The Jest Book<br />The Choicest Anecdotes and Sayings by Mark Lemon (christmas read aloud TXT) 📗
- Author: Mark Lemon
Book online «The Jest Book<br />The Choicest Anecdotes and Sayings by Mark Lemon (christmas read aloud TXT) 📗». Author Mark Lemon
Disloyal Collins did his pebble fling,—
"Why choose," with tears the injured monarch said,
"So hard a stone to break so soft a head?"
MDLI.—A KIND HINT.
Lord Grey complains that he cannot succeed in pleasing any party. He should follow the example of duellists, and by going out he would certainly give satisfaction.
MDLII.—PRIEST'S ORDERS.An actor named Priest was playing at one of the principal theatres. Some one remarked to the Garrick Club that there were a great many men in the pit. "Probably clerks who have taken Priest's orders," said Mr. Poole, one of the best punsters as well as one of the cleverest comic satirists of the day.
MDLIII.—SHERIDAN AND BURKE.After a very violent speech from an opposition member, Mr. Burke started suddenly from his seat, and rushed to the ministerial side of the house, exclaiming with much vehemence, "I quit the camp! I quit the camp!"—"I hope," said Mr. Sheridan, "as the honorable gentleman has quitted the camp as a deserter, he will not return as a spy."
MDLIV.—ALWAYS THE BETTER.A Cambridge tutor said to his pupil, "If you go over to Newmarket, beware of betting, for in nine cases out of ten it brings a man to ruin."—"Sir," said the youth, "I must really differ from you; so far from ever being the worse for it, I have invariably been the better."
MDLV.—A PUNGENT PINCH.When Curran was cross-examining Lundy Foot, the celebrated Irish tobacconist, he put a question at which Lundy hesitated a great deal: "Lundy," exclaimed Curran, "that's a poser,—a deuse of a pinch, Lundy!"[Pg 337]
MDLVI.—"OFF WITH HIS HEAD."An eminent painter, who had suffered, under the common malady of his profession, namely, to paint portraits for persons who neither paid for them nor took them away, sent word to an ugly customer who refused to pay, that he was in treaty for the picture with the landlord of the "Saracen's Head." It was paid for immediately.
MDLVII.—ON A GREAT TALKER.Job himself scarcely patience could keep;
He's so dull that each moment we're ready to doze,
Yet so noisy we can't go to sleep.
MDLVIII.—DRY HUMOR.
An Irish post-boy having driven a gentleman a long stage during torrents of rain, was asked if he was not very wet? "Arrah! I wouldn't care about being very wet, if I wasn't so very dry, your honor."
MDLIX.—CHANGE FOR A GUINEA.The beautiful Lady Coventry was exhibiting to Selwyn a splendid new dress, covered with large silver spangles, the size of a shilling, and inquired of him whether he admired her taste. "Why," he said, "you will be change for a guinea."
MDLX.—AS BLACK AS HE COULD BE PAINTED.A little boy one day came running home, and said, "O father, I've just seen the blackest man that ever was!"—"How black was he, my son?"—"O, he was as black as black can be! why, father, charcoal would make a white mark on him!"
MDLXI.—A MAN AND A BROTHER.Harry Woodward, walking with a friend, met a most miserable object, who earnestly solicited their charity. On Woodward giving a few pence, his friend said, "I believe that fellow is an impostor."—"He is either the[Pg 338] most distressed man, or the best actor, I ever saw in my life," replied the comedian: "and, as either one or the other, he has a brotherly claim upon me."
MDLXII.—PULLING UP A POET.A poet was once walking with T——, in the street, reciting some of his verses. T—— perceiving, at a short distance, a man yawning, pointed him out to the poet, saying, "Not so loud, he hears you."
MDLXIII.—AN HONOR TO TIPPERARY.A gentleman from Ireland, on entering a London tavern, saw a countryman of his, a Tipperary squire, sitting over his pint of wine in the coffee-room. "My dear fellow," said he, "what are you about? For the honor of Tipperary, don't be after sitting over a pint of wine in a house like this!"—"Make yourself aisy, countryman," was the reply, "It's the seventh I have had, and every one in the room knows it."
MDLXIV.—WITTY THANKSGIVING.Barham having sent his friend, Sydney Smith, a brace of pheasants, the present was acknowledged in the following characteristic epistle: "Many thanks, my dear sir, for your kind present of game. If there is a pure and elevated pleasure in this world, it is that of roast pheasant and bread sauce; barn-door fowls for dissenters, but for the real churchman, the thirty-nine times articled clerk, the pheasant, the pheasant.—Ever yours, S.S."
MDLXV.—A REASON FOR NOT MOVING.Thomson, the author of the "Seasons," was wonderfully indolent. A friend entered his room, and finding him in bed, although the day was far spent, asked him why he did not get up. "Man, I hae nae motive," replied the poet.
MDLXVI.—KILLED BY HIS OWN REMEDY.The surgeon of an English ship of war used to prescribe salt water for his patients in all disorders. Having sailed[Pg 339] one evening on a party of pleasure, he happened by some mischance to be drowned. The captain, who had not heard of the disaster, asked one of the tars next day if he had heard anything of the doctor. "Yes," answered Jack: "he was drowned last night in his own medicine chest."
MDLXVII.—NOTHING SURPRISING.Admiral Lee, when only a post captain, being on board his ship one very rainy and stormy night, the officer of the watch came down to his cabin and cried, "Sir, the sheet-anchor is coming home."—"Indeed," says the captain, "I think the sheet-anchor is perfectly in the right of it. I don't know what would stay out such a stormy night as this."
MDLXVIII.—RUNNING NO RISK."That Jane a gambler should marry."
"I'm not at all," her sister says,
"You know he has such winning ways!"
MDLXIX.—A HUMORIST PIQUED.
Theodore Hook was relating to his friend, Charles Mathews, how, on one occasion, when supping in the company of Peake, the latter surreptitiously removed from his plate several slices of tongue; and, affecting to be very much annoyed by such practical joking, Hook concluded with the question, "Now, Charles, what would you do to anybody who treated you in such a manner?"—"Do?" exclaimed Mathews, "if any man meddled with my tongue, I'd lick him!"
MDLXX.—NOT ROOM FOR A NEIGHBOR.A landed proprietor in the small county of Rutland became very intimate with the Duke of Argyle, to whom, in the plenitude of his friendship, he said: "How I wish your estate were in my county!" Upon which the duke replied: "I'm thinking, if it were, there would be no room for yours."[Pg 340]
MDLXXI.—AN UNEXPECTED CANNONADE.At one of the annual dinners of the members of the Chapel Royal, a gentleman had been plaguing Edward Cannon with a somewhat dry disquisition on the noble art of fencing. Cannon for some time endured it with patience; but at length, on the man remarking that Sir George D—— was a great fencer, Cannon, who disliked him, replied, "I don't know, sir, whether Sir George is a great fencer, but Sir George is a great fool!" A little startled, the other rejoined, "Possibly he is; but then, you know, a man may be both."—"So I see, sir," said Cannon, turning away.
MDLXXII.—ON BUTLER'S MONUMENT.No generous patron would a dinner give.
See him, when starved to death and turned to dust,
Presented with a monumental bust.
The poet's fate is here in emblem shown,—
He asked for bread, and he received a stone.
MDLXXIII.—A WORD IN SEASON.
Mrs. Powell the actress was at a court of assize when a young barrister, who rose to make his maiden speech, suddenly stopped short and could not proceed. The lady, feeling for his situation, cried out, as though he had been a young actor on his first appearance, "Somebody give him the word,—somebody give him the word!"
MDLXXIV.—"GETTING THE WORST OF IT."Porson was once disputing with an acquaintance, who, getting the worst of it, said, "Professor, my opinion of you is most contemptible."—"Sir," returned the great Grecian, "I never knew an opinion of yours that was not contemptible."
MDLXXV.—A SATISFACTORY EXPLANATION.One of the curiosities some time since shown at a public exhibition, professed to be a skull of Oliver Cromwell.[Pg 341] A gentleman present observed that it could not be Cromwell's, as he had a very large head, and this was a small skull. "O, I know all that," said the exhibitor, undisturbed, "but you see this was his skull when he was a boy."
MDLXXVI.—"I TAKES 'EM AS THEY COME."A Cantab, one day observing a ragamuffin-looking boy scratching his head at the door of Alderman Purchase, in Cambridge, where he was begging, and thinking to pass a joke upon him, said, "So, Jack, you are picking them out, are you?"—"Nah, sar," retorted the urchin; "I takes 'em as they come!"
MDLXXVU.—A CLIMAX.The late Earl Dudley wound up an eloquent tribute to the virtues of a deceased Baron of the Exchequer with this pithy peroration: "He was a good man, an excellent man. He had the best melted butter I ever tasted in my life."
MDLXXVIII.—BLANK CARTRIDGE.Epigram on the occasion of the duel between Tom Moore, the poet, and Francis Jeffrey:—
A reverse he displayed in his vapor,
For while all his poems were loaded with lead,
His pistols were loaded with paper.
For excuses, Anacreon old custom may thank,
Such a salvo he should not abuse;
For the cartridge, by rule, is always made blank,
Which is fired away at Reviews.
MDLXXIX.—SERMONS IN STONES.
The Duke of Wellington having had his windows broken by the mob, continued to have boards before the windows of his house in Piccadilly. "Strange that the Duke will not renounce his political errors," said A'Beckett, "seeing that no pains have been spared to convince him of them."[Pg 342]
MDLXXX.—EARLY HABITS.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 retained that of eating everything with his fingers. One day a choice bit of turbot having repeatedly escaped from his grasp, Wilkes, who witnessed the dilemma, whispered, "My lord, you had better take your trowel to it."
MDLXXXI.—LAW AND THE SCOTTISH THANE.During the representation of "Macbeth," an eminent special pleader graced the boxes of Drury Lane Theatre, to see it performed. When the hero questions the Witches, as to what they are doing: they answer, "a deed without a name." Our counsellor, whose attention was at that moment directed more to Coke upon Littleton than to Shakespeare, catching, however, the words in the play, repeated, "A deed without a name! why, 't is void."
MDLXXXII.—NOT TO BE BELIEVED.The following lines were addressed to a gentleman notoriously addicted to the vice which has been euphemistically described as "the postponement of the truth for the purposes of the moment":—
Must take you by contraries;
What you deny, perhaps is true;
But nothing that you swear is.
MDLXXXIII.—A REASON FOR POLYGAMY.
An Irishman was once brought up before a magistrate, charged with marrying six wives. The magistrate asked him how he could be so hardened a villain? "Please your worship," says Paddy, "I was just trying to get a good one."
MDLXXXIV.—BYRON LIBELLOUS.The conversation at Holland House turning on first love, Thomas Moore compared it to a potato, "because it[Pg 343] shoots from the eyes."—"Or rather," exclaimed Lord Byron, "because it becomes less by pairing."
MDLXXXV.—A TERRIBLE POSSIBILITY.An acquaintance remarked to Dr. Robert South, the celebrated preacher at the court of Charles the Second, "Ah! doctor, you are such a wit!" The doctor replied, "Don't make game of people's infirmities: you, sir, might have been born a wit!"
MDLXXXVI.—ATTIRED TO TIRE.Sir Joseph Jekyll wrote the following impromptu, on observing a certain sergeant, well known for his prosiness, bustling into the Court of King's Bench, where he was engaged in a case:—
Long shall his
Comments (0)