THE GATHERER.
Reading edition
A snapper up of unconsidered trifles. Shakspeare.
ERRORS OF THE PRESS.
By a Reporter.
I once had occasion to report, that a certain "noble lord was confined to his house with a violent cold"—next morning, I found his lordship represented to be "confined with a violent scold!" In the same way, on the occasion of a recent entertainment, I had said "that the first point of attraction and admiration were her ladyship's looks;" this compliment was transferred by the printer to her "ladyship's cooks!" My praises of the "Infant Lyra" were converted to a panegyric on the "infant lyar." In an account of General Saldanha's conduct at Oporto, I observed that he "behaved like a hero," while the printer made it appear that he "behaved like a hare."—"We," says the John Bull, "often suffer in this way—about two years since, we represented Mr. Peel as having joined a party of fiends in Hampshire for the purpose of shooting peasants; and only last week, in a Scotch paper, we saw it gravely stated that a surgeon was taken alive in the river and sold to the inhabitants at 6d. and 10d. per pound."
Atlas.
TESTAMENT OF A USURER.
"I order that my body be returned to the earth from whence it came, and I give my soul to the devil. I give likewise to the devil the souls of my wife and children, who encouraged me in usury for the sake of good cheer and fine clothes. Item. I give to the devil the soul of my confessor, who connived at my crimes by his silence."
On the day when the news of the decease of Napoleon reached the Tuileries, Louis XVIII. was surrounded by a brilliant court, all of whom, with the exception of one man, received the intelligence with the most unequivocal signs of delight. This man was General Rapp, who burst into tears. The king perceived and noticed it. "Yes, Sire," answered the general, "I do weep for Napoleon; and you will excuse it, for to him I owe every thing in the world, even the honour of now serving your majesty, since it was he that made me what I am!" The king, in an elevated tone of voice, replied, "General, I do but esteem you the more. Fidelity which thus survives misfortune, proves to me how securely I may depend on you myself."
THE HINT TAKEN.
Voltaire after being on terms of friendship with the King of Prussia, owing to his wit, gave some offence; when the King said to some of his courtiers—"When we squeeze the orange and have sucked the juice, we throw the rest away." Then said Voltaire I must take care of the peel—and quitted his Prussian majesty's dominions.
L. P. S.
(To the Editor of the Mirror.)
Sir,—In the distich you have quoted from my Lectures at page 143 of your last Mirror, it should have been stated that the statue was a Cupid. The original lines (Voltaire's) are—
Qui que tu sois, voici ton maître, Il l'est, le fut, ou le doit être.
B. H. Smart. Connaught Terrace, Aug. 31.
In Paris, when they break a window, the common people cry out, "quarante-cinq," so as to produce a sound, in a measure harmonizing with the accident. It is to them a capital joke, because quarante-cinq, (45) is written with the two figures that make "neuf" (that is, in French, either nine or new.) The pun is ingenious.
The worst of all knaves are those who can mimic their former honesty.—Lavater.
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