the Centurion, was engaged in close fight, with the rich Spanish galleon, which he afterwards took, a sailor came running to him, and cried out, Sir,...
(On a little member's versatility.) WHY little Neddy ---- yearns To rat, there is a reason strong, He needs be everything by turns, Who is by nature nothing long.
SOME one remarking that the dinner hour was always getting later and later, Ay, quoth Rogers, it will soon end in our not dining till to-morrow.
THE Baron de Beranger relates, that, having secured a pickpocket in the very act of irregular abstraction, he took the liberty of inquiring whether there was anything in his face t...
A LAWYER, upon a circuit in Ireland, who was pleading the cause of an infant plaintiff, took the child up in his arms, and presented it to the jury, suffused with tears. This had a...
SEVERAL young gentlemen once got up a play at Cambridge. On the day of representation one of the performers took it into his head to make an excuse, and his part was obliged to be...
A YOUNG chaplain had preached a sermon of great length. Sir, said Lord Mulgrave, bowing to him, there were some things in your sermon of to-day I never heard before.--O, my lord! s...
THOUGH upon great occasions Burke was one of the most eloquent of men that ever sat in the British senate, he had in ordinary matters as much as any man the faculty of tiring his a...
THE Lying Valet being one hot night annexed as an afterpiece to the comedy of The Devil upon Two Sticks, Garrick, coming into the Green Room, with exultation called out to Foote, W...
AT Portsmouth, during the representation of Richard the Third, on Richard exclaiming, O, take more pity in thine eyes, and see him here, Miss White, who was in Lady Anne, indignant...
SAID Wetherall the other night Of ----: He's the silliest elf I ever knew. Sir Charles was right, For no one ever knows himself.
ONE Patrick Maguire had been appointed to a situation the reverse of a place of all work; and his friends, who called to congratulate him, were very much astonished to see his face...
A GENTLEMAN missing his watch in a crowd at the theatre, observed, with great coolness, that he should certainly recover it, having bought it of a friend who had introduced it to t...
A VERY worthy, though not particularly erudite, under-writer at Lloyd's was conversing one day with a friend on the subject of a ship they had mutually insured. His friend observed...
IT being unlawful to set man-traps and spring-guns, a gentleman once hit upon a happy device. He was a scholar, and being often asked the meaning of mysterious words compounded fro...
ON the 30th of January (the martyrdom of King Charles the First), Quin used to say, Every king in Europe would rise with a crick in his neck.
AVARICE is criminal poverty.
A GENTLEMAN, talking with his gardener, expressed his admiration at the rapid growth of the trees. Why, yes, sir, says the man; please to consider that they have nothing else to do...
WHEN Mr. Wilkes was in the meridian of his popularity, a man in a porter-house, classing himself as an eminent literary character, was asked by one of his companions what right he...
THERE was in Wilkes's time a worthy person, who had risen from the condition of a bricklayer to be an alderman of London. Among other of his early habits, the civic dignitary retai...
PRAY, sir, said Lady Wallace to David Hume, I am often asked what age I am; what answer should I make? Mr. Hume, immediately guessing her ladyship's meaning, said, Madam, when you...
IF it be true that the heads of the country should set religious example to their inferiors, the E---- of R----, in his observance of one of the commandments, is a pattern to the c...
SIR WILLIAM CURTIS sat near a gentleman at a civic dinner, who alluded to the excellence of the knives, adding, that articles manufactured from cast steel were of a very superior q...
AT Wimpole there was to be seen a portrait of Mr. Harley, the speaker, in his robes of office. The active part he took to forward the bill to settle the crown on the house of Hanov...
MR. HENRY ERSKINE (brother of Lord Buchan and Lord Erskine), after being presented to Dr. Johnson by Mr. Boswell, and having made his bow, slipped a shilling into Boswell's hand, w...
IN cleanliness, the Duke was negligent to so great a degree, that he rarely made use of water for purposes of bodily refreshment and comfort. Nor did he change his linen more frequ...
JOHN was thought to be very stupid. He was sent to a mill one day, and the miller said, John, some people say you are a fool! Now, tell me what you do know, and what you don't know...
MR. JUSTICE P----, a well-meaning but particularly prosing judge, on one of his country circuits had to try a man for stealing a quantity of copper. In his charge he had frequent o...
SOME one who had been down in Lord Kenyon's kitchen, remarked that he saw the spit shining as bright as if it had never been used. Why do you mention his spit? said Jekyll; you mus...