Part 59 (2/2)

A gentleman being asked what difference there was between a clock and a woman, instantly replied, ”A clock serves to _point_ out the hours, and a woman to make us _forget_ them.”

MLIII.--THE DEVIL'S OWN.

AT a review of the volunteers, when the half-drowned heroes were defiling by all the best ways, the Devil's Own walked straight through.

This being reported to Lord B----, he remarked, ”that the lawyers always went through _thick_ and _thin_.”

MLIV.--WHIST-PLAYING.

CHARLES LAMB said once to a brother whist-player, who was a hand more clever than clean, and who had enough in him to afford the joke: ”M., if _dirt_ were trumps, what _hands_ you would hold!”

MLV.--A CRUEL CASE.

POPE the actor, well known for his devotion to the culinary art, received an invitation to dinner, accompanied by an apology for the simplicity of the intended fare--a small turbot and a boiled edgebone of beef. ”The very thing of all others that I like,” exclaimed Pope; ”I will come with the greatest pleasure”: and come he did, and eat he did, till he could literally eat no longer; when the word was given, and a haunch of venison was brought in. Poor Pope, after a puny effort at trifling with a slice of fat, laid down his knife and fork, and gave way to a hysterical burst of tears, exclaiming, ”A friend of twenty years'

standing, and to be _served in this manner_!”

MLVI.--ON Sh.e.l.lEY'S POEM, ”PROMETHEUS UNBOUND.”

Sh.e.l.lEY styles his new poem, ”_Prometheus Unbound_,”

And 'tis like to remain so while time circles round; For surely an age would be spent in the finding A reader so weak as to _pay for the binding_.

MLVII.--WRITING TREASON.

HORNE TOOKE, on being asked by a foreigner of distinction how much treason an Englishman might venture to write without being hanged, replied, that ”he could not inform him just yet, but that he was _trying_.”

MLVIII.--A GRACEFUL ILl.u.s.tRATION.

THE resemblance between the sandal tree, imparting (while it falls) its aromatic flavor to the edge of the axe, and the benevolent man rewarding evil with good, would be witty, did it not excite virtuous emotions.--S.S.

MLIX.--IMPROMPTU.

_On an apple being thrown at Mr. Cooke, whilst playing Sir Pertinax Mac Sycophant._

SOME envious Scot, you say, the apple threw, Because the character was drawn too true; It can't be so, for all must know ”right weel”

That a true Scot had only thrown the peel.

MLX.--IN THE BACKGROUND.

AN Irishman once ordered a painter to draw his picture, and to represent him _standing behind a tree_.

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