QUIPS AND QUIDDITIES.

HEN Miss Callender, afterwards Mrs. Sheridan, published a novel, the hero of which commits forgery, that wicked wit, Sydney Smith, said he knew she was a Callender, but did not know till then that she was a Newgate Calendar.

Fanny Kemble, Record of a Girlhood.

N estate and beauty joined, are of an unlimited, nay, a power pontifical; make one not only absolute, but infallible. A fine woman's never in the wrong.

Lady Betty, in Cibber's Careless Husband.

THEOPHILUS.

HEN I'm drinking my tea I think of my The; When I'm drinking my coffee I think of my Offee; So, whether I'm drinking my tea or my coffee, I'm always a-thinking of thee, my Theoffy.

Rogers, apud Moore.

OBUS was very amusing. He is a great authority on Indian matters. We talked of the insects and the snakes, and he said a thing which reminded me of his brother Sydney: "Always, sir, manage to have at your table some fleshy blooming young writer or cadet, just come out, that the mosquitoes may stick to him, and leave the rest of the company alone."

Lord Macaulay, Life.

ADY GREENWICH, in a conversation with Lady Tweeddale, named the Saxons. "The Saxons, my dear," cried the Marchioness; "who were they?" "Lord, madam, did your ladyship never read the History of England?" "No, my dear; pray, who wrote it?"

Horace Walpole, Correspondence.

ON THE MARRIAGE OF A MR. LOT AND A MISS SALTER.

ECAUSE on her way she chose to halt, Lot's wife, in the Scriptures, was turned into salt; But though in her course she ne'er did falter, This young Lot's wife, strange to say, was Salter.

Hicks, apud J. C. Young.

OOK was dining at Powell's one day, and the talk fell upon feu Jack Reeve. "Yes," said Theodore, when they were speaking of his funeral, "I met him in his private box, going to the pit."

H. F. Chorley, Life and Letters.

TO A BAD FIDDLER.

LD Orpheus played so well, he moved old Nick, While thou mov'st nothing but thy fiddlestick!

A Collection of Epigrams (1727).

LADY from China who was dining with the Archbishop [Whately] told him that English flowers reared in that country lose their perfume in two or three years. "Indeed!" was the immediate remark, "I had no idea that the Chinese were such de-scent-ers."

E. J. Whately's Life of Whately.

ON THE ART UNIONS.

HAT Picture-Raffles will conduce to nourish Design, or cause good colouring to flourish, Admits of logic-chopping and wise-sawing: But surely Lotteries encourage Drawing?

Thomas Hood, Whims and Oddities.

OBERT SMITH (brother of Sydney, and familiarly called "Bobus") was a lawyer and an ex-Advocate-General, and happened on one occasion to be engaged in argument with an excellent physician touching the merits of their respective professions. "You must admit," urged Dr. ——, "that your profession does not make angels of men." "No," was the retort, "there you have the best of it; yours certainly gives them the first chance."

Abraham Hayward, Essays.

N London I never know what I'd be at, Enraptured with this, and enchanted by that; I'm wild with the sweets of variety's plan, And Life seems a blessing too happy for man. But the Country, Lord help me! sets all matters right; So calm and composing from morning to night; Oh! it settles the spirits when nothing is seen But an ass on a common, a goose on a green.

Charles Morris, Lyra Urbanica.

ARLER d'amour, c'est faire amour.

Balzac, Physiologie du Mariage.

T the Polish ball, the Lord Mayor said to Lady Douglas, who squints, "Which do you prefer, my lady, Gog or Magog?" "Of the three," said Lady Douglas, "I prefer your lordship!"

B. R. Haydon, Diary.

ON THE CAPPADOCIANS.

VIPER bit a Cappadocian's hide; But 'twas the viper, not the man, that died.

Anon., from the Greek.

HE merits of a certain American diplomatist being on the tapis, [Washington Irving] said, in allusion to his pomposity, "Ah, he is a great man; and, in his own estimation, a very great man—a man of great weight. When he goes to the West, the East tips up."

J. C. Young, Diary.

HEN a rapt audience has encored "Fra Poco" Or "Casta Diva," I have heard that then The Prima Donna, smiling herself out, Recruits her flagging powers with bottled stout.

C. S. Calverley, Verses and Translations.

believe everything. It saves one such a world of bore from intelligent people who are anxious to explain things you doubt about.

Lucy Forrester, in Brooks' Aspen Court.

ANK so friendly now with trade is, Bill discounters titled ladies Stoop to raise. Manners used to make the man, It is only money can Nowadays.

J. Jemmett Browne, Songs of Many Seasons.

LACK is a great fact. Want of fashion in the cut; want of richness in the material; want of chic in the wearer—all these it covers, like charity. There's a sentiment about it which appeals to the feelings, and it is becoming to the skin.

Anna C. Steele.

RE you quite sure that Pygmalion is the only person who ever fell in love with his own handiwork?

Guesses at Truth.

UTY,—that's to say the complying With whate'er's expected here, On your unknown cousin's dying, Straight be ready with the tear; Upon etiquette relying, Unto usage nought denying, Lend your waist to be embraced, Blush not even, never fear.

A. H. Clough, Poems.

HAT Jenner said on hearing in Elysium that complaints had been made of his having a statue in Trafalgar Square:—

England, ingratitude still blots The escutcheon of the brave and free: I saved you many million spots, And now you grudge one spot to me.

Shirley Brooks, Wit and Humour.

EH! what are we sinners doing all our lives? Making soup in a basket, and getting nothing but the scum for our stomachs.

Machiavelli, in George Eliot's Romola.

Y idea of an agreeable person is a person who agrees with me.

Hugo Bohun, in Lord Beaconsfield's Lothair.

ILL you walk a little faster?" said a whiting to a snail, "There's the porpoise close behind us, and he's treading on my tail. See how eagerly the lobsters and the turtles all advance! They are waiting on the shingle—will you come and join the dance?" "You can really have no notion how delightful it will be When they take us up and throw us, with the lobsters, out to sea!" But the snail replied, "Too far, too far!" and gave a look askance, Said he thanked the whiting kindly, but he would not join the dance.

Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland.

COULD draw on wood at a very tender age. When a mere child I once drew a small cartload of turnips over a wooden bridge. The people of the village noticed me. I drew their attention.

C. F. Browne, Artemus Ward's Lecture.

HAT all-softening over-powering knell, The tocsin of the soul—the dinner-bell.

Lord Byron, Don Juan.

OW Darwin proves as clear as mud, That, endless ages ere the Flood, The Coming Man's primeval form Was simply an Ascidian worm: And having then the habit got Of passing liquor down his throat, He keeps it still, and shows full well That Man—was—once——a leather bottèl.

Lord Neaves, Songs and Verses.

HE ancients," quoth Paul, "were very great men, Mr. MacGrawler." "They were so, sir," returned the critic; "we make it a rule in our profession to assert that fact." "But, sir," said Paul, "they are wrong now and then. "Never, Ignoramus, never." "They praised poverty, Mr. MacGrawler," said Paul, with a sigh. "Hem," quoth the critic, a little staggered; but presently recovering his characteristic acumen, he observed, "It is true, Paul, but that was the poverty of other people."

Lord Lytton, Paul Clifford.

ES, Fortune deserves to be chidden, It is a coincidence queer— Whenever one wants to be hidden Some blockhead is sure to appear!

Frederick Locker, London Lyrics.

NE day in the country [Sheridan Knowles] said to Abbot, with whom he had been acting there, "My dear fellow, I'm off to-morrow. Can I take any letters for you?" "You're very kind," answered Abbot; "but where are you going to?" "I haven't made up my mind."

J.R.PlanchÉ, Recollections.

BLUE STOCKINGS.

HE newspapers lately have taught us to know How some strong-minded hens are beginning to crow. But, dear ladies, beware: take the word of a friend, That when rivalry comes, all affection must end. With the brightest of spoons would be war to the knife In political contests 'twixt husband and wife; And the sentence of doom might be sudden and brief If a feminine subaltern jilted her chief. We men take a pride in concealing our chains, And would like to be thought to monopolize brains; So I'll give you this maxim, my counsels to crown— If the stockings are blue, keep the petticoats down.

Once a Week.

ALKING of Kean, I mentioned his having told me that he had eked out his means of living, before he emerged from obscurity, by teaching dancing, fencing, elocution, and boxing. "Elocution and boxing!" (repeated Bobus Smith)—"a word and a blow."

Thomas Moore, Diary.

MILITARY.

MART soldiers like to be well tightened in: Loose habits would destroy all discipline.

H. J. Byron, in English Epigrams.

ONTAINE, the architect, who built the triumphal arch in the Carrousel, placed upon it an empty car, drawn by the famous bronze Venetian horses. Talleyrand asked him, "Qui avez vous l'intention de mettre dans le char?" The answer was, "L'Empereur Napoléon, comme de raison." Upon which Talleyrand said, "Le char l'attend."

Gronow, Recollections.

IS doubtless well to be sometimes awake— Awake to duty, and awake to truth,— But when, alas! a nice review we take Of our best deeds and days, we find, in sooth, The hours that leave the slightest cause to weep Are those we passed in childhood or asleep!

John Godfrey Saxe, Poems.

IR TOBY. "Does not our life consist of the four elements?"

Sir Andrew. "Faith, so they say; but I think it rather consists of eating and drinking."

Twelfth Night, Act II., Scene 3.

HE thought "Wives and Daughters" "so jolly;" "Had I read it?" She knew that I had: Like the rest, I should dote upon "Molly;" And "poor Mrs. Gaskell—how sad!" "Like Browning?" "But so-so." His proof lay Too deep for her frivolous mood, That preferred your mere metrical soufflé To the stronger poetical food; Yet at times he was good—"as a tonic:" Was Tennyson writing just now? And was this new poet Byronic, And clever, and naughty, or how?

Austin Dobson, Vignettes in Rhyme.

LD friends are best. King James used to call for his old shoes; they were easiest for his feet.

Selden, Table Talk.

ET a coach be called, And let the man who called it be the caller; And in his calling let him nothing call, But coach, coach, coach! Oh for a coach, ye gods!

Carey, Chrononhotonthologos.

F you could make a pudding wi' thinking o' the batter, it 'ud be easy getting dinner.

Mrs. Poyser, in George Eliot's Adam Bede.

HERE'S somewhat on my breast, father, There's somewhat on my breast; The livelong day I sigh, father, And at night I cannot rest. 'Tis not the lack of gold, father, Nor want of worldly gear; My lands are broad, and fair to see, My friends are kind and dear. 'Tis not that Janet's false, father, 'Tis not that she's unkind; Though busy flatterers swarm around, I know her constant mind. 'Tis not her coldness, father, That chills my labouring breast: It's that confounded cucumber I've eat and can't digest.

R. H. Barham, Ingoldsby Lyrics.

NSOLENCE is a charming quality, when, like mercy, it is not strained.

Once a Week.

NCIENT Phillis has young graces, 'Tis a strange thing, but a true one! Shall I tell you how? She, herself, makes her own faces, And each morning wears a new one; Where's the wonder now?

Lord Froth, in Congreve 's Double Dealer.

ÉLÉBRITÉ—l'avantage d'être connu de ceux que vous ne connaissez pas.

Chamfort, Maximes.

IS past all bearing, when a husband slights his bride, Who last Christmas still was blushing at her elder sister's side; Still on some minute allowance finding collars, boots, and gloves, Still to cousinly flirtations limiting her list of loves, Still by stern domestic edict charged on no account to read Any of Miss Brontë's novels, or to finish Adam Bede.

First Lady, in Trevelyan's Ladies in Parliament.

DIFFER from all the ordinary biographers of that independent gentleman Don't Care. I believe Don't Care came to a good end. At any rate he came to some end. Whereas numbers of people never have beginning, or ending, of their own.

Ellesmere, in Helps's Friends in Council.

DISTICH.

ISELY a woman prefers to a lover a man who neglects her. This one may love her some day; some day the lover will not.

John Hay, Poems.

NE morning [Jerrold and Compton] proceeded together to view the pictures in the Gallery of Illustration. On entering the ante-room, they found themselves opposite to a number of very long looking-glasses. Pausing before one of these, [Compton] remarked to Jerrold, "You've come here to admire works of art! Very well, first feast your eyes on that work of nature!"—pointing to his own figure reflected in the glass; "look at it, there's a picture for you!" "Yes," said Jerrold, regarding it intently, "very fine, very fine indeed!" Then, turning to his friend: "Wants hanging, though!"

Memoir of Henry Compton.

ING for the garish eye, When moonless brandlings cling! Let the froddering crooner cry, And the braddled sapster sing. For never, and never again, Will the tottering beechlings play, For bratticed wrackers are singing aloud, And the throngers croon in May!

W. S. Gilbert.

YDNEY SMITH said of a certain quarrelsome person that his very face was a breach of the peace.

J. T. Fields, Yesterdays with Authors.

ERCHIEF in hand I saw them stand; In every kerchief lurked a lunch; When they unfurl'd them it was grand To watch bronzed men and maidens crunch The sounding celery-stick, or ram The knife into the blushing ham. Dash'd the bold fork through pies of pork; O'er hard-boil'd eggs the saltspoon shook; Leapt from its lair the playful cork: Yet some there were, to whom the brook Seemed sweetest beverage, and for meat They chose the red root of the beet.

C. S. Calverley, Fly Leaves.

F all virtues, magnanimity is the rarest. There are a hundred persons of merit for one who willingly acknowledges it in another.

W. Hazlitt, Characteristics.

ISNESS first, pleasure artervards, as King Richard the Third said ven he stabbed the tother king in the Tower, afore he murdered the babbies.

Charles Dickens, apud J. T. Fields.

E are all of us liable to this error of imagining that we are grieved at a fault, when we are only grieved at having done something to lower ourselves in our own estimation.

E. M. Sewell, Margaret Percival.

TREMBLED once beneath her spell Whose spelling was extremely so-so.

Frederick Locker, London Lyrics.

T'S easy finding reasons why other folks should be patient.

Bartle Massey, in George Eliot's Adam Bede.

OUR TRAVELLER.

F thou wouldst stand on Etna's burning brow, With smoke above, and roaring flames below; And gaze adown that molten gulf reveal'd Till thy soul shudder'd, and thy senses reel'd;— If thou wouldst beard Niagara in his pride, Or stem the billows of Propontic tide; Scale all alone some dizzy Alpine haut, And shriek "Excelsior!" amidst the snow;— Wouldst tempt all deaths, all dangers that may be, Perils by land, and perils on the sea,— This vast round world, I say, if thou wouldst view it, Then why the dickens don't you go and do it?

H. Cholmondeley Pennell, Puck on Pegasus.

AM saddest when I sing; so are those who hear me. They are sadder even than I am.

C. F. Browne, Artemus Ward's Lecture.

N ape with a pliable thumb and big brain, When the gift of the gab he had managed to gain, As a lord of creation established his reign, Which nobody can deny. But I'm sadly afraid, if we do not take care, A relapse to low life may our prospects impair, So of beastly propensities let us beware, Which nobody can deny. Their lofty position our children may lose, And, reduced to all-fours, must then narrow their views, Which would shortly unfit them for wearing our shoes, Which nobody can deny. Their vertebræ next might be taken away, When they'd sink to an oyster, or insect, some day, Or the pitiful part of a polypus play, Which nobody can deny.

Lord Neaves, Songs and Verses.

T'S dreadful to think on, people playing with their own insides in that way! And it's flying i' the face o' Providence; for what are the doctors for, if we aren't to call 'em in?

Mrs. Pullet, in George Eliot's Mill on the Floss.

RIEF, in two rules he summed the ends of man— Keep all you have, and try for all you can!

Lord Lytton, King Arthur.

LOVE SONG.

HAT mistress half so dear as mine, Half so well dressed, so pungent, fragrant, Who can such attributes combine, To charm the constant, fix the vagrant? Who can display such varied arts, To suit the taste of saint and sinner, Who go so near to touch their hearts, As thou, my darling dainty dinner? Still my breast holds a rival queen, A bright-eyed nymph of sloping shoulders, Whose ruddy cheeks and graceful mien Entrance the sense of all beholders. Oh! when thy lips to mine are pressed, What transports titillate my throttle! My love can find new life and zest, In thee, and thee alone, my bottle!

Horace Smith, The Tin Trumpet.

ASHION with us is like the man in one of Le Sage's novels, who was constantly changing his servants, and yet had but one suit of livery, which every newcomer, whether he was tall or short, fat or thin, was obliged to wear.

Wormwood, in Lord Lytton's Pelham.

NMARKETABLE maidens of the mart, Who, plumpness gone, fine delicacy feint, And hide your sins in piety and paint.

Alfred Austin, The Season.

EEING O. Smith, the popular melodramatic actor, on the opposite side of the Strand, Knowles rushed across the road, seized him by the hand, and inquired eagerly after his health. Smith, who only knew him by sight, said, "I think, Mr. Knowles, you are mistaken; I am O. Smith." "My dear fellow," cried Knowles, "I beg you ten thousand pardons: I took you for your namesake, T. P. Cooke!"

J. R. Planché, Recollections.

A PRACTICAL ANSWER.

AYS Hyam to Moses, "Let's cut off our noses," Says Moses to Hyam, "Ma tear, who would buy 'em?"

Shirley Brooks, Wit and Humour.

URNIPS should never be pulled: it injures them. It is much better to send a boy up and let him shake the tree.

Mark Twain, Choice Works.

H lived in a cave by the seas, He lived upon oysters and foes, But his list of forbidden degrees An extensive morality shows; Geological evidence goes To prove he had never a pan, But he shaved with a shell when he chose,— 'Twas the manner of Primitive Man. He worshipped the rain and the breeze, He worshipped the river that flows, And the dawn, and the moon, and the trees, And bogies, and serpents, and crows; He buried his dead with their toes Tucked-up, an original plan, Till their knees came right under their nose,— 'Twas the manner of Primitive Man.

Andrew Lang, Ballades in Blue China.

N ne loue d'ordinaire que pour être loué.

La Rochefoucauld, Réflexions.

OULD you adopt a strong logical attitude, Bear this in mind, and, whatever you do, Always allow your opponent full latitude, Whether or not his assumption be true. Then, when he manifests feelings of gratitude Merely because you've not shut him up flat, Turn his pet paradox into a platitude With the remark, "Oh, of course, we know that!"

Godfrey Turner.

HE gentle reader, who may wax unkind, And, caring little for the author's ease, Insist on knowing what he means—a hard And hapless situation for a bard.

Lord Byron, Beppo.

Y dear, when you have a clergyman in your family you must accommodate your tastes: I did that very early. When I married Humphrey, I made up my mind to like sermons, and I set out by liking the end very much. That soon spread to the middle and the beginning, because I couldn't have the end without them.

Mrs. Cadwallader, in George Eliot's Middlemarch.

REAT theologians, talk not of Trinity: Heretics, plague us no more with your fibs; One question only, Which is the Divinity,— Willcox or Gibbs?

Mortimer Collins, The British Birds.

S that the contents you are looking at?" inquired an anxious author, who saw Rogers's eye fixed on a table or list at the commencement of a presentation copy of a new work. "No," said Rogers, pointing to the list of subscribers, "the dis-contents."

A. Hayward, Essays.

HE river's like glass— As slowly I pass, This sweet little lass Raises two Forget-me-not eyes In laughing surprise— From canoe. And as I float by, Said I, "Miss, O why? O why may not I Drift with you?" Said she, with a start, "I've no room in my heart— Or canoe!"

J. Ashby Sterry, Boudoir Ballads.

ENNY 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.

HEY 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.

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.

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

James Hannay, Sketches and Characters.

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.

T seems that poor Bruin has never had peace 'Twixt bald men in Bethel, and wise men in grease.

Frederick Locker, London Lyrics.

HE 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 præterea nihil."

Crabb Robinson, Diary.

LAIN 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.

OME 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.

LOSSOM 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.

HE 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.

UCH 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.

HE 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.

F 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.

URN not from poor pussy 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.

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.

HO knows if what Adam might speak Was mono- or poly-syllabic; Was Gothic, or Gaelic, or Greek, Tartàric, Chinese, or Aràbic? It may have been Sanskrit or Zend— It must have been something or other; But thus far I'll stoutly contend,— It wasn't the tongue of his mother.

Lord Neaves, Songs and Verses.

EN'S natures are neither black nor white, but brown.

Charles Buxton, Notes of Thought.

H, Love's but a dance, Where Time plays the fiddle! See the couples advance,— Oh, Love's but a dance! A whisper, a glance,— "Shall we twirl down the middle?" Oh, Love's but a dance, Where Time plays the fiddle!

Austin Dobson, Proverbs in Porcelain.

MET a man in Oregon who hadn't any teeth—not a tooth in his head—yet that man could play on the bass drum better than any man I ever met.

C. F. Browne, Artemus Ward's Lecture.

HE Duke of Rutland, at one of his levées, being at a loss for something to say to every person he was bound in etiquette to notice, remarked to Sir John Hamilton that there was a prospect of an excellent crop. "The timely rain," observed the duke, "will bring everything above ground." "God forbid, your excellency!" exclaimed the courtier. His excellency stared, whilst Sir John continued, sighing heavily as he spoke, "Yes, God forbid! for I have three wives under it!"

Sir Jonah Barrington, Memoirs.

OU are old," said the youth, "and your jaws are too weak For anything tougher than suet; Yet you finished the goose, with the bones and the beak,— Pray, how did you manage to do it?" "In my youth," said his father, "I took to the law, And argued each case with my wife; And the muscular strength which it gave to my jaw Has lasted the rest of my life."

Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland.

E monde récompense plus souvent les apparances du mérite que le mérite même.

La Rochefoucauld, Réflexions.

URRAN told an anecdote of an Irish parliament man, who was boasting in the House of Commons of his attachment to trial by jury. "Mr. Speaker, by the trial by jury I have lived, and by the blessing of God, with the trial by jury I will die!" Curran sat near him, and whispered audibly, "What, Jack! do you mean to be hanged?"

Crabb Robinson, Diary.

HEY roused him with muffins—they roused him with ice— They roused him with mustard and cress— They roused him with jam and judicious advice— They set him conundrums to guess.

Lewis Carroll, Hunting of the Snark.

Y old friend Maltby, the brother of the bishop, was a very absent man. One day at Paris, in the Louvre, we were looking at the pictures, when a lady entered who spoke to me, and kept me some minutes in conversation. On rejoining Maltby, I said, "That was Mrs. ——. We have not met so long, she had almost forgotten me, and asked me if my name was Rogers." Maltby, still looking at the pictures, "And was it?"

Rogers, apud J. R. Planché.

O one likes to be disturbed at meals Or love.

Lord Byron, Don Juan.

HAT is man's end? To know and to be free. Think you to compass it by tracts and tea?

Alfred Austin, The Season.

O preach long, loud, and damnation, is the way to be cried up. We love a man that damns us, and we run after him again to save us.

Selden, Table Talk.

T'S such a very serious thing To be a funny man!

John Godfrey Saxe, Poems.

BORE cannot be a good man: for the better he is, the greater bore he will be, and the more hateful he will make goodness.

Lady Ashburton, apud Lord Houghton.

ARSON WILBUR sez he never heerd in his life Thet th' Apostles rigged out in their swaller-tail coats, An' marched round in front of a drum and a fife, To get some on 'em office, an' some on 'em votes; But John P. Robinson he Sez they didn't know everythin' down in Judee.

J. R. Lowell, Biglow Papers.

COULD resign that eye of blue, Howe'er its splendour used to thrill me; And e'en that cheek of roseate hue— To lose it, Chloe, would not kill me. That sunny neck I ne'er should miss, However much I raved about it; And sweetly as that lip can kiss, I think I could exist without it. In short, so well I've learned to fast, That, sooth, my love, I know not whether I might not bring myself at last To do without you altogether.

Thomas Moore.

'ART de plaire est l'art de tromper.

Vauvenargues, Réflexions.

E don't marry beggars, said she: why, no: It seems that to make 'em is what you do; And as I can cook, and scour, and sew, I needn't pay half my victuals for you. A man for himself should be able to scratch, But tickling's a luxury:—love, indeed! Love burns as long as a lucifer-match, Wedlock's the candle! Now that's my creed.

George Meredith, Modern Love.

ND while my schoolmates studied less, I resolutely studied Moore.

Songs of Singularity.

NE of my aides-de-camp," said Lord Wellesley to Plunket on one occasion, "has written a personal narrative of his travels,—pray, Chief Justice, what is your definition of 'personal'?" "My lord," replied Plunket, "we lawyers always consider personal as opposed to real."

Lord Albemarle, Fifty Years of my Life.

MAKE the butter fly, all in an hour: I put aside the preserves and cold meats, Telling my master his cream has turned sour, Hiding his pickles, purloining his sweets. I never languish for husband or dower, I never sigh to see gyps at my feet: I make the butter fly, all in an hour, Taking it home for my Saturday treat.

Lydia, in G. O. Trevelyan's Horace at Athens.

NGLISH is an expressive language, but not difficult to master. Its range is limited. It consists, so far as I can observe, of four words: "nice," "jolly," "charming," and "bore;" and some grammarians add "fond."

Pinto, in Lord Beaconsfield's Lothair.

HEN Sir George Rose was appointed one of the four judges of the now extinct Court of Review, he came to Lincoln's Inn with his colleagues to be sworn in. Some friend congratulating him on his access of dignity, he observed, "Yes! here we are, you see—four by honours!"

Macmillan's Magazine.

H! who has seen the mailèd lobster rise, Clap her broad wings, and, soaring, claim the skies? When did the owl, descending from her bower, Crop, 'midst the fleecy flocks, the tender flower; Or the young heifer plunge, with pliant limb, In the salt wave, and fish-like strive to swim? The same with plants—potatoes 'tatoes breed, The costly cabbage springs from cabbage-seed; Lettuce to lettuce, leeks to leeks, succeed; Nor e'er did cooling cucumbers presume To flower like myrtle, or like violets bloom.

The Anti-Jacobin.

NE femme d'esprit m'a dit un jour un mot qui pourrait bien être le secret de son sexe; c'est que toute femme, en prenant un amant, tient plus de compte de la manière dont les autres femmes voient cet homme que de la manière dont elle le voit elle-même.

Chamfort, Maximes.

ERE, waiter, I'll dine in this box; I've looked at your long bill of fare: A Pythagorean it shocks To view all the rarities there. I'm not o'erburdened with cash, Roast beef is the dinner for me; Then why should I eat calipash, Or why should I eat calipee? Your trifle's no trifle, I ween, To customers prudent as I am; Your peas in December are green, But I'm not so green as to buy 'em. With ven'son I seldom am fed— Go, bring me a sirloin, you ninny; Who dines at a guinea a head Will ne'er by his head get a guinea.

James Smith, Horace in London.

NE of Lord Dudley's eccentric habits was that of speaking to himself or thinking aloud. Soon after he succeeded to the title of Dudley and Ward, a lady asked Lord Castlereagh how he accounted for the custom. "It is only Dudley speaking to Ward," was the ready answer to her inquiry.

Sinclair, Old Times and Distant Places.

E secret d'ennuyer est celui de tout dire.

Voltaire, Discours, vi.

NEVER heard Rogers volunteer an opinion upon Campbell, except after his death, when he had been to see the poet's statue. "It is the first time," said he, "that I have seen him stand straight for many years."

Bryan Waller Procter.

EXATION of spirit"—that is the part that belongs to us; we leave the "vanity" to the women.

Vanecourt, in L. Oliphant's Piccadilly.

WATCHED her as she stoop'd to pluck A wild flower in her hair to twine; And wish'd that it had been my luck To call her mine. Anon I heard her rate, with mad Mad words, her babe within its cot; And felt particularly glad That it had not.

C. S. Calverley, Fly Leaves.

RACTICE does not always make perfect. Curran, when told by his physician that he seemed to cough with more difficulty, replied, "That is odd enough, for I have been practising all night."

Horace Smith, The Tin Trumpet.

E talk little if we do not talk about ourselves.

W. Hazlitt, Characteristics.

ND how was the Devil drest? O, he was in his Sunday's best; His jacket was red and his breeches were blue, And there was a hole where the tail came through.

The Devil's Walk.

CLOSED glass bookcase provoked from Dr. Drake the remark that he never could stand "Locke on the Human Understanding."

Lord Teignmouth, Reminiscences.

HERE was a time, ere Trollope learned to spell, When S. G. O. wrote seldom or wrote well; When Swinburne only lusted after tarts, When Beales was yet a Bachelor of Arts; Ere Broad Church rose to make logicians stare, That medley of St. Paul and St. Voltaire.

Richard Crawley, Horse and Foot.

EDMOND BARRY] said once to Corry, who was praising Crompton's performance of some particular character a night or two before, "Yes, he played the part pretty well; he hadn't time to study it!"

Thomas Moore, Diary.

F a daughter you have, she's the plague of your life, No peace shall you know, though you've buried your wife! At twenty she mocks at the duty you've taught her— O, what a plague is an obstinate daughter! Sighing and whining, Dying and pining, O, what a plague is an obstinate daughter! When scarce in their teens, they have wit to perplex us, With letters and lovers for ever they vex us; While each still rejects the fair suitor you've brought her; O, what a plague is an obstinate daughter! Wrangling and jangling, Flouting and pouting, O, what a plague is an obstinate daughter!

R. B. Sheridan, The Duenna.

ITTY: What is your ladyship so fond of? Lady Bab's Servant: Shickspur. Did you never read Shickspur? Kitty: Shickspur! Shickspur! Who wrote it? No, I never read Shickspur.

High Life Below Stairs, Act II. Scene 1.

UL n'est content de sa fortune Ni mécontent de son esprit.

Madame Deshoulières, Réflexions.

N courtship suppose you can't sing Your Cara, your Liebe, your Zoë, A kiss and a sight of the ring Will more quickly prevail with your Chloe. Or if you in twenty strange tongues Could call for a beef-steak and bottle, A purse with less learning and lungs Would bring them much nearer your throttle.

Lord Neaves, Songs and Verses.

HE father of C——, a distinguished artist, was complimented by a friend on the talents and reputation of his son, and on the comfort he must be to his father. "Yes," was the reply, "he is a very good son—a very good son, if he did not swear at his mother so."

W. H. Harrison, University Magazine.

HE old, old tale! ay, there's the smart; Her heart, or what she call'd her heart, Was hard as granite: Who breaks a heart, and then omits To gather up the broken bits Is heartless, Janet.

Frederick Locker, London Lyrics.

HE French don't know what they want, and will never be satisfied till they get it.

William Harness, Life.

HE played the accordion divinely—accordionly I praised her.

C. F. Browne, Artemus Ward's Lecture.

HOULD yours (kind heaven, avert the omen!) Like the cravats of vulgar, low men, Asunder start—and, yawning wide, Disclose a chasm on either side; Or should it stubbornly persist To take some awkward tasteless twist, Some crease, indelible, and look Just like a dunce's dog-eared book, How would you parry the disgrace? In what assembly show your face? How brook your rival's scornful glance, Or partners' titter in the dance? How in the morning dare to meet The quizzers of the park and street? Your occupation's gone; in vain Hope to dine out, or flirt again. The ladies from their lists would put you, And even I, my friend, must cut you!

H. Luttrell, Letters to Julia.

MAN can never manage a woman. Till a woman marries, a prudent man leaves her to women; when she does marry, she manages her husband, and there's an end of it.

Kenelm Chillingly, in Lord Lytton's novel.

HOMAGE TO THE SCOTCH RIFLES, BY A SPITEFUL COMPETITOR.

T seems that the Scots Turn out much better shots At long distance, than most of the Englishmen are: But this we all knew That a Scotchman could do— Make a small piece of metal go awfully far.

Shirley Brooks, Wit and Humour.

OME one peevishly complaining, "You take the words out of my mouth," Donaldson replied, "You are very hard to please; would you have liked it better if I had made you swallow them?"

Crabb Robinson, Diary.

AM lying, we'll say, in the nook I love, Screened from the sunlight's scorching glow, Watching the big clouds up above, And blowing a lazy cloud below; Blowing a cloud from my meerschaum black, And thinking or not as I feel inclined, With a light alpaca coat on my back, And nothing particular on my mind.

Once a Week.

HERE was a Presbyterian minister who married a couple of his rustic parishioners, and had felt exceedingly disconcerted, on his asking the bridegroom if he were willing to take the woman for his wedded wife, by his scratching his head and saying, "Ay, I'm wullin'; but I'd rather hae her sister."

J. C. Young, Diary.

HE prospect's always fine in the Prospectus!

J. R. Planché, Songs and Poems.

NIMALS are such agreeable friends—they ask no questions, they pass no criticisms.

George Eliot, Mr. Gilfil's Love Story.

HERE is a tact, Which keeps, when pushed by questions rather rough, A lady always distant from the fact: The charming creatures lie with such a grace, There's nothing so becoming to the face.

Lord Byron, Don Juan.

ALKED Corry over to Bowood. In looking at the cascade, he mentioned what Plunket said, when some one, praising his waterfall, exclaimed, "Why, it's quite a cataract." "Oh, that's all my eye," said Plunket.

Thomas Moore, Diary.

HESE panting damsels, dancing for their lives, Are only maidens waltzing into wives.

Alfred Austin, The Season.

NOTHER friend assured me it was policy to "feed a cold and starve a fever." I had both. So I thought it best to feed myself up for the cold, and then keep dark and let the fever starve awhile. In a case of this kind, I seldom do things by halves. I ate pretty heartily. I conferred my custom upon a stranger who had just opened his restaurant that morning. He waited near me in respectful silence, until I had finished feeding my cold, when he inquired if the people about Virginia were much afflicted with colds? I told him I thought they were. He then went out and took in his sign.

Mark Twain, Choice Works.

FINE lady is like a cat; when young, the most gamesome and lively of all creatures—when old, the most melancholy.

Alexander Pope, in Locker's Patchwork.

IS the voice of the lobster; I heard him declare "You have baked me quite brown, I must sugar my hair." As a duck with its eyelids, so he with his nose Trims his belt and his buttons, and turns out his toes.

Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland.

OOR relations are undeniably irritating—their existence is so entirely uncalled for on our part, and they are almost always very faulty people.

George Eliot, Mill on the Floss.

HERE was an Ape in the days that were earlier; Centuries passed, and his hair became curlier: Centuries more gave a thumb to his wrist— Then he was Man, and a Positivist.

Mortimer Collins, The British Birds.

T was observed he never gave an opinion on any subject, and never told an anecdote. Indeed, he would sometimes remark, when a man fell into his anecdotage it was a sign for him to retire from the world.

Lord Beaconsfield, Lothair.

OU cannot eat breakfast all day, Nor is it the act of a sinner, When breakfast is taken away, To turn your attention to dinner; And it's not in the range of belief, That you could hold him as a glutton, Who, when he is tired of beef, Determines to tackle the mutton.

Defendant, in W. S. Gilbert's Trial by Jury.

AD the Romans public dinners? Answer me that. Imagine a Roman—whose theory at least of a dinner was that it was a thing for enjoyment, whereas we often look on it as a continuation of the business of the day,—I say, imagine a Roman girding himself up, literally girding himself up, to make an after dinner speech.

Ellesmere, in Helps's Friends in Council.

OLKS will teach you when at school— "Never tell a lie!" Nonsense: if you're not a fool You may always break the rule, But you must be sly; For they'll whip you, past a doubt, If they ever find you out. Folks say, "Children should not let Angry passions rise." Humbug! When you're in a pet Why on earth should you regret Blacking some one's eyes? Children's eyes are made, in fact, Just on purpose to be black'd.

H. S. Leigh, Carols of Cockayne.

T is not now "We have seen his star in the East," but "We have seen the star on his breast, and are come to worship him."

Shenstone, Essays.

A FAITHFUL PAGE.

EARLY one hundred years ago, my grandfather, Captain William Locker, was at dinner, and a servant-boy, lately engaged, was handing him a tray of liqueurs, in different-sized glasses. Being in the middle of an anecdote to his neighbour, he mechanically held out his hand towards the tray, but, as people often do when they are thinking of something else, he did not take a glass. The boy thought he was hesitating which liqueur he would have, and, like a good fellow, wishing to help his master, he pointed to one particular glass, and whispered, "That's the biggest, sir."

Frederick Locker, Patchwork.

LL men are equal, the Frenchman says; Most men will gladly receive What a fervid fool, with a flattering phrase, Tricks out for fools to believe; But these men have less brains than a wren! When a larch is a lily, And Bessy like Billy A beard shall achieve, Then I will believe That equality reigns among men!

J. S. Blackie, Musa Burschicosa.

'M not one o' those who can see the cat i' the dairy, an' wonder what she's come after.

Mrs. Poyser, in George Eliot's Adam Bede.

called him Selim, to express The marked s(e)limness of his form.

Songs of Singularity.

ES," he exclaimed, "as the sublime Tyndall tells us, let us struggle to attain to a deeper knowledge of matter, and a more faithful conformity to its laws!" The professor would have proceeded, but the weather had been rapidly growing rough, and he here became violently sea-sick. "Let us," he exclaimed hurriedly, "conform to the laws of matter and go below."

W. H. Mallock, The New Paul and Virginia.

HAT can Tommy Onslow do? He can drive a curricle and two. Can Tommy Onslow do no more? Yes, he can drive a phaeton and four.

Anon., in Gronow's Recollections.

ICKS and Thackeray, walking together, stopped opposite a doorway, over which was inscribed in gold letters these words: "Mutual Loan Office." They both seemed equally puzzled. "What on earth can that mean?" asked Hicks. "I don't know," answered Thackeray, "unless it means, that two men, who have nothing, agree to lend it to one another."

J. C. Young, Diary.

CLOD—a piece of orange-peel— An end of a cigar,— Once trod on by a princely heel, How beautiful they are!

C. S. Calverley, Fly Leaves.

N the onion is the hope of universal brotherhood. Look at Italy. In the churches all are alike; there is one faith, one smell.

C. D. Warner, My Summer in a Garden.

E was "free to confess" (whence comes this phrase? Is't English? No—'tis only parliamentary).

Lord Byron, Don Juan.

H!" says my languid Oxford gentleman, "nothing new, and nothing true, and no matter."

R. W. Emerson.

E dropt a tear on Susan's bier, He seem'd a most despairing swain; Yet bluer sky brought newer tie, And would he wish her back again? The moments fly, and when we die Will Philly Thistletop complain? She'll cry and sigh, and—dry her eye, And let herself be woo'd again.

Frederick Locker, London Lyrics.

NE 'ud think, an hear some folks talk, as the men war 'cute enough to count the corns in a bag o' wheat wi' only smelling at it. They can see through a barn door, they can. Perhaps that's the reason they see so little o' this side on't.

Mrs. Poyser, in George Eliot's Adam Bede.

HY flattering picture, Phryne, 's like to thee Only in this—that you both painted be.

John Donne.

ITHOUT black velvet breeches, what is man?

John Bramston, Man of Taste.

A KISS.

OSE kissed me to-day,— Will she kiss me to-morrow? Let it be as it may, Rose kissed me to-day. But the pleasure gives way To a savour of sorrow;— Rose kissed me to-day,— Will she kiss me to-morrow?

Austin Dobson, Proverbs in Porcelain.

UMILITY is a virtue all preach, none practise, and yet everybody is content to hear.

Selden, Table Talk.

OME say that the primitive tongue Expressed but the simplest affections; And swear that the words said or sung Were nothing but mere interjections. Oh! Oh! was the signal of pain; Ha! Ha! was the symptom of laughter; Pooh! Pooh! was the sign of disdain, And Hillo! came following after.

Some, taking a different view, Maintain the old language was fitted To mark out the objects we knew, By mimicking sounds they emitted. Bow, wow, was the name of a dog, Quack, quack, was the word for a duckling, Hunc, hunc, would designate a hog, And wee, wee, a pig and a suckling.

Lord Neaves, Songs and Verses.

PRACTICAL MAN.—One whose judgment is not distracted by the power of seeing far before him.

Anne Evans, Poems and Music.

OR conversation well endued, She thinks it witty to be rude, And, placing raillery in railing, Proclaims aloud your greatest failing.

Swift, A Woman's Mind.

HAVE always been more or less mixed up with Art. I have an uncle who takes photographs—and I have a servant who takes anything he can get his hands on.

C. F. Browne, Artemus Ward's Lecture.

F a man who turnips cries Cry not when his father dies, 'Tis a proof that he would rather Have a turnip than a father.

Dr. Johnson.

HE greatest happiness of the greatest number is best secured by a prudent consideration for Number One.

Kenelm Chillingly, in Lord Lytton's novel.

OU are old, Father William," the young man said, "And your hair has become very white; And yet you incessantly stand on your head— Do you think, at your age, it is right?"

"In my youth," Father William replied to his son, "I feared it might injure my brain; But now that I'm perfectly sure I have none, Why, I do it again and again."

Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland.

HEN the question arose how the title of Herold's charming opera, "Le Pré aux Clercs," should be rendered into English, [Beazley] quietly suggested "Parson's Green."

J. R. Planché, Recollections.

HEN I left the man in gaiters, He was grumbling, o'er his gin, At the charges of the hostess Of that famous Flemish inn; And he looked a very Briton (So, methinks, I see him still) As he pocketed the candle That was mentioned in the bill!

John Godfrey Saxe, Poems.

ORALITY—keeping up appearances in this world, or becoming suddenly devout when we imagine that we may be shortly summoned to appear in the next.

Horace Smith, The Tin Trumpet.

ON PATRONS' PROMISES.

MINISTER'S answer is always so kind! I starve, and he tells me he'll keep me in mind. Half his promise, God knows, would my spirits restore— Let him keep me, and, faith, I will ask for no more.

Lord Holland, in Moore's Diary.

KNOW there's a stage of speculation in which a man may doubt whether a pickpocket is blameworthy—but I'm not one of your subtle fellows who keep looking at the world through their own legs.

Felix Holt, in George Eliot's novel.

KNOCK-ME-DOWN sermon, and worthy of Birch," Says I to my wife, as we toddle from church. "Convincing, indeed!" is the lady's remark; "How logical, too, on the size of the Ark!" Then Blossom cut in, without begging our pardons, "Pa, was it as big as the 'Logical Gardens?"

"Miss Blossom," says I, to my dearest of dearies, "Papa disapproves of nonsensical queries; The Ark was an Ark, and had people to build it, Enough we are told Noah built it and fill'd it: Mamma does not ask how he caught his opossums." —Said she, "That remark is as foolish as Blossom's!"

Frederick Locker, London Lyrics.

OOKS are fatal: they are the curse of the human race. Nine-tenths of existing books are nonsense, and the clever books are the refutation of that nonsense. The greatest misfortune that ever befell man was the invention of printing.

Phœbus, in Lord Beaconsfield's Lothair.

E can't assume, so Comte declares, a first or final cause, sir; Phenomena are all we know, their order and their laws, sir; While Hegel's modest formula, a single line to sum in, Is "Nothing is, and nothing's not, but everything's becomin'."

F. D., in Pall Mall Gazette.

F you wish particularly to gain the good graces and affection of certain people, men or women, try to discover their most striking merit, if they have one, and their dominant weakness, for every one has his own. Then do justice to the one, and a little more than justice to the other.

Lord Chesterfield, Letters to his Son.

ENDER ten may dote on toys, While for twelve jam tarts have joys, Feat fourteen's in love with boys— Not a few.

J. Ashby Sterry, Boudoir Ballads.

Juliet was a fool to kill herself. In three months she'd have married again, and been glad to be quit of Romeo.

Charles Buxton, Notes of Thought.

CORNET waltzes, but a colonel weds.

Alfred Austin, The Season.

N the days when Pam retained the wheel, We knew the men with whom we had to deal; Then sucking statesmen seldom failed in seeing The final cause and import of their being. They dressed; they drove a drag; nor sought to shirk Their portion of the matrimonial work. They flocked to rout and drum by tens and twelves; Danced every dance, and left their cards themselves, While some obliging senatorial fag Slipped their petitions in the Speaker's bag.

Lady Matilda, in G. O. Trevelyan's Ladies in Parliament.

ONK LEWIS was a great favourite at Oatlands. One day after dinner, as the duchess was leaving the room, she whispered something in Lewis's ear. He was much affected, his eyes filling with tears. We asked him what was the matter. "Oh," replied Lewis, "the duchess spoke so very kindly to me!" "My dear fellow," said Colonel Armstrong, "pray don't cry; I dare say she didn't mean it."

Rogers, Table Talk.

WEET is revenge—especially to women.

Lord Byron, Don Juan.

plain leg of mutton, my Lucy, I prithee get ready at three; Have it smoking and tender and juicy, And what better meat can there be? And when it has feasted the master, 'Twill amply suffice for the maid; Meanwhile, I will smoke my canaster, And tipple my ale in the shade.

W. M. Thackeray.

'AMOUR est comme les maladies épidémiques; plus on les craint, plus on y est exposé.

Chamfort, Maximes.

MARRY (AND DON'T) COME UP.

FELLOW that's single, a fine fellow's he; But a fellow that's married's a felo de se.

Shirley Brooks, Wit and Humour.

BROTHER actor, who had not exactly "taken the house by storm" at his first appearance in London, very stupidly asked Compton: "Was my acting good?" "Well," was the reply, delivered in his inimitable style, "hum! ha! Good is not the word!"

H. Howe, in Memoir of Henry Compton.

O when two dogs are fighting in the streets, When a third dog one of the two dogs meets, With angry tooth he bites him to the bone, And this dog smarts for what that dog has done.

Fielding, Tom Thumb.

RECOLLECT a humorous M.P. pointing out to me a retired West Indian judge not very remarkable for sagacity on the bench. There was a ball at Government House, and the judge began to criticise the dancing of a witty member of the Indian bar. "Ah, my friend, you are a bad waltzer!" "Ah, but you are a bad judge."

Mark Boyd, Reminiscences.

rs. Cripps: Things are seldom what they seem: Skim milk masquerades as cream; Highlows pass as patent leathers; Jackdaws strut in peacocks' feathers. Captain: Very true, So they do. Mrs. Cripps: Black sheep dwell in every fold; All that glitters is not gold; Storks turn out to be but logs; Bulls are but inflated frogs. Captain: So they be, Frequentlee.

W. S. Gilbert, H.M.S. Pinafore.

FRIEND meeting Sir George Rose one day in Lincoln's Inn Fields, with his left eye greatly swollen and inflamed, remonstrated with him, adding that he was surprised Lady Rose should have let him go out of doors in such a condition. "Ah," replied Sir George, "I am out jure mariti" (my right eye).

Macmillan's Magazine.

T is no comfort to the short To know you cannot love at all!

Robert Reece, in Comic Poets.

DWIN and Morcar, the Earls of Mercia and Northumbria, declared for him; and even Stigand, the patriotic Archbishop of Canterbury, found it advisable——' "

"Found what?" said the Duck.

"Found it," the Mouse replied, rather crossly; "of course you know what 'it' means."

"I know what 'it' means well enough, when I find a thing," said the Duck; "it's generally a frog or a worm. The question is, what did the archbishop find?"

Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland.

'VE read in many a novel, that, unless they've souls that grovel, Folks prefer, in fact, a hovel to your dreary marble halls.

C. S. Calverley, Fly Leaves.

ARRIAGE is a Bishop, choral service, Messrs. Hancock, and Brussels lace.

Anna C. Steele.

OW beautifully blue the sky, The glass is rising very high, Continue fine I hope it may, And yet it rained but yesterday; To-morrow it may pour again (I hear the country wants some rain); Yet people say, I know not why, That we shall have a warm July.

W. S. Gilbert, Pirates of Penzance.

HE Dowager-Duchess of Richmond went one Sunday with her daughter to the Chapel Royal at St. James's, but, being late, they could find no places. After looking about some time, and seeing the case was hopeless, she said to her daughter, "Come away, Louisa; at any rate we have done the civil thing."

R. R. Haydon, Diary.

ON NORTHERN LIGHTS.

O roar and bore of Northern wights The tendency so frail is, That men do call those Northern Lights Au-ror-a Bor-ealis.

Jekyll, in Miss Mitford's Letters.

'M forced to wink a good deal, for fear of seeing too much, for a neighbourly man must let himself be cheated a little.

Parson Lingon, in George Eliot's Felix Holt.

ULCE it is, and decorum, no doubt, for the country to fall,—to Offer one's blood an oblation to Freedom, and die for the Cause; yet Still, individual culture is also something, and no man Finds quite distinct the assurance that he of all others is called on, Or would be justified even, in taking away from the world that Precious creature himself.

Claude, in Clough's Amours de Voyage.

OTRE repentir n'est pas tant un regret du mal que nous avons fait, qu'une crainte de celui qui nous en peut arriver.

La Rochefoucauld, Réflexions.

ON AN INANIMATE ACTRESS.

HOU hast a score of parts not good, But two divinely shown: Thy Daphne a true piece of wood, Thy Niobe a stone.

Palladas, trans. by R. Garnett.

E as often repent the good we have done as the ill.

W. Hazlitt, Characteristics.

HE speech of Old England for me; It serves us on every occasion; Henceforth, like our soil, let it be Exempted from foreign invasion. It answers for friendship and love, For all sorts of feeling and thinking, And lastly, all doubt to remove— It answers for singing and drinking.

Lord Neaves, Songs and Verses.

COMPLIMENT is usually accompanied with a bow, as if to beg pardon for paying it.

Guesses at Truth.

THE TRAVELLER AND THE GORILLA.

HE gifts by Nature boon supplied This pair unequally divide: The traveller's tale is far from small, The monkey has no tail at all.

R. Garnett, Idylls and Epigrams.

HE more a man's worth, the worthier man he must be.

Dudley Smooth, in Lord Lytton's Money.

OW to the banquet we press, Now for the eggs and the ham! Now for the mustard and cress, Now for the strawberry jam! Now for the tea of our host, Now for the rollicking bun, Now for the muffin and toast, And now for the gay Sally Lunn!

W. S. Gilbert, The Sorcerer.

T was in my schoolboy days that I failed as an actor. The play was the "Ruins of Pompeii." I played the Ruins. It was not a very successful performance, but it was better than the "Burning Mountains." He was not good. He was a bad Vesuvius.

C. F. Browne, Artemus Ward's Lecture.

E cannot be complete in aught Who is not humorously prone,— A man without a merry thought Can hardly have a funny bone.

Frederick Locker, London Lyrics.

N actor named Priest was playing at one of the principal theatres. Some one remarked at the Garrick Club that there were a great many more in the pit—"Probably clerks who have taken Priest's orders."

Abraham Hayward, Essays.

ND she? she marries money and a man.

Alfred Austin, The Season.

LADY of my acquaintance, a brunette, happened to show her maid one of those little sticking-plaster profiles which they used to call silhouettes. It was the portrait of the lady's aunt, whom the girl had never seen, and she said quite innocently, "La, ma'am, I always thought as how you had some black relations, you are so dark-like yourself, you know!"

Frederick Locker, Patchwork.

E pored upon the leaves, and on the flowers, And heard a voice in all the winds; and then, He thought of wood nymphs and immortal bowers, And how the goddesses came down to men: He miss'd the pathway, he forgot the hours, And when he look'd upon his watch again, He found how much old Time had been a winner— He also found that he had lost his dinner.

Lord Byron, Don Juan.

ARD had been a Whig, and became ministerial. "I wonder what could make me turn Whig again," said Ward. "That I can tell you," said [Lord] Byron. "They have only to re-Ward you."

Crabb Robinson, Diary.

DISTICH.

S the meek beasts in the Garden came flocking for Adam to name them, Men for a title to-day crawl to the feet of a king.

John Hay, Poems.

OU cannot have everything, as the man said when he was down with small-pox and cholera, and the yellow fever came into the neighbourhood.

C. D. Warner, My Summer in a Garden.

HENE'ER I take my walks abroad, How many rich I see! There's A. and B. and C. and D. All better off than me!

R. H. Barham, Life.

T one period of his boyhood, Macaulay's fancy was much exercised by the threats and terrors of the law. He had a little plot of ground at the back of the house, marked out as his own by a row of oyster-shells, which a maid one day threw away as rubbish. He went straight to the drawing-room, where his mother was entertaining some visitors, walked into the circle, and said very solemnly: "Cursed be Sally; for it is written, 'Cursed is he that removeth his neighbour's landmark.'"

G. O. Trevelyan, Life of Macaulay.

F care were not the waiter Behind a fellow's chair, When easy-going sinners Sit down to Richmond dinners, And life's swift stream flows straighter— By Jove, it would be rare, If care were not the waiter Behind a fellow's chair. If wit were always radiant, And wine were always iced, And bores were kicked out straightway Through a convenient gateway; Then down the years' long gradient 'Twere sad to be enticed, If wit were always radiant, And wine were always iced.

Mortimer Collins, in The Owl.

UILDING a staircase for Sir Henry Meux, [Beazley] called it making a new "Gradus ad Parnassum," because it was steps for the muses.

J. R. Planché, Recollections.

CANNOT clear the five-bar gate, But, trying first its timber's state, Climb stiffly up, take breath, and wait To trundle over.

Walter Savage Landor.

A constance est la chimère de l'amour.

Vauvenargues, Réflexions.

ON AN INTEMPERATE HUSBAND.

HENCE comes it that in Clara's face The lily only has a place? Is it because the absent rose Has gone to paint her husband's nose?

A Collection of Epigrams (1727).

HARLES] SHERIDAN told me that his father, being a good deal plagued by an old maiden relation of his always going out to walk with him, said one day that the weather was bad and rainy; to which the old lady answered that, on the contrary, it had cleared up. "Yes," said Sheridan, "it has cleared enough for one, but not for two."

Thomas Moore, Diary.

O Urn, or not to Urn? that is the question: Whether 'tis nobler for our frames to suffer The shows and follies of outrageous custom, Or to take fire—against a sea of zealots— And, by consuming, end them? To Urn—to keep— No more: and while we keep, to say we end Contagion and the thousand graveyard ills That flesh is heir to—'tis a consume-ation Devoutly to be wished!

William Sawyer.

ANSWER TO AN INQUIRY.

OUNG AUTHOR."—Yes, Agassiz does recommend authors to eat fish, because the phosphorus in it makes brains. So far you are correct. But I cannot help you to a decision about the amount you need to eat—at least, not with certainty. If the specimen composition you send is about your fair usual average, I should judge that perhaps a couple of whales would be all you would want for the present. Not the largest kind, but simply good, middling-sized whales.

Mark Twain, Choice Works.

HE firm of Baxter, Rose, and Norton, Deny the plaintiffs Arthur Orton; But can't deny, what's more important, That he has done what Arthur oughtn't.

Anon.

UME and his wife and several of their children were with me. Hume repeated the old saying, "One fool makes many." "Ay, Mr. Hume," said I, pointing to the company, "you have a fine family."

Charles Lamb, apud Crabb Robinson.

LUS on juge, moins on aime.

Balzac, Physiologie du Mariage.

EORGE THE THIRD scolded Lord North for never going to the concert of antient music: "Your brother, the bishop," said the king, "never misses them, my lord." "Sir," answered the premier, "if I were as deaf as my brother, the bishop, I would never miss them either!"

R. H. Barham, Life.

ON A MODERN ACTRESS.

ISS Neilson's 'benefit'," one says; I ask to what the phrase refers; For, sure, when such an artist plays, The "benefit" is ours, not hers.

W. D. A.

UR king [William IV.] is ultra-popular. Have you heard Lord Alvanley's bon mot concerning him? He was standing at the window at White's, when the king, with a thousand of his loving subjects at his heels, was walking up St. James's Street. A friend said to him, "What are you staring at, Alvanley?" "I am waiting to see his Majesty's pocket picked," was the reply.

Miss Mitford, Life and Letters.

ETHINKS the lays of now-a-days Are painfully in earnest.

Frederick Locker, London Lyrics.

ICKS was talking to Thackeray of a certain gentleman's strange addiction to beer. "It's a great pity," said Hicks, "that he does not keep a check-rein on himself, for he is a marvellous fellow otherwise—I mean, for talent I hardly know his equal." "No," retorted Thackeray, "he is a remarkable man. Take him for half-and-half, we ne'er shall look upon his like again."

J. C. Young, Diary.

RO conibus calidis, conibus frigidis, Pro conibus mollibus, conibus rigidis, Pro conibus senibus Atque juvenibus, Gratias agimus fatis, Habuimus satis.

Anon.

NE of the "Hooks and Eyes" was expatiating on the fact that he had dined three times at the Duke of Devonshire's, and that on neither occasion had there been any fish at table. "I cannot account for it," he added. "I can," said Jerrold: "they ate it all upstairs."

Charles Mackay, Recollections.

ERACITY is a plant of paradise, and its seeds have never flourished beyond the walls.

Machiavelli, in George Eliot's Romola.

KNOW not why my soul is rack'd: Why I ne'er smile as was my wont: I only know that, as a fact, I don't. I used to roam o'er glen and glade, Buoyant and blithe as other folk: And not unfrequently I made A joke. All day I sang; of love, of fame, Of fights our fathers fought of yore, Until the thing almost became A bore. I cannot sing the old songs now It is not that I deem them low; 'Tis that I can't remember how They go.

C. S. Calverley, Fly Leaves.

URING [a] drive, Lord William L——, a man of fashion, but, like other of the great men of the day, an issuer of paper money discounted at high rates by the usurers, was thrown off his horse. Mr. and Mrs. King immediately quitted the carriage, and placed the noble lord within. On this circumstance being mentioned in the clubs, Brummell observed it was only "a Bill Jewly (duly) taken up and honoured."

Gronow, Recollections.

HE made the cleverest people quite ashamed, And even the good with inward envy groaned, Finding themselves so very much exceeded In their own way by all the things that she did.

Lord Byron, Don Juan.

N the elevation of some childless person to the peerage, [Lady Charlotte Lindsay] remarked that he was "of the new Order, which seemed the popular one, not of the Barons, but the Barrens."

Lord Houghton, Monographs.

FT when petty annoyances ruffle the soul, And the temper defies philosophic control, The emotion is quelled, and a calm will succeed, Through the simple device of inhaling the Weed: Such magical power has the soothing Canaster To bring balmy content and good humour to Gaster.

Lord Neaves, Songs and Verses.

ORGAN JOHN O'CONNELL had the ready wit of his country in a remarkable degree. We were walking by the Wey one day, when an Oxford graduate, who had a taste for botany, plucked a flower (Balsamum impatiens) from the river, remarking that it was a very rare plant. "It is an out-of-the-Wey one, at any rate," was the instantaneous reply.

W. H. Harrison, University Magazine.

H! 'tis the most tremendous bore Of all the bores I know, To have a friend who's lost his heart A short time ago.

Bon Gaultier Ballads.

NEVER on any account allow my business to interfere with my drinking.

C. F. Browne, Artemus Ward's Lecture.

NURSERY RHYME.

HAT is an Englishman made of? Roast beef and jam tart, And a pint of good Clar't, And that's what an Englishman's made of. What is a Frenchman, pray, made of? Horse steak, and frog fritter, And absinthe so bitter, And that's what a Frenchman is made of.

Shirley Brooks, Wit and Humour.

ARRIAGE is a desperate thing. The frogs in Æsop were extreme wise; they had a great mind to some water, but they would not leap into the well, because they could not get out again.

Selden, Table Talk.

ON'T speak so hard of ——; he lives on your good graces.") That accounts for his being so thin.

Lady Ashburton, apud Lord Houghton.

E are wise—and we make ourselves hazy; We are foolish—and so, go to church; While Sambo but laughs, and is lazy (Vile discipline! lend me thy birch); He dreams of no life save the present, His virtue is but when it suits; Sometimes, which is not quite so pleasant, I miss coat or boots.

Once a Week.

OU remember Thurlow's answer to some one complaining of the injustice of a company, "Why, you never expected justice from a company, did you? They have neither a soul to save, nor a body to kick."

Sydney Smith, Life and Letters.

LLISTON, the actor, a self-educated man, was playing cribbage one evening, with Lamb, and on drawing out his first card, exclaimed, "When Greek meets Greek, then comes the tug of war." "Yes," replied Lamb, "and when you meet Greek, you don't understand it."

Life of Rev. W Harness.

O Justice Park's brother, who was a great church-goer, some one applied the words, "Parcus deorum cultor."

Thomas Moore, Diary.

OU'LL soon get used to her looks," said he, "And a very nice girl you'll find her; She may very well pass for forty-three, In the dusk, with a light behind her!"

Judge, in W. S. Gilbert's Trial by Jury.

Y brethren," said Swift in a sermon, "there are three sorts of pride—of birth, of riches, and of talents. I shall not now speak of the latter, none of you being liable to that abominable vice."

Horace Smith, The Tin Trumpet.

O doubt this patience, when the world is damning us, Is philosophic in our former friends; It is also pleasant to be deem'd magnanimous, The more so in obtaining our own ends. Revenge in person's certainly no virtue, But then 'tis not my fault if others hurt you.

Lord Byron, Don Juan.

E was not an intellectual Crœsus, but his pockets were full of sixpences.

Lord Beaconsfield, Lothair.

T'S after a dinner at Freemason's Hall That the orator's talent shines brightest of all; When his eye becomes glazed, and his voice becomes thick, And he's had so much hock he can only say hic. So the company leave him to slumber and snore Till he's put in a hat and conveyed to the door; And he finds, upon reaching his home in a cab, That his wife rather shines in the gift of the gab.

H. S. Leigh, Carols of Cockayne.

NE of our countrymen having been introduced by M. de la Rochefoucauld to Mademoiselle Bigottini, the beautiful and graceful dancer, in the course of conversation with this gentleman, asked him in what part of the theatre he was placed; upon which he replied, "Mademoiselle, dans un loge róti," instead of "grillé." The lady could not understand what he meant, until his introducer explained the mistake, observing, "Ces diables d'Anglais pensent toujours à leur Rosbif."

Gronow, Recollections.

HE sea was wet as wet could be, The sands were dry as dry, You could not see a cloud, because No cloud was in the sky: No birds were flying overhead— There were no birds to fly.

Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking-Glass.

MAN of business should always have his eyes open, but must often seem to have them shut.

Lord Chesterfield, Maxims.

EXT morning twelve citizens came ('Twas the coroner bade them attend) To the end that it might be determined How the man had determined his end!

John Godfrey Saxe, Poems.

REMEMBER on one occasion acting in "Venice Preserved." A long and rather drowsy dying speech of my poor friend Jaffier was "dragging its slow length along," when one of the gallery, in a tone of great impatience, called out very loudly, "Ah now, die at once;" to which another from the other side immediately replied, "Be quiet, you blackguard," then, turning with a patronizing tone to the lingering Jaffier, "Take your time!"

W. C. MacReady, Diary.

HE days they grow shorter and shorter, The town's worse than ever for smoke, Invention, Necessity's daughter! How long must we blacken and choke? Much longer we ne'er can endure it, The smother each resident damns; Unless something's done to cure it, 'Twill cure us like so many hams.

J. R. Planché, Songs and Poems.

KIND Providence furnishes the limpest personality with a little gum or starch in the form of tradition.

George Eliot, Middlemarch.

IL and water—woman and a secret— Are hostile properties.

Baradas, in Lord Lytton's Richelieu.

T a musical soirée in Paris, a lady, possessing a magnificent soprano voice and remarkable facility of execution, sang the great Maestro's well-known aria, "Una Voce," with great effect, but overladen with fiorituri of the most elaborate description. Rossini, at its conclusion, advanced to the piano and complimented the lady most highly upon her vocal powers, terminating his encomiums with the cruel inquiry: "Mais de qui est la musique?"

J. R. Planché, Recollections.

ON A BAD SINGER.

WANS sing before they die; 'twere no bad thing Did certain persons die before they sing.

S. T. Coleridge.

S life worth living?" That depends upon the liver.

The World.

OLD LOVES.

HEN, you liked little Bowes."— "And you liked Jane Raby!" "But you like me now, Rose?"— "As I liked 'little Bowes'!" "Am I then to suppose——" "Hush!—you mustn't wake baby!" "Did you like little Bowes?"— "If you liked Jane Raby!"

Austin Dobson, Proverbs in Porcelain.

OMEN, when left to themselves, talk chiefly about their dress; they think more about their lovers than they talk about them.

W. Hazlitt, Characteristics.

IF billows and pillows, and bowers and flowers, And all the brave rhymes of an elder day, Could be furled together, this genial weather, And carted, or carried on "wafts" away, Nor ever again trotted out—ah me! How much fewer volumes of verse there'd be!

C. S. Calverley, Fly Leaves.

ISS PRUE. Must I tell a lie, then? Tattle. Yes, if you'd be well-bred. All well-bred persons lie.

Congreve, Love for Love.

OME attacks on the lungs, that of woe would be full, Are repelled by a filter of loose Cotton Wool; But a barrier of brass, or a chevaux-de-frise, Won't exclude some descriptions of Dust and Disease.

Lord Neaves, Songs and Verses.

HEN an acquaintance came up to him and said, "Why, Jerrold, I hear you said my nose was like the ace of clubs!" Jerrold returned, "No, I didn't; but now I look at it, I see it is very like."

Mrs. Cowden Clarke.

WUS, EVER WUS.

US, ever wus! By freak of Puck's My most exciting hopes are dashed; I never wore my spotless ducks But madly—wildly!—they were splashed. I never roved by Cynthia's beam, To gaze upon the starry sky, But some old stiff-backed beetle came, And charged into my pensive eye. And oh! I never did the swell In Regent Street, amongst the beaus, But smuts the most prodigious fell, And always settled on my nose!

H. Cholmondeley Pennell, Puck on Pegasus.

'HYMEN vient après l'amour, comme la fumée après la flamme.

Chamfort, Maximes.

T may be so—perhaps thou hast A warm and loving heart; I will not blame thee for thy face, Poor devil as thou art. That thing thou fondly deem'st a nose, Unsightly though it be— In spite of all the cold world's scorn, It may be much to thee. Those eyes—among thine elder friends Perhaps they pass for blue; No matter—if a man can see, What more have eyes to do? Thy mouth—that fissure in thy face, By something like a chin, May be a very useful place To put thy victuals in.

Oliver Wendell Holmes.

OTHING shows one who his friends are, like prosperity and ripe fruit. I had a good friend in the country whom I almost never visited except in cherry time. By your fruits you shall know them.

C. D. Warner, My Summer in a Garden.

AN EPITAPH.

LOVELY young lady I mourn in my rhymes: She was pleasant, good-natured, and civil sometimes. Her figure was good: she had very fine eyes, And her talk was a mixture of foolish and wise. Her adorers were many, and one of them said, "She waltzed rather well! It's a pity she's dead!"

G. J. Cayley, in Comic Poets.

NYBODY amuses me for once. A new acquaintance is like a new book. I prefer it, even if bad, to a classic.

Lady Montfort, in Lord Beaconsfield's Endymion.

OW I hold it is not decent for a scientific gent To say another is an ass,—at least, to all intent; Nor should the individual who happens to be meant Reply by heaving rocks at him to any great extent.

Bret Harte, Complete Works.

TORY of Edward Walpole, who, being told, one day at the "Garrick," that the confectioners had a way of discharging the ink from old parchment by a chemical process, and then making the parchment into isinglass for their jellies, said, "Then I find a man may now eat his deeds as well as his words."

R. H. Barham, Life.

HAT is the spell that 'twixt a saint and sinner The diff'rence makes?—a sermon? Bah! a dinner.

Alfred Austin, The Season.

VENT to the club this mornin', sir. There vorn't no letters, sir." "Very good, Topping." "How's missus, sir?" "Pretty well, Topping." "Glad to hear it, sir. My missus ain't very well, sir." "No!" "No, sir, she's agoin', sir, to have a hincrease werry soon, and it makes her nervous, sir; and ven a young voman gets down at sich a time, sir, she goes down werry deep, sir." To this sentiment I reply affirmatively, and then he adds, as he stirs the fire (as if he were thinking out loud), "Wot a mystery it is! Wot a go is natur'!"

Charles Dickens, apud J. T. Fields.

HE most forlorn—what worms we are!— Would wish to finish this cigar Before departing.

Frederick Locker, London Lyrics.

RS. CADWALLADER says it is nonsense, people going a long journey when they are married. She says they get tired to death of each other, and can't quarrel comfortably, as they would at home.

Celia Brooke, in George Eliot's Middlemarch.

OME think that man from a monkey grew By steps of long generation, When, after many blunders, a few Good hits were made in creation; But I can't comprehend this at all; Of blind groping forces Though Darwin discourses, I rather incline To believe in design With Plato, and Peter, and Paul.

J. S. Blackie, Musa Burschicosa.

N a trial, where a German and his wife were giving evidence, the former was asked by the counsel, "How old are you?" "I am dirty." "And what is your wife?" "Mine wife is dirty-two." "Then, sir, you are a very nasty couple, and I wish to have nothing further to say to either of you."

Horace Smith, The Tin Trumpet.

E'D better be apt with his pen Than well-dressed, and well-booted and gloved, Who likes to be liked by the men, By the women who loves to be loved: And Fashion full often has paid Her good word in return for a gay word, For a song in the manner of Praed, Or an anecdote worthy of Hayward.

G. O. Trevelyan, Ladies in Parliament.

H, my Maria! Alas! she married another. They frequently do. I hope she is happy—because I am.

C. F. Browne, Artemus Ward's Lecture.

ISE up, cold reverend, to a see; Confound the unbeliever! Yet ne'er 'neath thee my seat shall be For ever and for ever. Preach, softly preach, in lawn and be A comely, model liver, But ne'er 'neath thee my seat shall be For ever and for ever. And here shall sleep thy Alderman, And here thy pauper shiver, And here by thee shall buzz the "she," For ever and for ever. A thousand men shall sneer at thee, A thousand women quiver, But ne'er 'neath thee my seat shall be For ever and for ever.

The Shotover Papers.

OR people to live happily together, the real secret is, that they should not live too much together.

Ellesmere, in Helps's Friends in Council.

ORD ELLENBOROUGH'S saying to a witness; "Why, you are an industrious fellow; you must have taken pains with yourself; no man was ever naturally so stupid."

Thomas Moore, Diary.

F you've a thousand a year or a minute; If you're a D'Orsay, whom every one follows; If you've a head (it don't matter what's in it) Fair as Apollo's; If you approve of flirtations, good dinners, Seascapes divine which the merry winds whiten, Nice little saints and still nicer young sinners,— Winter in Brighton!

Mortimer Collins.

E [Bagehot] used to say, banteringly, to his mother, by way of putting her off at a time when she was anxious for him to marry, "A man's mother is his misfortune, but his wife is his fault!"

R. H. Hutton, Memoir of W. Bagehot.

A LADY ON THE PRINCESSE DRESS.

Y dress, you'll aver, is Economy's own, Designed with most exquisite taste; From zone unto hem, and from tucker to zone, You can't find a vestige of waist!

J. Ashby Sterry, in English Epigrams.

ORD PALMERSTON, during his last attack of gout, exclaimed, playfully, "Die, my dear doctor! That's the last thing I think of doing."

J. C. Jeaffreson, About Lawyers.

ON POVERTY.

E who in his pocket has no money Should, in his mouth, be never without honey.

Epigrams in Distich.

AVERN—a house kept for those who are not housekeepers.

Horace Smith, The Tin Trumpet.

HEN the breakfast is spread, When the topers are mellow, When the foam of the bride-cake is white, and the fierce orange-blossoms are yellow.

Lewis Carroll, Phantasmagoria.

N [one] occasion, at a concert, a very indifferent tenor, who sang repeatedly out of tune, was indiscreet enough to express his regret to Rossini that he should have heard him for the first time in that room, as, he complained, "Le plafond est si sourd." Rossini raised his eyes to the abused ceiling, and simply ejaculated, "Heureux plafond!"

J. R. Planché, Recollections.

F, sick of home and luxuries, You want a new sensation, And sigh for the unwonted ease Of unaccommodation,— If you would taste, as amateur, And vagabond beginner, The painful pleasures of the poor— Get up a picnic dinner.

Horace Smith, The Tin Trumpet.

COUNTRY rector, coming up to preach at Oxford in his turn, complained to Dr. Routh, the venerable Principal of Maudlin, that the remuneration was very inadequate, considering the travelling expenses and the labour necessary for the composition of the discourse. "How much did they give you?" inquired Dr. Routh. "Only five pounds," was the reply. "Only five pounds?" repeated the doctor; "why, I would not have preached that sermon for fifty!"

Life of Rev. W. Harness.

EY vented to de Voman's Righds, Vere laties all agrees, De gals should pe de voters, And deir beaux all de votées. "For efery man dat nefer vorks, Von frau should vranchised pe: Dat ish de vay I solf dis ding," Said Breitmann, said he.

C. G. Leland, Breitmann Ballads.

HERE is nothing more universally commended than a fine day; the reason is, that people can commend it without envy.

Shenstone, Essays.

ET the singing singers, With vocal voices, most vociferous, In sweet vociferation out-vociferize Even sound itself.

Chrononhotonthologos, in Carey's farce.

IVING advice is, many times, only the privilege of saying a foolish thing one's self, under pretence of hindering another from doing one.

Pope, Thoughts on Various Subjects.

F pay or play may preach this knot— Of death or duns or love's devotion— I tied it yesterday, but what It means, I've not the faintest notion.

H. Cholmondeley Pennell, Pegasus Resaddled.

ENÉ. Qu'est ce que c'est donc que les affaires, Monsieur Giraud? Giraud. Les affaires? c'est bien simple; c'est l'argent des autres.

Dumas fils, La Question d'Argent.

OUS les méchants sont buveurs d'eau.

Comte de Ségur.

ISS PELLINGLE commences "Rousseau's Dream," with variations. Beautiful melody, by itself first, clear and distinct.

Now the air tries to break out between alternate notes, like a prisoner behind bars. Then we have a variation entirely bass.

Happy thought.—Rousseau snoring.

Then a scampering up, a meeting with the right hand, a scampering down, and a leap off one note into space. Then both in the middle, wobbling; then down into the bass again.

Happy thought.—Rousseau after a heavy supper.

A plaintive variation.—Rousseau in pain.

Light strain: Mazurka time.—Rousseau kicking in his sleep.

F. C. Burnand, Happy Thoughts.

AD is that woman's lot who, year by year, Sees, one by one, her beauties disappear, When Time, grown weary of her heart-drawn sighs, Impatiently begins to "dim her eyes!" Compelled at last, in life's uncertain gloamings, To wreathe her wrinkled brow with well-saved "combings," Reduced with rouge, lip-salve, and pearly gray, To "make up" for lost time, as best she may!

Lady Jane, in W. S. Gilbert's Patience.

O coinage in circulation so fluctuates in value as the worth of a marriageable man.

Lord Lytton, What will he do with it?

ANATHEMA IN EXCELSIS.

REED of St. Anathasius? No, indeed. Call it, good priests, the Anathemasian Creed.

Shirley Brooks, Wit and Humour.

ISTRUST all those who love you extremely upon a very slight acquaintance, and without any visible reason.

Lord Chesterfield, Maxims.

BENEVOLENT NEUTRALITY.

HEN man and wife at odds fall out, Let Syntax be your tutor; 'Twixt masculine and feminine, What should one be but neuter?

Anon.

Y friend the late Sam Phillips one day met Douglas Jerrold, and told him he had seen, the day before, Payne Collier looking wonderfully gay and well—quite an evergreen. "Ah," said Jerrold, "he may be evergreen, but he's never read." On my repeating this to Hicks, he smiled and said, "Now that's what I call 'ready wit.' "

J. C. Young, Diary.

NE day, when conversing with [a] friend, something was said on the subject of religious persecution, on which [Whately] remarked, "It is no wonder that some English people have a taste for persecuting on account of religion, since it is the first lesson that most are taught in their nurseries." His friend expressed his incredulity, and denied that he, at least, had been taught it. "Are you sure?" replied Dr. Whately. "What think you of this— Old Daddy Longlegs won't say his prayers, Take him by the left leg, and throw him downstairs'? If that is not religious persecution, what is?"

E. J. Whately, Life of Whately.

ON A PUBLIC-HOUSE.

F this establishment how can we speak? Its cheese is mity, and its ale is weak.

Anon.

T a fête at Hatfield House, tableaux vivants were among the chief amusements, and scenes from Ivanhoe were among the selections. All the parts were filled up but that of Isaac of York. Lady Salisbury begged Lord Alvanley "to make the set complete, by doing the Jew." "Anything in my power your ladyship may demand," replied Alvanley; "but though no man in England has tried oftener, I never could do a Jew in my life."

R. H. Barham, Life.

HERE'S nothing we read of in torture's inventions, Like a well-meaning dunce with the best of intentions.

J. R. Lowell, A Fable for Critics.

THE POPE.

ISS D., on her return to the Highlands of Scotland, from Rome, went to see an auld Scottish wife, and said, to interest the old woman, "I have been to Rome since I saw you—I have seen all sorts of great people—I have seen the Pope." The sympathetic old dame replied with animation, "The Pope of Rome!—Honest marn!—haze he ony family?"

Frederick Locker, Patchwork.

AY, tempt me not, Arab, again to stay; Since I crave neither Echo nor Fun to-day, For thy hand is not Echoless—there they are, Fun, Glowworm, and Echo, and Evening Star: And thou hintest withal that thou fain wouldst shine, As I con them, these bulgy old boots of mine. But I shrink from thee, Arab! Thou eat'st eel-pie, Thou evermore hast at least one black eye; There is brass on thy brow, and thy swarthy hues Are due not to nature but handling shoes; And the bit in thy mouth, I regret to see, Is a bit of tobacco-pipe—Flee, child, flee!

C. S. Calverley, Fly Leaves.

HE bulk of men in our days are just as immoral as they were in Charles the Second's; the only difference is that they are incomparably more stupid, and that instead of decking their immorality with the jewels of wit, they clumsily try to cover it with the tarpaulin of respectability.

Mr. Luke, in Mallock's New Republic.

WHY WIVES MAKE NO WILLS.

EN dying make their wills, why cannot wives? Because wives have their wills during their lives.

R. Hugman (circa 1628).

HAT the mischief do you suppose you want with a post-office at Baldwin's Ranch? It would not do you any good. If any letters came there, you couldn't read them, you know; and besides, such letters as ought to pass through, with money in them, for other localities, would not be likely to get through, you must perceive at once; and that would make trouble for us all. No; don't bother about a post-office at your camp. What you want is a nice jail, you know—a nice, substantial jail, and a free school. These will be a lasting benefit to you. These will make you really contented and happy.

Mark Twain, Choice Works.

OUS avons tous assez de force pour supporter les maux d'autrui.

La Rochefoucauld, Réflexions.

OGERS happened to ask Macaulay what he thought of Miss Harriet Martineau's wonderful cures by mesmerism. He said, with one of his rare smiles, "Oh, it's all my eye, and Hetty Martineau!"

Lady Chatterton, Life.

Tame is Virtue's school; Paint, as more effective, Villain, knave, and fool, With always a Detective. Hate for Love may sit; Gloom will do for Gladness; Banish Sense and Wit, And dash in lots of Madness. Stir the broth about; Keep the furnace glowing; Soon we'll pour it out In three bright volumes flowing. Some may jeer and jibe: We know where the shop is, Ready to subscribe For a thousand copies!

Lord Neaves, Songs and Verses.

H' young men noo-a-days, they're poor squashy things—the' looke well anoof, but the' woon't wear, the' woon't wear.

"Mester" Ford, in George Eliot's Mr. Gilfil.

HERE are the boys of my youth?" I assure you this is not a conundrum. Some are amongst you here—some in America—some are in gaol.

Hence arises a most touching question: "Where are the girls of my youth?" Some are married—some would like to be.

C. F. Browne, Artemus Ward's Lecture.

ARK how the lorgnettes cautiously they raise Lest points, no pose so thoughtless but displays, A too quick curiosity should hide— For they who gaze must gazed-at be beside.

Alfred Austin, The Season.

SENT the book down to the Dean, from Saunders and Otley's. Speaking of that firm, I don't know whether I told you of young Sutton, Lord Canterbury's son, calling there one day very angry, because they had not sent him some books he had ordered. He was, as usual, pretty warm, and so much so that one of the partners could bear it no longer, and told him as much. "I don't know who you are," was the answer, "but I don't want to annoy you personally, as you may not be the one in fault: it's your confounded house that I blame. You may be Otley, or you may be Saunders; if you are Saunders, d—— Otley; if you are Otley, d—— Saunders. I mean nothing personal to you."