The Jest Book Part 87

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 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.

"I'M very much surprised," quoth Harry, "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 surrept.i.tiously 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_."

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 n.o.ble 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.

WHILE Butler, needy wretch, was yet alive, 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 a.s.size 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. 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 _ragam.u.f.fin-looking_ boy scratching his head at the door of Alderman Purchase, in Cambridge, where he was begging, and thinking to pa.s.s 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 b.u.t.ter_ I ever tasted in my life."

MDLXXVIII.--BLANK CARTRIDGE.

EPIGRAM on the occasion of the duel between Tom Moore, the poet, and Francis Jeffrey:--

When Anacreon would fight, as the poets have said, 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."

MDLx.x.x.--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."