Quips and Quiddities Part 5

Said she, with a start, "I've no room in my heart-- Or canoe!"

J. ASHBY STERRY, _Boudoir Ballads_.

Kenny one day mentioned Charles Lamb's being once bored by a lady praising to him "such a charming man!" etc., etc.; ending with, "I know him, bless him!" On which Lamb said, "Well, I don't, but d---- him at a hazard."

THOMAS MOORE, _Diary_.

They sought it with thimbles, they sought it with care; They pursued it with forks and hope; They threatened its life with a railway share; They charmed it with smiles and soap.

LEWIS CARROLL, _Hunting of the Snark_.

I remember being present at a dinner in London, when a very severe and saturnine Scotch Presbyterian was abusing Sunday newspapers, and concluded a violent tirade by saying, "I am determined to set my face against them." "So am I,"

said Theodore Hook, "every Sunday morning."

GRONOW, _Recollections_.

_ON A RADICAL REFORMER._

Tomkins will clear the land, they say, From every foul abuse; So chimneys in the olden time Were cleansed by a goose.

JAMES HANNAY, _Sketches and Characters_.

I was mentioning that some one had said of Sharpe's very dark complexion that he looked as if the dye of his old trade (hat making) had got engrained into his face. "Yes," said Luttrell, "darkness that may be _felt_!"

THOMAS MOORE, _Diary_.

It seems that poor Bruin has never had peace 'Twixt bald men in Bethel, and wise men in grease.

FREDERICK LOCKER, _London Lyrics_.

The term _sound divine_ being used, I said, "I do not know what is a sound divine," quoting Pope-- "'Dulness is sacred in a sound divine.'"

"But I do," said Donaldson. "It is a divine who is _vox et praeterea nihil_."

CRABB ROBINSON, _Diary_.

Plain food is quite enough for me; Three courses are as good as ten; If Nature can subsist on three, Thank heaven for three--Amen!

I always thought cold victual nice-- My _choice_ should be vanilla-ice.

I care not much for gold or land; Give me a mortgage here or there; Some good bank-stock, some note of hand, Or trifling railroad share:-- I only ask that fortune send A _little_ more than I shall spend.

OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES.

Some one saying to Sir F. Gould, "I am told you eat three eggs _every day at breakfast_,"--"No,"

answered Gould, "on the contrary." Some of those present asked, "What was the contrary of eating three eggs?" "Laying three eggs, I suppose," said Luttrell.

THOMAS MOORE, _Diary_.

Blossom of hawthorn whitens in May: Never an end to true love's sway!

Blossom of hawthorn fades in June: I shall be tired of my true love soon!

Blossom of hawthorn's gone in July: Darling, I must be off,--good-bye!

ANON.

The late Mr. Nightingale was telling Horace Smith of his having given a late royal duke an account of an accident he had met with when he had been run away with, and of the duke's exclaiming aloud to himself, when he heard he had jumped out of the carriage, "Fool! fool!" "Now," said the narrator to his auditor, "it's all very well for him to call me a fool, but I can't conceive why he should. Can you?" "No," replied the wag, as if reflecting, "because he could not suppose you ignorant of the fact."

J. C. YOUNG, _Diary_.

Such are the sylvan scenes that thrill This heart! The lawns, the happy shade Where matrons, whom the sunbeams grill, Stir with slow spoon their lemonade; And maidens flirt (no extra charge) In comfort at the fountain's marge!

C. S. CALVERLEY, _Fly Leaves_.

The crow!--the crow!--the great black crow!

He loves the fat meadow--his taste is low; He loves the fat worms, and he dines in a row With fifty fine cousins all black as a sloe.

Sloe--sloe! you great black crow!

But it is jolly to fare like a great black crow!

P. J. BAILEY, _Festus_.

If a man's got a bit of property, a stake in the country, he'll want to keep things square.

Where Jack isn't safe, Tom's in danger.

_Mr. Wace_, in GEORGE ELIOT'S _Felix Holt_.

Turn not from poor p.u.s.s.y in disdain, Whose pride of ancestry may equal thine; For is she not a blood descendant of The ancient Catty line?

R. H. NEWELL, _Orpheus C. Kerr Papers_.

I heard the other day of Jekyll making the following pun. He said, "Erskine used to hesitate very much, and could not speak very well after dinner. I dined with him once at the Fishmongers'

Company. He made such a sad work of speechifying that I asked him whether it was in honour of the Company that he _floundered_ so?"

CRABB ROBINSON, _Diary_.