The Jest Book<br />The Choicest Anecdotes and Sayings by Mark Lemon (christmas read aloud TXT) 📗
- Author: Mark Lemon
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(Upon the late Duke of Buckingham's moderate reform.)
His bill against Lord Grey's is idle;
Reform, when offered bit by bit,
Is but intended for a bridle.
MDXV.—A DREADFUL SUSPICION.
A gentleman leaving the company, somebody who sat next to Dr. Johnson asked who he was. "I cannot exactly tell you sir," replied the doctor, "and I should be[Pg 329] loath to speak ill of any person whom I do not know deserves it, but I am afraid he is an attorney."
MDXVI.—A FAMILIAR FRIEND.Sydney Smith was annoyed one evening by the familiarity of a young gentleman, who, though a comparative stranger, was encouraged by Smith's jocular reputation to address him by his surname alone. Hearing the young man say that he was going that evening to see the Archbishop of Canterbury for the first time, the reverend wit interposed, "Pray don't clap him on the back, and call him Howley."
MDXVII.—NO MUSIC IN HIS SOUL.Lord North, who had a great antipathy to music, being asked why he did not subscribe to the Ancient Concerts, and it being urged as a reason for it that his brother the Bishop of Winchester did, "Ay," replied his lordship, "if I was as deaf as my brother, I would subscribe too."
MDXVIII.—PROFESSIONAL CANDOR.A gentleman afflicted with rheumatism consulted a physician, who immediately wrote him a prescription. As the patient was going away the doctor called him back. "By the way, sir, should my prescription happen to afford you any relief, please to let me know, as I am myself suffering from a similar affection, and have tried in vain to cure it."
MDXIX.—TELL IT NOT IN ENGLAND.Lady Carteret, wife of the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, in Swift's time, one day said to the wit, "The air of this country is very good."—"Don't say so in England, my lady," quickly replied the dean, "for if you do they will certainly tax it."
MDXX.—FASHION AND VIRTUE.Is always right," cries sprightly Jane;
"Ah! would to Heaven," cries graver Sue,
"What's right were fashionable too."
[Pg 330] MDXXI.—PROFESSIONAL COMPANIONS.
A gentleman, who was dining with another, praised the meat very much, and inquired who was his butcher. "His name is Addison."—"Addison!" echoed the guest; "pray is he any relation to the poet?"—"I can't say: but this I know, he is seldom without his Steel by his side."
MDXXII.—WHY MASTER OF THE HOUSE.A traveller coming up to an inn door, said: "Pray, friend, are you the master of this house?"—"Yes, sir," answered Boniface, "my wife has been dead these three weeks."
MDXXIII.—PRECAUTIONARY.Lord John Russell, remarkable for the smallness of his person as Lord Nugent was for the reverse, was expected at a house where Sydney Smith was a guest. "Lord John comes here to-day," said Sydney Smith, "his corporeal anti-part, Lord Nugent, is already here. Heaven send he may not swallow John! There are, however, stomach-pumps in case of accident."
MDXXIV.—A LATE DISCOVERER.A very dull man, after dinner, had been boring the company with a long discourse, in the course of which he had given utterance to ethical views as old as the hills, as though he had just discovered them. When he had done repeating his truisms, Charles Lamb gravely said: "Then, sir, you are actually prepared to maintain that a thief is not altogether a moral man."
MDXXV.—LINES TO O'KEEFE.(Said to be written by Peter Pindar.)
Thou art a thief,
That half thy works are stolen or more;
I say O'Keefe,
Thou art no thief,
Such stuff was never writ before!
[Pg 331] MDXXVI.—PROFESSION AND PRACTICE.
A young lawyer who had been "admitted" about a year, was asked by a friend, "How do you like your new profession?" The reply was accompanied by a brief sigh to suit the occasion: "My profession is much better than my practice."
MDXXVII.—A RISKFUL ADVENTURE.Mr. Reynolds, the dramatist, once met a free and easy actor, who told him that he had passed three festive days at the seat of the Marquis and Marchioness of ——, without any invitation. He had gone there on the assumption that as my lord and lady were not on speaking terms, each would suppose the other had asked him, and so it turned out.
MDXXVIII.—WONDERFUL UNANIMITY.Judge Clayton was an honest man, but not a profound lawyer. Soon after he was raised to the Irish bench, he happened to dine in company with Counsellor Harwood, celebrated for his fine brogue, his humor, and his legal knowledge. Clayton began to make some observations on the Laws of Ireland. "In my country" (England), said he, "the laws are numerous, but then one is always found to be a key to the other. In Ireland it is just the contrary; your laws so perpetually clash with one another, and are so very contradictory, that I protest I don't understand them."—"True, my lord," cried Harwood, "that is what we all say."
MDXXIX.—A MICHAELMAS MEETING.Samuel Taylor Coleridge was so bad a horseman, that when mounted he generally attracted unfavorable notice. On a certain occasion he was riding along a turnpike road, in the county of Durham, when he was met by a wag, who, mistaking his man, thought the rider a good subject for sport. "I say, young man," cried the rustic, "did you see a tailor on the road?"—"Yes, I did; and he told me that, if I went a little further, I should meet a goose."[Pg 332]
MDXXX.—A TYPOGRAPHICAL TRANSFER.The editor of the Evangelical Observer, in reference to a certain person, took occasion to write that he was rectus in ecclesia, i.e., in good standing in the church. The compositor, in the editor's absence, converted it into rectus in culina, which although not very bad Latin, altered the sense very materially, giving the reverend gentleman a good standing in the kitchen.
MDXXXI.—EPIGRAM.(Upon the trustworthiness of —— ——.)
For what he says will never be believed.
MDXXXII.—GOING TO EXTREMES.
When ladies wore their dresses very low and very short, a wit observed that "they began too late and ended too soon."
MDXXXIII.—SILENT APPRECIATION.A gentleman gave a friend some first-rate wine, which he tasted and drank, making no remark upon it. The owner, disgusted at his guest's want of appreciation, next offered some strong but inferior wine, which the guest had no sooner tasted than he exclaimed that it was excellent wine. "But you said nothing of the first" remarked his host "O," replied the other, "the first required nothing being said of it. It spoke for itself. I thought the second wanted a trumpeter."
MDXXXIV.—JUSTICE MIDAS.A judge, joking a young barrister, said, "If you and I were turned into a horse and an ass, which would you prefer to be?"—"The ass, to be sure," replied the barrister. "I've heard of an ass being made a judge, but a horse never."
MDXXXV.—A SIGNIFICANT DIFFERENCE.At an hotel at Brighton, Douglas Jerrold was dining[Pg 333] with two friends, one of whom, after dinner, ordered "a bottle of old port."—"Waiter," added Jerrold, with a significant twinkle of his eye, "mind now; a bottle of your old port, not your elder port."
MDXXXVI.—LAW AND PHYSIC.When Dr. H. and Sergeant A. were walking arm-in-arm, a wag said to a friend, "These two are just equal to one highwayman."—"Why?" was the response. "Because it is a lawyer and a doctor—your money or your life."
MDXXXVII.—EUCLID REFUTED.Unto the whole can never equal be";
Yet W——'s speeches can this fact control,
Of them a part is equal to the whole.
MDXXXVIII.—KEEPING IT TO HIMSELF.
Burke once mentioned to Fox that he had written a tragedy. "Did you let Garrick see it?" inquired his friend: "No," replied Burke; "though I had the folly to write it, I had the wit to keep it to myself."
MDXXXIX.—CLASSICAL WIT.Dr. Maginn dining with a friend on ham and chicken, addressed Sukey Boyle, his friend's housekeeper, thus: "You know, Boyle, what old Ovid, in his 'Art of Love' (book iii.), says; I give you the same wish:—
May you always have a ham hanging in your kitchen." The doctor insisted that tea was well known to the Romans, "for," said he, "even in the time of Plautus it was a favorite beverage with the ladies,—
Miles Glor., Act i., sc. i., v. 58.
Observing Sukey Boyle, he said to his friend, "Ah! John, I see you follow the old advice we both learned at school,[Pg 334] [Greek: Charizou tê Psychê], 'Indulge yourself with Sukey.'" There was some hock at dinner, which he thus eulogized:—
Hoc minuit luctus mœstaque corda levat.'"
Ov. Trist., lib. iv., el. vi., v. 15, 16.
MDXL.—A PREFERABLE WAY.
One of the Kembles made his first appearance on the stage as an opera singer. His voice was, however, so bad, that at a rehearsal the conductor of the orchestra called out, "Mr. Kemble! Mr. Kemble! you are murdering the music!"—"My dear sir," was the quiet rejoinder, "it is far better to murder it outright, than to keep on beating it as you do."
MDXLI.—A STOUT SWIMMER.Some one jocularly observed to the Marquis Wellesley, that, in his arrangements of the ministry, his brother, the Duke, had thrown him overboard. "Yes," said the Marquis; "but I trust I have strength enough to swim to the other side."
MDXLII.—A CHOICE OF EVILS.One asked his friend, why he married so little a wife? "Why," said he, "I thought you knew, that of all evils we should choose the least."
MDXLIII.—RESTING HERSELF.A laborer's daughter, who had been in service from her childhood, would frequently wish to be married, that, as she expressed herself, she might rest her bones. Some time afterwards she got married, and her late mistress meeting her, asked her, "Well, Mary, have you rested your bones yet?"—"Yes, indeed," replied she, with a sigh, "I have rested my jaw-bones."
MDXLIV.—A CHARTIST NOT A LEVELLER.A chartist at a public meeting, in the course of a speech about the "five points" of the charter, exclaimed, "Gentlemen, is not one man as good as another?"—"Uv[Pg 335] course he is," shouted an excited Irish chartist, "and a great deal betther."
MDXLV.—DEATH AND DR. BOLUS.So now I'm quite at sea."
Quoth Dr. Bolus, "Never mind,—
There, take this recipe."
MDXLVI.—AN EVASION.
A well-dressed fellow walked into a room where they were talking politics, and, stretching himself up to his full height, exclaimed, in a loud voice, "Where is a radical? Show me a radical, gentlemen, and I'll show you a liar!" In an instant a man exclaimed, "I am a radical, sir!"—"You are?"—"Yes, sir, I am!"—"Well, just you step round the corner with me, and I'll show you a fellow who said I couldn't find a radical in the ward. Ain't he a liar, I should like to know?"
MDXLVII.—GOING FROM THE POINT.Curran, in describing a speech made by Sergeant Hewitt, said: "My learned friend's speech put me exactly in mind of a familiar utensil in domestic use, commonly called an extinguisher. It began at a point, and on it went widening and widening, until at last it fairly put the question out altogether."
MDXLVIII.—DEFINING A CREED.A friend of Sydney Smith inquired, "What is Puseyism!" To which the witty canon replied: "Puseyism, sir, is inflexion and genuflexion; posture and imposture; bowing to the east, and curtseying to the west."
MDXLIX.—A BIT OF MOONSHINE.Brougham, speaking of the salary attached to a new judgeship, said it was all moonshine. Lyndhurst, in his dry and waggish way, remarked,
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