Part 18 (1/2)

CCCXXV.--A BISHOP AND CHURCHWARDEN.

BISHOP WARBURTON, going to Cirencester to confirm, he was supplied at the altar with an elbow-chair and a cus.h.i.+on, which he did not much like, and calling to the churchwarden said, ”I suppose, sir, your fattest butcher has sat in this chair, and your most violent Methodist preacher thumped the cus.h.i.+on.”

CCCXXVI.--STONE BLIND.

LORD BYRON'S valet (Mr. Fletcher) grievously excited his master's ire by observing, while Byron was examining the remains of Athens, ”La me, my lord, what capital _mantelpieces_ that marble would make in England!”

CCCXXVII.--AGREEABLE AND NOT COMPLIMENTARY.

IN King William's time a Mr. Tredenham was taken before the Earl of Nottingham on suspicion of having treasonable papers in his possession.

”I am only a poet,” said the captive, ”and those papers are my roughly-sketched play.” The Earl examined the papers, however, and then returned them, saying, ”I have heard your statement and read your play, and as I can find _no trace_ of _a plot_ in either, you may go free.”

CCCXXVIII.--DR. JOHNSON WITHOUT VARIATION.

DR. JOHNSON was observed by a musical friend of his to be extremely inattentive at a concert, whilst a celebrated solo player was running up the divisions and sub-divisions of notes upon his violin. His friend, to induce him to take greater notice of what was going on, told him how extremely difficult it was. ”Difficult, do you call it, sir?” replied the doctor; ”I wish it were _impossible_.”

CCCXXIX.--MR. CANNING'S PARASITES.

NATURE descends down to infinite smallness. Mr. Canning has his parasites; and if you take a large buzzing blue-bottle fly, and look at it in a microscope, you may see twenty or thirty little ugly insects crawling about it, which doubtless think their fly to be the bluest, grandest, merriest, most important animal in the universe, and are convinced that the world would be at an end if it ceased to buzz.--S.S.

CCCx.x.x.--PLEASANT DESERTS.

A CERTAIN physician was so fond of administering medicine, that, seeing all the phials and pill-boxes of his patient completely emptied, and ranged in order on the table, he said, ”Ah, sir, it gives me pleasure to attend you,--you _deserve_ to be ill.”

CCCx.x.xI.--A HOME ARGUMENT.

BY one decisive argument Tom gained his lovely Kate's consent, To fix the bridal day.

”Why in such haste, dear Tom, to wed?

I shall not change my mind,” she said.

”But then,” says he, ”I _may_.”

CCCx.x.xII.--A BAD PEN.

”NATURE has written 'honest man' on his face,” said a friend to Jerrold, speaking of a person in whom Jerrold's faith was not altogether blind.

”Humph!” Jerrold replied, ”then the pen must have been a very bad one.”

CCCx.x.xIII.--WIGNELL THE ACTOR.

ONE of old Mr. Sheridan's favorite characters was _Cato_: and on its revival at Covent Garden Theatre, a Mr. Wignell a.s.sumed his old-established part of _Portius_; and having stepped forward with a prodigious though accustomed strut, began:--