Part 58 (2/2)

A LADY, complaining how rapidly time stole away, said: ”Alas! I am near thirty.” A doctor, who was present, and knew her age, said: ”Do not fret at it, madam; for you will get _further_ from that frightful epoch every day.”

Mx.x.xV.--POT VALIANT.

PROVISIONS have a greater influence on the valor of troops than is generally supposed; and there is great truth in the remark of an English physician, who said, that with a six weeks' diet he could make a man a coward. A distinguished general was so convinced of this principle, that he said he always employed his troops _before their dinner had digested_.

Mx.x.xVI.--CAUSE AND EFFECT.

SIR WILLIAM DAWES, Archbishop of York, was very fond of a pun. His clergy dining with him, for the first time, after he had lost his lady, he told them he feared they did not find things in so good order as they used to be in the time of poor Mary; and, looking extremely sorrowful, added, with a deep sigh, ”She was, indeed, _Mare Pacific.u.m_.” A curate, who pretty well knew what she had been, said, ”Ay, my lord, but she was _Mare Mortuum_ first.”

Mx.x.xVII.--A BAD PREACHER.

A CLERGYMAN, meeting a particular friend, asked him why he never came to _hear him preach_. He answered, ”I am afraid of _disturbing your solitude_.”

Mx.x.xVIII.--ON ROGERS THE POET, WHO WAS EGOTISTICAL.

SO well deserved is Rogers' fame, That friends, who hear him most, advise The egotist to change his name To ”Argus,” with his hundred I's!

Mx.x.xIX.--A POSER.

IN a Chancery suit one of the counsel, describing the boundaries of his client's land, said, in showing the plan of it, ”We lie on this side, my lord.” The opposite counsel then said, ”And we lie on that side.” The Chancellor, with a good-humored grin, observed, ”If you _lie_ on both sides, whom will you have me believe?”

MXL.--A QUIET DOSE.

A MEAN fellow, thinking to get an opinion of his health _gratis_, asked a medical acquaintance what he should take for such a complaint? ”I'll tell you,” said the doctor, sarcastically; ”You should take _advice_.”

MXLI.--THE DANCING PRELATES.

SCALIGER doth the curious fact advance, The early bishops used to join the dance, And winding, turning ----s shows us yet, That Bishops still know how to pirouette.

MXLII.--AURICULAR CONFESSION.

A CUNNING juryman addressed the clerk of the court when administering the oath, saying, ”Speak up; I cannot hear what you say.”--”Stop; are you deaf?” asked Baron Alderson.--”Yes, of one ear.”--”Then you may leave the box, for it is necessary that jurymen should hear _both sides_.”

MXLIII.--A DRY FELLOW.

”WELL, Will,” said an Earl one day to Will Speir, seeing the latter finis.h.i.+ng his dinner, ”have you had a good dinner to-day?” (Will had been grumbling some time before.) ”Ou, vera gude,” answered Will; ”but gin anybody asks if I got a dram _after 't_, what will I say?”

MAXILLA.--GOOD EVIDENCE.

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