Quips and Quiddities Part 40

G. OUTRAM, _Lyrics: Legal, etc._

This picture is a great work of art. It is an oil painting--done in petroleum. It is by the Old Masters. It was the last thing they did before dying. They did this and then they expired.

Some of the greatest artists in London come here every morning before daylight with lanterns to look at it.

They say they never saw anything like it before--and they hope they never shall again.

C. F. BROWNE, _Artemus Ward's Lecture_.

_THE WORLD._

The world is like a rink, you know: You lose your _wheel_, and come to woe!

J. ASHBY STERRY, in _English Epigrams_.

Men will sooner forgive an injury than an insult.

LORD CHESTERFIELD, _Letters to his Son_.

Why is it that stupid people are always so much more anxious to talk to one, than clever people?

CHARLES BUXTON, _Notes of Thought_.

And Darwin, too, who leads the throng "in vulgum voces spargere,"

Maintains Humanity is nought except a big menagerie, The progeny of tailless apes, sharp-eared but puggy-nosed, sir, Who nightly climbed their "family trees," and on the top reposed, sir.

There's Carlyle, on the other hand, whose first and last concern it is To preach up the "immensities" and muse on the "eternities"; But if one credits what one hears, the gist of all his brag is, sir, That "Erbwurst," rightly understood, is transcendental haggis, sir.

F. D., in _Pall Mall Gazette_.

_DUNSFORD._ Travelling is a great trial of people's inability to live together.

_Ellesmere._ Yes. Lavater says that you do not know a man until you have divided an inheritance with him; but I think a long journey with him will do.

ARTHUR HELPS, _Friends in Council_.

_ON AN ALDERMAN._

That he was born it cannot be denied; He ate, drank, slept, talk'd politics, and died.

JOHN CUNNINGHAM (1729-1773).

At a large dinner party at Jerdan's, one of the guests indulged in some wonderful accounts of his shooting. The number of birds he had killed, and the distances at which he had brought them down, were extraordinary. Hood quietly remarked,-- "What he hit is history, What he missed is mystery."

J. R. PLANCHe, _Recollections_.

I'm very fond of water: It ever must delight Each mother's son or daughter-- When qualified aright.

LORD NEAVES, _Songs and Verses_.

An epicure, while eating oysters, swallowed one that was not fresh. "Zounds, waiter!" he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed, making a wry face; "what sort of an oyster do you call this?" "A native, sir," replied the wielder of the knife. "A native!--I call it a _settler_, so you need not open any more."

HORACE SMITH, _The Tin Trumpet_.

Once Uncle went astray, Smoked, joked, and swore away-- Sworn by he's now, by a Large congregation.

FREDERICK LOCKER, _London Lyrics_.

You've heard what a lady in Italy did-- How to vex a cross husband she buried a "kid!"

Sam swears she'd have managed things better by half If, instead of the "kid," she had buried the calf!

R. H. BARHAM, _Ingoldsby Lyrics_.

Il est plus facile de legaliser certaines choses que de les legitimer.

CHAMFORT, _Maximes_.

Wilt thou love me, fairest?

Though thou art not fair, And I think thou wearest Some one else's hair.

Thou couldst love, though, dearly: And, as I am told, Thou art very nearly Worth thy weight, in gold.

Dost thou love, sweet one?

Tell me if thou dost!

Women fairly beat one, But I think thou must.

Thou art loved so dearly: I am plain, but then Thou (to speak sincerely) Art as plain again.

C. S. CALVERLEY, _Fly Leaves_.

"Certainly, my Lord," said the attendant.

"He knows me," thought Lothair; but it was not so. When the British nation is at once grateful and enthusiastic, they always call you "my Lord."

LORD BEACONSFIELD's _Lothair_.

_THE RECOGNITION._

Home they brought her sailor son, Grown a man across the sea, Tall and broad and black of beard, And hoa.r.s.e of voice as man may be.