English Jests and Anecdotes - Various 4 стр.

A gentlemen paying a visit one morning to a family in Hanover Square, was shewn into a room, where on a writing desk was a paper, on which a lady had begun to transcribe a song from the opera of Love in a Village: remarking that she had left off at the end of the two following lines,

he took up a pen, and completed the verse by adding,

Among the many peculiarities of Dr. Burney, were two of a very innocent kind: the first was, the constant possession of wine of the best vintage, the next the dread of a current of air. Shut the door, was the first salutation uttered by him to any one who entered his apartment; and but few of his associates ever neglected the rule. This custom did not abandon him on the most trying occasions; for having been robbed by footpads while returning home one evening in his carriage to Chelsea Hospital, of which national asylum he was organist, he called them back as they were making off, exclaiming to them, in his usual peremptory tone, Shut the door. A voice so commanding had the desired effect; he was instantly obeyed.

Mr. Jekyll being told that Mr. Raine, the barrister, was engaged as counsel for a Mr. Hay, inquired, if Raine was ever known to do good to Hay?

While Handel was presiding at the organ, during the performance of his oratorio, entitled Israel in Egypt, the prima donna, Figuria Galli, commenced a song entirely out of tune I am an Israelite; upon which Handel stopped the accompaniment, glared ferociously down upon the offender, and exclaimed, in a voice of ten thousand thunders, You are von dam beesh!

When the Earl of Kelly paid Foote a visit at his country villa, that celebrated wit took him into his garden, and, alluding to the beaming honours of his lordships face, said, Pray, my lord, look over the wall upon my cucumber bed; it has had no sun this year.

A gentleman walking in the fields with a lady, picked a blue bell, and taking out his pencil, wrote the following lines, which, with the flower, he presented to the lady.

To which the lady replied:

A young girl from the country, on a visit to Mr. H , a Quaker, was prevailed on to accompany him to the meeting. It happened to be a silent one, none of the brethren being moved by the spirit to utter a syllable. When Mr. H. left the meeting-house with his young friend, he asked her, How dost thou like the meeting? To which she pettishly replied, Like it? why, I can see no sense in it; to go and sit for whole hours together without speaking a word,  it is enough to kill the Devil. Yes, my dear, rejoined the Quaker, that is just what we want.

When Sir William Curtis returned from his voyage to Italy and Spain, he called to pay his respects to Mr. Canning, at Gloucester Lodge. Among other questions, Sir William said, But, pray, Mr. Canning, what do you say to the tunnel under the Thames? Say, replied the secretary, why, I say it will be the greatest bore London ever had, and that is saying a great deal.

It has often been observed, that a habitual sayer of good things will have his joke under whatever circumstances he may be placed. Radcliffe, brother of the unfortunate Earl of Derwentwater, and who was himself executed in 1746, for his concern in the insurrection of 1715, was brought to the bar to receive sentence of death, in company with an old man of Falstaffian dimensions. The judge asking the usual question of this other prisoner, Plead your belly, plead your belly, said the grandson of Charles II, with a sly look at that part of his companions person.

Just about the time that Mr. Sheridan took his house in Saville Row, he happened to meet Lord Guildford in the street, to whom he mentioned his change of residence, and also announced a change in his habits. Now, my dear Lord, everything is carried on in my house with the greatest regularity; everything, in short, goes like clockwork. Ah! replied Lord Guildford, tick, tick, tick, I suppose.

Mr. H , the Professor of Chemistry in the University of Dublin, who was more remarkable for the clearness of the intellect than the purity of his eloquence, adverted in one of his lectures to the celebrated Dr. Boyle, of whose talents he spoke with the highest veneration: he thus concluded his eulogy: He was a great man, a very great man; he was the father of chemistry, gentlemen, and brother of the Earl of Cork.

In one of the latter days of Fox, the conversation turned on the comparative wisdom of the French and English character. The Frenchman, it was observed, delights himself with the present; the Englishman makes himself anxious about the future. Is not the Frenchman the wiser? He may be the merrier, said Fox; but did you ever hear of a savage who did not buy a mirror in preference to a telescope.

Judge Richardson, in going the western circuit, had a great stone thrown at him, which, as he happened to stoop at the moment, passed clear over his head. You see, he said to the friends who congratulated him on his escape, you see, if I had been an upright judge I had been slain.

Boys fly kites for recreation, and men for other motives; the first require the wind to raise the kite, the second the kite to raise the wind.

They have, at the very head-quarters of orthodoxy, Oxford, sayings which would be termed profane anywhere else. For instance, when a tradesman has grown rich by trusting the scholars, they say, that his faith hath made him whole.

A sea captain, being asked for his opinion of a future state, answered, he never troubled himself about state affairs.

Do you smoke, sir? said a London sharper to a country gentleman, whom he met in a coffee-house, and with whom he wished to scrape acquaintance. Yes, said the other, with a cool steady eye, anyone who has a design upon me.

A young clergyman, who possessed every requisite for the pulpit but a good voice, having occasion to preach a probation sermon for a lectureship, a friend congratulated him, as he descended from the pulpit, observing that, he would certainly carry the election: he had nobodys voice against him, but his own.

A person being arrested for a large sum of money, sent to an acquaintance, who had often professed a great friendship for him, to beg he would bail him. The other sent back a note, to the effect that he had promised never to be bail for anybody. I will tell you, however, what you may do, added he; you may get somebody else, if you can.

A young clergyman, who possessed every requisite for the pulpit but a good voice, having occasion to preach a probation sermon for a lectureship, a friend congratulated him, as he descended from the pulpit, observing that, he would certainly carry the election: he had nobodys voice against him, but his own.

A person being arrested for a large sum of money, sent to an acquaintance, who had often professed a great friendship for him, to beg he would bail him. The other sent back a note, to the effect that he had promised never to be bail for anybody. I will tell you, however, what you may do, added he; you may get somebody else, if you can.

A lady, who loved gaming very much, and who, at the same time was very covetous, falling sick in the country, in a village where her estate lay, sent for the curate and proposed play to him. The curate, being also fond of gaming, accepted the proposition with joy. They played, and the curate lost. After having won all his money, she proposed to play him for the parsons fees at her burial, in case she died. They played; and he lost. She obliged him to give a note for the sum at which interments then stood; and dying eight or ten days after, the curate withdrew his note by the interment.

Two little girls of the city of Norwich, one the daughter of a wealthy brewer, the other the daughter of a gentleman of a small fortune, disputing for precedency,  You are to consider, miss, said the brewers daughter, that my papa keeps a coach. Very true, miss, said the other, and you are to consider that he likewise keeps a dray.

Three ladies meeting at a visit, a grocers wife, a cheesemongers, and a tobacconists, who perhaps stood more upon the punctilios of precedence than some of their betters would have done at the court-end of the town; when they had risen up and taken their leave, the cheesemongers wife was going out of the room first; upon which the grocers lady, pulling her back by the skirt of her gown, and stepping before her, No, madam, says she, nothing comes after cheese. I beg your pardon, madam, replies the cheesemongers wife, pulling the tobacconists lady back, who was also stepping before her, after cheese comes tobacco.

I cannot conceive, said one English nobleman to another, how it is that you manage. I am convinced you are not of a temper to spend more than your income; and yet though your estate is less than mine, I could not afford to live at the rate you do. My Lord, said the other, I have a place. A place! you amaze me. I never heard of it till now. Pray what place? I am my own steward.

When Mrs. Rogers, the actress, was young and handsome, the Lord North and Grey used to dangle after her; and one night being behind the scenes, standing with his arms folded, in the posture of a desponding lover, he asked her, with a sigh, What was a cure for love? Your lordship, said she, the best in the world.

Lord Richardson, riding abroad in his coach to take the air, and passing by a carman whose horses were of unequal fatness, called out, Sirrah, sirrah, resolve me one question: why is your foremost horse so lusty and pampered, and the rest such lean jades? The carman, not knowing the judge, but deeming him a lawyer, from his habit, answered, Whoy, the reason is plain enough; my fore horse is the counsellor, and all the rest his clients.

A fat apothecary having got drunk at a tavern in Fleet Street, was sent home by his companions in a porters basket. When the man came to Temple Bar, he was asked by the keeper within what was his business. A thing of great weight, was the answer. After being admitted, he was asked what was in his basket. A pot I carry, replied the porter.

When Grosvenor House, Millbank, was the extreme house on one of the ways leading out of London, somebody asked another, in passing, Who lived in it? Lord Grosvenor, was the reply. I do not know what estate his lordship has, said the querist; but he ought to have a good one; for nobody lives beyond him in the whole town.

Mrs. Sheridan was anxious to secure an income by her vocal powers; and she earnestly entreated her husband to relax from his opposition, so far as to allow of her occasional performance, until their circumstances should render it unnecessary. But he still continued inflexible, though it was with great difficulty he could raise the necessary supplies for the ordinary purposes of life, and that by very equivocal means. One of his sources was that of writing for the fugitive publications of the day, in which he was materially assisted by his wife; and many years after his entrance into the sphere of politics, he has been heard to say, if he had stuck to the law, he believed he should have done as much as his friend, Tom Erskine; but, continued he, I had no time for such studies. Mrs. Sheridan and myself were often obliged to keep writing for our daily leg or shoulder of mutton, otherwise we should have had no dinner. One of his friends, to whom he confessed this, wittily replied, Then, I perceive, it was a joint concern.

Soon after the accession of George III., an additional tax was laid on beer, to the great discontent of the populace. His majesty was one night attending the theatre, when a fellow in the upper gallery called to another to come and drink with him, as he had got a full pot. What did you give for your full pot? inquired the invited person. Threepence-halfpenny. Threepence-halfpenny! Why, where did you send for it? To George the Third. You fool, said the other, why did you not send to George the Second? you would have had it there for threepence.

A gentleman, passing a woman who was skinning eels, and observing the torture of the poor animals, asked her, how she could have the heart to put them to such pain. Lord, sir, she replied, they be used to it.

A fishmonger of famous London town was telling a neighbour that he intended to take a trip to Margate, where he should spend some time. And will you bathe? inquired the other. O, Lord, no! answered the worthy citizen; the fishes would know me.

A person, going into a meeting-house, happened to stumble over one of the forms which were set near the entrance. Who the devil, he cried, as he rubbed his irritated shins, would have expected to find set forms in a meeting-house?

Soon after M. Favor was appointed first ballet-master of the Opera (towards the close of the last century), Signor Sodorini, another performer there, came one day upon the stage, after the rehearsal, and said to him: Allow me, my dear sir, to introduce myself to you. You are the dearest friend I have on earth. Let me thank you a thousand times for the happiness you have conferred upon me by coming amongst us. Command me in any way; for, whatever I do for you, I can never sufficiently repay you. The ballet-master, who had never seen or heard of Sodorini before, was astounded. At last, he said, Pray, sir, to what particular piece of good fortune may I attribute the compliments and professions with which you favour me. To your unparalleled ugliness, my dear sir, replied Sodorini; for, before your arrival, I was considered the ugliest man in Great Britain. The ballet-master (strange to say) took this joke in good part; and the two were ever after warm friends.