I KEEP an excellent table, said a lady, disputing with one of her boarders. That may be true, ma'am, says he, but you put very little upon it.
AN affectionate Irishman once enlisted in the 75th Regiment, in order to be near his brother, who was a corporal in the 76th.
ADMIRAL DUNCAN'S address to the officers who came on board his ship for instructions previous to the engagement with Admiral de Winter, was both laconic and humorous: Gentlemen, yo...
AFTER a long drought, there fell a torrent of rain; and a country gentleman observed to Sir John Hamilton, This is a most delightful rain; I hope it will bring up everything out of...
A CERTAIN minister going to visit one of his sick parishioners, asked him how he had rested during the night. Oh, wondrous ill, sir, replied he, for mine eyes have not come togethe...
JUDGE JEFFREYS, of notorious memory (pointing with his cane to a man who was about to be tried), said, There is a great rogue at the end of my cane. The man pointed at, inquired, A...
DIED suddenly,--surprised at such a rarity! Verdict,--Saw Eldon do a little bit of charity.
A COUNTRY gentleman, walking in his garden, saw his gardener asleep in an arbor. What! says the master, asleep, you idle dog, you are not worthy that the sun should shine on you.--...
TO John I owed great obligation; But John, unhappily, thought fit To publish it to all the nation: Sure John and I am more than quit.
THE first time Jerrold saw a celebrated song-writer, the latter said to him:-- Youngster, have you sufficient confidence in me to lend me a guinea? Jerrold.--O yes; I've all the co...
HOW long is this loch? It will be about twanty mile. Twenty miles! surely it cannot be so much? Maybe it will be twelve. It does not really seem more than four. Indeed, I'm thinkin...
A BERMONDSEY tanner would often engage, In a long tete-a-tete with his dame, While trotting to town in the Kennington stage, About giving their villa a name. A neighbor, thus heari...
A GLASGOW professor met a poor student passing along one of the courts, and remarked to him that his gown was very short. It will be long enough before I get another, answered the...
THE Tories vow the Whigs are black as night, And boast that they are only blessed with light. Peel's politics to both sides so incline, He may be called the equinoctial line.
A CERTAIN Quaker slept at a hotel in a certain town. He was supplied with two wax candles. He retired early, and, as he had burned but a small part of the candles, he took them wit...
AN attorney, says Sterne, is the same thing to a barrister that an apothecary is to a physician, with this difference, that your lawyer does not deal in scruples.
THE late Hon. Henry Erskine met his acquaintance Jemmy Ba--four, a barrister, who dealt in hard words and circumlocutious sentences. Perceiving that his ankle was tied up with a si...
IT requires (says Sydney Smith) a surgical operation to get a joke well into a Scotch understanding. Their only idea of wit, or rather that inferior variety of the electric talent...
THE amiable Mrs. W---- always insists that her friends who take grog shall mix equal quantities of spirits and water, though she never observes the rule for herself. A writer of pl...
A DYING miser sent for his solicitor, and said, Now begin, and I will dictate particulars.--I give and I bequeath, commenced the man of law. No, no, interrupted the testator; I do...
A PROSY orator reproved Lord North for going to sleep during one of his speeches. Pooh, pooh! said the drowsy Premier; the physician should never quarrel with the effect of his own...
IT is too true that there are many patriots, who, while they bleat about the cause of liberty, act in so interested a manner that they are evidently looking more after the effects.
A GENTLEMAN seeing a fine painting representing a man playing on the lute, paid this high compliment to the artist. When I look on that painting I think myself deaf.
AN officer of the navy being asked what Burke meant by the Cheap defence of nations, replied, A midshipman's half-pay,--nothing a-day and find yourself.
A PART, says Euclid, one at once may see, Unto the whole can never equal be; Yet W----'s speeches can this fact control, Of them a part is equal to the whole.
ZOUNDS, fellow! exclaimed a choleric old gentleman to a very phlegmatic matter-of-fact person, I shall go out of my wits.--Well, you won't have far to go, said the phlegmatic man.
WHILST inspecting a farm in a pauperized district, an enterprising agriculturist could not help noticing the slow, drawling motions of one of the laborers there, and said, My man,...
SMITH and Brown, running opposite ways round a corner, struck each other. Oh dear! says Smith, how you made my head ring!--That's a sign it's hollow, said Brown. Didn't yours ring?...
IN a dispute, whether the letter H was really a letter or a simple aspiration, Rowland Hill contended that it was the former; adding that, if it were not a letter, it must have bee...