Quips and Quiddities Part 53

Vill'st dou learn de Deutsche Sprache?

If a shendleman dou art, Denn strike right indo Deutschland, Und get a schveetes-heart.

From Schwabenland or Sachsen, Vhere now dis writer pees; Und de bretty girls all wachsen Shoost like aepples on de drees.

Boot if dou bee'st a laty, Denn, on de oder hand, Take a blonde moustachioed lofer In de vine green Sherman land.

Und if you shoost kit married (Vood mit vood soon makes a vire), You'll learn to sprechen Deutsch, mein kind, Ash fast ash you tesire.

C. G. LELAND, _Breitmann Ballads_.

The Bishop of St. David's has been studying Welsh all the summer; it is a difficult language, and I hope he will be careful,--it is so easy for him to take up the Funeral Service and read it over the next wedding-party, or to make a mistake in a tense in a Confirmation, and the children will have renounced their G.o.dfathers and G.o.dmothers and got nothing in their place.

SYDNEY SMITH, _apud_ LORD HOUGHTON.

Beautiful soup, so rich and green, Waiting in a hot tureen!

Who for such dainties would not stoop?

Soup of the evening, beautiful soup!

Soup of the evening, beautiful soup!

Beautiful soup! Who cares for fish, Game, or any other dish?

Who would not give all else for two p Ennyworth only of beautiful soup?

Pennyworth only of beautiful soup?

LEWIS CARROLL, _Alice in Wonderland_.

Writing to Manning, Charles Lamb says: "---- says he could write like Shakespeare if he had a _mind_--so you see nothing is wanting but the _mind_."

CRABB ROBINSON, _Diary_.

_ON b.a.l.l.s AND OPERAS._

If by their names we things should call, It surely would be properer To term a singing-piece a _bawl_, A dancing-piece a _hopperer_!

ANON.

Among all forms of mistake, prophecy is the most gratuitous.

GEORGE ELIOT, _Middlemarch_.

_ON LOVE._

Love levels all--it elevates the clown, And often brings the fattest people down.

H. J. BYRON, in _English Epigrams_.

The Hanoverian squires are a.s.ses who can talk of nothing but horses.

HEINRICH HEINE, _Thoughts and Fancies_.

Sir George Warrender was once obliged to put off a dinner-party in consequence of the death of a relative, and sat down to a haunch of venison by himself. While eating, he said to his butler, "John, this will make a capital hash to-morrow." "Yes, Sir George, if you leave off _now_!"

R. H. BARHAM, _Life_.

_TO CHLORIS._

Chloris, I swear, by all I ever swore, That from this hour I shall not love thee more.

"What! love no more? oh, why this altered vow?"

Because I _cannot_ love thee _more_--than _now_.

THOMAS MOORE.

You close your pet.i.tion with the words: "And we will ever pray." I think you had better--you need to do it.

MARK TWAIN, _Choice Works_.

Husbands, more covetous than sage, Condemn this china-buying rage; They count that woman's prudence little Who sets her heart on things so brittle.

JOHN GAY, _Poems_.

Umbrella--an article which, by the morality of society, you may steal from friend or foe, and which, for the same reason, you should not lend to either.

HORACE SMITH, _The Tin Trumpet_.

La curiosite n'est que la vanite. Le plus souvent on ne veut savoir que pour en parler.

PASCAL, _Pensees_.

O how unlike our sh.o.r.es, Where with ten thousand tongues each city roars!

There to all men, whate'er their age or walk, Life's one great solemn business is to talk.

There what the penny press by morning write Is echoed for a halfpenny at night: There stump young Ministers; old Maids debate; There loud Professors scold like Billingsgate: There, as the World into the Church expands, A moral Atheist spouts in parson's bands; And poets, doubtful of the parts of speech, Desperate of rhyme, acquire the art to preach.

_Windbag_, in COURTHOPE's _Paradise of Birds_.

Prince Metternich said to Lord Dudley, "You are the only Englishman I know who speaks good French. It is remarked, the common people in Vienna speak better than the educated men in London." "That may well be," replied Lord Dudley. "Your Highness should recollect that Buonaparte has not been twice in London to teach them."