A COUNTRY gentleman, wishing to be civil to Dr. B----, a translator of Juvenal, said, What particularly convinces me of the faithfulness of your translation is, that in places wher...
AN officer advising his general to capture a post, said: It will only cost a few men.--Will you make one of the few? remarked the general.
THE subject for the Chancellor's English Prize Poem, for the year 1823, was Australasia (New Holland). This happened to be the subject of conversation at a party of Johnians, when,...
COOKE was announced one evening to play the Stranger at the Dublin Theatre. When he made his appearance, evident marks of agitation were visible in his countenance and gestures: th...
WHEN an inferior actor at the Haymarket once took off David Garrick, Foote limped from the boxes to the green-room, and severely rated him for his impudence. Why, sir, said the fel...
OF HIS POLITICAL CHARACTER. HIS degradation is complete, His name with loss of honor branding: When he resolved to win his seat He literally lost his standing.
SAID vain Andrew Scalp, My initials, I guess, Are known, so I sign all my poems, A.S. Said Jerrold, I own you're a reticent youth, For that's telling only two thirds of the truth.
A POOR youth, brought up in one of the colleges, could not afford the price of a pair of shoes, but when his old ones were worn out at the toes, had them capped with leather: where...
THE late Bishop Blomfield, when a Suffolk clergyman, asked a school-boy what was meant in the Catechism by succoring his father and mother. Giving on 'em milk, was the prompt reply...
SIR WILLIAM B---- being at a parish meeting, made some proposals, which were objected to by a farmer. Highly enraged, Sir, says he to the farmer, do you know, sir, that I have been...
AMONG the many English who visited Paris in 1815 was Alderman Wood, who had previously filled the office of Lord Mayor of London. He ordered a hundred visiting cards, inscribing up...
WE every-day bards may Anonymous sign: That refuge, Miss Edgeworth, can never be thine: Thy writings, where satire and moral unite, Must bring forth the name of their author to lig...
A HUNTSMAN, reported to have lived with Mr. Beckford, was not so correct in his conversation as he was in his professional employments. One day when he had been out with the young...
AS Jekyll walked out in his gown and his wig, He happened to tread on a very small pig: Pig of science, he said, or else I'm mistaken, For surely thou art an abridgment of Bacon.
KING HENRY VIII., designing to send an embassy to Francis I. at a very dangerous juncture, the nobleman selected begged to be excused, saying, Such a threatening message to so hot...
LORD CHESTERFIELD placed among the portraits of his ancestors two old heads, inscribed Adam de Stanhope, and Eve de Stanhope: the ridicule is admirable. Old Peter Leneve, the heral...
CHARLES LAMB sitting next some chattering woman at dinner, observing he didn't attend to her, You don't seem, said the lady, to be at all the better for what I am saying to you!--N...
AFTER Byron's engagement in the West Indies, there was a great clamor about the badness of the ammunition. Soon after this, Mr. Fox had a duel with Mr. Adam. On receiving that gent...
THE lawyer's house, if I have rightly read, Is built upon the fool or madman's head.
BUBB DODDINGTON was very lethargic. Falling asleep one day, after dinner with Sir Richard Temple and Lord Cobham, the latter reproached Doddington with his drowsiness. Doddington d...
IN a duel between two attorneys, one of them shot away the skirt of the other's coat. His second, observing the truth of his aim, declared that had his friend been engaged with a c...
A YORKSHIRE clergyman, preaching for the Blind Asylum, began by gravely remarking: If all the world were blind, what a melancholy sight it would be!
WHEN the Duke de Choiseul, who was a remarkably meagre-looking man, came to London to negotiate a peace, Charles Townshend, being asked whether the French government had sent the p...
CRIES Sylvia to a Reverend Dean, What reason can be given, Since marriage is a holy thing, That there are none in Heaven? There are no women, he replied. She quick returns the jest...
SYDNEY SMITH, writing in the Edinburgh Review, says, If the English were in a paradise of spontaneous productions, they would continue to dig and plough, though they were never a p...
AT Glasgow forty years ago, when the time had come for the bowl to be introduced, some jovial and thirsty member of the company proposed as a toast, The trade of Glasgow and the ou...
A LADY who went to consult Mr. Abernethy, began describing her complaint, which is what he very much disliked. Among other things she said, Whenever I lift my arm, it pains me exce...
IN the reign of George II., Mr. Crowle, a counsel of some eminence, was summoned to the bar of the House of Commons to receive a reprimand from the Speaker, on his knees. As he ros...
WHEN Boswell's Life of Johnson, first made its appearance, Boswell was so full of it that he could neither think nor talk of anything else: so much so, that meeting Lord Thurlow hu...
MR. BURKE, in speaking of the indisposition of Mr. Fox, which prevented his making a motion for an investigation into the conduct of Lord Sandwich, said, No one laments Mr. Fox's i...