WITANB r)PINJHN8 ' ii mikB immi HivULI}. 'S :| || >N: \ r>, BOG' _ r BTREKT, 1 ,o:s'f€;i iu>iy. i« c«<«(aa>M>M«M»a iVice Two SStilliiit^ as^d Sixpence, Ex Librii C. K. OGDEN 1 THE LIBRARY OF THE UNI\'ERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES IIIH WIT. AND OPINIONS OK DOUGLAS JKRKOLI), COLI.KCTKl) ASO AKUANOr.K Xq Ijis ?nu, BLANCIIAUD JKUUOIJ), AUTBon OF "Till. u»i: *^p RSMtiMa or bouoLAn jkbkolp," ktc. LONDON: W. KENT Si CO. (LATE D. BOGUE). 8C, FLEET STREET, AND PATEBNOSTEB ROW. UDCCCLCl. wi!«CHr«Tit»: PBINTKU BY llliGII H4«('l AY, Uir.ll STXCKT. T-4 PREFACE. I HAVE emloavoured to collect the scattered wit- ticisms whicli, duriujr the last twenty vears, liave been coupled with the name of Douglaa Jorrold. The collection ia ven* incomplete : it cannot include one-twentieth part of the brilliant repartees, tho sparks of wisdom, the flashes of burning fire, which fell from tho eloquent tongue that is now muto for ^ver. Charles Kemblo said that in one of Douglas Jerrold's plays there was wit sufficient for three /comedies by any other writer ; but if it were possible to collect completely the thousands of" good things " that, in the daily intercourse of life^-over the study- fire at Putney, at picnics in the Pas de Calais, at the table of "Our Club," in tho gcniiU circle of the Old ^lulberries, and at the family dinner-table — fell from the lips of one of the kindest among men; the pre- sent spare volume would swell to the proportions of an eucyclopa?dia, and the reputation of the author of " Rubbles of the Day " would increase tenfold. " Disjecta membra are all we find of any poet or of any man."* A complete collection of Douglas Jerrold's wit is now impossible. From far and near, * Carlyle. IV PHEFACB. however — from old friends long separated, from club associates, and fireside companions, I have gleaned the few ears of golden grain which Time had left within the reach of tlieir memory. Not one friend who has afforded me a single grain has failed to assure me of his sorrow over the treachery of his memory. The ghosts of a hundred good things appeared to him, but he could not reach them. Only the recollection of the time and circumstance which had given birth to each, could bring them back to definite shape. The humble editor of the present volume can, for his own part, call to mind many evenings when his father kept the company about his table till a lato hour, flashing upon them quaint turns of thought and bright shafts of wit, each of which was worth the trouble of a note-book ; and the son has left, determined, henceforth, to bear in mind all his father's sayings, and to commit them, from the dangerous keeping of the memory, to these safer media, ink and paper. But this determination was never acted upon ; and the culprit who fell from it, and now presents this poor skeleton of a splendid presence, regrets his sin of omission keenly, and will regret it always. Still the present volume makes, in the humble opinion of its compiler, no ordinarv list of wise things said by one man. Let the reader be pleased to note also, that if, here and there, the arrow stings with a malignant poison upon its barb, the wound is for the strong that have oppres.sed the weak — the ignoble who have warred against the noble. There is consuming fire in many of the rUEFACE. V sayinp? ; but the victim, in I'vcry case, deserves to die. On the other hand, there are touches of infinite tenderness in every page. The eye that flashed tire over a wrong done by the strong to the weak ; the lip that curled with scorn at the meannesses of life, softened to sweet pity over a story of sorrow. It has been the persevering endeavour of many men who have smarted under the keen la»h of Douglas Jer- rold's wit, to prove to the world that the man who wrote " CMovernook " and the " Story of a Feather " vftka a savage n)i.'«anthrope, who had small belief iu the goodness, but infinite faith in the rottenness, of human nature. The present volume will, it is be- lieved, go far to dispel this error, and to confound its authors. The editor of" Douglas Jerrold's Wit" has sought for material, not only in his father's known and acknowledged works, but also among his early pages — now forgotten. Even " More Frightened than Hurt," written in the author's fourteenth year, has furnished matter to the present volume. Nor hsTO dramas, as completely forgotten as " Fifteen Years iu a Drunkard's Life," been neglected. Papers con- tributed by Douglas Jerrold to the AVtr Monthhi Magazine, more than twenty years ago, under the nom-iie-plume of Henri/ Broirnrigg, including " Papers of a Gentleraan-at-Anns," have been carefully ex- amined, that the present volume might be made worthier of the author's reputation. But the book includes, after all, only a scanty proportion of the witticisms which belong to Douglas Jerrold, and VI TBEFACK. which find their way to every place where the English language i3 spoken. This is tlie more to be regretted since it is indisputable that Douglas Jcrrold did not write his best jokes ; he cast them forth, in the course of conversation, and forgot them ns soon as they were launched. Often when reminded, on the morrow of a party, of some good thing he had said, he would turn, in surprise, upon his informant, and ask, " Did I really say that ? " With these few and feeble words of introduction, the son concludes his humble part of the present work. It has afforded him some weeks of pleasant labour; and it will, he trusts, be accepted as a tribute dutifully oOered to his father's memory. There are many sharp sayings in the present volume which were pointed at dear and old friends ; but they were pointed in purest frolic. The best evi- dence of this is, that although Douglas Jerrold often said bitter things, even of his friends, this bitterness never lost him a friend ; for to all men who knew him personally, he was valued ns a kind and hearty man : he sprang ever eagerly to the side, even of a passing acquaintance, who needed a kindness. Jie might possibly speak something keenly barbed on a grave occasion ; but his help would be substantial, and his sympathy not the less hearty. For with him, a witty view of men and things forced itself upon his mind so continually and irresistibly, and with a vividness and power so intense, that sarcasm flashed from his lips, even when he was deeply moved. He knew that this subjection to the dominant facultv PBEFACB. VII of his miiul had given him a. reputation in the world for ill-nuturu ; and he writhed under thiu iinputa- tioa ; for he felt how little ho deserved it — he, who could never resist a kind word, even when spoken by a man who had deeply injured him! There are many still living who have stun^ him with unfair shafts of satirical criticism, and who miqht bear witness to the heartiness of his grasp, when ho met them afterwards in friendship. A keen and even fierce antagonist while at open war with a foe, he set his lance to rest with the perfect courtesy of a true knight, the war at an end. If in these pages, then, there be words to wound, let those to whom they apply, remember the gentle heart that beat behind them ; — be certain that thev were intended in ujerest playfulness, or were uttered in obedience to an irresistible force, that put fire upon the tongue, but left the soul human and tender. 15. J. ./««', 1115! I JEKROLD'S WIT. A Handflomo Contribution. A OBNTLKMAN waitoi] upon Jcrrold one morning to enlist his synipnthiea in ln-balf of a mutuiil friend, who was in want of a round sum of mont-y. But this mutual friend had already sent his hat about among his literary bn^thren on more than one occasion. Mr. '» hat was boeomiiif; an inHtitution ; and the friends were grieved at the indelieaoy of the proceeding. On the oecasion to which we now refer, tl>e bearer of the hat was received by Jerrold with evident dissatisfaction. i " Well," said Jerrold, " how much does want this time? " '* Why just a four and two nought* will, I think, put him straight." the bearer of the hat replied. Jerrold. — " Well, put me down for one of the noughts." A Bule of Life. " My dear father on his death-bod," said Lord Skin- deep, — " ha ! what a father he was ! — my dear father said, ' Barnaby, my dear Barnaby, never while you live refuse an honest man your hand ; but, my beloved boy, be sure of one thing : when you give your hand, oh I never, never have a pen in it.' " Statesmanship. " Sir, there is but one path to substantial greatness — the path of statesmanship. For, though you set out in a 2 JKEHOLD a WIT. tlireadbare coat and a hole in either shoe, if you walk with a cautious eye to the sides, you'll one day find yourself in velvet and Rold, with music in your name and money in your pocket." A Philanthropist. As for the member for Muffboroui^'h, he is one of tho»e wise philanthropists who, in a time of famine, would vote for nothin-j but a supply of toothpicks. A Blue. She's a travellinj; college, and civilizes wherever the poes. Send her anioni; the Hottentots, and in a week she'll write 'em into top-boots. She spent only three days with the Esquimaux Indians, wrote a book upon their manners, and, by the very force of her satire, shamed 'cm out of whale-oil into soda-water. The Law. Study — study the law! IIow invitingly yon row of snges smile upon me ! With what a duii-et note doth A^'isdom, clad in sober calf, invoke me to her banquet and her shows ! There may he who feeds, grow preat on dead men's brains ; there may he trace a web of hubbub words which craft may turn into a net of steel ; there learn, when Justice weighs poor bleeding Truth, to make her mount by flaw and doubt ; and sec recorded, ay, ton thousand times, how Quibble, with his varnished check, hath laughed defrauded Justice out of court ! A Money-lender. The best fellow in the world, sir, to get money of; for as he sends you half cash, half wine, why, if j-ou can't take up his bill, you've always poison at hand for a remedv. JBBBOLD S WIT. •» A Oolden Rule. Fix yourself upon the wealthy. In a word, take this for a jjolden rule through life— never, ncrcr have a friend that's poorer than yourself. Men's Hearts. Glen's hearts! Do what you will, the things won't break. I doubt if even they'll chip. Oesorlption of a Scoundrel. JerroU.—" That scoundrel, sir! "Why. he'd sharpen a knife ui>on his father's tombstone to kill his mother !" Tronalation and Original Writing. Jerrold was walking along the Strand one day. when he met C S . exquisitely glared. Jerrold had u pair of modest Berlin gloves on. Ho glanced lirst at Lis own unassuming h.inds, and said, " Tut ! — original writing! " Then, pointing to S 's faultless yellow kid, add<^d. " Translation ! " Moral Principle. This is what the world calls principle : he has owed me half a crown for seven years, and wears lavender-water ! Maids and WiTea. Women are all alike. AVhen they're maids they're mild as milk : one make 'cm wive.*, and they lean their backs against their marriage certificates, and defy you. Truth. I've heard people sny. truth lives in a well ; if so, I'd advise vou to take an early dip in the bucket. " B 2 4 JKEBOLD S WIT. Money. Certainly man's wicked uiit;i'l is in money. I often catch myself will» somethin«; bold as a lion bouncinp from my hiait, when the shilliii}; rattles, and the lion as small as any weasel slinks back a{;ain. The "Way to a Woman's Heart. TI e surest way to hit a woman's ho.irl '\<* t,t fako aim kneeling. Bred on the Boards. "When Morris had the llaymarket Theatre, Jerrold, on a certain occasion, liad reason to find fault with tho strength, or, rather, the want of strenpth, of the company. Morris expostulatcil, and said, "Why, there's V , ho was bred on these boards !" JcrrolJ. — " IIo looks as thou};h he'd been cut out of them." Tho Philanthropist. Jerrold hated the cant of philanthropy, and writhed whenever he was called a philanthropist in print. On one occasion, when he found himjelf so described, he exclaimed, " Zound;?, it tempts a man to kill a child, to pet rid of tho reputation." Character. Character's like money : when you've a proat deal, yoti may risk some ; for, if you lose it. folks still believe you've plenty to spare. ' Ancestry. " As for ancestry," says Smoke. " truth to speak, I am one of those who may take the cuckoo for their crest, and for their motto—" I^othing.H' ( JBBBOLD 9 WIT. 5 Orapes ▼. Boiains. Poor yin. Quarto! Even if there had boon a hoyiph pa«8ion, now 'tn-ould be absurd. A man may be very fond of jjnipcs wlio tiha'D't abide the fruit when dried into miitins. Women and Warriors. With women uji with warriors, there's no robbery — alls conquest. A Dlffarenoe. tierrold one day met a Scotch gentleman, whoso namo was Ix?iteh, and who explained thnt he was not the popular caricaturist, John Leech. Jrrruld. — " I'm aware of th.it — you're the Scotchman With the i-t-c-h in your name." Physio to the Dogs. One day Mr. Tilbury entered a room where Jerrold •n as tnlkiiiiT with some friends. Macrvady was about to pro- duce " .Macbeth'" at Covent Garden ; Tilbury complained that ho had been cast for the I'hiftician, having previously been intrusted with the more genial part of M'ltek. ■/errolJ. — '* Made you the Phtftician ! Humph — that ( - throwing physic to the dogs with a vonijeance I " A Cautious Ijover. " ^Vlicn I courted her." said Spreadweasel, " I took lawyer's advice, and signed every letter to my love, — 'Yours, without prejudice !'" The Temple of Fame. Some people were praising the writings of a certa Scot. Jerrold. — '* I quite atrree with you that he shou have an itch in the Temple of Fame." 6 jebeold's wit. Damped Ardour. Jcrrokl and Laman Blanchard were strolling topother about London, discussintj passionately a plan for joining Byron in Greece. Jerrold, tellinjj the story many years after, eaid, " But a shower of rain come on and washed all the Greece out of us." A Lover's Aspiration. The sky 'a blue ajiain, — blue as your precious eyes, and the rain-drops hanovo of Dress. Auk a woman to a tea-party in the Garden of Eden, and she'd be sure to dniw up her eyelids and scream, " I can't tjo without a new trown." The Anglo-French Allianoe. Jerrold was in France, and with a Frenchmnn who was enthusiastic on the subjict of the An::lo-Freii(h alliance. He said that he was proud to gee the English and French such good friends at last. Jerrold. — " Tut ! the Itest thing I know between France and England is — the sea." The Husbandman's Life. What a new life of happiness and honour — the life of 14 jbbbold's wit. the husbandman, a life fed by the bounty of earth, and sweetened by the aira of heaven. Meeting Troubles Half-way. Some people are so fond of ill-luck that they run half- way to meet it. Othello set to Music. Davenant is about to cut down, and put music to " Othello." He takt-s away the polden wires of Apollo and puts in tlieir place his own cat-jjut. A Land of Plenty. Earth is licre so kind, that just tickle Iier with a hoc and she laughs with a harvest. A Broken Character. The character that needs law to mend it is hardly worth the tinkering. A Choritfiblo Loason. It would be uncharitable too severely to condemn for faults, without taking some thought of ihc sterlmg good- ness which mingles in and lessens them. Books. A blessed companion is a book ! A book that, fitly chosen, is a life-long friend. A Xwok — the unfailing Damon to his loving I'vtliias. A book that, at a touch, pours its heart into our own. UKly Trades. The ugliest of trades have their moments of pleasure. Now, if I were a grave-digger, or even a hangman, there are some people I could work for with a great deal of enjoyment. JKBBOLD S WIT. iO Implements of Huabandry. Every tool Boemed to me at once the weapon and the ornament of imlependenre. "With bucIi mnfrnificcnt arms n true man may po forth and conquer the wiKK-rness, making the t-arth smile w ith the noblest of victories. A Tast« of Marriage. A {jentlemnn descrilied to JerroKl the bride of a niutu:>l friend. " Why he is six foot hinh, and she ia the bhurlcst woman I ever saw. What taste, ch P " "Ay," Jcrrold replied, " and only a taste! " WholcBolo and Retail AVholcsales don't mix with retails. Raw wool doesn't speak to halfpenny ball of worsted ; tallow in the ea.sk looks down upon sixes to the pound, and pig iron turns up its nose at ten penny nails. Charity. * Charily is such a lonely creature, my blood comes up when I see a set of rascals — and there's a pretty knot in this town — trying to impose upon her. Forced Knowledge. It's odd how folks will force disagreeable knowledge upon us. — crab-apples that we must eat and defy the stomach-ache. A Wedding-Oown. After all. there is something about a wedding-gown prettier than in any other gown in the world. The Qoniua of Money. If at times it brings trouble upon men, as men are too apt in their excess of sincerity to declare, it must be allowed 16 JEnBOLD's WIT. that the trouble it saves tlicm is to the full ob great as tho perplexity it inflicts. The Choice of a Profession. The bar's too full — the bench can't be lenpthened to hold a thousandth part of us, and vre mus'n't sit in each other's laps. So many — nine-tenths — must die like spiders with nothiu}; to spin. And as to the orniy, that's " {joinij, goin;;," soon to be " gone." Laurels are fa.<;t sinking from the camp to the kitchen. In a very little while the cook will rob Cffisar of his wreoth to flavour a custard. The Influence of Wealth. Everybody has imagination when money is the thought — tho theme. The common brain will bubble to a golden wand. Money is like the air you breathe ; if you have it not. you die. Cold Mutton. Cold mutton's like a cold friend, the less to be stom- ached for having once been hot. The City Qentleman. What a picture to the imagination, the City Gentlemon ! Calm, plain, self-assured in the might of his wealth. All the bullion of the Bank of Ennland makes back-ground details ; the India Uouse dawns in the distance, and u hundred pennants from masta in India Docks tremble in the far-ofl' sky. Two-thirds of the Truth. Albert Smith once wrote an article in Blackicood, signed A. S." " Tut," said Jerrold, on reading the initials, • what a pity Smith will tell only two-thirds of the truth." ii JKBHOLI/'S WIT. 17 A Ccxoomb. A poor vain fellow, who would play at cup-and-ball with the hearts of the whole box. Fairy Worth. In the old poetic time the game fairy that would load men astray for the B.ike of the niischic-f, would, by way of recompense', chum the buttt-r and trim up the house, while the hou.sohold snored. ^Sdw moiu'V is llu* prose fairy of our mechanical generation. A Charitable Man. Uo was 80 good ho would pour rose-water over a toad. Gambling Houses. Many u house in this town is a swan house, all white and lair outside ; but only think of the black le^^s that are workiiiiT out of si^ht I The Great Secret. Poverty is the great secret, kept at any pains by one- half the world from the other half; the mystery of mysteries, guarded at any cost by ueighbuur Brown from next door neighbour Green. Titles. Titles are straws that tickle women. True Wisdom, The only lasting good ; all else is hollow. Glory — 'tis but a bubble blown from blood! law — a spider's wis- dom ; and politics — the statesman ponders and plans, winning nothing certain but ingratitude and indigestion ; whilst for woman, we hunt a wild-fire, and vow it is a star. o 18 jereold's wit. The Law. Tlie law's a pretty bird, and has cliarminij winps. 'Twould be quite a bird of paradise if it didn't carry such a terrible bill. True "Worth. Don't think that money can do anythiriji and everything — it can't. There muat be inward worth. The gold candlestick — if I may be so bold as to use a fiijur'' — may be prized, I grant; but its magnificence is only subaer- vient to its use ; the gold is very well, but after all, it's the light we look to. Advice to a Jacobite. Take my advice, leave plots, go into the country, love your queen, and — but if you still have a hankering for the sweets of rebellion — why take a wife. Mercy. There be few of us, I fear, would be worse for a little more of it. The Petticoat. Live in a palace without a petticoat — 'tis but a place to shiver in. "Whereas, take off the house-top, break every window, make the doors creak, the chimneys smoke, give free entry to sun, wind, and rain — still will a petticoat make the hovel habitable ; nay, bring the little household gods crowding about the fire-place. Friendship in Adversity. Friendship in ill-luck turns to mere acquaintance. The wine of life — as I've heard it called — goes into vinegar ; and folks that hugged the bottle, shirk the cruet. jebbold's wit. 19 An Old Bachelor. He spends all his life discovering flaws and blots, whilst another MOOS ai^d weds ; and looking only with his natural eyes, sees, to the end of his days, nothing but light. Young Ladies' Accomplishments. Bless their little filagree hearts ! before they marry they ought to perform fumrantine in cotton, and serve seven years to pies and puddings. The Test of Friendship. There's nothing like a prison pavement to ring our old friends upon. Love in Prison. ITas not the magic of the passion hung prison walls with garlands, and, like the sun of old, drawn hidden harmonies from out the very flint ? Debt. To get appearance upon debt is, no doubt, every bit as comfortable as to get height upon the rack. The figure may be expanded ; but how the muscle of the heart, how ^ all the jomts are made to crack for it ! Tall and Short. At an evening party, Jerrold was looking at the dancers. Seeing a very tall gentleman waltzing with a remarkably short lady, he said to a friend at hand, " Humph I there's the mile dancing with the mile-stone." A Solemn "Warning. At a rehearsal, one day, a lady, whom Jerrold was in the habit of rallying, gave him a cake. AVhcreupon, he took his watch from his pocket, held up the present, c 2 20 jereold's avit. and addroFsing those around liim, said, " Ladios and gentlemen, it is now half-past twelve o'clock, and I am about to eat this cake. JKcmcmber the hour!" A Careless Housemaid. That girl would break the Bank of England if she put her hand upon it. Human Devils. If men do seem devils, it is when, made drunk and callous by the bounty of heaven, they mock and mortify their fellow-men. "Wishes. Foolish and wicked wishes do not fly upwards ; but, there is no doubt of it, descend below ; where, though they are but bodiless syllables, they are often fashioned by the imps into pins and needles, and strai^^htway returned to the world to torment their begetter. What's Going On P A vei*y prosy gentleman was in the habit of waylaying Jerrold, whenever he met him, to hare a chat in the street. Jerrold disliked very naturally to be held by the button- hole in a crowded thorouchfare. One day Prosy mot his victim, and, planting himself in the way, said, " Well, Jerrold, what is going on to-duy ?" Jerrold (sharply, darling past the inquirer). — " I am ! " A Good "World. Wc are poor fools, and make sad mistakes ; but there is goodness hived, like wild honey, in strange nooks and corners of the world. The "World. The world is as a cocoa-nut ; there is the vulgar outside jeueold's wit. 21 fibre, to be made into door-nlata and ropes; tlie hard shell good for beer-cups ; and the w kite delicate kernel, the real worth, food for the gods. , Shaksperian Grog. As for the brandy, "nothing extenuate,"— and the water, *' put nought in, in malice." A very Thin Man. At a bachelor party there was a gentleman remarkable for his tliinuess. Shall we call him Deedes? In the course of the evening a servant opened the door, and the cold air rushed into the apartment. Jtrrohl.—" IW heavens ! quick ! shut the door. This drauiiht will blow Doedos up the chimney ! " Sudden Change of Fortune. A man who haa so long to flight against misfortune, wants strength to meet a sudden kindness. A Noble Lord. He was the lord of abundance— a man who had nothing to do with want and mi.^ery, but to exercise the noblest prerogative of happy humanity — namely, to destroy »thera wheresoever he found them preying upon his fellows. Filial Love. A tree planted by a parent pone, doth seem to have its roots within his grave : to strike the one, doth almost seem to violate the other. True Humour. A man of true humour may put a capital joke into an epitaph, and get a broad grm from a skeleton. 22 jebhold's wit. An Exemplary Schoolmaster. It was liis prejudice to prefer one slip of olire to a wliolo grove of birch. The Tendency of the Time. The great tendency of our time is to sink the serious and to save the droll. Folks who have an eagle in their coat-of-arms begin to be ashamed of it, and paint it out for the laughing goose. In a very little while we shall put a horso-eoUar round about the world, expressly for all the world to griu through it, A Suspicious Man. He'd search a piucushion for treason, and see daggers in a needle-case. Hasty Marriages. "NVhcn young folks are for going to church, they never heed whether iu a slow march or a gallop. Nature. Nature is a pattern maid-of-ail-work, and does best when least meddled with. A Bad Pen. " God has written ' honest man ' on his face,'" said a friend to JeiTold, speaking of a person in whom Jerrold's faith was not altogether blind. — " Humph ! " Jcrrold re- plied, " then the pen must have been a very bad one." A Poor Sempstress. A solitary pale young thing — one of the cloud of genteel phantoms that flit across our daily path — who compliment life by endeavouring to live by needle and thread. % jkbhold's wit. 23 Miscalled t>ri(le. There is a miscalled pndi', so near akin to selfishness I eanuot choose between. It' the man I love refuse my aid, I needs must think 'tis that when my turn shall eome I may expect no aid from him. Love and Friendship. Thouijh love cannot dwell in a heart, friendship may. Friendship takes less room — it has no wings. Bad Hcarta. Some people's hearts are shrunk in them like dried nuts, i'ou can hear 'em rattle as they walk. A Learned Professor. He had studied mankind only as thieves study a house — to take advantaije of the weakest parts of it. The true scholarship — for how rich it makes the best pro- fessors ! Jokes. They arc the luxury of beggars ; men of substance can't afford 'em. A BuBtic Venus. Talk of Venus rising from the sea! Were I to paint a \'euus, she should be escaping from a cottage window ; with a face now white, now red, as the roses nodding about it : an eye like her own star ; lips sweetening the jasmine, as it clings to hold them ; a face and form in which harmonious thoughts seem as vital breath ! Nothing but should speak ; her little hand should tell a love-tale ; nay, her very foot, planted on the ladder, should utter eloquence enough to stop a hermit at his beads, and make him watchman while the lady fled. 24 jkkkold's wit. Commentators. "Worthy folks who too often write on boolfs, as men with diamonds write on glass — obscurinj^ light with scratches. "Wicked Oaths. An oath that binds a man to evil, is as an arrow shot into the sky, that, turning, falls r.nd pierces the archer. Children. Children are earthly idols that hold us from the stars. Self-Eespect. Self-respect ! why it 's the ballast of the ship. With- out it, let the craft be what she will, she 's but a fine aea- colHn at the best. Gambling. I never by chance hear the rattling of dice that it doesn't sound to me like the funeral bell of a whole family. Condescension. There are people who make even a million a very small matter, merely by the condescending way of speaking of it. The Human Heart. I learnt to reverence the human heart in some foul place, some very nest of misery.— there it would flourish in its best beauty, giving out even in such an atmosphere the sweets of love and charitv and resiiination. o Deep Affection. What nature hath huug about our hearts passes our jekeold's wit. 25 snrpery with skill to cut away. In our stoicism we think it done, but the wound keeps open, and the blood still runs. Ingratitude. We are too apt to bury our accounts along with our benefactors ; to enjoy the triumphs of others as though they were the just property of ourselves. Stolen Matches. There are good dull folks who'd doubt of lasting love in paradise — seeing that the first match wanted the consent of aunts and grandfathers. Ilearts. Every man talks of his neighbour's heart, as though it was his own watch, — a thing to be seen in all its works, and abused for irregular going. Death in a Poor Man's Homo. The children of the poor have curious memories. Death comes not to their home a stately summouer, veiling its hideousness with robes and plumes, but stands and strikes *upon the poor man's hearth — a naked, foul and cruel thing; but ever brings a blessing to the house prepared. Conceit. It is wonderful to think how near conceit is to insanity ; and yet how many folks are sufl'ercd to go free, and foam- ing with it. A Heartless Landlord- If he had a tree, and but one squirrel lived in it, he'd take its nuts sooner than allow it lodging gratis. 2() JEnBOLD 8 WIT. Marriage. The marriage of a loved cliild may ceera to a parent a kind of death. Yet therein a father pays but a just debt. "Wedlock Rave him the good gift : to wedlock, then, he owes it. A Sailor's Idea of the Law. Beelzebub's ship. It is neither privateer, bombship, nor letter of marque. It is built of green timber, manned with loplolly boys and marines ; provisioned with mouldy biscuit and bilge water, and lircs nothing but red hot shot : there's no grappling with or boarding her : sho always sails best in a storm, and founders in fair weather. Man's Debts. Man owes two solemn debts ; one to society, and one to nature. It is only when he pays the second that he covers the first. Spies. He who turns spy for pleasure, wouldn't stickle to be hangman for business. The Soft Sex. A woman is like tar — only melt her, and she will take any form you please. Lying. Don't give your mind to lying. A lie may do very well for a time, but like a bad shilling, it's found out at last. Platonic Love. Plato was ever a good master of the ceremonies — ^just introducing people, and then politely making his bow. « * jeukold's wit. 27 Children's Beauty. The beauty of children is a terror — a fearful loveliness. A Cold Man. Jerrold said 'of a cold comic writer: "He'd write an epigram upon his father's tombstone ! " Fair Trade. You mustn't think because a man in fair trade loves a guinea, that his heart is all figures, like a ready reckoner. A Nautical Man of Stone. A fellow that would sit still at his grog at the cry of " a man overboard ! " Truth. In this world truth can wait ; she's used to it. A Mean Man. lie grudges a canary his sugar, and counts out grains of barley to his horse by tens. A Duellist. Is only Cain in high life. A Good Life. ITow beautiful can time, with goodness, make an old man look! Perfect Discontent. An old lady was in the habit of talking to Jerrold in a gloomy depressing manner, presenting to him only the sad side of life. " Hang it !" said Jerrold, one day, after a long and sombre interview, " she wouldn't allow there was a bright side to the moon." 28 jebeold's wit. Death. The pravc is the true purifier, and, in the charity of the livinj;, takes away the biota and stains from the dead. Intoxication. Habitual intoxication ia the epitome of every crime. Yovtr Bed. Make your bed as a coffin, and your coffin will be as a bed. Sailors. Sailors can do anything. All they bare to do with time is to beat it. Coolness. lie would eat oysters while his neighbour's house was in llames — always provided that his own was insured. Coolness ! — he's a piece of marble, carved into a broad grin. DoRmatism is puppyism come to its full growth. A Jovial Broker. He levies a distress as though he brought a card of invitation ; giggles himself into possession ; makes out the inventory with a chuckle ; and carts off chairs and tables to " Begone dull care," or, " How merrily we live who shepherds be ! " Lucky Fellows. Soldiers are lucky fellows ; all hearts enlist for them — and recruit for them very often. jeebqld's wit. 29 Virtue. Virtue, attcmptinnj to fjloss dislioncsty, if it doesn't prow ashamed and break down in the oration, ceases to be virtue. Titles. Titles, to bo the real thin^;, should be like potatoes, and turn up with a lot of land about 'em. The Decencies of Matrimony. To feel the chains, but take especial caro the world shall not hear them clank. 'Tis a prudence that often passes for happiness. Man's Strength. A man never so beautifully shows his own strength as when ho respects woman's softness. A Reformed Drunkard. I've heard him renounce wine a hundred times a day, but then it has been between as many glasses. He never takes an oath, but he settles it with a bumper. A Matter-of-Fact Man. Talk to hira of Jacob's ladder, and he would ask the number of the steps. An Inveterate Toper. If I were made Doge of Venice, instead of wedding the ocean, faith, I'd drop a ring into a baiTcl of eau-de-vie. The Power of Money, What makes the elephant powerful ? His trunk and tusks. What makes the lion dangerous ? His teeth and 30 jerbold's wit. claws. And what tusks and teeth are to the lower crea- tures, money is to man. Respectability. If all the rascals who, under the semblance of a smnsj respectability, sow the world with disi^ensions and deceit, were fitted with a halter, rope would double its price, and the executioner set up his carriajjc. A Dangeroxifl Partner. At a meeting of literary gentlemen, a proposition for the establishment of a newspaper arose. . The shares of the various persons who were to be interested were in course of arrangement, when an unlucky printer suggested an absent litterateur, who was as remarkable for his impru- dence as for his talent. " What ! " exclaimed Jerrold, " share and risk with him ! Why I wouldn't be partners with him in an acre of Paradise I" Sneers Mode Easy. AVh en we've lost all relish for w ine, 'tis marvellously easy to sneer at th*- butler A True "Woman, when a man has only half a meaning, supplies the other linir. It is that which makes the full circle of the wedding-ring. The Heroine of a Love Story. A mere thing of goojie-quill and foolscap; only born in a garret to be buried in a trunk. A Model Gambler. Take a skeleton from the box of an anatomist, give its head an immovable mask of Qesh ; clothe the fkull, but I jrbeold's wit. 31 leave all besides dry bones :' make it calculate, but not feel ; give it motion but not life, and there's j-^our model — there's your trading gamester. Shakspere. The great magician who has left immortal company for the spirit of man in its weary journey through this briary world — has bequeathed scenes of immortal loveliness for the human fancy to delight in — founts of eternal truth for the lip of man to drink, and dnuk — and for aye to be renovated with every draught. "Woman's Heart. A woman's heart, like a sin-^ing bird in a cage, if neg- lected starves and dies ; but for men's hearts, why they're free birds of prey — vultures and hawks — or thievish mag- pics at the best Fatriotism. A man quarrelled with some French dragoons because he would insist that the best cocoa-nuts grew on Primrose- hill, and that birds of Paradise flew about St. James's. Whenever a Frenchman threw him down a lie, for the honour of England he always trumped it. Speech Making. We don't look for long speeches from men of wealth. We've plenty of speakers whose only bank is the English language, and tremendously they draw upon it. How the Government is Kept Up. Like an hour-glass, when one side's quite nin out, wc turn up the other, and go on again. Ready Money. Work for ready money. Take no bill upon posterity ; 32 jereold's wit. in the first place, there ore many chances against its hrin^ paid ; and in the next, if it be duly honoured, the cost may be laid out on some piece of bronze or marble of not the slightest value to the original. Married Iiife and Single. They who live single all their lifi>, when they have sown their wild oats begin to sow nettles ; whilst the married, from the first, plant orchards. The Perfection of n Woman. Beautiful — and can do everj-tbing but speak ! "White Saracea. Do not imagine that they are the only saraget whOM skins are soot-colour, whi> wi«nr rings through their nowes, stick parrot's feathers in tluir woolly hair, and bow to Mumbo Jumbo as thiir unly deity. They are to be found amongst the whitest, the most carefully dressed, and most pious of London. A Money Lender's Face. Pon't call it n face — it's like a bank-note, every line in it means money. "Words. In their intercourse with the world, people should not take words as so much genuine coin of standard metal, but merely as counters that people play with. A Lawyer's Flijcht. Witches fly upon broomsticks — a lawyer may come upon justice. Sensibility. A man wiia would thrive in the world has no such jibbold's wit. 33 enemy as what is known by the term SenBibility. It is to walk barefoot iu a mob ; at every step your toes are cruslietl by the iron-shod shoon of crowdinjj vatjabonds, who ^rin from ear to car at the wry faces you make — at the erics that may escape you. Wholesome Idleness. Talk not of the idleness which is full of quiet thoughts. Is it idle to be up with the day — to feel the balmy coolness of a rich May dew — to watch the coming splendour of the sun — to see the youn^ hunb.'* leap — to hear sinfjinfj, a mile above us, the stronji-throutcd lurk, the spirit of the scene — is this idle P Yet by some 'tis called so. The slugjjard who wakes half the night to lay lime-twigs for poor honesty the next day ; the varlet who acknowledges no villainy on the safe side of an act of parliament — he calls one a loiterer and a time-killer ; be it so — it does not spoil the lishintj. Idle! why, angling is in itself a system of morality ! The "World and the Laws. Consider the whole world an orchard guarded by the man-traps and spring-guns of laws ; you have only to know whvi'c the laws are laid, that though you intrude upon them ever so closely, you are never caught or hit by them. Pews. What a sermon might we not preach upon these little boxes ! small abiding-places of earthly satisfaction, sanc- tuaries for self-complacency — in God's own house the chosen chambers for man's self-gloriGcation ! What an instructive colloquy might not the bare deal bench of the poor church-goer hold with the soft-cushioned seat of the miserable sinners who chariot it to prayers, and with their souls arrayed in sackcloth and ashes yet kneel in silk and miniver. D 31 jeerold's wit. Love in Black and "WMte. A man 'a in no danjxer so lonj; as he talks his love ; but to write it is to impale himself on his own pot-hooks. Fortune. Fortune is calh^d harlot every hour of the day, and that too by prave gentlemen who only abuse the wench before company because they have never known her private favours. But bad as she is, let sour-faced Seneca and all the other philosophers of the vinegar-cruet stalk with paper lanterns before her door, they will never bring the romping hoyden into ill-repute. Black-Iieg Philosophy. I consider a hand of cards just an army of mercenaries ; and when I play, believe myself no more than an Alex- ander, a Pompey, or a Julius Csesar. Lying. The world, as at present constituted, could not go on without lying. It is only the conviction of this fact that enables so many worthy, excellent people to club their little modicum together for the benevolent purpose of keeping the world upon its axis. A Dramatist's Gk)lden Bvde. A good murder is now the very life of a drama. Thu."», if a playwright would fill his purse, he should take a hint from the sugar-bakers, and always refine his commodity with blood. Truth. He who in this world resolves to speak only the truth, will speak only what is too good for the mass of mankind to understand, and will be persecuted accordingly. ». « jebbold's wit. 35 How to be Somebody. If you'd pass for somebody, you must sneer at a play, but idolize Punch. I know the most refined folks, who'd not bud^e a foot to hear Garriok, would give a guinea each — nay, mob for a whole morning — to see a Greenlaader eat seal's flesh and swallow whale-oil. Diffidence. It is an aiquaintanee that hourly picks your pocket ; that makes you hob and nob with fustian, when otherwise you might jostle it with court ruffles. An Angler's Fly. Make it thus : — Take a piece of honesty for the body ; whip it round about with the strong thread of resolution ; add thereto the wings of cheerfulness, the sky-blue crest of hope, the tail of meekiicss. Bind the fly to the silver book of independence ; then cast it into the stream of the world, and though many a hungry pike may snap at it, yet be assured, you will hook the golden fish, a good conscience. Lending. There are three things that no man but a fool lends, ' or, having lent, is not in the most hopeless state of mental crassitude if he ever hope to get back again. These three things are — Books, umbrellas, and money. One lieg in the Grave. People with one leg in the grave are so devilish long before they put in the other. Tht-y seem like birds, to repose better on one leg. A Bad Name. Having acquired a name for ill-nature, or, in reality, D 2 36 jebuold's \mt. having acquired a fatal reputation for using your eyes, it is in vain to deal in praise of anything. The people who profess to know you, will, like witches, read even your prayers backwards. Sitting for your Portrait. If there be a plague upon earth, it is the plague of sitting under a continual struggle to call into your face, and keep there, your very prettiest and most amiable look, until duly fastened by pigments upon wainscot or canvas. Married Happiness. Married happiness is a glass ball ; folks play with it during the honeymoon, till falling, it is shivered to pieces ; and the jest of life is a wrangle who broke it. A Crotchety Man. He is one of those follows who dive into the well of truth, and croak only with the frogs at the bottom. The Newgate Calendar. A mine of gold from which philosophic novelists have cast pocket-heroes for heroes and mantel-piece ornaments , for boarding-schools. The Inventor of Gunpowder. They say a parson tirst invented gunpowder, but one cannot believe it till one is married. Patience. Once upon a time Patience wanted a nightingale. Well, Patience waited, and the egg sang. The Philosopher's Stone. The true philosopher's stone is only intense impudence. jebeold's wit. 37 Humbug. The cement of the social fabric — the golden cord tying together and making strong the sticks and twigs of the world. The diricet bell, whose ravishing sound calls the great family of man to eat, drink, and be merry. Real Fullers' Earth. Grave-dust, that truest fullers' earth, surely takes out the negro stain. The Gamester. He is indeed a privileged person ; a creature who merges all the petty wearying anxieties of li.e into one sublime passion. Become a gamester, and you are fortified, nay, exempt from the assaults of divers other feelings that distract and worry less happy men. Gaming is a moral Aaron's rod, and swallows up all meaner passions. Stock-jobbers. The mere money-changers — the folks who carry their sullen souls in the corners of their pockets, and think the site of Eden is covered with the Mint. Hunger's "Welcome Guest. When a man has nothing in his cupboard, fever is his best guest. Headers. Readers are of two sorts. There is a reader who care- fully goes through a book ; and there is a reader who as carefully lets the book go through liim. Gratis. Gratis ! It is the voice of Nature speaking from the fulness of her large heart. The word is written all over 38 jbbbold's wit. the blue heaven ; the health-giving air whispers it about U8 ; it rides the sunbeam (save when statesmen put a pane 'twixt us and it) ; the lark trills it hijrh up in its skyey dome ; the little wayside flower breathes gratis from its pinky mouth ; the bright brook murmurs it ; it is written in the harvest moon. And yet how rarely do wo seize the happiness, because, forsooth, it is a joy gratis ! Drunkenness. Never got drunk — that is, in company — above the girdle. There is a thermometer of drunkenness which every wise young man who has to elbow liis way through the world would do well to consider. A man may be knee-drunk, hip-drunk, °houlder-drunk, nay, chin-drunk ; but the wine should be allowed to rise no higher. A Doctor's Livery. A very popular medical gentleman called on Jerrold one day. "When the visitor wa.s about to leave, Jerrold, looking from his library window, espied his friend's car- riage, attended by servants in flaming liveries. Jerrold. — " What! doctor, I see your livery is measles turned up with scarlet fever." Flattery. "Whatever dirty-shirted philosophers may say to the contrary, flattery is a fine social thing ; the beautiful handmaid of life, casting flowers and odoriferous herbs in the paths of men, who, crushing out the sweets, curl up their noses as they snufl* the odour, and walk half an inch higher to heaven by what they tread upon. Come In! He has escaped somewhat of the smitings of this single- stick world who, when he hears knuckles at his postern, jekbold's wit. 39 can tbro\T himself back in bis cbair like a kinp upon bis throne, and without a qualm of the heart, cry, " Come in!" "Women's Fear of Jokes. Tiicre arc various ways of attaching the sex : but the surest is, not to attempt to shine and sparkle and go off in crackers of jokes before them. Women, somehow, have the same fear of witty men as of Greworks ; and thus, bow often do pretty, lively creatures link themselves to fools ! The Greatest Animal in Creation. The animal that cooks. Pig and Pork. When my lady sees master pig munching and wallow- ing in a ditch, she curls her nose and lifts her shoulders at bis nastiness. And lo ! when the same pig's leg, fra- grant with sage and patriarclial onions, smokes upon the board, the same lady sendeth her plate three times. Public Opinion. Public opinion is the terrible Inrjtiisition of modern times ; and those who, in a former age, were by their birth and office held the elect and chosen, are uncere- moniously dragged forth, Questioned, and doomed to an auto dafe. Picking up Character. Jerrold met Alfred Bunn one day in Jermyn-street. Bunn stopped Jerrold, and said, "What! I suppose you're strolling about, picking up character." Jerrold. — " Well, not exactly ; but there's plenty lost hereabouts." Prosiness. An old gentleman, whom we may call Prosy Very — 40 jerrold's wit. • the " prosy " having been affixed to his name by his sufTcr- 'Dg listeners — was in the liabit of mcetintj Jerrold, and pourin;; long pointless stories into his impatient ears. On one occasion Prosy related a long, limp account of a stupid practical joke, concluding with the information that the effect of the joke was so potent, " he really thought he should have died with laughter." "I wish to heaven you had," was Jerrold's reply. Dreams. Happy is the man who may tell all his dreams. The Cry of the Drapers' Assistants. These men are clamouring for leisure — for time for self- improvement! ^Vhat would they have? Are they not the chosen servitors of the fair? Do they not for nine, ten, eleven hours per diem, only six days in the week, live in the very atmosphere of beauty ? What have they to do but to take down and put by, to smile, to speak softly, to protest— and, for the benefit of the " concern," to tell a lie with the grace of perfect gentlemen ? A Oood Nome when too Late. How often does it happen that a man learns that he had a good name, only when he ceases to possess it ! If a man would know what his friends thought of him, let it be given out that he is dead, or has unfortunately picked a pocket. Then mute opinion finds a tongue — " He was the best of fellows." The Example of the Hangman. Death would indeed be punishment, could it only be administered by the executioner; but as God has made it the draught for all men — the inevitable cup to be drained to the dregs by all who live — since there is not one man jeerold's wit. 41 privileged to pass it — is not that a strange punishment for tlie deepest wickedness of guilt, if the same evil must at the last foreclose the life of the nobly good P Slander. If slander be a snake, it is a winged one — it flics as well as creeps. The First Music-seller. The ballad-singer was the first music-seller in the land. Ye well-stocked, flourishing vendors of fashionable scores, deign to cast a look tlirough plate-glass at your poor yet great original, barefooted and in rags, singing unabashed amidst London waggon-wheels : behold the true descend- ant of the primitive music-seller — of liim who even two centuries ago, sold his lays without the help of other commendation than his own cracked yet honest voice. • Bottom's Descendants. The immortal weaver of Athens hath a host of descend- ants ; they are scattered throughout every country of the world ; their moral likeness to their sage ancestor becom- ing stronger in the land of luxury and wealth. They are a race marked and distinguished by the characteristics of their 6rst parent — omnivorous seltishness and invulnerable self-complacency. They wear the ass's head, yet know it not ; and, heedless of the devotion, leave the Titania for- tune still to round their temples "with coronets of fresh and fratrrant flowers." 'n' The Strolling Player. lie is the merry preacher of tlie noblest, grand-^st lessons of human thought. He is the poet's pilgrim, and, in the forlornest by-ways and abodes of men, calls forth new sympathies — sheds upon the cold, dull trade of real 42 jbbbold's wit. life an hour of poetic glory, " makinj^ a sunshine in a shady place." He informs human clay with thoufjhts and throbbinps that refine it ; and for this he was for cen- turies " a ro^ue and a vagabond," and is, even now, a long, long day's march from th*^ Tantage-ground of respectability. A Suggestive Present. Jerrold and a company of literary friends were out in the country, rambling over commons and down lanes. la the course of tlieir walk, they stopped to notice the gam- bols of an ass's foal. There was a ver}' sentimental poet among the baby ass's admirers, who grew eloquent as Sterne over its shaggy coat. At last the poet vowed that ho should like to send the little thing as a present to his mother. " Do." Jerrold replied, " and tie a piece of paper round its neek. bearing this motto — ' When this you see, remember mc' " « Success. 1^0 matter for hi? birthplace, his parentage — success has all-in-all in his name. Though he were born on the wayside, his mother a gipsy, and his father a clipper of coin — for his name, and name alone, men shall bow down and worship him. Desert weeps at the early grave of the broken-hearted ; (success eats ortolans with a quack-salver at threescore. We may certainly be brought to allow the possible existence of unrewarded desert ; but for success, there can be no doubt of his vitality. A Metaphysician. He could take mind to pieces as easily as a watch- maker could take a chronometer to bits — knew every little spring of human actions, and, in a word, looked through the heads of the sons and daughters of £vc as easily aa jekkold's wit. 43 tliouf^h tlu'y ^vel•o of <;la88, and the motives therein working, labouring; bees. The Postman's Budget. A stranije vuninie of real life is the daily packet of the postman! Eternal love, and instant payment! Dim visions of Hymen and the turnkey ; the wedding ring and the prison bolt ! Next to come upon the sinful secrets of the quiet, respectable man — the wortliy soul, ever vir- tuous because never found out — to unearlh the hypocrite from folded paper, and see all his iniquity blackening in white sheet ! And to fall upon a piece of simple goodness — a letter gushing from the heart ; a beautiful unstudied vindication of the worth and untiring sweetness of human nature — a record of the invulnerability of man, armed with higli purpose, sanctilled by truth. The Death of a Swindler. ^Vllcn the plodding, sober, thrifty man quits this noisy world — made noisy by the incessant rattling of pounds, shillings, and pence — it is ten to one that he makes what is generally called an irreparable gap in a very large circle of affectionate friends. IIow diilerent the death of a swindler! lie leaves no irreparable gap in society — not '. he ! He agonizes neither man nor woman, nor child ; not a tear is dropped at his grave — not a sigh rises at the earth rattling on his coffin I Good and 111 Luck. Shall not one varlet ruffle it in mobs, flounder through many dirty ways, struggle through a maze of briers, and still have his good name — we mean his superfine cloak — without a wrinkle in it, a spot upon it, a tear— yea, even the fracture of a. thread in it ? And yet, put the same cloak upon another, and, though he shall suffer from a 44 JEBBOLD 8 WIT. casual jostlinfi;, though he shall tread a muddy walk care- fully as a cat, and only tarry a moment to gather a dog- rose from a bush at the wayside, and — phew ! — what an unseemly runiplinp; of his garment — what eplashos of foulest mud upon it ! The Intruder Hebuked. Jerrold and some friends were dining in a private room at a tavern. After dinner, the landlord appeared, and having informed the company that the house was partly under repair, and that he was inconvenienced for want of room, requested that a stranger might be allowed to take a chop at a separate tabh- in the apartment. The com- pany a.<»sented, and the stranger, a person of common- place appearance, was introduced. lie ate his chop in silence ; but, having finished his repast, he disposed him- self for those forty winks which make the sweetest sleep of gourmets. But the stranger snored so loudly and inhar- moniously that conversation was disturbed. Some gen- tlemen of the party now jarred glasses, or shuffled upon the floor, determined to arouse the obnoxious sleepi-r. Presently the stranger started from his sleep and to his legs, and shouted to .Jerrold, " I know you, Mr. Jerrold ; but you shall not make a butt of me ! " " Then don't bring your hog's head in here," was the prompt reply. The InconvenienceB of Poverty. What wrigglings, and strugglings, and heart-burnings, are every day acted and endured to stand well with the world ; that is, to stand without a hole in our hat, or a damning rent in our sninllclothes I The modern mau is wonderfully spiritualized by this philosophy ; so much so, that if he can secure to himself a display of the collar, he is almost wholly unconscious of the absence of the shirt. « jkbbold's wit. 45 The Uses of the Undertaker. The umlertaker is aomctimoa calli'd upon to make up. by one ^rout show — bj' the single pa;jeant of an liour — for tlie neglect and -misery sliown aud inflicted for years by the living to the dead. How many a poor relation has pined and died in a narrt't, disregarded by wealthy kin- dred, who profusely lavish upon elay what they denied to beatiujj tiesh and bluod. Accommodation Bills. There is one objection to a bill — it puts another pair of wings to the back of Time. Reputations. Strange it is, but reputations, like beavers and cloaks, shall last some people twice the time of others ; not that there shall be the slightest difference in the quality of the article — no, not a whit — the commodity shall be the same to a thread. A London HoveL One of those abodes of dirt, and crime, and famine, that, within gunshot of the houses of luxury and affluence, serve as the constant theme for legislative philanthropy ; places from which smug Theory, with weeping eyes and "heaving breast, holils forth many a touching discourse ; but where dogged Practice never shows his nose to decrease the abomination. The Philosophy of Swindling. All mankind may be divided into two classes : the swindlers according to custom and to law, and the swindlers according to the bent of their natural genius. A True Swindler. ^Vitli your true swindler the brain must have played 46 jkbrold's wit. the Aaron's rod to the heart — swallowing it whole ; a miracle very oft^-n performed in the anatomy of great public men. Showy Funerals. The trappings of the defunct are but the outward dressings of tlie pride of the living : the undertaker, in all his melancholy pomp, his dingy bravery, waits upon the quick, and not the dead. A Theatrical Manager. A manager who really knows his business will make a most effulgent "star" out of nothing better tlian block- tin — nay, cut a whole constellation from so much foil- paper, as easily as a school-girl, with precocious contempt of Malthus, will cut out a population from an old. copy- book. Public Compames. Take ten, twenty, thirty men — creatures of light — admirable, estimable, conscientious persons — by-words of excellence, proverbs of truth in their individual dealings ; and yet, make of them a "board," a "committee," a "council." a "company." no matter what may be the collective name by whioli the}' may be known, and imme- diately every member will acknowledge the quickening of feeling — the sudden growth of an indomitable lust to swindle. The Penalty of the Diner Out. He must have a pastiionate love for children. He must 80 comport himself, that when his name shall be an- nounced, every child in the mansion shall set up a yell — a scream of rapture — shall rush to him, pull his coat-tails, climb on his back, twist their fingers in his hair, snatch his watch from his pocket ; and whilst they rend his jebrold's wit. 47 super-Saxony, load bis shoulders, uncurl bis ■wig, and threaten instant destruction to the repeater, he must stifle the agony at his heart and his pocket, and to the feebly-expressed fears of the mamma that the children are troublesomtf, must call into every corner of his face a look of the most seraphic delight. High Blood. High blood, like the finest wine, may be kept so long that it shall entirely lose its flavour. Hence, the last man of an old family may be like the last bottle of a famous vintui^e — a thing to talk of, not to us*^. Light in Darkness. Live in London ! a butterfly in a dark lantern. The Vagabond. Your real, quick-blooded, genial vagabond, is the ara- besque of life. Talk of cabinet dinners — give us vagabond suppers ! The Intemperance of the Poor. AVc talk of the intemperance of the poor ; wlij', when we philosophically consider the crushing miseries that beset them — the keen suffering of penury, and the mockery , of luxury and profusion with which it is surrounded — my wonder is, not that there are so many who purchase temporary oblivion of their misery, but that there are 80 few. The School Birch. The school birch — dead twigs though it seem — buds and bears fruit. The child feels only the branches, but how often is the produce ashes in the mouth of manhood ! An Alternative. A girl, proud of her father's wealth, and shrewdly 48 JEBEOLD S WIT. counting up the measure of ita power, declared once to Jerrold, that she had made up her mind to marry a lord. But time wore on, and still no lord made even a nibble at the hook baited with bank-notes. The girl bojjan to feel nervous : and still Time's hour-glass dribbled, in no way- impeded by the poor girl's rapid progress towards thirty. At last, the soured woman became religious. " Ah," said Jerrold, " as the lord would not come to her, she has gone to the Lord." A Peer in his Minority. Notlung so succulent (to a money-lender) as a peer under age, to bo eaten in due time, with post obit sauce. First Impressions. How was the girl smitten? As they kill partridges— at first sight. A Fruitful Vicarage. It is a fruitful nook, where there is an hourly struggle between the rector and his gei-se which shall be the fattest, man or birds. A Son of Mars in a Shell-jacket. A young recruit is an egg ; he may become a household thing— on the contrary, he may stalk along the plain, a mighty victor ! Never do we see a raw recruit that we do not think of an unboiled egg, English Prisons Defended. An English prisoner in France loquitur .— The prison here is tolerably strong, but not to be spoken of after Newgate. As for their locks, they haven't one fit for a tea-caidy. The rats at nights come in regiments. We're allowed no candle ; but we can feel jkubold's wit. 49 as they run over our faces that tliey must be coutemptible in the eyes of Euglislimen. True "Worth. True worth, like the rose, will blush at its own weetness. Heading for Ladies. When I was youn<(, jjirls used to road " Pilgrim's Progress," Jeremy Taylor, and such books of innocence. Now, young ladies know the ways of Newgate as well as the turnkeys. Then, books gave girls hearty, healthy food ; now, silly things ! like larks in cages, they live upon hemp-seed. Friendship. Oh, friendsliip ! thou divincst alchemist, that man should ever profaue thee ! Maternal Instinct. One of the most touching instances of the maternal instinct, as it has been called, in children, once came under my notice. A wretched woman with an infant in her arms — mother and child in very tatters — solicited the alms of a nursery-maid passing with a child clothed in the most luxurious manner, hugging a wax doll. The mother followed the girl, begging for relief, " to get bread for her child," whilst the child itself, gazing at the trea- sure in the arms of the baby of prosperity, cried, "Mammy, when will you buy me a doll P " A French Cook ErtLnguished. I pity you French. Talk of coiisuvime de grenouilles ; did you ever taste our habeas corpus / No ! Ha ! Guy Fawkes. Who was Guy Fawkes ? Did he have a father and B 50 jerbold's wit. mother ? Was he ever a little boy, and did he fly a kite and play at marbles ? If so, how could he have ever thouf^ht it worth his while to trouble himself with other matters? Guy Fawkcs, a boy! a baby! now shaking; a rattle — now murmuring as he fed, his mother smilins down upon him ! No, no, it was impossible ! Guj,Fawke8 was never born — he was from the lirst a man — he never could have been a baby. He is in our baby-tbou^hts a uiysterious vision — one of the shadows of evil advancinu on the path of childhood. "We jjrow older, and the sub- stances of evil come close upon us — we see their dark- lanterns and snuQ* the brmjstonc. A Necessary Consequence. A pretentious young gentleman, elaborately dressed for an evening party, and whose hair was of that inflamma- tory hue which is now generally regarded as undesirable, once thrust his bead into tlie smoking-room of tlie Museum Club, and exclaimed, " Egad, 1 can't stay in this cloud." " I don't see," replied Jerroid, " how it can hurt you. Where there's fire, there must be smoke ! " The inflam- matory head was immediately withdrawn. A Bacchanal Usurer. He lends half in gold and half in poison: so many pounds sterling ; and so much bad vinegar, that having been kept near port, must, as he conceives, have a vinuus flavour. A Child's Faith. The child passively accepts a story of the future ; he can bring his mind up to a thing promised, but wants faith in the past. Beauty Unadorned. Take a sailor's advice. Don't colour at all ; where « * jeheold's wit. 51 nature lias done so well, there's little need of paint or patches. Sindbad and the Old Man of the Mountain. That is u ffiic allegory, thouijh not understood. The truth is, the OKI Man drew a bill, and Sindbad — guileless tar ! — accepted it. The English Abroad. The inn at which the cockney puts up — it is bis boast — is kept by an Englishman ; the dinners are English ; the waiter is English ; the chamberraaid is English ; the boots is English ; and the barber who comes to shave him, if he be not English, has at least this recommenda- tion — he has in his time lived five years in Saint Mary Axe, and is almost English. Elegant Portrait-painting. They painted me with a military cloak slipping oQ' my shoulders, ray hand, with ten rings upon it, supporting my head, my forehead an enormous piece of white paint, and my eyes fixed upon a star, poetically placed in the corner of the picture within an inch of the frame. I was seated on a rook, with a very handsome inli-stand beside me, and my right hand grasping, as if in a spasm of inspi- ration, an eagle's feather! Altogether I made a very pretty show. A "Walking Advertisement. A certain philosopher of this time, who has played — and wisely — with many sciences, and has been jocund among the wits of the day, was discovered one day by Jerrold busy with crucibles, retorts, acids, and alkalies, making a mysterious experiment. The prudent philoso- pher had encased himself from head to foot in a suit of E 2 52 jbbbold's wit. black oil-cloth. " ^Vhy," said Jerrold, " you look like a walking advcrtieemeut of Warren's blacking; ! " A Maiden's Voice. Her voice — 'twould coax a nail out of heart of oak. A Free Man. Be sure of it, he who diues out of debt, though his meul be biscuit and au ouiou, dines in " The Apollo." A "Word for Thieves. "When the fuU-^'rown thief is hanged, do we not some- times forget that he was the child of misery and vice — born for the gallows — nursed for the halter? Did we legislate a little more fur the cradle, might we nut be spared some pains for the hulks? Dog in the Manger. Because he hadn't the heart to fall in love himself, ho must spoil the little love of everybody else ; just like the boy who blabbed about the stolen apples, only because he hadn't the courage to go into the orchard. Authors and Scholars. Can it bo true that, since the days of Johnson and Savage, they have descended a story and live in third floors? Are they now, I will not say endured, but received into what is called good society ? Docs the moralist no longer dine behind a bookseller's screen, that he may hide his dilapidated shoes? Js the author, in these days of light, no longer considered an equivocal something between a pickpocket and a magician? Is the poet only a "little lower" in the household of the great than the undcr-butler ? In a w ord, is it possible in the present state of the world, that a man can write an jkbbold's wit. 63 epic, a play, a novel, a lyric, and at the same time be considered a gentleman ? 1ft is so ! History, biography, satire cease to be cups and balls ; poetry is no longer hucus pocun ! ' The Money-Lender. lie moves stealthily as an ague : as though haunted by the memory of a thousand acts that have written him down in the private memoranda of Lucifer. Had he lived in Spain, he would have made an excellent familiar of the Inquisition ; he would with demoniacal complacency have applied the thumbscrew, tiic burning piiicer.-J, and tlie molten lead. Born in England, bred an attorney, and adding to his professional cares the anxieties of money- lender, he is yet enabled to satisfy his natural and acquired lust of evil, and he therefore gets up costs. He has never stood at the liar of a police olBee, and yet his hands are dyed with the blood of broken hearts.' leewards of Authors. However great the rewards and honours heaped upon the English author, they are as nothing to the wealth and distinction promised him by the philosophic legislator. The calamity ti'Uv to be feared is, that in a few years authors will become too powerful and loo rich — will be * absolutely placed upon a level with tradesmen and mer- chants, and, like them, have the delightful privilege of disposing of their possessions at their death. As for the honours in store for literature, it may be safely predicted that in no less than half a century or so, attaches, or even small consuls, may be selected from English writers. Already two distinguished men have been promised the next vacancies as messengers. Pictures of Female Loveliness. There cannot be a more gratifying evidence of the 51 jKnnoLD's wit. present passion for art in this rountry, of the ingenuity of its professors, and tlie liberality of its patrons, than the continued supply of female loveliness. No slave-market could ever boast such a stock of " beauties," such a string of attractive creatures, dressed or half-dressed at the Bweet will and sweeter taste of the painter. And then they attach a simple man with such invincible names, and under such touching types, it is impossible to be safe from them. Quoor Fortnors. .Terrold, at a ])arty, imticcd a do»'tor, in solemn black, waltzin-j with a youiii; liuly who wa.'» dressed in a silk of brilliant blue. Jerrvld. — " As I live ! thcre'8 a blue pill dancing with a black draught ! " The Shirt of Nessus. The shirt of Nessus was a shirt not paid for. A Man of Burthen. An author may be likened to an elephant, seeing that he frequently hns to carry a house upon his back ilUud with u numerous family. The Fashionable Tradesman. He is not to be taken by shabby appearance. He is a fish that bites only at the finest flies. It is, therefore, highly essential that the would-be debtor sliould appear before him bearing all the external advantages of ]Mara- raon. An Usher's Duties and Reward. Twenty boys arc handed over to his keeping. Hcnco he is expected to see them all safe in bed ; to have an eye upon them whilst dressing and washing ; to take his meals with them ; to never leave the school-room ; and above jebeold's wit. 53 nil, when the young gcntlemei> recreate themselves in the play-firound, or take a walk, or go to chun-h, he is to aeeonipaiiy thcni, givinj; his most vigilant attention, his every thought, to their doings, and, indeed, at all times and in every reapect studying the interest of his employer as if it were doubly his own. For he must remember that the salary is twenty pounds per annum ! There are posi- tively many footmeu who do not get so much. "Lions" of a Season. This, our glorious metropoliiJ. is a vast cemetery for " li'Mis." Tiiev arc wlulpod every season ; and, frail and evanescent as buttercups, they every season die. Duelling. If men must fight, let them fiLrht by deputy. Let us leave what is called "gentlemanly satisfaction" to be worked out for us by the lower animals. Your very high folks might settle their disputes with a couple of lions ; whilst the vulgar might have their quarrels satisfactorily worked out by cocks and terriers. Indeed, how nmny a feud, that was tragically ended with a bullet, might have been settled by a maggot-race ! A Gentle Critic. lie would finish a new tragedy, comedy, and farce in less time than a Cyclops would head and point a pin. When, however, he intends to be very severe, he never mercilessly uses a club, but endeavours quickly to punch a mortal hole in his subject with a blunt epigram. "Worldly Honour. There never was so miserable a mountebank as what is called Worldly Honour. It is this quack-salver that talks of washing wrongs out with blood, in the same wav that ob JEBROLD 8 W!T. a jaclc-puddirifj at a fair nerds powder of pool to take out every liouseliold blot anil stain. Both these creatures are impostors — with this ditfcreuce, that one is a zauy with a death's-head. The Real and the Counterfeit. Such is the ardour of men in this incomparable London to acknowledge and reward merit, that even an imitation of talent shall often carry away the price of the true thing: hence it now and then happens to genius as to spoons, the plated article takes the place of the real metal. Advice to Married Ladies. Cultivate your nerves. You can't pet them too much. Something will always be happening in the house, and unless your husband be worse than a stone, every new fright will be as good as a new gown or a new trinket to you. There are some domestic wounds only to be healed by the jeweller. The Legitimate Drama defined by a Manager. I have ransacked the whole globe for attraction ; I may say it, I have gone, as it were, into Noah's ark for actors. I have executed what meaner men would die blushing to think of— and the result of my experience, after much thinking, is this, that that drama is to all intents and purposes the most legitimate — that brings the most money. Love of the Sea. Love the sea P I dote upou it — from the beach. The Bigotry of Virtue. Virtue makes victims by her very bigotry. JERROI.DS WIT. 57 Sharp to the Sharp. As a man is known by liis associates, so we think may the character of tho creditor be known by his attorney: tho sharp employ tho sharp. Obscurity. Yon cannot but observe how thousands are doomed to a plodding obscurity ; how thousands pass from birth to death with no ono action of their lives to signalize them- selves among tlieir fellows ; how, like corn, they prow, ripen, and are cut down, leaving behind thoui no mark of their past oxistcacc. Red Tape and ita Victims. The bnwstring is unknown in free and hnppy England ; b/it he sure of it, innocent reader, red ta^e has its daily victims. Advice to a Toong Author. Nothing so beneficial to a young author as the advice of II man whose judgment stands coublilulioually at tho freezing point. Happy England. A tax in England ? We liaven't the word in our language. There are two or three duties, to be sure ; but then with us duties are pleasures As for taxes, yoti'd ma'e an Euglislimau stare only to mention such things. 58 jebkold's wit. Dignity Insulted on the Stage. There is a drama wliich contains, I think, a piece of mischief that has escaped the unsuspecting licenser : a mayor is put in bodily fear hy a conjurer, who declares that he can, " by his so potent art," transform a high civic authority into an ape ! Mayors ought to look to this. Faying by the Clock. " You have charged me for a full-priced break faat," said a complaining guest, looking at his bill; "and all I had was a cup of milk and a chip of toast ! " " You might have had coffee and eggs for the same money," replied the waiter. " Ah ! " cried the guest, " then it seems you charge according to the clock : and if a man was to have only eggs at dinner-time, I suppose he'd have to pay for full- grown turkeys." The Laurel. An accursed plant of lire and blood. Count up all the crowns of Ca-sar, and fur the honest healthful service of man, are they worth one summer cabbage r* The Miser's Money-Bag. A Wnster — all throat ! Could its owner have put the sun itself within this bag, the world for him had been in darkness — perpetual night had cast a pall upon creation — the fruits of earth had withered in the bud, and want and misery been universal ; whilst he, the thrifty villain ! snugly lived in bloom, and in his very baseness found felicity ! Olove-Stealing fxoin Lions. Let a " lion " of a party only unglove himself, and the JliKROLD's WIT. 59 women — we have seen them do it — steal the kids. The pretty enthusiasts will liave a relic of the wonderful creature, and thus commit a theft, which even the sufTerer must, as we have observed, allow to be very compli- mentary, llow ffoura^cous are women when they really admire ! To seize a piece of kid from the very paws of a " lion ! " The "Wings of Time. The wings of Time are no other than two larjje bill- stamps, duly drawn and accepted. With tliese he brin}j;8 his three, six, or nine months into as many weeks. He is continually wasting the sand from his glass, drying the wet ink of promissory notes. Work and Pay In this world it isn't him as breaks the horse as is always doomed to win the plate. The World's Opinion. "Who, and what is this grim despot? Who is this execrable tyrant — this mixture of the mountebank and man-eater? We are pieces of him — little pieces, particles, k' you will — of this same quack-salver and cannibal, christ- ened and known as the World's Opinion. Caliban's Looking-Glass. A remarkably ugly and disagreeable man sat opposite Jerrold at a dinner-party. Before the cloth was removed Jerrold accidentally broke a glass. Whereupon the ugly gentleman, thinking to twit his opposite neighbour with great effect, said slil}', " What already, Jerrold ! iNow, 1 never break a glass." — "I wonder at that," was 60 jereold's wit. Jcrrold's instant reply, "you ouj;bt whenever you look in one." The Facilities of Credit. How many young pentlcnicn, with nothing bat their wits — poor destitute followg ! — have been forced into debt by the cordial manner, the pracioua worda of the mau determined to be a creditor ! The Mind of Childhood. Is not the mind of childhood the tendercst, holiest thing thia side lieavonP Is it not to be approached with pcntlenesfl, with love, — yea, with a heart-wornhip of tlic great God from whom, in almost angel-innocence, it has proceeded P A creature undetlled by the taint of the world — unvexed by its injtistice — unwearied by its hollow ph-asurea. A being (rv»\\ from the source of light, with something of its universal lustre in itP If childhood be this, how holy the duty to aee that, in ita onward growth, it ahall be no other ! To atnnd as a watcher at the temple, leat any unclean thing should enter it. A Stage Devil. In the full glow of my admiration of hia diabolic beau- ties, I have often scarcely suppressed a sigh to think how great an ambassador has been sacrificed in a play-house fiend. Indeed, nothing could be more truly diplomatic than his supernatural shifts. Had he acted in France in the days of Napoleon, he had been kidnapped from tlie stage, and, nolens volens, made a plenipotentiary. The Chxirch. The Church, rightly ministered, is the vestibule to an immortal life. • jkbbold's wit. 61 The Duties of a Governess. She ha8 within her trust the greatest treasures that human life, with all its pride, can know : the hearts, and, indeed, the future souls of children. As her mission is a noble one, respecf and courtesy are hers by right. To look upon her as u belter-dressed drudge is, in very truth, not poorest insolence alone, but darkest error. Literary Men. With certain excellent and patriotic persons, literature, like a gipsy, to be picturesque, should be a little ragged. An Unacknowledged Utility. There appears to be a tacit compact in society to affect an ignorance of the very existence of the pawnbroker. His merits are never canva-ssed — no man has, or ever had, a personal knowledge of him. Men are prone to vaunt the rectitude, the talents of their tradesmen — " My wine- mefchant." " My bootmaker," even " My attorney ;" but who ever yet startled the delicacy of a company with " My pawnbroker"? The Pawnbroker. He is a sort of King Midas in a squalid neighbourhood ; Up is a potentate sought by the poor, who bear with his jests, his insolence, his brutality ; who in tatters bow down to him ; and w ith want in all their limbs, with empty bellies and despairing hearts, make court to him, that he will be pleased to let them cat. Terrible things have been written on dungeon walls ; terrible sickening evidences of human misery and human vice ; but if on the partitions of these boxes could be written the emotions of those who have waited near them, the writing would be no less fear- ful than that traced in the Bastille — graven in the Piombi. 62 JESaOLD's WIT. The Ca\ise of Freedom. Wlicn men join for freedom, the cause itself does con- Becrate the act. To fall from k, or lialf-way halt in it, is treason to the dignity of human nature — is perjury to the first truth of man. A Dishonest Servant. A lady once took a servant with the finest character for honesty, and only a week afterwards detected her giving; three cold potatoes to a little hurdy-Rurdy foreigner with white mice! The Creed of Honesty. It is the creed of honesty always to hope goodness. The Printer's DeviL His looks are the looks of merriment : yet the pockets of his corduroy trou.iers may be charf»cd with thunder- bolts. He would not hurt a mouse, and in his jacket slumbers li^^htning to destroy a ministry. Perhaps for the whole Mint he could not compass a sum in addition ; and yet it restii with his integrity whether to-morrow mornini; the nation shall be saved from bankruptcy ; for, deposited in his cap is an elaborate essay addressed to the ingenious traders in the money-market ; an essay that shall tranform beggared England into El Dorado. Novel Fathers. Fathers in novels are generally dragons in white wigs. A Lady's Idea of a Servant. She conceived that a servant ought to be a sort of nun, and from the moment she enters your house should take leave of all the world beside. Has she not her kitchen for willing hands always to do something? And jbbboid's wit. 03 then for company, doesn't she see the butcher, the baker, the dustman — to say notliing of the sweeps ? An Empty Head. Of a liRht, frivolous, fli;;lity fjirl, whom Jerrold met frequently, he said, " That jjirl has no more head than a periwinkle." Poor and Content. My son, if poor, see wine in the running spring: ; lot thy mouth water at a last week's roll ; think a thread- bare coat the " only wear ;" and acknowledge a white- washed garret fittest housing-place for a gentleman. Do this and flee debt. So shall thy heart be at peace, and the sheriff be confounded. Catarrh. "Tliat cat has got a cold," said a friend to Jerrold, pointing to a domestic favourite. " Yea," Jerrold replied, " the poor thing is subject to cat-arrh." Poverty rendered Palatable. Poverty is a bitter draught, yet may, and sometimes with advantage, be gulped down. Though the drinker make wry faces, there may, after all, bo a wholesome 'goodness iu the cup. A Sanitary Air. The air of France ! nothing to the air of England. That goes ton times as far— it must, for it's ten times as thick. A Kitchen-Maid on Dress. I don't insist on ringlets in the house, but when I go out, I'm my own mistress. I've given up two places for my bird-of-paradise feather— it looks quite alive in my 64 jcubold's wit. white chip !— and would jjivc up twenty. After slavinjj among pots and pans for a month, it is so sweet to bo sometimes taken for a lady on one's Sunday out. Heartless Mistresses. They think poor servants have no more flesh and blood than a porridne-skillet. They can have their comfortable courlin^s in their parlours and drawing-rooms, and then, with their very toes at the fire, they can abuse a poor servant for only whispering a bit of love, all among the snow, perhaps in the area. Orders. "We are bigoted to orders. Men, like watches, must work the better upon jewels. Man is, at the best, a puppet, and i.i only put into dignified motion when pulled by Blue or Ked Kibands. Abuse of the "World. When I hear a man cry out, " It's a bad world," I must of course lump him with the aggregate iniquity ; for how can he have the enormous vanity to select himself as the one pure Adam from naughty millions? No, be it my faith to think the best of the world. Hoaour and Desert. Desert may pant and moau without honour ; but in the court of kings, where justice weighs with nicest balance, honour never with its smiles mocks imbecility, or gilds with outward lustre a concealed rottenness. Honour never gives alms, but awards justice. Lies. Lies are a sort of wooden pegs that keep the world together as if it were a box ; nice little things, so let into jebkold's wit. Go the work as never to be seen.- Take out the pegs, and how would the box tumble to pieces ! The Lawyer's Qcwn. The masquerajing dress of common sense. There is a living instinct in its web : let golden villainy come under it, and with a thought it flows and spreads, and jjives an ample shelter to the thing it covers; let poor knavery seek it, and it shrinks and curtains up, and leaves the trembling victim naked to the court. A Favourite Air. At a social club to which Jerrold belonged, the subject turned one evening upon music. The discussion was animated, and a certain song was cited as an exquisite composition. " That song," exclaimed an enthusiastic member, " always carries me away when I hear it." Jcrrohl (looking eagerly round the table). — " Can any- body whistle it ? " The Ill3 of Debt. Of what a hideous progeny of ill is debt the father! What lies, what meanness, what invasions on self-respect, what cares, what double dealing ! How in due season it will carve the frank, open face into wrinkles ; how like a ■knife, it will stab the honest heart ! Dress. The present age judges of the condition of men as we judge of the condition of cats— by the sleekness, the gloss of their coats. Hence, in even what is called a respectable walk of life, with men of shallow pockets and deep prin- ciples, it is of the flrst importance to their success, that if they would obtain three hundred per annum, they must at least look as if they were in the receipt of seven. F 66 jeiiuold's wit. The Devil's Portrait Fainting. lie was tolerably pooj looking; and now ia his coun- tenance but as a tavern sign, where numerous little imps, liberated by drawn corks, continue to gire a daily touch and touch of red — proud of their work, as portrait painters to the devil himself. A Shopkeeper's Idea of Truth. Truth is very well iti a story, or in a sampler, or in any matter of that sort; but the downright, naked, plain truth behind a counter — pooh! I should like to know liow, by such means, we are to pay rent and taxes. The Sword. Ceremony sanctifies it. Some kingly- words arc spoken — a trumpet is blown; and straightway the sword becomes ennobled ! The Degeneracy of the Times. There is now nothing picturesque in life. "We have caught the wild Indian, deprived him of his beads, his feathers, and his cloak of skins ; we have put him into a Quaker's suit without buttons— and behold, the once mighty chief is fallen into Mr. Respectable man ! We have now no character at all : it may seem a paradox — but our respectability has destroyed it. Better than None. A friend — let us say Barlow — was describing toJerrold the story of his court.^hip and marriage. How his wife had been brought up in a convent, and was on the point of taking the veil, when his presence burst upon her enraptured sight. Jerrold listened to the end of the story, and by way of comment snid, "Ah ! she evidently thoujrht Barlow bettor than nun." jeebold's wit. 67 Justice a Luxury. To make justice cheap would doubtless make her con- temptible ; she is therefore di^^nifled by expense — made glorious by thejjreatness of costs. The Industrious Citizen. In his business hours the cockney is worthy of the attention of any reflectinjj cart-horse. He is the genius of labour; the willing serf to those worse than Egyptian task-masters, £. s. d. Mellow Hearts. There are hearts all the better for keeping ; they be- come mellower, and more worth a woman's acceptance than the crude unripe things too frequently gathered — as children gather green fruit — to the discomfort of those who obtain them. A Money-Grubbor. His very soul seems absorbed in the consideration of the coin of the realm ; his mind hath no greater range than that of his shop ; and his every thought, like every omnibus, runs to the Bank. Reputation. Eeputation is to notoriety what real turtle is to mock. The Bed of Glory. What is it ? A battle-field, with thousands blaspheming in agony about you ! Your last moments sweetened, it may be, with the thought that somewhere on the field lies a bleeding piece of your handiwork — a poor wretch in the death-grasp of torture. Truly, that is a bed of greater glory which is surrounded by loving hearts — by hands uplifted in deep, yet cheerful prayer. There are F 2 68 jkhbold's wit. thoughts too — it is my belief — better, sweeter far than thoughts of recent Rlaying, to help the struggliug soul from out its tcnenieut. The "War-Fiend. He is too often bus}- among us — one of the vilest and most mischievous demons of all the brood of wickedness. To be sure he vi-sits men not in his own name, oh, no ! ho conies to them in the finest clothes and under the prettiest alias. lie is clothed in gay colours — has yards of pold trimming about him — a fine feather in his cap — silken flags fluttering over him — music at liia heels — aud his lying, swiudling name is — Glory. Italian Boys. I never see an Italian image-merchant with his Graces and \Vnuses and Apollos at sixpence a head, that I do not spiritually touch my hat to him. It is he who has carried refinement info the poor man's house ; it is he who has accustomed ihe eyes of the multitude to the har- monious forms of beauty. The Dottle. The bottle is the devil's crucible, and melts all. A Tailor's Lament. Every day of his life a duke passes my door to parlia- ment, in a pepper-and-salt, linsey-woolsey, duille, flannel sort of thing, that his tailor, try as hard as he may, can't charge him more than two pounds for. And in this con- dition his grace goes to make laws in parliament ! After this I should like to know how it's to be hoped that com- mon folks are to respect the House of Lords ? It's flying in the face of nature to expect it. jebbold's wit. 69 That Beautiful Dog. A lady passing a do^ that was followinj^ at Jorrold's heels, exclaimed, " What a beautiful doj; ! " " Ay, niadato," said Jerrold, turuinj; sharply round, "ho looks very beautiful now; but he ato two babies yesterday." Civilized Cannibals. How universal, how guileless is tho man who never dreams that there are cannibals in London ! Why, society is beset by anthropo[)hagi. One cannot walk the streets without rubbing coats with man-eaters — can- nibals duly entered — consumers of human flesh and blood according to the statutes. Btate Salaries. You would think senators were of the same conse^ence as singers, for they positively demand nearly as high f alaries ! A Binding Promise. He kissed her, and promised. Such beautiful lips ! Man's usual fate — he was lost upon the coral reefs. The Region of Law. It is not a region of fairies to be searched for golden fruits and amaranthine flowers ; nor is it a deep, gloomy mine, to be dug and dug with the safety lamp of patience lighting us through many a winding passage — a lamp which, do what we will, so frequently goes out, leaving us in darkness. National Prejudices. A man who hated national prejudices invited an uncle to a French restaurant, to " dine 'em out" of him. After 70 JEEEOLD S WIT. dinner he said to Lim, ""What do you think of the French, now, uncle ;"—" Not so bad," he replied, with a look of contrition, "not so bad, if they wouldn't eat frops." " You recollect the third dish — delicious, wasn't it?" The old fellow smacked his lips, with recollections of delifjht. " In that dish there were two-and-thirty frogs." The uncle insisted upon falliu},' ill immediately ; was carried home, went to bed, scratched his nephew out of his will, and died. Would it be believed— a nurse was found to swear that in his last moments si* heard 'cm croak ! See what comes of national prejudice. The Force of Genius. Here in this glorious city, in this magnificent abiding- place of mighty men, genius cannot be hidden. Though in its sensitive modesty it take refuge in a garret, a thousand benevolent spirits compel it to appear in the light of common day, and rejoice in its deservings. Bouge. Eouge is a darling little fib that sometimes lies like truth. New Zealanders. Very economical people ; we only kill our enemies — they cat 'em. We hate our foes to the last; whilst there's no learning in the end how Zealanders are brought to relish 'em. An Academical " Venus." A lady, who had ordered a Venus to be painted for her, on hearing that the goddess was the wife of Vulcan, insisted upon her having a wedding-ring. The poor artist was in agony lest the goddess should be refused admit- tance at the Academy, in consequence of what he profanely JEEKOLD 8 WIT. /I called a ridiculous superfluitj- — a wedding-ring, as he avowed, taking the subject entirely out of keeping. Authors and Publishers. Publishers lodk upon authors simply as a butcher looks upon Southdown mutton, with merely an cyo to the number of pounds to be got out of them. A Difficult Question. Jerrold met a fop one day, who languidly offered him two fingers. Jerrold, not to be outdone, thrust forward a single finger, saying — " Well, who shall it be ? " Debtors by Nature. There are some to whom debt seems their natural element ; they appear to swim only in hot water. To owe and to live are to them terms synonymous ; the ledger is their lihro d'oro ; the call of the sheriff no more t^an the call of a friend. A 'Wonderful Theatre. You have seen a whole service of plate shaken from a single cherry-stone. In like manner you have at the theatre all the tenants of Noah's ark, the pyramids, the ^ entire of the Alps, two or three earthquakes, and every drop of the Bay of Biscay — each or all, as it may please the astounding manager — placed at one time before you. The Best Bedfellow. The sweetest bedfellow is — conscience, conscience. Ha ! it's a charming thing to feel her at our heart — to hear her evening song and morning song ! Marriage Fallacies. What is enough for one, ic has been said, is enough for 72 jkbbold's wit. two. But this is the ij^orance of Cupid who never could learn fi|,'urcs. Now, Hymen is a better arithmetician, taujjht as he is by butcher and baker. Lovo in a cottage is pretty enough for boys and pirls ; but men and women like a larger mansion, with coach-house and stabling. Hespectability. Turn where we will we see the evil of what is called " respectability ;" wc hate the very word, as Falstaff hated lime. It has carried its whitewash into every corner of the laud — it has made weak aud insipid the wino of Ufe. "Woman's Tears. What women would do if they could not cry nobody knows. They are treated badly enough as it is, but if they could not cry when they liked, how they would be put upon — what poor, defenceless creatures they would be ! Nature has been very kind to them. Is'ext to the rhinoceros, there is nothing in the world armed like a woman. And she knows it. The Comfort of Ugliness. "We cannot say — and in truth it is a ticklish question to ask of those who are best qualified to give an answer — if there really be not a comfort in substantial ugliness ; in ugliness that, undianged, will last a man his life; a good granite face in which there shall be no wear and tear. A man so appointed is saved many alarms, many spasms of pride. Time cannot wound his vanity through his features ; he eats, drinks, and is merry, in despite of mirrors. No acquaintance starts at sudden alteration — hinting, in such surprise, decay and the final tomb. He grows older with no former intimates — churchyard voices — crj ing, " How you're altered ! " How many a man jebeold's vriT. 73 might have been a truer husband, a better father, firmer friend, more valuable citizen, had he, when arrived at legal maturity, cut off — say, an inch of hia nose ! •• The Eyes of the "World." Lady Montpklieb is trembling on the brink of forty. Every day that agreeable truth-teller, her looking-glass, speaks of fading lilies and roses. How can her ladyship meet the Eyes of the World, if not as fair and blushiug as when she first came out ? Lady Montpklieu makes to herself a new face from the cosmetics of the perfumer : she "paints inch thick," but purely out of respect for — the Eyes of the World ! Pretty Lydia Melrose ! She had a nice little figure ; straight as a hazel-twig : but — for the Eyes of the World — Lydia did not think herself slender enough. Hence she was laced and laced, and built about with steel suih- cient to forge into a cuirass. She, moreover, eschewed the grossness of meat diet, and lived upon lemons, oranges, almonds, and raisins, and such acid light fare, and all this, that she might appear an inch less in the waist in — the Eyes of the World ! Jack Splashly ^vas left five thousand pounds. In an evil hour he became acquainted with young Loed Fcs- ^ALL, who had not as many farthings. Jack played and played, and dressed and dressed, his money running waatefully from his purse like sand from a broken sand- glass. " My dear Jack," said an old acquaintance, " I'm sure you can't afford to ride a horse like that — no, nor to wear diamond studs ; nor to — " " My dear fellow," answered Jack, " I quite agree with what you say ; but what am I to do P Were I to do otherwise, how the devil should I appear in — the Eyes of the World ? " We have only taken three instances ; we might deal in 74 jeerold's wit. three thousand, illustrative of the foolish sacrifices daily made to the Eyes of the "World ; which, after all, watch- ful and intelligent as we deem them, are, nine times out of ten, as insensible of the offerings we make to them as are the stone and wooden idols of the heathen. The truth is, the Eyes of the "World have other employment than to look on us and our doings ; and even when they do condescend to give a single glance at us, the chances are that they either laugh in ridicule, or leer in contempt. Often when we think we have made them stare again with admiration, they only stare in pity and disgust. A Hard Pate. You will hear a good lowly creature sing the praises of pure water — call it the wine of Adam when he walked in Paradise — when, somehow, fate has bestowed upon the eulogist the finest Burgundy. He declares himself con- tented with a crust — although a beneficent fairy has hung a fat haunch or two in his larder. Now is it not delightful to see these humble folk, who tune their tongues to the honour of dry bread and water, compelled, by the gentle force of fortune, to chew venison and swallow claret ? A Little Taste of the JaiL If a man taste ever so little, he's poisoned for life. A Very Villain. He'd rob a captain of all that makes his commission worth a farthing — the profit and glory of other people's work. No Accounting for Taste. It was never meant to be accounted for, I suppose ; else there's a lot of us would have a good deal to answer jeeeold's wit. 75 about. Taste, in some tbiiiss, I "suppose, was fjivcn to us to do what we like with ; but now and then we do certaiuly illuse the privilege. Tp.e British Constitution. The British constitution is like an eel ; you may flay it, and chop it to bits ; yet for all that, the pieces will twist and wriggle again. It is elastic — peculiarly elastic. That is why it gets mauled about so much. Just as boys don't mind what tricks they play upon cats — because, poor devils, somebody to spite them has said they've got nine lives. To a Lady on Breaking her Watch. It is the privilege of beauty to kill time. A Quick Dresser. The highest and most valuable of all the female virtues, a virtue that Eve herself was certaiuly not born with, is to be a quick dresser. liies. Lord bless you ! if you was to take away all the lies that go to make bread in this town, you'd bring a good many peck loaves down to crumbs, How to Manage "Women. Never own a woman is right ; do it once, and on the very conceit of it, she'll be always wrong for the rest of her life. Sweet Magician, Love. Mighty benevolence, Cupid, that takes away stains and blots — that gives the line of beauty to zig-zag, upturned noses — that smiles, a god of enchantment, in all eyes however green, blinking, or stone-like — that gives a pout- 76 JEBROLD's "WIT. ing prettincss even to a hare-lip, bending it like Love's own bow ! Great jupgler, Cupid, that from his wings shakes precious dust in mortal eyes, and lo ! thej sec nor blight, nor deformity, nor stain — or see them turned to ornament ; even, as it is said, the pearl of an oyster is only 80 much oyster disease. Plutus has been called a grand decorator. Ho can but gild ugliness, passing off. the thing for its brightness. But Love — Love can give to it the shape, and paint it with tints, of his own mother. Plutus may, after all, be only a maker of human pocket-pieces. He washes deformity with bright metal, and so puts it off upon the near-sighted ; now Love is an alchemist, and will, at least to the eyes and ears of some one, turn the coarsest lump of clay to one piece of human gold. The Slippery Path of I>ife. How few there are who, starting in youth, animated by ^eat motiyes, do not at thirty seem to have suffered a " second fall ! " What angel purposes did they woo — and what hag-realities have they inarriid ! What Rachels have they thougiit to serve fur — and what Leahs has the morning dawned upon ! A "Wife at Forty. " My notion of a wife at forty," said Jerrold, " is, that a man should be able to change her, like a bank-note, for two twenties." Philosophy in Rags. There is to our mind more matter for sweet and bitter melancholy in the flaunting tawdry of a zany, than in the embroidered suit of a line gentleman — more stuff preg- nant with curious and touching contrast in the fantastic rags of your true vagabond, than in the sleek garments of the man of all proprieties. jeebold's wit. 77 It Might Have Been Worse. " Would you believe it ? " said Jones to Smith, " "Webster Las enfruf^ed Charles Xeaa for only twelve nights F " " For only twelve nifjhts P " said Smith. " For only twelve ni;;hts ! " repeated Jones. " Tliank God ! " ejaculated Smith, with a look of great thauksgiviug — " It might have been worse ! " A Philosophic Visionary. He spent all his inheritance in preachingf against the outward vanities of life — the ]iaintin^8 and the trappinj^n, and the false, Ueeting tinery of sophistication. He brouglit himself to rags ; but, in a lucky hour, hit upon an expe- dient that in some way restored him : for it was he who originated the custom of gilding gingerbread. Temperance Spouters. They are like bull-frogs in a pond. They only muddy where they stir ; and their monotonous croak is of water. A Posture-Master. His principal feat was the snake trick, for he would <^st himself upon the earth, and move along it in undu- lations as quickly and as lightly as the living reptile. We once knew a minister to throw him a guineii, in pure admiration of this pccuHar motion. Whenever his other tricks failed he began to creep, and success was certain. No Cause no Effect. A rumour had been very general that a certain hard lugubrious actor was labouring under an inflammation of the brain. A friend having mentioned the report to 78 jeeeold's wit. Jerrold, was reassured in the following words : "Depend upon it there is not the least foundation for the report." A Kespectable Man. Mr. Chokepear is, to the finger-nails, a respectable man. The tax-gatherer was never known to call at his door a second time for the same rate ; he takes the sacrament two or three times a year, and has in his cellar the oldest port in the parish. He has more than once subscribed to the fund for the conversion of the Jews ; and, as a proof of his devotion to the interests of the Established Church, it was he who started the subscription to present the excellent Doctor Mannamouth with a virgin silver tea-pot, cream-jug, and spoons. He did this, as he has often proudly declared, to show to the infidel world that there were some men in the parish who were true Christians. He has acquired a profound respect for the bench, since an alderman's judgment upon " the starving villains who would fly in the face of their Maker ;" and, having a very comfortable balance at his bankers', considers their despair very weak, very foolish, and very sinful. He, however, blesses himself that for such miscreants there is New- gate — and more, there are aldermen on the bench. Our English Love of Dinners. "If an earthquake were to engulf England to-morrow," said Jerrold, " the English would manage to meet and dine somewhere among the rubbish, just to celebrate the event." Churcli Bells. There is something beautiful in the church bells — beautiful and hopeful ; they talk to high and low, rich and poor in tlie same voice ; there is a sound in them that should scare pride, and envy, and meanness of all sorts ». * jerrold's wit. 79 from the beart of man ; tliat should make the earth itself seem to him, at least for a time, a holy place. There is a preacher in every belfry, that cries, " Poor, weary, struf^iflinfj, fif^htinij creatures — poor human things ! take rest, be quiet. Forget your vanities, your follies, your week-day craft, your heart-burnings ! And you, ye human vessels, gilt and painted, believe the iron tongue that tells ye ye are of the same Adam's earth with the beggar at your gates. "Come away, come!" cries the church-bell, "and learn to be humble — learning that, however daubed and stained, and stuck about with jewels, you are but grave clay. Come, Dives, come and be taught that all your glory, as you wear it, is not half so beautiful in the eye of Heaven as the sores of uncomplaining Lazarus ! And ye, poor creatures, livid and faint — stinted and crushed by the pride and hardness of the world — come, come," cries the bell, with the voice of an angel, " come and learn what is laid up for ye ! — and learning, take heart, and walk among the wickedness, the cruelties of the world, calmly as Daniel walked among the lions." Church. How many go there with no thought whatsoever, only that it is Sunday — church-going day ? And so they put on what they tliink religion that day, just as I put on a i clean shirt. Bless you, sometimes I've stood and watched the crowd, and I've said to myself, " Well, I should like to know how many of you will remember you're Christians till next week ! " When we see what some people do all the week — people who are staunch at church, remember — I can't help thinking there are a good many poor souls who are only Christians at morning and afternoon service. 80 jebeold's wit. "Winter. It was winter ia its most savage mood. Tbe tops of the forest trees were heaped with snow, the earth was hard as granite, and the wind howled like a wounded monster throuffh the wood. The Hvunane Society at an Evening Party. At an evening party, a very elderly lady was dancing with a young partner. A stranger approached Jerrold, who was looking on, and said — " Pray, sir, can you tell me who is the young gentleman dancing with that very elderly lady?" "One of the Humane Society, I should think," replied Jerrold. A Qentleman's Library. It is not so necessary to read a library : the great matter is to get it. With a good many folks, heaps of books are nothing more than heaps of acquaintance that they promise themselves to look in upon some day. Epitaphs. If the devil ever takes churchyard walks, how he must chuckle and rub hi.s brimstone hands when he reads some of the tombstones — I'hf* How he must hold his sides at the "loving husbands," " affectionate fathers," "faithful friends," and " pious Christians," that he sees advertised there ! For he knows better— Ae knows better. A Man's Coat. , Whatever coat a man wears, never see a hole in it. Though it may be full of holes as a net, never see them ; but take your hat off to the coat as if it was the best bit of broadcloth in the world, without a flaw or a thread dropt, and with the finest bits of gold lace ou it. jekbold's wit. 81 A Lawyer's Smile. Dirt cheap at six and oiglitpeuce. Peature-Mongera. Physiognomists ami heralds are in certain cases equally courteous ; first* prove yourself a great man, and tlie feature-mongers will instantly award you eyes and mouth to match — hecome rich, and though you cannot swear to your own name, you shall have as great a choice of arms as Briareus. An Error Corrected- Jerrold was seriously disappointed with a certain book written by one of his friends. This friend heard that Jerrold had expressed his disappointment. Fricml (to Jerrold). — I hear you said was the worst book I ever wrote. Jen'old. — No, I didn't. I said it was the worst book anybody ever « rote. Spittoons for Two. At a club, of which Jerrold was a member, a fierce Jacobite, and a friend, as fierce, of the cause of Wilham the Third, were arguing noisily, and disturbing less excit- able conversationalists. At length the Jacobite, a brawny Scot, brought his fist down heavily upon the table, and roared at his adversary : — " I tell you what it is, sir, I spit upon your King William ! " The friend of the Prince of Orange was not to be out- mastered by mere -Jungs. He rose, and roared back to the Jacobite : — " And I, sir, spit upon your James the Second !" Jerrold, who had been listening to the uproar in silence, hereupon rung the bell, and shouted ; — " Waiter ! spittoons for two ! " G 82 jebrold's wit. The Politics of the Heart. There is not a babe lying in the pubUc street on its mother's lap — the unconscious mendicant, to ripen into the criminal — that is not a reproach to the state ; a scandal and a crying shame upon men who study all politics save the politics of tiie human heart. Egotism. An eccentric party, of which Jerrold was one, agreed to have a supper of sheep's heads. One gentleman present WHS particularly enthusiastic on the excellence of the dish ; and, as he threw down his knife and fork, exclaimed, " Well, sheep's heads for ever, say I !" Jerrold. — " There's egotism !" An Aristocracy of Hags. Tliere is an aristocracy of rags, as there is an aristocracy of stars and garters. A Good Husband- As regular at his fire-side as the tea-kettle. Out of Banco. When Macbeth was played, many years ago, at the Coburg Theatre, a certain actor was cast, to his great dis- gust, fur Macduff. He told his bitter disappointment to Jerrold, whu thus consoled him : — *' Never mind, my good fellow, there's one advantage in playing Macduff — it keeps you out of Banqno." The Face of Nature. "We know the common story runs that Nature has pccu- lii'.r visages for poets, philosophers, statesmen, warriors, and so forth ; we do not believe it. we have seen a slack- wire dancer with the face of a great, pious bard — an JEKROLD's "WIT. 83 usurer with the legendary features of a Socrates — a passer of bad money very like a Cliancellor of the Exchequer — and a carcass butcher at ^Vhitcchapel so resembling Isapoleon that Prince Talleyrand, suddenly beholding him, burst iuto^tears at the similitude. An Eglinton Jester. M'lan, the artist, figured as one of the jesters at the celebrated Eglinton tournament. lie was mounted upon an ass. Jerrold called him an "ass centaur;" and said, that it was impossible to discover where one animal began and the other ended. Qood and EviL Virtue reads prettily upon a tombstone, but 'tis a losing quality with bare walls and a quenched hearth. Virtue, honesty, benevolence — what are they ? The counters with which the wise men of the world gull its fools and slaves. / Pure Folks. Very pure folks won't be held up to the light and shown to be very dirty bottles, without paying back hard abuse for the impertinence. Speaking your Mind. It is an extravagance that has ruined many a man. A Scolding Wife. A Judge Jefferys in his wig is an abominable tyrant ; yet may his victims sometimes smile to think what Judge Jefferys suffers in his night-cap Marriage. In marriage, as in war, it is permitted to take every advantage of the enemy. G 2 84 jeebold's wit. The "Wedding Hing. Alack ! like the riuj^ of Saturn, for good or evil it circles a whole world. Tobacco, How little docs a woman think, when she marries, that she gives herself up to be poisoned ! No Solitude. The earth has no place of solitude. Not a rood of the ■nilderness that is not thronged and eloquent with crowds and voices communing with the spirit of man, endowed by such communion with a knowledge whose double fruit is divinf'St hope and meekest humanity. Grumblers. There are folks who would take their smallest wrongs with them into Paradise. Go where they will, they carry with them a travelling-case of injuries. Manufactured Outcasts. We make them outcasts, wretches ; and then punish, iu their wickedness, our own selGshness, our own neglect. We cry, " God help the babes," and hang the men. After Ten Years of Marriage, He is a fool who throws pearls to pigs and thinks the pork will eat the richer for the treasure. He is no less a fool who showers diamonds upon his v. ife when, knowing no better, paste will make her juat as grateful. Patient SufTering. There is a sanctity in suffering, when strongly, meekly borne. Our duty, though set about by thorns, may still jereold's yriT. 85 be made a staff, supporting even while it tortures. Cast it away, and, like the prophet's wand, it changes to a snake. Fault-Finders. To discover the spots in the sun, is to some men greater than the discovery of the laws tliat govern the sun itself. A Scolding Wife. Like the owl, she hoots only at night. From eleven at night until seven in the morning there is no retreat for him — he must lie and listen. Minerva's bird, the very wisest thing in feathers, is silent all the day. Wit. Wit, like money, bears an extra value when rung down immediately it is wanted. Men pay severely who require credit. Bacchus. If j'acchus often leads men into quagmires deep as his vats, let us yet do him this justice — he sometimes leads them out. Ask your opponent to take another glass of wine. Honesty. i Honesty without sharpness in this world is like a sword without edge or point — very well for show, but of no real use to the owner. The Power of Cash. Money, in this marketing world of ours, may buy much ; but, flighty and frivolous and butterfly-like as the thing sometimes is, it can't always buy a woman's heart. However, this it caii purchase ; it can buy a cage to put the poor thing in ; it can buy eyes to watch her 86 jeeeold's wit. — hands to guard her ; and bo the pet-lamb may be kept safe from London wolves — safe as parchments in a strong box. Magna Charta. An evidence of the value of fine fiction upon a people. Because it ought to be true, they think it is. A Tavern King. A man who lives and moves only in a spittoon : a man who has a pipe in his mouth as constantly as his front teeth. Hereditary Virtues. Virtue, like vice, does not always descend in a right line, but often goes m zig-zag. It can't be willed away like the family s|ioons. A Hefreshing Cry. There is nothing so refreshing as a good cry, when you know, after all, tlure is nothing to cry about. Tears were given us to enjoy ourselves with. They wash out the mind like a dirty teacup, and give a polish to the feelings. A Model Policeman. Medusa staring at him would have had the worst of it, and bashfully, hopelessly, let drop her eyelids. You might as well have frowned at Newgate stones, expecting to see them tumble, as think to move one nerve. A Choice of Kxiin. To be ruined your own way is some comfort. When 80 many people would ruin us, it is a triumph over the villany of the world to be ruined after one's own pattern. jeebold's wit. 87 The Charm of Change. "WTiat change of climate often is to a sick man, cliange of public-house is to a drunken one. He feels the stronger for the removal, and, therefore — drinks again. Blow Hot-Blow Cold. The wind came, sharp as Shylock's knife, from the Minories — it was called the east wind — cutting the shoulder-blades of old men of forty ; but the boys, in their robust jollity — to whom the tax-gatherer was as yet a rarer animal than baby-hippopotamus — had the redder faces and nimbler blood for it. Going to Taverns. Lady (loquitur). — " What men, unless they have their wives with them, can find to talk about, I can't think — no good, of course." How to Abolish Crime. If we were to hang for everything, there would be an end of crime altogether. " Good Night." This is a simple, earnest wish, that, like the circle of the universe, holds within it all things. Perennial Courtship. There cannot be a woman ever so old, that, when she smells a sweetheart somewhere, does not snigger and grin as if her own courting-days were come again. Ideas. There are some ideas that seem, like rain-drops, to fall upon a man's head ; the head itself having nothing to do with the matter 83 jeekold's wit. A Confession of Ignorance. On the first night of Sir E. Lytton's " Sea Captain," when the hero came to that part of his role where he exclaims, " The sea — my mother sea," Jcrrold who was present, said, "I have heard of Mother H., but never before of Mother C." A Scolding "Wife at the Sea-side. Happily (says the husband, alludiii:^' to a conjugal lecture he had received) the wind got suddenly up— the waves bellowed — and, soothed by the sweet lullaby, I somehow sank to repose. A Command Reversed. " And God said, let ua make man in our image." What a fine creature is man, so long as he always has these words before his eyes, and so tries to do nothing but what shall be some way worthy of his likeness ! To do this is to make the world a pleasant place, and to have everybody happy about us, " And God said, let us make man in our image ! " This is beautiful : but it is sad — it is melancholy work, when man says, "Let us make God in our image." o^ "Once upon a Time." How oft the old, old words, like silver bells, have rung us to a brief holiday — summoned the gravest of us to the hearth, to take from the lips of fable sweetest truth ! Self-Punishment. Never, so long as you have a stitch about your anatomy, believe yourself alone. If thoughtless people could only know what their left-off clothes say about them, sure I am they would resolve upon one of two things — either to jbehold's wit. 89 reform their lives, or to go naked. Let no man harbour u black spot in his breast, and belir>ve that his waistcoat is wholly ifjnorant of the stain. Let no man drop an ill- gotten guinea into his pocket, and think the pocket uncon- scious of the wrong. His very glove shall babble of the bribe that has burnt his hand ; his cravat shall tighten about his throat, if that throat be seared with daily lies. Ignorance of man ! to believe that what is borne upon the body has no intelligence with the moral good or evil dwelling in the soul. But-But. When the affairs of Italy were the subject of general conversation in England, Jerrold was very enthusiastic in favour of Mazzini and his party. He was talking hope- fully and warmly on the subject one evening at a party, when a very cold and stiff and argumentative gentle- man was present. This iced man interrupted Jerrold at every turn with a doubting " but." At last, Jerrold, fnirly roused by the coolness of his opponent, turned sharply upon him, and said, " Sir, I'll thank you to throw no more of your cold water ' buts ' at me." Good in Everything. There may be some Eden-like spots even in a coal-mine. Marriage a la Mode. Look at the bride, her colour comes and goes, and her lip shakes like a rose-leaf in the wind ; tears blind her eyes ; and as she steps from the carriage, the earth whirls about her. Is that the church-door? Surely it is the entrance of a tomb. She fights with closed lips — mutely fights against her swelling heart. She raises her eyes — she sees her father's stony face glittering with a smile, a statue in the sun — beholds her mother's simper, her 90 jebrold's wit. weijilit of {jreat content ; she turns — more horrible than all — and catches then the look of him, in some brief minutes to be made her owner ; he smiles, and her heart dies at his Pan-like leer ! They are married ! Slave-dealing in High Life. I have heard something of the slave-markets of Cairo, of Alexandria ; tales of snow-skinned Georgians and Circassians — of fairest victims vended by avarice to lust. The tales were touching — very, very touching. 13ut hear- ing them, I have smiled at the wilful ignorance, the snug self-complacency of Britons — I have smiled and remem- bered me of the slave-markets of St. James's ! I have seen blue eyes, pink cheeks, scarlet lips, sold — aye, as you would sell a nosegay — fathers and mothers having a bishop who shall bless the bargain. There is this difference between the Georgian and the British merchandize — a small circle of gold-wire about it — no more. A Court Beauty. She had some vague notion that there were human creatures ; a white race, something higher in the scheme of the world than the mere Hottentot ; but it was also part of her creed that, like horses and oxen, they were sent for no other purpose to this earth, save for that of ministering in any manner to the will and wish of herself, her friends, and her immediate acquaintance. The world, the habitable world, to her was composed of about an area of two miles, with St. James's Palace for the centre. Any part beyond that boundary was to her mysterious as the Great Mogul's country : she looked upon it with the in- telligence that possessed the theological opponents of Columbus, when he talked of a new continent — allowing it to exist, and to be once reached, there were certain currents that rendered impossible any return from it. jebbold's wit. 91 Low Life above Stairs. The Adelplii company once removed, temporarily, to the Haymarket Theatre. Jerrold was asked his opinion on the change. He replied : " The master and mistress are out; and (he servants have got into the drawing- room." Litellect. Nonsense ! a new-fangled thing, just come up, and the sooner it goes out the better. Man's Account with "Woman. Look here ; you must allow that woman ought, as much as in her lies, to make this world quite a paradise, seeing that she lost us the original garden. We talk as philo- sophers, and when all is said and done about what we owe to woman, you must allow tliat we have a swinging balance against her. There's that little matter of the apple still to be settled for. Ladies in Waiting. Here are women — doting wives and loving mothers — quitting the serene and holy circle of their own hearths — relinquishing for an appointed term the happiness and tenderness of home, to eudui-e a glorifying servitude beneath the golden yoke of ceremony Xiike Lead. To an impertinent fellow, whom Jerrold avoided, and who attempted to intrude himself by saying a bright thing, Jerrold said, sharply turning upon the intruder, '' You're like lead, sir, bright only when you're cut." A Hard Truth. How few let their passions, their resentments, die 93 JEnEOLD's WIT. before them ! How few see their vices coffined, ere they fall themselves ! The "World to Come. Alas ! what a place would this be, if the many-coloured creeds of this world did not, by Almighty goodness, make the white light of the world to come. The Ostrich no Glutton. The ostrich ought to be taken as the one emblem of temperance. He lives and flourishes in the desert ; his choicest food a bittor spiky fhrub, with a few stones — for how raroly can he lind iron — how few the white days in which the poor ostrich can, in Arabia Petra?a, have the luxury of a tenpenny nail, to season, as with salt, his vegetable diet. And yet a common-councilman, with face purple as the purple grape, will call the ostrich — glutton. The "Wreck and the JoUy-Boat. "Have you seen the wife of poor Augustus?" a gen- tleman i.sked Jerrold, reforrintj to a friend. " No ; what's the matter? " said Jerrold. " Why, I can assure you, she's a complete wreck." " Then, I suppose," replied Jerrold, "he'll be the jolly- boat to put off from her ! " A Wife's Conjugal Sentiment. If a woman would be always cared for, she should never marry. There's quite an end of the charm when she goes to church. We're all angels while you're court- ing us ; but, once married, how soon you pull our wings oflf ! Freedom. Despair of freedom, even at the worst, is atheism to the goddess Liberty. jebeold's wit. 93 Public Dinners defined by a "Wife. " They get a lord or a duke, if they can catch him — anything to make people say they've dined with nobility, that's it — yes, they get one of these people, with a star perhaps on his Coat, to take the chair, and to talk all sorts of sugar-plum things about charity, and to make foolish men with wine in *em, feel that they've no end of money ; and then — shutting their eyes to their wives and families at home — all the while that their own faces are red and flushed like poppies, they put their hand to paper, and afterwards into their pockets." The True History of the 'World. The history of the world is made of battles, conquests, the accessions and the deaths of kings, the doings of statesmen, and the tricks of law. This makes the vulgar story of the external world. Its deeper history is of the hearts, even of its lowest dwellers — of the ennobling im- pulses that swell them — of the unconquerable spirit of meekness which looks calmly upon terror, and turns even agony to patience. A Fairy Spot. A small quiet nook of a place nestled among trees, and carpeted with green around. And there a brook should murmur with a voice of out-door happiness ; and a little garden brimming over with flowers should mark the days and weeks, and months, with bud and blossom ; and the worst injuries of time be fallen leaves. And then, health in balm should come about my path, and my mind be as a part of every fragrant thing that shone and grew around me. A Royal Prince in the CJradle. He sleeps, and ceremony with stinted breath waits at 91 jebbold's wit. the cradle. How glorious that young one's destinies ! How moulded and marked — expressly fashioned for the high delights of earth — the choseu one of millions for millions' homage ! The terrible beauty of a crown shall clasp those baby temples — that rose-bud mouth shall speak the iron law — that little pulpy hand shall hold the sceptre and the ball. But now, asleep in the sweet mystery of babyhood — the little brain already busy with the things that meet us at the vestibule of life — for even then we are not alone, but surely have about us the hum and echo of the coming world — but now thus, and now upon a giddy ing throne ! What grandeur — what intensity of bliss — what an almighty heritage to be born to — to be sent upon the earth, accompanied by invisible angels, to take possession of! Humour under Difficulties. A critic one day talked to JerroKl about the humour of a celebrated novelisit, dramatist, and poet, who was cer- tainly no humourist. " Humour ! " exclaimed Jerrold, " why he sweats at a joke, like a Titan at a thunderbolt ! " Matrimony and Freemasonry. " Man and wife one, indeed ! (exclaimed an indignant lady whose husband had just been made a Ma.son) I should like to know how that can be when a man's a Mason — when he keeps a secret that sets him and his wife apart ? Ha ! you men make the laws, and so you take care to have all the best of 'em to yourselves." Good-Nature. It seems to be so easy to be good-natured, I wonder any body takes the trouble to be anything else. I jebeold's wit. 95 Homely Beauty. Patty would never hare been beautiful ; born in down, and fed upon the world's honey-dew, she would have passed for nothinj; handsome ; but she had in her countenance that kind of plainness to my mind better than any beauty Heaven has yet fashioned. Her sweet gentle thin face trembled with sensibility that sent its riches to her eyes, glittering for a moment there beyond all worth of diamonds. From earliest childhood she was made to read the hardest words — want, poverty — in the iron book of daily life ; and the earl}' teachin}^ had given to hay face a look of years beyond her age. With her, daily misery had anticipated time. A Handsome Compensation. When " Black-Eyed Susan " was in rehearsal at the Surrey Theatre, an important person — in his own estima- tion — strutted upon the stage, and speaking of Elliston, the Bacchanalian manager, exclaimed in an angry voice, — ' "How is this? I can see a duke or a prime minister any time in the morning, but I can never see IMr. EIHston." " There's one comfort," Jerrold replied, "if Elliston is invisible in the morning, he'll do the handsome thing any afternoon, by seeing you twice — for at that time of day he invariably sees double." " Wliat* s in a Name ? " " I don't like the name of Lazarus (said an anxious parent discussing the usual topic preliminary to a christ- ening), it's low, and doesn't sound genteel — not at all respectable." Truth and Falsehood- Truth is never a babe, and never a hag. As at the first, so at the last — full blown yet young; her eyes 96 jeebold's wit. lustrous through ages, and her lip ruddy and fresh as with the dews of Eden ; upon her brow sits an eternity of beauty. JSow Falsehood is born a puling, roaring thing : its very infancy is anticipative of its old age, and stamped with the grossness of mortality. Day by day it waxes bigger and stronger; has increase of reputation, crowds of clients ; until at length its unrighteous hoariness makes it worshipped by multitudes for no other reason save this — it has gray hairs. And so the wrinkled wizard keeps his court, and works his mischief-dealing, paralyzing spells, until Truth, at some time, turns her sapphire eyes full upon him, and#Hs a bubble at a finger's touch, Falsehood is gone. ■WUl-o'-the-'Wisp "Wealth. We harass our reason to the utmost to arrive at wealth — and then, when we think we have built our nest for life, when we have lined it with wool, and gilded the outside, and taxed our fancy for our best ease — why, what comes of it P Molly, the housemaid, drops a light, d candle-snufF among the shavings — a cat carries a live coal from under the fire among the linen — the watchman springs his rAttle, and, after a considerable time, engines play upon our ruin. The Expression of a SkulL Apart from association, the expression of a bare skull has, to ourselves at least, little in it serious : nay, there has always seemed to us a quaint cheerfulness in it. The cheek-bones look still puckered with a smile, as though contracted when it flung aside the mask of life, and caught a glimpse of the on-coming glory. Irresponsible Burglary. There is no Old Bailey (at least in this world) for the mighty men of the bully burglar, Mars. jereold's wit. 97 Joke-Haters. The sex — blesslnjrs on their lionied hearts ! — will forpive wrong, outrage, perjury sworn ten times deep, anything against their quiet, but a jest. Break a woman's heart, and she'll fit the pieces together, and, with a smile, assure the penitent that no mischief is done — indeed, and indeed, she was never better. Break a joke, light as water-bubble, upon her constancy, her magnanimity — nay, upon her cookery, — and take good heed ; she declares war — war to the scissors. The Man of Busings. A sort of human lurcher. Honour among Thieves. If there be, as we wish to believe, honour among thieves, sure we are it is alloyed with envy : a man with a hand like a ham cannot complacently view the snaky palm of a more perfect brother. The Jokes of Justice. Assuredly there is no place in which the very smallest joke goes so far as in a court of justice. There, a farthing's worth of wit is often taken as though it were ^n ingot. The Lesson of the Garden. A garden is a beautiful book, writ by the finger of God ; every flower and every leaf is a letter. • You have only to learn them — and he is a poor dunce that cannot, if he will, do that — to learn them, and join them, and then to go on reading and reading, and you will find yourself carried away from the earth to the skies by the beautiful story you are going through. You do not know what beautiful thoughts — for they are nothing short — grow out of the H 98 jbbbold's wit. pronnd, and seem to talk to a man. And then there are some flowers, they always seem to me like over-dutiful children : tend them ever so little, and thev eonie up and flourish, and show, as I may sa}-, their bright and happy faces to you. Masks and Faces. Poverty and humbleness of station may sit upon the middle benches ; but wealth, and what is mouthed for re- spectability, must have cribs apart for themselves ; must be considered Christian jewels to be kept in velvet boxes, lest they should catch the disease of lowliness bv contact with the vulgar. Surely there are other masquerades than masquerades in halls and play-houses. For are there not Sabbath maskings, with naked faces for masks ? now many a man has himself rolled to church, as though, like Elijah, he would go even to heaven in a carriage ! Adam's Salad. There is no whet to the appetite like early dew ; nothing for the stomach like grass and wild flowers, taken with a fasting eye at five in the morning. It was Adam's own salad, and that is why he lived to nine hundred and thirty. Quarrels. It seems to me that this blessed world will never want something to quarrel about, so long as there are two straws upon it. Modem Acting. Jerrold was told that a certain well-known tran^edian was going to act Cardinal Wolsey. Jerrold.—- Cardinal Wolsey I— Linsey Woolsey ! " jebhold's wit. 99 Evil Thoughts. The fiends that lie in wait for us n°ed no charm to raise tliem — no mystic wand — no wizard's epell ; the wii-kedness of 4houf;ht is power sullicieut. llow often to think evil is to call a devil up to act it! The Sabbath of the Universe. It was a lovely day ; there seemed a Sabbath peace on all thinjja. The dnidjiod horse stood meek and passive in the fields, patiently eyein<; the passer-by, as tliotigh it felt secure of one day's holiday ; the cows, with their larire, kind looks, lay unmoved upon the prass ; all thinjjs seemed takinjjrest beneath the broodinn the prison-walls of the poor debtor "lleceived in full of all demands" — whatever ye may be, wherever ye reside, we pray ye, for one short hour at least, cheat poor mortals ! t f The Ardent Admirer of Philosophy. We will not roundly assert that he always undcr.'^tood the object of his admiration ; but his devotion to it was no whit the less from his ignorance — nay, we question if 1 it was not heightened by imperfect knowledge. Phi- | losophy was his idol ; and so the thing was called philo- sophy, he paused not to pry into its glass eyes, to question the paint smeared upon its cheeks, the large bead dangling from its nose, and its black and gilded tpf»th — not he ; but down he fell upon his knees, and lifted up his simple II jekbold's wit. 103 hands, and raised his pullet voice, and cried, " Divine l)hilosophy ! " "What u lurtunate thing that philosophy is so musical a word ! Luck. Luck — mere luck — may make even madness wisdom. "Jack's" Deflnition of the Height of Prido. Pro\id as a mcrmaiJ with a new gold frame to her lookiii;^-glass. " Breach of Promiao." A lady, being deserted by one man, has no other remedy than an appeal to twelve. Bird-Catchers. Mercenary naturalists. I " Seeing his Way." The snail, that carries its eyes at the end of its horns, had not a more projective look. Seeing nothing, he could, to his own satisfaction, peer into the very essences of things. , The Broker. The smooth-faced sworn functionary — he with universal judgment, who, on the sanctity of his oath, pUilosophicaUy and arithmetically proves the worth of all things. Stage Angels. Happy, guileless little creatures — promoted from the vulgarity of mortal childhood to spirits of a heavenly order! Not banished to bed with the rooks and the lambs, but kept awake, curled and painted, to receive at 104 jebbold's wit. midnipht the cheers and loud applause of an adult, discerning public. The Law's Uncertainty. Nothing is certain in this world, and more especially in that part of it known as "Westminster Ilall. The Parish Doctor's Lamp. Mars may have his planet, but give me what, in the spirit of the old mythology, might be made a star in heaven, — the night-lamp of the apothecary, who fights disease beside the poor man's bed, his only fee the blessing of the poor ! The Confidence of the Times. Jerrold said, speaking of a young gentleman who had dared the danger of print before he could hold a razor, — " Nowadays men think they're frogs before they're tadpoles." True Beauty. Beautiful are queens on thrones ; but is there not a beauty (eternal as the beauty of the stars) in placid want, smiling with angel looks, and gathering holiest power, even from the miserj' that consumes it? Cup and Saucer. A gentleman, who was remarkable at once for Baccha- nalian devotion and remarkably large and starting eyes, was, one evening, the subject of conversation. The question appeared to be, whether the gentleman in ques- tion wore upon his face any signs of his excesses. " I think so," said Jerrold ; " I always know when he has been in his cups by the state of his saucers." JEnUOLD's WIT. 105 Lucky and Unlucky Dogs. I have often been struck by the inequality of fortune sufTcrcd by doj^s. Here is one couched upon a pillov\', fed with chicken, f^veet biscuit, and new milk, caressed and combed, and decked with a silver collar — yea. sheltered like a baby from tlie wind and rain ; and here is another, harnessed in a truck, fed with offal, or fed not at all — beat with the stick of a cruel master, or kicked with his iron heel. The Accidents of Fortune. ^len often flourish for the very want of those merits for which they are accidentally rewarded. Lavr Books. Here, the stricken stranper, bleeding with his wrons^B, may pause and read his glorious remedy. Uere, the w an widow gathers hope for her just cause ; and here, the orphan dries her sorrow, comforted by strong assertion. And here, the man hurt by some neifjhbour's tongue may learn if he be surely hurt or not. Survey the shelves — ihey bend with the weight nf grave opinions, — aud leara this further good, that to a single point there run a hun- j dred opposite lines. Talk of venders of romance ! Give us the window of a law-bookseller for the bloody tales of iron life. A Beason for the FalL Jerrold said, " Eve ate the apple, that she might dress." Caudle in the Veins. Every woman, no matter how divinely composed, has in her ichor-flowing veins one drop, " no bigger than a wren's eye," of Caudle. Eve herself may now and then 106 jehbold's wit. have been guilty of a lecture, murmuring it balmily amongst the rose-leaves. Maids of Honour. Hapless images of ceremony — poor moving anatomies, with eyes that must not wink, tongues that must not speak, and, hardest tyranny of all, with mouths that must not yawn at the dull discipline that consumes them. Had I been a fairy wand, I would have changed them straight, have bestowed upon them the paradise of a three-legged stool, with a cow to milk beneath the odour- breathing hawthorn. Poverty's Divinities. Unseen are the divinities that, descending from garrets, tread the loud, foul, sordid, crawling highways of London. There is a something — a look of service in the aspect of some ; a depression that elevates, a dogged air of courage, tliat speaks the fighting-man in poverty's battalions — an honourable, undisguised, threadbarencss, that marks the old campaigner! Has not such poverty its genii — its attending spirits? Yes; a bloodless victory is its body- guard, and the tatter-bearer an angel. Vanity Unmasked. If dim-eyed Vanity would use the spectacles of Truth, she would at times see blood on her satins — on her bro- cades — on her lace — on every rich and glistening thread that hangs about her — blood. She would see herself a grim idol, worshipped by the world's unjust necessities, and, so beholding, would feel a quicker throb of heart, a larger compassion for her forced idolaters. Unremitting Kindness. " Call that a kind man," said an actor, speaking of an jebeold's wit. 107 absent acquaintance ; " a man who is away from his family, and never sends them a farthing ! Call that kind- ness ! " " Yc8, unremitting kindness," Jerrold replied. The Little Great. Poor small things, infinitely small in their imagined greatness ; men who, like the maggot in a nut, feed and grow gross in darkness, unwitting of the world of light and beauty, without that petty shell of self that circles them ! Worm Friendships. Some people were talking with Jerrold about a gentle- man as celebrated for the intensity as for the shortness of his friendships. " Yes," said Jerrold, " his friendships are so warm that he no sooner takes them up than he puts them down agam. The Green Room. Malice, envy, and slander may be there ; but say where are they not, and what an amaranthine bank that will be — what a halfway resting-place to heaven for human weariness ! The Marks of Time. We do not always trust to the seeming marks of Time, knowing that, like an unjust tapster, he is now and then apt to score double. The Roses of Life. There are some people who are so happy, smelling and plucking the roses about them, that they never think of the slugs and creeping things that may be at their roots. 108 jkreold's wit. Human Fallibility. The very best of us soil, ay, sooner than a bride's riband. A Black Spot. A place whose shadows are us griefs — whose dews are as misery. The SouL The soul is at best as a trained hawk ; let it fly as hi;^h as it will, there is its master, for the time, with his feet upon the earth ; and straightway it drops from the clouds at his feet. Confidence. The first time Jerrold saw Tom Dibdin, the song- writer said to him, — *' Youngster, have you sufficient confidence in me to lend me a guinea? " Jerrold. — " Oh ! yes ; I've all the confidence, but I haven't the guinea." Suspicion. Woman — bless her! — a thousand and a thousand times softens the ruggedncss of fortune ; nevertheless, she has now and then a knack of making bad worse by the force of ill-timed suspicion. A Bock in the Sea. The world's almanac, with ages in it, printed after ages ; Time, solemn in the granite of a dead world, yet wearing on his sunny brow the flowers of the morning. The "Widow's Cap. To kiss a woman in a widow's cap ! Excuse human infirmity as we may, is there not very great presumption jekrold's wit, 109 ia the act? Is it not greetinof'the handmaid of death? — Again, is there not something awful, freezing, in that white, chiUing muslin, that sometimes surrounds the face of Venus with a frame of snow — that ices beauty for a twelvemonth ? In tlie superstition of custom, we are prone to think the dead has vet some lien upon her— a year's hold at least. The Delights of Jesting. Take a sulky fellow with a brow over wrinkled at the laughing hours, let them laugh never so melodiously — who looks with a death's-head at the pleasant fruits of the earth heaped \ipon his table — who leaves his house for business as an ogre leaves his cave for food — who returns home joyless and grim to his silent wife and creeping children — take such a man, and, if possible, teach him to joke. 'Twould be like turning a mandril into an Apollo. A hearty jest kills an ugly face. A Poor Player. The actor — that is. the mere word-speaker, who brings no great original mind to his task — is the jackdaw that, albeit innocent of the larceny, is always dressed in the feathered pens of authors. * The Impudence of Beligion. In the outside world of brazen brows, there is no impudence like the impudence of what men will call religion. A Full Stop. Even the tongue of a vain and jealous woman will stop — an invincible proof of the end of all mortal things. Laughter. O glorious laughter ! thou man-loving spu-it, that for 110 JEBKOLD 3 WIT. a time dost take the burden from the weary back — that dost lay salve to the feet, bruised and cut by Hints and shards — that takest blood-bakinjj melancholy by the nose, and niakest it grin despite itself — that all the sorrows of the past, the doubts of the future, confoundest in the joy of the present — that niakest man truly philosophic — conqueror of himself and care. What was talked of as the golden chain of Jove, was nothing but a succession of laughs, a chromatic scale* of merriment, reaching from earth to Olympus. The Reputation of True Ooniua. To some folks reputation comes with a gentle, divine approach. One has carved a Venus whose marble mouth would smile paralysis from Nestor ; another has painted a picture and, with Promethean trick, has Gxed a fire from heaven on the canvas ; another has penned a book, and made tens of thousands of brains musical with divinest humanity — kings have no such music from cymbals, sack- but, and psalter)-, — and to each of them lleputation comes silently, like a fairy through their study key-hole. They quad' renown refined, cold-drawn, cold as castor-oil; and, if they bo true philosophers, they will swallow it as a thing no less medicinal. Contentment. Contentment is the prettiest thing in the world; it saves people such a deal of trouble. 'Tis an excellent thing — a beautiful invention for the lower orders ; and then it's so easy for them to obtain — easy as their own bacon, milk, and eggs. But with high folks, who are constantly troubled with a thousand things, content- ment would be as out of place as a gipsy in a court suit. JBEBOLU's WIT. Ill Advice to the Toving. Jerrold said to an ardent young gentleman, who burned with a deeire to see himself in print, " Be advised by me, young man : dflu't take down the shutters before there is something in tho window." Beauty. Beauty ! it's like a guinea ; when it's once changed at all, it's gone in a twinkling. An Independent Voter and his "Wife. ^frs. Kiitts. — Often when the children want things, Nutts will have the money for the taxes, to preserve what he calls his independent vote. And for years and years — no matter how I've been pinched — he has preserved it. And what's the good on it.' Independence! I don't bjame anybody for being independent when tbev can aflord it ; then it's right and respectable. Otherw ise, it's a piece of extravagance beyond poor people. Nutts. — Now, my dear, if you'll let alone my politics, I'll promise not to interfere with your turnip-tops : and I'm sure, if turnip-tops can speak, I heard 'em just now K'rying out for you to come and pick 'em in the kitchen. A cleverer woman at greens never lived ; but for all that, my dear, you are not quite up to the House of Commons. — {Mrs. Nutts looks an unspoken repartee, and tchisks out.) Sisters of Charity. Excellent women ! Creatures preserved from all the hurry, all the sordid coarseness of life, to be the simple almoners of human-kindness. 112 jebuold's wit. A Purgatory of Fleas. If all our faults, our little tricks, our petty cozenings, oxir bo-pcep moods with truth and justice, could be sent upon us in the blankets, all embodied in fleas, how many of us with lily skins would get up spotted scarlet! Indirect Motion. I have found that, with some natures, it would pain and perplex their moral anatomy to move direct to an object. Like snakes, they seem formed to take pleasure in indirect motion : with them the true line of moral beauty is a curve. Physiognomy in Bricks and Mortar. There is a physioijnomy in houses, at least such is my belief. Sure I am, I have seen houses with a swagi^erinj:^ hat-a-eock sort of look; whilst other habitations have seemed to squint and leer wickedly from the corners of the windows. Poetry. The poetic spirit — for what is hope but the poetry of daily life? — will touch the coarsest soul that answers, like a harp-string to the wind, unconscious of the power that stirs it. Flowers. The penny — the ill-spared penny — for it would buy a wheaten roll — the poor housewife pays for a root of prim- rose, is her offering to the hopeful loveliness of nature ; is her testimony of the soul struggling with the blighting, crushing circumstance of sordid earth, and sometimes yearning towards earth's sweetest aspects. Amidst the jereold's wit. 113 violence, the coarseness, and the suffering that may sur- round and delllo the wretched, there must be moments wlien the heart escapes, craving for the innocent and lovely ; when the soul makes for itself, even of a flower, a comfort and a cefuj^e. The Battle of Poverty. Great are the odds against poverty in the strife. TIow often is the poor man, the compelled Quixote, made to attack a windmill in the hope that he may get a handful of tlie corn that it grinds? and many and grievous are his buffi'ts ere the miller — the prosperous fellow with the golden thumb — rewards poor poverty for the unequal battle. The Religion of Show. There are a good many pious people wlio are as careful of their religion as of tlioir best service of china, only using it on holiday occasions, for fear it should get chipped or U/vwed iu working-day wear. The Cap of Liberty. The only cap of liberty, since in it men one-third of their lives visit the land of sleep — the only land where all men are equal — the veritable cap of liberty is the nightcap. Respectability and Debt. Eespectability is all very well for folks who can have it for ready money ; but to be obliged to run in debt for it — it's enough to break the heart of an angel. Genius Groping in the Dark. It is only the vulgar mind that thinks to win its fortune along the broad highway of life in clearest day j the nobler I Ill jebkold's wit. genius, hnjcing itself in its supremacy, searches pita and boles, with this sustaining; creed, that though the prize acquired be not really of half the worth to that picked up in open lii;ht, it has to the Under a double value, because obtaimd in secrecy and gloom. A Short Cut to Popularity. I am certain that tlie shortest cut to popularity of some Bort, is to do somcthinj; desperate. A dull, stupid fellow that pays his way and does harm to nobody — why he may die off like a fly in November, and be no more thought of. But only let him do some devil's deed — do a bit of murder as coolly as he'd pare a turnip. — and what he does and what he says : whether he takes coffee, or brandy and water ; when he sleeps, and w hen he wakes, w hen he smiK'S and when he grinds bis teeth — all of this is put down as if all the world went upon bis movements, and couldn't go on without knowing 'em. Manchester Men. Two or throe provincial pontlemen — I knew them at once to be Manchester men — were grouped together, staring at the girafies in the Zoological Gardens. " Handsome creatures ! " cried the most enthusiastic ; " very handsome ; beautiful colours, too, arn't they P " *' Humph ! " observed another, staring at the spots on the skin, " beautiful ; but I — I wonder if they're fast!" Profiting by the Dead. Out \ipon the vile and sordid matters blighting tliis beautiful, this liberal world, that self-promotion should ever be sought upon the cofEn-platcs of our neigbboxirs ! London out of Season Is for all the world like a fine lady in an undress gown, with all her paint wiped off. jeuiiold's wit. 115 Soldiors. Looked at as they ouglit to be, tbey are to the world but as poppies to corn-fields. Patience. Patience is the strongest of strong drinks, for it kills the giant Despair. Bishop Philpotts. AVhat a lawyer waa spoiled in that bishop ! What a brain he has for cobwebs! Uow ho drags you along through sentence after sentence — every one a dark passage — until your head swims, and you can't see your finger cloBO to your nose ! The Cup of Patience. What a goblet! It is set round with diamonds from the mines of Eden ; it is carved by angelic hands, and filled at the eternal fount of goodness. Exeter HalL What a blessing is Exeter Hall ! What a safety-valve it is for the patriotism, and indijinat^on, and scorn, and hatred — and all other sorts of public virtues — that but for it, or some such place, would fairly burst so many excellent folks, if they couldn't go and relieve their swelling souls with a bit of talk ! As it is, they speechify and are saved ! An Exception to c Bule. Whenever a man exclaims that all mankind are villains, be assured that he contemplates an instant offer of himself as an exception. The Family of Stand-StilL There's a sort of people in the world that can't bear i2 110 jberold's wit. making; any profjrcss. I wonder thry ever walk, unlefls thoy walk backwards ! I wonder they don't refuse to go out when there's a new moon ; and all out of love and respect for that "ancient institution" — the old one. A 'Word with a Beggar on Horseback. When a man gets to the top of the hill by honesty, ho deserves to be taken by the neck and hurled down again, if he's ashamed to tnrn about and look at the lowly road along which he once travelled. Theatrical " Stars." I knew a pork-butcher who gave it out that he fattened all his pigs upon pine-apples ; he sold them for what price he liked, and people, having bought the pigs, swore they could taste the pine-apple flavour. It's much the same with many of the "stars ;" managers have only to declare that they give 'em ten, twenty, or fifty pounds a night, and the sagacious public proportion their admiration to the salary received. A Railway Speculator. lie bad as many* lines in his face as there arc lines laid down. Every one of his features seemed cut up, and all seemed travelling from one another. Six months since he hadn't a wrinkle, and now his face was Lke the map of England. The National Gallery. Comer-Cupboard Ilnll , a tenement known by courtesy as the ^'ational Gallery ! Not so Bad as She seems. "We slander Fortune ; because the wise and bountiful creature will not let us at all times and in all places have JKBBOLD'a WIT. 117 our wicked will of her; like unprincipled rakes, we take poor revenge by calling her naughty names. Hapid Fortunes. Fortunes mfide in no time are like shirts made in no time — it's ten to one if they hang long together. Man's Blindness. What a mole-eyed thing is man ! IIdw he cruciGes himself with vain thoughts — how he stands upon tiptoe, straining his eye-strings, trying to look into tbo future, when at that moment the play is over — the show is done. Nobility in Suffering. Nobly suffered, injuries undeserved do sit as graces. Beauty's Alloy. Every rose has its thorn : you never Cad a woman without pius and needles. Poverty's Darts. Of all the arrows shot at our miserable nature, is there one that is not made the keener if whetted on the poor man's hearth P Outward Signs. The names of houses are for the world outside. When folks read " Rose Cottage " on the wall, they seldom think of the lota of thorns that are inside. Post-Mortem Bewards. It's a great comfort to great men, who, when in this world, are thought very small indeed, to think how big they'll be upon earth, after they've gone to heaven — a comfort for 'em, when they may happen to want a coat, 118 jbbbold's wit. to tliink of the suit of bronze or marble that kings and (jucens will afltrwards jjivo 'em ! Death. Deafli is a slow paymaster, but the surest. " It will do you no GoocL" Uow often is this belief the barren satisfaction of hungry virtue ! How often does famishinp innocence, watchinjj the wiiked foeders of the world — the Korbellied variets, with mouths preasy with tlio goods of cheated worth — (ind comfort in the belief that it will do them no good ! I^an virtue shakes the head and cries, " It will do you no pood," and rnpine still keeps grea.^y in the face, still grows "a linger on the ribs." BiUiord-Balls. I have seen mountains of cannon-balls, to be shot away at churches, and into people's peaceful habitations, break- ing the china and nobody knows what; but there's not one of 'em (thinks the ill-used wife) can do half the mis- chief of a billiard-ball. That's a ball that's gone through many a wife's heart, to say nothing of her children. When once a man in given to plnyini: billiards, the devil 's always templing him with a ball, as he tempted Eve with ao apple. The Struggles of Oenius. There is a golden Tolume yet to be written on the first struggles of forlorn genius in London — magnificent, mise- rable, ennobling, degrading London. If all who have suffered would cotife.'S their sufli-rinu's — would show them- selves in the stark, shivering squalor in which they first walked her streets — would paint the wounds which first bled in her garrets — w hut a book might be placed in the * jebrold's wit. 110 hands of pride! what stern 'wholesome rebukes for tlie selfish sons of fortune ! what sustaiuiuf; sweetness for the faint of spirit ! How often should we find the lowly comforting the hi^h — the ignorant fjivinj; lessons to the aeconiplislied-^the poor of earth aiJiii;^ and sustaining the richly-endowed ! Great Things from Small. A learned philosopher, at the eost of sojne words, sets forth the useful lesson he acquired through "an augraent- jng-glass, or microscope," showin;; how a certain vilest animal, "setting; himself to wrestle with a Hea, was so incensed that his blood ran down from head to foot, and from foot to head again ! " True philosopher! who from the bickerings of small despised animals, extracts bitter wisdom, learns surer self-government, than the unthinking million carry from a dog-fight, yea, from a bull-bait ! Union is Strength. When some women get talking, they club all their husbands' faults together; just as children club their cakes and apples, to make a common fea^t for the whole set. Something to Iiove. The human heart has of course ita pouting fits ; it determines to live alone ; to flee into desert places ; to have no employment, that is, to love nothing ; but to keep on sullenly beating, beating, beating, until death lays his little finger on the sulky thing, and all is still. It goes away from the world, and straightwaj', shut from human company, it falls in love with a plant, a stone — j'ca, it dandles cat or dog, and calls the creature darling. Yes, it is the beautiful necessity of our nature to love some- thing. 120 jkbbold's wit. The Oldest Inhabitant. There is somelhin^ solenin in the oldest inhabitant : be is the link between the dead and the living ; in the course of nature the next to be called from anionj? us ; his place immediately supplied by a second brother. Gene- rations hare gone, passed into the far world, and loft him hero their solitary spokesman — the one witness of the condors that had birth among them. He remains here to check the vanity of the present by his te.otimuny to the past. "Where would be all human experience without the oldest inhabitant? The Perils of Authorship. Books ! their worth is a matter of fancy, say of weak- ness, to the weaker part of mankind ; they have lio standard value, none at their birth. Hence the unknown maker of a book — I speak especially of the time when I first sinned in ink — is a sort of gipsy in the social scale ; a picture.oque vagabond, who somehow or the other con- trives to live on the sunny side of the statutes; but is nevertheless vehemently suspected of all sorts of larceny by respectable householders. How to Know a Man. Tlie sharp employ the sharp. Verily, a man may bo known by his attorney. Diamonds. A diamond is a diamond, though you shall put it on the finger of a beg-rar. Only that on the finger of a beggar, nobody would believe it to be a diamond. Does not men- dicant genius every day offer the " precious jewel in its Lead " for sale, and yet, because the holder is mendicant, jEnnoLD s WIT. 121 does not the worKl believe the jewel to be of no value? Men have died v^iili jewels in their brains; and not until the men were dead, were the gems owned to be of the true water. "Wordsworth— Poet Ijaureate. Sad work this ! Very melancholy, that bay leaves should be pinched from the garland of the poet, and only to give flavour to a court-custard ! The Debtor. In England, Hesperian soil ! the debtor wears no slavish yoke, loses no limb, is fixed to no stake, bears no ignominious impress. No, in this our happy country, where Law is the bright babe begotten by "Wisdom upon Jubtice, the debtor is only — skinned alive! The London " Directory." The riches of India — the ppices of the Moluccas — blaze and are fragrant in the pages of the " Directory." It awakens in us recollections of bold discoverers, hardy en- terprise, cunning invention, patient toil ; and all for the wide family of England, not for the tyrannous and t haughty fe\^, made tyrannous by the sense of exclusive enjoyment. The " forked animal " man cons the page of the " Directory," and sees a thousand merchants offering ten thousand triumphs won by the ingenuity, the skill, the labour, and daring of his kind. He reads the name and abode of a dealer in oil, and he thinks of the bold mariner, harpooning the leviathan amidst Polar ice. A " grocer " in the next line sends his thoughts far, far away among the mandarins. A " tallow-chandler," and he is riding in the Baltic, that the good folks at home may not go to bed without a candle. 123 JfcBBOLD's WIT. Character. Cliaractcr flies. Yes, it has wings ; and, of course, the lij^Ltcr it is, the quicker it goes. The Soldier's Death in Battle. That soft delicious bed, with Death the maker — the bed of glory. The Dignity of Costs. The hangman flourishes his whip ; tlie attorney seourgca with cost-?. To make justice clieap would doubtless make her contemptible : she is therefore diynificd by expense ; made glorious by the greatness of costs. "Worth Nothing. "When a man tells the world he is worth nothing, the world always takes him at his own valuation. Dead Trees. Eloquently doth a dead tree preach to the heart of man ; touching its appeal from the myriad furms of life bursting about it ! Yes, the dead oak of a wood, for a time, gives wholesome check to the heart, expanding and dancing with the vitality around. In its calm aspect, its motionless look, it works the soul to solemn thought, lifting it upwards from tlie earth. Everlasting Truth. Beautiful truth ! never young and never old ; but keeping, through all change and all time, its bloom and grace of Paradise, even to the Judgment. The Downfall of England- Beautiful is the blending of the patriot with the stoic ! JEREOLDS SVIT. 123 "NVlicncvcr England is destroyed — and considerinfi; how often this calauiity has occurred, the British lion ought certainly to give place to the British cat — her political Jeremiahs neither rend their Saxony nor sprinkle ashes on their hurstifig heads ; but straightway ship their woes, and steam to a tavern. " England, beloved England " — cries our modern patriot — " is wiped from the world ! Waiter, some Burgundy ! " The Spirit of "Wealth. "When people make money without earning it, it's like taking a lot of spirits at one draught. It gets into their head, and they don't know what they're about. There's a tipsiness of the pocket as well as of the stomach. Confldence— taken from the French. I On the first night of the representation of one of Jcrrold's pieces, a successful adaptatur from the French rallied him on his nervousness. " I," said the adaptator, " never feel nervous on the first night of my pieces." "Ah, my boy," Jerrold replied, "you are always certain of success. Your pieces have all been tried » before." Billiard Sharpers. There are fellows who go every day into billiard-rooms to get their dinners, just as a fox sneaks into a farm-yard to look about him for a fat goose. A Beautiful Child. A lady one day spoke to Jerrold about the beauty of an infant. lu the enthusiasm of her affection she said : 124 jeubold's vtit. " Really, I cannot find words to convey to you even a faint idea of its pretty ways." " I see," Jerrold replied, " it's a child more easily con- ceived than described." Virtue with Claws. Virtue 's a beautiful thing in women, when they don't po about, like a child with a drum, making all sorts of noises with it. There are some women who think virtue was given them as claws were given to cats — to do nothinjj but scratch with. Fainted Charms. Of a celebrated actress who, in her declining days, bought charms of carmine and pearl-powder, Jerrold said, " Egad ! she should have a hoop about her, with a notice upon it, ' Beware of the paint." " Bubble Schemes. They're like treacle to flies : when men arc well in them, they can't get out of them ; or if they do, it's ofteu without a feather to lly with. The Billing Passion. Everybody seems for turning their farthings into doiible sovereigns, and cheating their neighbours of the balance. A Suggestive Pair of Greys. Jerrold was enjoying a drive one day with a well-known — a jovial spendthrift. ""Well Jerrold," said the driver of a very fine pair of greys, " what do you think of my greys ? " "To tell you the truth," Jerrold replied, "I was just thinking of your duns ! " jebeold's wit. 125 The Most Finislied Gentleman in Etirope. Every Englishman felt very proud indeed of this best- wigged monarch of history, when he assured himself that George IV. Was " the most finished gentleman in Europe." He died ; and having controlled the violence of our grief, we must even at this moment award him the like cha- racter, merely defrauding him, to speak in the slang of the day, of two syllables : — hence, for " Cnished gentle- man," read " finished gent." The River Stsnc He is the wisest man in the world who loves nothing. Did you ever hear of the river Styx ? One dip in it makes a man invulnerable to all things ; stones, arrows, bludgeons, swords, bullets, cannon-balls. It would save a good deal in regimentals, if the soldiers might bathe there. So much for Styx upon the outward man ; but I have often thought it would be a capital thing if people could take it inwardly ; if they could drink Styx, like the Bath waters. A course or two, and the interior of a man would then be insensible of foolish weakness. But you would never get the women to drink it. Election Compliments. How unfit must be the man for the duties of his oflice — for the trials that in the House of Commons he must undergo — if he cannot, properly and respectfully, receive at the hands of an enlightened constituency, any quantity of mud, any number of eggs or potatoes ! No, I look upon eggs and potatoes as, I may say, the corner-stones of the constitution. The Man of the "World. To praise a man for knowledge of the world is often to 12G JRRnOLo's WIT. commend him only for his knowk>d;:c of its dirty Innes and crooked alleys. Any fool knows the broad palhs — the squares of life. " How did you know I ever had a Wife P " You look as if you had ; there is a sort of m irried mark upon some people — a sort of woddiiij^-ring mark — just like tiie mark of a cullar. BluRS and Slander. SluffS crawl and crawl over our cabhaijra, like the world's slander over a jjood name. You may kid them, it is true ; but there is the slime — there is the slime. Music at an Election. There is nothin^j like music to bring folks up to the poll. Fools are always led by the ears. Mother Earth. The earth, like dear old Eve, is always a mother to us ; whereas when men deal with men, how often do they go to work like so many Cains and Abels, only tliey use thumpinj; lies instead of clubs. Money. Scholar.'", when they want to raise man above tho monkey — heaven forgive the atheists ! — call him a laui;hin^ animal, a tool-making animal, a cooking animal. They have all missed the true description ; thcv should call him a coining animal. Lying in State. Ostrich feathers, — Genoa velvet, — and an " unparalleled coOlu ! ! ! " Well, when we remember what colfins hold at jebbold's wit. 127 the best, such a sliow ia riglitlj named ; it is " L]/ing iu State," and uothiug better. May-day. To-day is ]\hiy-dny. Did ever God walk the earth in finer weather ? And how gloriously the earth manifests the grandeur of the Presence ! How its blood dances and glows in the splendour! It courses the trunks of trees, and is red and golden in their blossoms. It sparkles in the myriad flowers, consuming itself in sweetness. Every little earth-blossom is as an altar burning incense. The heart of man, creative in its overflowing happiness, finds or makes a fellowship in all things. Tlie birds have passing kindred with his winged thoughts. He hears a straug'^r, sweeter triumph in the skyey rapture of the lark ; and the cuckoo — constant egotist ! — speaks to hira from the deep, distant wood, with a strange, swooning sound. All things are living, a part of him. In all he sees and bears a new and deep significance. In that green pyra- mid, row above row, what a host of flowers ! How beau- tiful, and how rejoicing ! What a sullen soulless thing the great pyramid to that blossoming chestnut ! How different the work and workmen ! A torrid monument of human wrong, haunted by flights of ghosts that not ten ^thousand thousand years can lay — a pulseless carcase built of sweat and blood to garner rottenness. And that pyramid of leaves grew in its strength, like silent good- ness, heaven blessing it : and every year it smiles, and every year it talks to fading generations. What a con- gregation of spirits — spirits of the spring ! — is gathered, circle above circle, in its blossoms ; and verily they speak to man with blither voice than all the tongues of Egypt. School Girls. Dear little things ! we never see their line of bonnets, 128 JF.RROtDS WIT. that we do not drop plump and fatliom down in contpm- plation. We ask it of Time — sweet little girls ! where, at this moment, are your husbands P How many of thera are playing at top. wholly thou'jjhtless of the blessings blossoming for them ? How many trundle the hoop, and dream not of the wedding-ring tliat even now may be forged for thera ? How many lly their long-tailed kites, without a thought of eoming curl-papers P How many, lieedlcss of the precious weight of matrimony, are taught to "knuckle down," like boys at marble? Evening. The day is closed, for evening has stolen, like a pensive thought, upon us ; the moon hangs, a silver shield in heaven, and the nurse nightingale sings to the sleeping flowers. Boarding-Schools. We know not how it is, but we have always felt a particular respect for boarding-schools for young ladies. We have a knack of looking upon such abiding-places as great manufactories of the domestic virtues — as the salt- cellars of a vain and foolish world. We are, moreover, prone to consider them as towers and castles — whence (as in the precious old times) young ladies walk forth, their accomplishments breaking like sunbeams about them, to bless, elevate, and purify ungrateful, wayward, earthy man. The Smiling Sun. The sun seems to smile more sweetly on truth flourish- ing in beauty. Theory and Practice. Man, aa a lover, professes to admire the theory of knowledge in all its matters of filigree. As a husband, he 1 jeeeold's wit. 129 demands the Btcrnness of practice. He who with his affianced will talk of mounting to the stars, when married will expect Lis wife to descend to the affairs of the kitchen. Yes and No. For good or evil, the giants of life. Man'3 Vulnerable Point. From the very weakness of woman may we expect the greater strength. The weapons to suhdue man are not to be found in the library, but in the kitchen ! The weakest part of the crocodile is his stomach. Man is a crocodile. A Slight Difference. Jcrrold was describing the sordid avarice of a certain Hebrew bill-discounter. He said : " The only difference between Moses and Judas Iscariot is that Moses would have sold our Saviour for more money." Flax and LaureL This fellow, with a lacquer look of false mirth, lived for a inonth and more on countewfeit half-crowns, his own base- begotten copper ones. He is badged, and chained, and stamped most infamous. Be it so. He wears in his cap the sprig of flax : his garland is of hempen make. And now we open the book of history. Here in a few years are twenty false half-crown coiners ; but then their own crowns are gold — crowns, placed upon their consecrated heads by sweet religion. Yet only to think of the copper they have put off upon the unwary as the true metal — as coined wealth. But then, again, they poured it in a shower K 130 jebbold's wit. upon thousands, and did not, with felon aspect, sidle to a counter, with one base bit to rob a baker of a roll. And so, one crowned counterfeitnionger shall be called the Great ; he shall wear the laurel, and the half-crown felon bear the flax. The Book of Glory. Tlie leaves smell of rottenness. And yet how beauti- fully they are written, and flourished over, and illuminated with colours celestial. Here is a man, crowned, sceptred, robed, and called the Great. And wherefore P Feigning a wronp, he broke into ten thousand thousand houses ; and as no divine constabulary thought fit to arrest liim, the mightiness of his mischief was the measure of hia fame. He is crowned with laurel, and called the Great. Surely there is a school whereat angels might minister as teachers ; a school with only one lesson to be taught, and that tlie proper way to spell that mis-spelt syllable *' great." llow many centuries have we boggled at it ; the devils themselves enjoying our miserable duncehood! Babyhood. "We are profoundly convinced that the first year of a child's life is the most tremendously important of any succeeding twelvemonth, though the creature shall number threescore and ten. Consider the blank sheet of paper with which the head of every baby, according to the philosopher, is lined. Think of it, and shudder when you see nurses and nursemaids writing their pothooks and hangers upon it, as though they wrote with rolling-pins, or, at the best, wooden skewers ! Poor human papyrus ! How many afler-scratchings and cuttlefish-rubbings it shall take to scratch and rub out the marks — that, after all, may never wholly be effaced, but remain dingy and dark under snow-white hairs ! jebuold's wit. 131 England's "Wooden "Walla. Did you ever, on a summer's day, rocked and dreaming on the shininp sea, look upon those well-sung w alls, until, the fancy worlynj,', they have returned to their first green life ? The oak has budded, the masts have been hung and garlanded with leaves ! Again, when the last autumn gust is blowing, the last ere winter strikes in, growling his rattling joy, and the oaks, like uncrowned kings, stand all new, yet proud in their disgrace — still steam- ing, have you, then, changed oaks to ships, that with a thought, the wood baa swum ? Once more : when spring has tipped the youthful oaks with green, have you, with fantasy leaping from your heart, wooed thence by the simple odour of the earth, smelling of unblown violets — have you felt the pagan thought, that haply with these tender leaves, born of the acorn, child of a parent, swim- ming in the sea. there went forth some strange intelli- gence with old forefather oaks, exiled and tloating in the Indian main ? The Growth of a Ship. This piece of ship anatomy was a few months since the home of singing birds ; and its green leaves danced and twinkled to their music. And now, though stripped aud -eeeming dead, it will live a gallant life ; it will feel a noble sympathy with giant being ; it will pulsate to the billow ; it will be a portion of a living ship ; a beautiful and fearful thing, full-breasted, robed in flowing snow ; a thing where grace and mightiness marry, and are indi- visibly harmonized. The growth of a ship ! The growth of a human thing ! "Why, it is alike. The earth and sky — all the elements have done their ministering, nursing the primal germ. And then as the babe is to the man, so is the timber to the craft. The child becomes an honest E 2 133 jebbold's wit. trader, or a sinful thief. The oak swims as a merchant, or plunders as a buccaneer. Eve's First Sin. How fortunate for the success of man that woman first pressed her pearls in that apple! For ever since — shocked by that original wrong inflicted upon us— wo have eaten our apple with a proud defiance. Peeling it with a golden knife, and giving the mere outside— the ^ tough dull rind— to the weaker creature, we have mag-' nanimously remembered to take all the best of the pulp to ourselves. The Strength of Woman. Is it not wonderful that, down to the present time, women have really never discovered their own tremendous strength ? They have only to be of one accord, and in some hundred years at most, the human race would fade clean from the earth, fade like an old multiplication sum from a schoolboy's slate. And this truth is either so pro- found, that, like a well sunk to the antipodes, woman is afraid to look into it — her little head would turn so giddy at the ver)- brink — or, by some accident, it is one of the wells of truth (and she has many) that Rebecca has not yet discovered. ' The Birth of a Prince. Hark to the guns ! A strange fashion to welcome a little wayfarer from the stars with such thundering music. Unconscious little traveller ! but half an hour arrived at this caravanserai from a far-off home of mystery ! An immortal jewel set in a piece of clay ! — An eternal gem shut up for a while in a casket of red earth! jbebold's wit, 133 The Sculptor's Reward. For two years his heart has been pulsating in that bit of marble, whence by degrees the wings of Cupid have unfolded theniielves — that crystal lump of stone has warmed with his daily doings, into winged life. The arms and legs break from the block — the body throbs from it — the clustering ringlets are shaken out — and the soul dawns upon the Cupid's face, as light steals upon a lily. Birthdays. Men'celebrate their birthdays as only so many victories over Time, with not a recollection of the many good and gentle hopes and thoughts they may have wounded or destroyed in the battle. A Base One. A friend was one day reading to Jerrold an account of a case in which a person named Ure was reproached with having suddenly jilted a young lady to whom he was engaged. "Ure seems to have turned out to be a base 'un," said Jerrold. A " Diamond in the Sky." A new star is discovered — another diamond upon the frontlet of eternity, and unborn millions are inheritors ot the glory of its knowledge. The Height of Depravity. A gentleman of a somewhat ardent temperament paid great attention to his pretty servant in the absence of his wife. The good wife, before leaving London, had made a store of pickles and preserves, that were to adorn her 134 jbbbold's wit. table till the following year. But the husband, takinfj Time vij^orouslj by the forelock, shared the sweets of the year with the temporary object of his afTections. When the wife returned, the pickle-jars were empty. " Conceive his baseness, my dear," said the injured wife to a female friend, — " he not only destroyed my peace of miud, but with a depravity that makes one shudder, ho actually ate all my pickles." la the following spring Jerrold met the husband and wife in Covent Garden Market, walking lovingly. Jerrold — pointing to a sieve of young walnuts — "Going to do anything in this way this year r* " The Tongue of Rumour. Tubal Cain must have turned pale when he first tried the scale upon the first trumpet made for Humour, who, when the world was thinly jteopled, could do all she willed by unassisted sound of mouth. A Perfect Explanation. Speaking of an ex-public:in, a friend said to Jerrold : — " My dear fellow, he has no head." " That's easily explained," Jerrold replied ; " he gare it all away with his porter." A Pug Nose. One of those charming, almost eatable pugs ; dear little knobs, especially made for men to hang their hearts, like hats, upon. Boz's BoswelL Some friends were talking with Jerrold about an eminent litterateur, who was a devoted admirer, and con- stant companion, of Charles Dickens. jkhkold's wit. 135 " In fact," said one of the friends, " he is to Dickens what Boswell was to Johnson." "With this difference," Jerrold replied, "that doesn't do the Boz well." A Poor-law Ofllcer. A worthy who holds the coin of t)ie parish as " the instrumental parts of his religion ; " a man who can nose a pauper as a bloodhound snuffs a runaway African. The Author of "Ion." " Well, Talfourd," said Jerrold, on meeting the lato eminent judge and author one day near Temple Bar, " have you any more Ions in the iire ? " The Order of Literature. Literature has its order ; and bitterly, most bitterly, do those who, forgetful of its true dignity, seek for extraneous importance in the masquerade of fortune — bitterly do they expiate the treason. For to them it is but a mas- querade ; a finery to be worn too often with an aching heart ; a finery to be in part paid for by misery aud moral degradation. The Estate of the Mind. There are estates in this merry England held by single owners — estates which a good horseman could scarcely cover between sunrise and sunset. How glorious the scenes! What majestic woods — temples for time itself! What bright and bounteous waters ! What hills, golden and waving with the triumphs of the sower ! Wliat varying richness of hill, dale, forest, and flood ! And all this belongs to one man. But are there no other estates 136 xibbold's wit. as tme (albeit not as tangible) as the earthly domain of the earthly noble ? Give him a few sheets of paper, and in a few days or weeks a noble of another sort will create a domain which neither scrivener can convey nor usurer seize upon. Here are woods never to be overthrown by gambler's dice — corn-fields and meadows that defy the ace of trumps, ay, all the honours, let them be packed and shulUed with the rarest delight. Eternity alone can foreclose upon them. An Honest Benedict. He loved his wife in a plain, straightforward fashion ; and AS he was never lavishly tender to her before company, there is the greater reason to believe that he was neither savage nor silent to her when alone. For some married folks will keep their love like their jewelry, for the eyes of the world ; thinking it too fine and too precious to wear every day at their fireside. The Dignity of Ijetters. There are men who in their souls would still wear the liveries of titled wealth ; men who would degrade and falsify the glorious attributes which God has bestowed upon them, by aping the adventitious distinctions of the mere purse. It is not enough for them that they are endowed with the noblest, the proudest quality of the human intellect — a power to arrest and dignify the mind of the world — that they are enabled to hold a glorious communion with their species, making to themselves in ten thousand hearts, and from the solitude of their cham. bers awakening, the finest sympathies of life : this glorious prerogative is not sutCcient ; no, they must dofi" their Prospero's gown, lay down the charming-rod, and become — men of fashion ! jbbbold's wit. 137 A Young Lady's Description of a storm at Sea. The sun went down like a bale of dull fire, in the midst of smearing clouds of red-currant jam. The wind bej^an to whiaile worse than any of the lowest orders of society in a shilling gallery. Every wave was suddenly as big and high as Primrose Hill. The cords of the ship snapped like bad stay-laces. No best Genoa velvet was ever blacker than the Crmament, and not even the voices of the ladies calling for the stewardess, were heard above the orchestral crashing of the elements. A Runaway Knock. Douglas Jerrold describing a very dangerous illness from which his daughter had just recovered, said — "Ay, sir, it was a runaway knock at Death's door, I can assure you." "Woman's Protection. How beautifully has Nature, or Fashion, or whatever it may be, ordained that woman should never be without pins. Even as Nature benevolently guards the rose with thorns, so does she endow woman with pins ; a sharp truth not all unknown to the giddy and frolicsome. A Happy Suggestion. Wlien Jenny Lind gave a concert to the Consumption Hospital, the proceeds of which concert amounted to £1,776. 155., and were to be devoted to the completion of the building, Jerrold suggested that the new part of the hospital should be called " The Nightingale's Wing." A Consoling Thought. There is no trouble, however great, that has not in the 138 jerbold's wit. core of its very gfreatness some drop of comfort ; for the human heart, like a bee, will gather honey from poisonous bloBsoms. Local Acts. The statutes are too often the beautiful fictions, whilst local acts are the wicked realities of English government. The law of the land is a fine, gracious, humanizinjjj presence ; but, unfortunately, there is a smart, shrivelled, malign-eyed imp, called Local Act, active and most potent in all sorts of mischief. The Drum Drummed Out. Mighty is the drum, raisiiig as it does a lust of glory in the Christian's heart, stirring him to slaughter, and making bloodshed beautiful ; sending him forth a terrible reaper in the fields of carnage, and smearing him with human gore as earth's best painting ! And yet the drum — though beat by a destroying angel — sounds not so musical to us as the panting and snorting of the railway- engine. The piston is a more noble weapon than the sword — the whirl and rush and thunder of the train grander, more truly sublime, more suggestive of all that ennobles man in his purest thoughts and deepest sympa- thies towards his fellow, than the tramp and measured step of glistening thousands, shaking the earth they too soon are about to defile with fire and sword. A Life of Repose. An existence to which the tongue of woman becomes silent as echo, when not spoken to. Dear Echo ! that, lady like, always has the last word. A Pauper. What a concentration of all human infamy is in the • jeeeold's wit. 139 word ! TVbat an object ' for English respectability to shun, to flee, to pluck its purple robe from, to look warily at its fine linen rulfle, lest the leper should have jostled against it and left some mortal abomination there ! The Engineer. The engineer is in our eyes somethincj more human- izing than the soldier : borne onward by the sublime energy of the thing of his creation ; harnessing, so to speak, the very elements to his use, and cheeking and controlling them as might some magician of a fairy tale, he sweeps from place to place, distributing in his way all the gentler influences of civilization, and knitting more closely together the family of man, by teaching them the strength, the value, and what is more than all, tho abounding peaoefulness of a wise union. The Virtues of the Kitchen, In this our harlequin-coloured life, no young lady knows to what far land fate may call her. The first mandarin of the first peacock's feather — the sultan of both the Turkeys — the emperor of Morocco — each may be caught by his national dish ; and therefore no young woman's education should be thought complete who had » not made a Cook's voyage round the globe. The Virtues of Brass. The sympathies of human nature are mysteriously touched by the sounds of a trumpet ; brass is the greatest essential to human civilization. The trumpet is at once the voice of pomp and of imposture. It cries forth the glory of a crown and publishes the whereabout of a fire- eater. It is in its excellence the music that keeps the civilized world together. It has a voice that calls upon 140 jkebold'9 wit. all hearts, whether the thing to be seen is a royal pro- cession or a wax-work. "NVlmt would be a monarchy without its trumpets? Verily, a dumb peacock. The Charm of Progress. "We would RO no stop backward, but many in advance, our faith still increasing in the enlarged sympathies of men ; in the reverence which man has learned, and is still learning, to pay towards the nature of his fellow-men ; in the deep belief that whatever change may and miut take place in the social fabric, wo have that spirit of wisdom and tolerance waxing strong among us, — so strong that the fabric will be altered and repaired brick by brick and stone by stone. Meanwhile the scaffolding is fast growing up about it. Triumph over Evil. Wo are rewarded for every triumph we make over temptation. I will suppose there are many who have struggled against the vanity of vain pleasures ; many who have put down evil thoughts with a strong will ; many who, after a long, and it may be an uncertain, conflict with the seduction of the world, at length have triumphed. I will put it to them, whether, when they have combated and so prevailed against the evil, w hethcr their hearts have not softened and melted within them, whether they have not felt within their bosoms a seraphic influence ? They Lave so felt ; and so it n ill ever be. No sooner shall they have driven from them the tempting demon of pride, of vanity, of anger — no sooner shall the devil have left them, than angels will come and minister unto them. The Mviaic of the Nursery. It is an astonishing truth — a truth little considered by jkrbold's wit. 141 man, when in his bridet^room lust he stands before the altar, for the moment manipulating the ring end of the chain ere he fixes it, that there is no household noise like the noise of a baby when det^jrmined to make a rulBan of itself. There was not a macaw in Noah's ark that could not have been silenced b)' Shem's baby, had the little one resolved to test it« screams. Steftm. Let the man who lives by his daily sweat pause in his toil, and with his foot upon his spade, watch the white smoke that flouts in the distance ; listen to the lessening thunder of the engine, that, instinct with Vulcanian life, has rushed, devouring space before it. That little curl of smoke hangs in the air, a thing of blessed promise ; that roar of the engine is the melody of hope to unborn genera- tions. But now, the digger of the soil looks moodily at that vapour, and his heart is festering with the curse upon the devil Steam ; that fiend that grinds his bones beneath the wheels of British Juggernaut. Poor crea- ture ! The seeming demon is a beneficial presence, that, in the ripeness of time, will work regeneration of the hopes of men. Man's Discont«nt. From the very discontent and fantasticalness of hia nature, man is apt to look backward at what he thinks the lost Paradise of another age. He affects to snuff the odour of its fruits and flowers, and, with a melancholy shaking of the head, sees, or thinks he sees, the flashing of the fiery swords that guard them ; and then, in the rest- lessness of his heart, in the peevishness and discontent of his soul, he says all sorts of bitter things of the generation he has fallen amongst, and from the vanished glory of the 142 jebbold's wit. past, predicts increasin;; darkness for the future. Happily the prophesying cannot be true ; but then there is a sort of comfort in the waywardness of discontent — at times, a soothing music to the restlessness of the soul, in the deep ])afl8 of hearty grumbling. The Best Judge. A Indr said to her husband, in Jerrold's presence, " My dear, you oertaiiily want some new trousers." ♦• No, I think not," replied the husband. "Well," Jerrold interposed, "I think the lady who always wears them, ought to know." Nature's Clockwork. Beautiful is the regularity, the clock-work of nature ; and certain and severe the penalty on man for playing triiks witli it. Though Bacchus himself lend you his thyrsus oveniight, to advance the hands and post on the hours, it is ten to one that in the morning you will have a smart knock upon the head for your boldness ; and even if the knock be delayed— why. it is only deferred, that it may pay itself with interest— all the knocks coming down in after-years as double ones ; for Time, when it trusts at all, takes huge interest of intemperence. Tea-table Talk. Turning the tea-tables upon man. A Joke with a Tax-gatherer. The tax-gatherer once said to Jerrold — " Sir, I'm determined to put a man in the house.' jbbbold's wit. 143 Jerrold replied, with a laugh, " Couldn't you make it a woman ? " Paternal Honours. People sometimes speak of a baby as if it were a sort of medal bestowed by fate upon a man for early hours and good conduct. The Measure of a Brain. One afternoon, when Jerrold was in his garden at Putney, enjoyinjj a glass of claret, a friend called upon him. The conversation ran on a certain dull fellow, whose wealth made him prominent at that time. "Yes," said Jerrold, drawing his linger round the edge of his wineglass, "that's the ran^c of his intellect, only it had never anything half so good in it." The Timidity of Beauty. It's a great comfort for timid men, that beauty, like the elephant, doesn't know its strength. Otherwise, how it would trample upon us ! The Zodiac Club. On the occasion of starting a convivial club, somebody proposed that it should consist of twelve members, and be called " The Zodiac," each member to be named after a sign. "And what shall I be?" inquired a somewhat solemn man, who was afraid that his name would be forgotten. Jerrold. — " Oh, we'll bring you in as the weight in Libra." 144 jebbold's wit. Carlyle. " Here," said Jerrold, having objected to Carlyle, that he did not pive definite suggestions for the improvement of the age which he rebuked — " here is a man who beats a big drum under my windows, and when I come running down stairs, has nowhere for me to go." Patience. Patience is a virtue, peculiarly a female virtue ; for though it id greatly encouraged, it meets with so little reward. Bed Bepublioaniam. A wild republican said, profanely, that Louis Blanc was next to our Saviour. " On which side ? " Jerrold asked. A Drinker. The man had a loose, potalile look. It was plain that his face, like hothouse fruit, had ripened under a glaM. An Awful Weapon. Somebody told Jerrold that a friend of his, a prolific writer, whom we will call Scissors, was about to dedicate a book to him. " .\h ! " replied Jerrold, with mock gravity, " that's an awful weapon Scissors has in his hands ! " The Birth of a Prince. Jerrold was at a party when the Park guns announced the birth of a prince. " How they do powder these babies ! " Jerrold exclaimed. jeubold's wit. 145 Hapid Payment. " Is the Icpncy to be paid down on the nail P " somebody nsked Jerrold, roft'rriiijT to noine ctlcbrutcd will case. "On the colUn-uail," Jerrold replied. Railway v. Cannon. We have always been of the opinion that a hundred, weigiit of iron, expi-nded on a railroad, waa worth a hundred times the value of the same metal used up in forty-pounders. A Play "Written to Order. On beinp told that a recently-produced play had been done to order, Jerrold replied, — " Ah ! and it strikes me it will still be done to a good many orders." A Happy Couple. They were proud, delijjhted with their chains. And is it not a eharniintj s'R'»t. — a toucliin. Bight. Right is a plant of slow growth. You can't tell how long Justice herself was a baby at the breast of Truth, before Justice could run alone. A Grave Reflection. How small it is for what it has to hold! Nothing packs 80 much, so closely as a grave, Lotty. Nothing in JEHROLD 'eWIT. 147 the world bo bip, nothing so fine, that it will not swallow. All Job's camels and flocks, when Job flourished again, — nay, all Solomon's Temple — in so far as Job and Solomon were touched, all went into a hole called a grave; a hole that, always swallowing, is for ever empty ! Happiness. Happiness prows at our own firesides, and is not to bo picked in strangers* gardens. Fairy Tales. Nothing can be truer than fairy wisdom. It Ls true as sunbeams. Tho Wliool of Fortvine. Fair is the morn, happy the bride and bridegroom. They depart rejoicingly upon their pilgrimage, one money- bag between them. How the sun laughs ; and how the Tery hedge-flowors smile and twinkle as the pilgrims go onward, onward ! The money-bag hnngs over the wheel. Lovelier and lovelier shines the diiy, and bride and bride- groom, lapped in sweet eontenteduess of heart, see and think of nothing but themselves. They are all alone, alone with their happiness. The flowers beneath them send an incense-ofl'ering to their blissful hearts ; the glorious skylark, ever above their heads, scatters music down upon them. The day wears ; the sinking sun glows w ith a solemn good-night ; and the hearts of the lovers are touched and softened, yea, gloritied by the hour. The resting-place is reached. The wheel stops! The money- bag is light ; the money-bag has a hole in it ; for still and still, turning and turning, the hole in the money-bag has been ground by the wheel. And thus, thoughtless, care- less of the future, insolent in our wealth, we may travel L '2 148 jeebold's wit. onward, the hole ia the money-bag, whilst we pport and jest, and play the wanton — the hole in the money-bag being worn by Fortune's Wheel ! The ■Workhouse Tost. Wliat may be called a workhouse test is very often like the test of an air-pump — an invention to test the duration of vitality, and not to aid it. "Woman's Mission. "Woman's mission may be admirably indicated at a husbanil's fireside ; in the rearing of children ; in those offices of household wisdom, those noiseless unobtrusive activities of domestic life, that make the homo of the man a temple consecratetl to the affections ; a place of quiet, cheerful happiness, let the world flounder and bluster as it may without. This we take to be a part of woman's mission, whether the woman rule in a palace or sit at her own-swtj t hearth. A True Patriot. Talk of your O'Connells and Smith O'Briens ! The truly great illustrations of Ireland's genius are men like Duri^an — men who work more than they talk ; who pro- mise sparingly and perform prodigiously ; who appeal to no prejudice and rouse no evil passion ; but go calmly on with the daily task, offering everywhere the example of industry covered with success, and developing on all sides the energies of the pi ople and the resources of the soil. The Eeward of Self-Sacriflce. Luther, in the depth of hia disappointment, declared the whole Protestant world to be nothing in action but the Ten Commandments reversed. Had he known the jerrold's wit. 149 proatnoss of tlie stniyjijle, with the smalhioss of the reward, he would, ho saj-s, have remained a monk. And all political and social history from time to time shows the same spectacle : the old reformer, grey-headed in the cause of truth and justice, lamentinihbour or his neighbour advanced against hira. Gunpowder was a great peace-maker. If with that invention war became more destructive, it ceased to be the normal condition of mankind. It grew more and more terrible — more and more brief. Nations felt how great the loss must be of a collision, and statesmen began to ask themselves if the possible gain would equal the inevitable loss. No doubt, passion, ignorance, per- sonal cupidity, often overleapt the bounds of reason, and plunged all Europe into horrors ; but the violence never failed to obtain the reproach of public opinion — the brand of history. And no ruler, however powerful, can dispense with the moral support of public opinion ; and hence, how- ever warlike, the most passionate lover of war will hesitate long, and resort to a thousand tricks, as Buonaparte always did, rather than appear to Europe as the open aggreseor, the wilful shedder of blood. Vote-Buyers. There would be few thieves, were there not those ea^er to buy the thieves' plunder. The purchasing receiver is held to be worse than the robber. In like manner, the gentleman candidate who buys the corruption of the moral felon, is guiltier, a far more contemptible object, than the salesman of his own independence. He may be a person of most scrupulous honour, he may have a chosen place in worshipful society ; but if he has chaffered with H 162 jebbold's wit. tbc self-respect of men, tempting, and finally purcbasinfj them for his own purposes, like cattle, that man is a knave and a traitor to his fellow-men ; and there is no amount of reiit-ruU, no breadth of acres, that can lessen his knavery — that can lighten his treason. "Wellington and Nelson. The great ruling principle of "Wellington was a sense of duty. This sense shines bright and cold as a sword, throughout his despatches, documents in which the inward mind and heart of the man are graven as with a pen of iron on a tablet of rock. As towards a soldier in the field, wc have not the same feeling of affection for him as for Nelson on his quarter-deck. The popular ear has not been gladdened with so many anecdotes of the general as of the admiral. "Wellington always seemed to be at the bead of his army — ^selson in the heart of bis fleet. The Bishop of Vinegar. Oil is very soothing — but bow conservative is the pro- perty of vinegar ! How good alike for pickles or for priests, for cucumbers or for churches ! Hence is the bishop of Exoter the ecclesiastical vinegar-cruet. There is nothing he would not preserve in it — nothing, from a dead church mouse to a dormant church trust. And the acid is of the strongest — not vinegar that has been wine, not small-beer vinegar, but strong biting acid from the wood — acid that cuts the tongue as with an edge of steel. And how has this particular acid preserved the man and nourished the bishop ! Look at him ! "What a monu- mental record of acidity ! The very lines of his apostolic face seem cut, bitten in — as the engravers say of aqua furtis — with sharpness. jeubold's wit. 163 Betting-Houses. Bctting-liouses we look upon as something worse than the wigwams of savages, where, in token of the victory (whether wofl by cunning or by skill), hang the scalps of so many victims, ripped from the yet warm skulls by the conquering barbarian. There is hardly a doorway of one of these betting-houses that has not— could we but see it — some horrid trophy — some bloody memento of the scalp- iug of the English savage within — of the tribe of Black- legs, a large tribe, and larger than the olden Chacktaws, and widely scattered throughout this our Christian Loudon ; yes, scattered — some in drawing-rooms, some in kitchens, and some in saloons. A betting-house is something like a den-of-ease to a gin-palace, staring w ith paint and gUttering with Dutch metal letters. A Misanthrope. He enjoys the corruption of human nature, as an epicure enjoys venison long, long kept, and to his nose and palate all the more fragrant, succulent. Cambridge Flower- Show. The flower of all flowers at this exhibition was — Bachelor's Buttons ! Marriage of the Metals. Scene : — Room in Royal Institution. Professor Smith. — " Very extraordinary ! I say, Jones, have you read this ? No ! "Well, then, the Post says that the Duke of Wellington — the iron duke — is going to marry Miss Burdett Coutts." Professor Jones. — " 2sonsense — It can't be true ! " H 2 1G4 jbreold's wit. Professor Smith. — " But if it should be true, what would you thifik of such a match?" Professor Jones.—" Think of it? Why, with the duke and the heiress, I would thiuk it a most extraordinary union of iron and tin ! " Motto for Dramatic Translator from the French. " Aut scissors aut nullus." The Billet System. Certainly the English publicans are apt to be rigorously treated by Parliament, as among the worst of sinners. What can be more unjust to a certain body of men, than to compel them, because they deal in victuals and house- room, to give lodgings to soldiers and militia-men? The publican is a licensed victualler only to the civil part of the community : to the army he is not a victualler licensed, but a victualler compelled. With him the place he lives in is always likely to be in a state of occupation, and his bar and tap-room given up to be sacked. Bad to the publican is chalk, but nothing so bad aa pipeclay. The Knowledge of Princes. Princes always " evince considerable knowledge." If a prince were made king of M. Levcrricr's new planet, just discovered, his majesty would at once "evince con- siderable knowledge" of all its plains and mountains, and a very intimate acquaintance with some of the principal inhabitants. Court Pools. In the good old times kings, and statesmen kept fools. jebeold's wit. 165 It was something; that even, and in its most vrayward hour, tyranny would listen to the rebuke of humanity, when uttered by an " innocent." The bitter truth Wa3 sugared with nonsense, and so swallowed. Had the words of such fools more prevailed, haply the pa};e of history had been loss stained with blood and tears. Tho Best Hulers. The kings and caliphs who in disguise liave mixed with the people, sharing their amusements and listening to their sorrows, have made themselves acknowledged by their deeds as the very best and n isest rulers. They live enshrined in history, and their names through generations glow in story, and are melodious in ballads. In like manner, a future House of Lords, that, in its infancy, has known the sufferings, and above all, the heroism, of the working men, cannot but legislate in the noblest and most benevolent spirit for the sons of labour. The fine porcelain of the world will really know something more of the mere red Adam, and make juster laws for their brother accordingly. The Bread-Tree. Not without meaning is the beautiful superstition of certain Indians, who have so holy and so affectionate a regard for the bread-tree, that they have a legend that the first bread-tree was formed from the dust of the earth that made the first man. In this manner is exquisitely symbolized the nature of bread ! It is a part and parcel of humanity ; and he who would make bread scarcer and dearer to the labouring man, commits an offence against the very sacredness of man, persecuting him in his flesh, his blood, and his bones. 1G6 jebbold's wit. Tlie "Workhouse Prison. A miserable sight — a hideous testimony of the thankless- ness of prosperous man — is the rural Union, witli its blank dead wall of brick ; a cold blind thing, the work of human perversity and human seHlshness, amidst ten thousand thousand evidences of eternal bounty. How beautiful is the beauty of God around it ! There is not a sapling, having its green tresses of June, that does not make the heart yearn with kindliness ; not a field-flower that does not, with its speaking eye, tell of abundant goodness. The brook is musical with the same sweet truth ; all sights and sounds declare it. The liberal loveliness of Nature, turn where we will, looks upon and whispers to us. We are made the heirs of wealth inexhaustible, of pleasures deep as the sea, and pure as the joys of Paradise. And our return for this, our oflt-ring to the wretchedness of our fellow-creatures, is yonder prison, with it« dead wall turned upon the plea.^ant a.7 drifts into a warmer latitude than the latitude of eternal frost ; and as the icoberj; melts and melts under the increasing heat, the bear shifts and shifts, findinj; his footinj; passing; from beneath him ; and at length howls piteously, tq,know the dissolution of the iceberg must in time occur. We would not compare a mmister of state to a polar bear, nevertheless, even a Chancellor of the Exchequer, as he finds Parliament melting, and a dissolu- tion inevitable, will sometimes change his music. The Turf. The great plea for the turf is our breed of horses. The horse ought, indeed, to be both strong and generous, to bear and yet forgive the atrocities that are placed upon the noble animal's shoulders. The People. The millions that make the world, even as millions ol ants make an ant-hill. A Titled Magniflco. He was a huge, gigantic nobleman ! "When he rose to his full height, his head almost, in his own belief — knocked against the stars. lie was amongst ordinary peers what the fossil elephant of thirty feet high is to the live elephant, that, of ordinary stature, peaceably eats its carrot in the park. The duke woke and slept in his pride, armed in it like the rhinoceros in its coat of mail. In the opinion of his Grace, this visible world was expressly made for noblemen ; and it was not mere Adam, but his Grace the Duke of Eden, that took possession of Paradise ! Figs and liions. Let us for a moment consider the increased value of 168 jebbold's wit. pigs as placed against the worth of lions and eagles. Let U8 consider the superiority of the pig when considered with even a royal lion or an imperial eagle. Put pig in one scale and lion in another, and whilst every morsel of your pig is a morsel of some value, more or less, your lion, with the exception of his tawny hide, may be sunk as so much offal. And then turning to the cost of the keep of a lion. Consider the expense. How much beef will the beast, with that rasp-like tongue of his, strip from bullocks' shins, and what the use of liim, when gone the way — the royal way — of even regal lions ! A carcase — a foul, rank carcase — all his worth, and all his beauty, just skin-deep. Flay him, and he is good for nothing better than the imperial eagle that, living, lives a life of prey, and dying, is garbage, even as the leonine offal. How different the pig ! In his life he is quiet — we mean of course when civilized, reclaimed from the savage kin- ship of wild swinishness — and in his death he is beneGcent, beautiful ! Consider the qualities of a dead pig: think of him in his great and luscious variety ; in his power of hams ; in his conservative phase of sides of bacon. His very blood is a fountain of plenty, and meanders into puddings. In every way, in even every smallest manifestation, from bowels to bristles, what a worth and a blessing to a man is a dead pig — a mere vulgar, mire-rejoicing pig, in comparison with the stately, the terrible, the magnanimous lion ! Costly Funerals. One of the great social evils is the foolish — in too many cases the wicked — expense forced upon people by the extravagant cost of funerals. The poor are made poorer by the practice; a calamity is made more calamitous by jEnnoLD's WIT. 169 increasin{T and perpetuating the privation that, with the first blow, it inflicts. A Keceipt in FulL " Whatever promises a man may make before marria;^e," said Jerrold, " the licence is as a receipt in full." Placemen. The people have been to placemen what dolls are to scapegrace boys : things for wilful experiment, to be put up and flung aside, and now to have the bran poked out of them, and now to be cast in a corner, and now to be trodden under foot. But the times are changed. The doll has become flesh and blood, and resolute and earnest brain, no longer to be treated with the cold-blood, which marked the conduct of bygone statesmen. Davidge's Death. Davidge, the avaricious manager of the Surrey Theatre, died early one evening. A friend carried the news to Jerrold. " Hang it," said Jerrold, " I should have thought he would wait till the half-price had come in." A Small Poet. He bears the same situation to the poet as the kitten with eyes just opened to the merits of a saucer of milk, bears to the lion in his majesty, glaring athwart the desert. There is the true Helicon, and there is such a thing as the smallest of small beer over-kept in a tin mug — with the dead flies in it. A National Motto. " Ask for nothing but what is right, and submit to 170 jebbold's wit. nothing that is wrong." This should be the motto of every wise and every powerful state. There is more true strength, more real and enduring power, in the end, in that sentence, than in the destructive roar of broadsides, in the mortal belchiugs of artillery. Freedom. A wise freedom is an attribute of God. The Celt. Talk not to us of the irreclaimable genius of the Celt : in his mud cabin, under the influence of his priest, and in the midst of ignorance, poverty, superstition, he is what most other men would be in such cabins and under priestly influence. But take him thence, throw light into liis mind, put food into his stomach, give freedom to his thought, and a motive to his industry, and there is no better fellow in the world. "With his belly full of food, his priest a thousand miles away, his wife happy at his side, and the morrow not yawning at his feet like a felon's grave, the virtues and genialities of the true Irishman come out brightly ; and in a few years he is remarkable among his fellows for his warm heart — his ready mind — his sympathclie tear; for the love of his children — the steadiness of his industry — the freedom of his thinking. " Bom to Greatness." Certain families only have been born to government; there is an acknowledged breed of statesmen, even as Lord Derby has an immaculate breed of game bantams. A Sine Qua Non. A Lord Mayor without the show must be like mince- jebrold's wit. 171 pie without bramly — turbot without lobster sauce — calfs- head without parsley and butter. Pluralist Parsons. Pluralists take the euro of souls as men take the cure of herrin^^s, at so much per hundred — with this difl'erence, that the soul-curers do nothinf;, aud the herriufj-curera fulfil their contract. We have no faith in these po I i/pi parsons ; pulpit thinijs, with maiiy stomachs and no hearts: uo faith in them, not a jot of reverence for them ; and the sooner the things shall cease to exist, the better for the institution they deform and scandalize. Philanthropy's Pets. Every impostor rewarded, is a worthy poor man wrouf^ed. "We do not respect the philanthropy tLat has its especial pets ; and yet those pets abound. Public Opinion. A despised seed, which, althou^h sown amid the scorn and laujj;htcr and derision of society, grows into a tree of strongest root and robust dimensions. An Epitaph for " Protection." HERE LIES PEOTECTION : IT LIED THEOCGHOUT ITS LIFE, AND NOW LIES STILL. Danger to the State. "Weak and wicked is the principle that creates unneces- sary danger, even if no evil come of it. A man may, if it 172 JKnEOLD's WIT. 80 please him. play tricks with a red-hot poker ; but \re would rather be out of the neighbourhood if he flourished it in a powder-mill. Irish Angling. An Irish patriot angliiii; for martyrdom does not realize the Johnsonian picture of a fisherman. There is not the worm at one end and the fool at another. Nevertheless, the angling is peculiarly Irish, inasmuch aa MiTCHKLL, to catch gudgeons, baits with — a pike. The " "Watery Element." A certain number of emigrants having been presented, by a Teetotal Society, with a banner depictmg the four quarters of the world, Jerrold wrote — " Europe, we are told, is represented by the figure of a horse ; Asia, by a camel ; Africa, by an elephant ; and America, by an elk. We hardly think the selection very significant of tem- perance. The camel, it is known, will take at one drink enough liquid to stipply him for days. The horse will not refuse toast steeped in ale, or, as Comines tells us, a pail- ful of wine ; whilst the drunkenness of elephants, with the means and opportunities of obtaining arrack, is, for the outward gravity of the hypocrites, a scandal upon elephants in general. The elk, as representing America, is perhaps the best ; inasmuch as we have never heard of elks addicted either to sherry-cobblers or mint-juleps. Still, in preference to the elk typical of America, the Temperance Society might have adopted the whole hog. We would suggest as figures for a future banner, neither elk, nor horse, nor elephant ; but frogs — bull-frogs in a pond ; for they only muddy where they stir, and their monotonous croak is of water." jkebold's wit. 173 Temperance Brawlers. Temperance is an admirable quality, even as peace is a blessing ; but somehow, as there are certain men who become public, disturbers in the name of peace, bo are there teetotallers who make more noise upon water than other men make upon wine. They have continual water on the brain, and, like an everflowing pump, it continually runs out of their mouths. Time's Annual Shavo. Nutis, barber (loquitur). — As the clock strikes twelve on the 31st of every December, he takes up his scythe, which is Time's razor, — and what that's stropped upon 'twould make a man's fortin to find out — for what cuts like it, I should wish to know ! Well, he takes up his scythe, and holding himself by the nose, begins the operation. His glass is the Frozen Ocean, and he shaves by the Northern Lights. Preseatly, like a new-born babby, Time hasn't a hair on his chin. No ! I consider him a nice smart young chap, witli a very clear face, a very straight back, a merry twinkle in his eye, a sprig of green holly in his mouth, and quite ready to draw, wherever he's invited, for Twelfth-cake, and dance with all the women afterwards. Tamed Animals. Not many years since, it was loudly declared that the people, as the mass, were not to be trusted in public museums and public gardens. Nevertheless there has been a gathering of thousands in the Zoological Gardens ; and up to the present hour, Mr. Mitchell, the secretary (to whose high intelligence and remarkable energy may be solely attributed the present magnificent condition of the gardens), Mr. Mitchell has missed nothing. Not a 174 jebhold's wit. single lion has been carried off. The elephant and the elephant's little one are where they were. Every hyena, if called, would laugh and answer to the muster-roll, and every leopard purr to the voice of the keeper. No woman decamped with a live bird in her reticule, and no mis- chievous urchin left the gardens with a rattlesnake in his pocket. Nay more, with this gathering of upwards of twenty-one thousand, there was not a shrub despoiled, nor a rosebush broken. Such is the moral teacliing of Buch visits. CThildren of the Street. Wretched untendcd creatures, almost seemingly come into life without human agency ; animals swarmed from gutters and dunghills, even 09, in midsummer heat, m}-nads of insects take their existence from stagnant pools. In their infancy, in their babyhood, is the ignorance that kills the soul of the future man — is the germ of the passions that make him grow up like a wild- beast, hereafter to prey like a winter wolf upon the society that in his infant need has despised and neglected him. The Literary Fund. It seems that in seven years the donations and sub- scriptions to the Literary Fund amounted to £0,703. Is. Of this sum (not over-magnificent by the bye for a wealthy country like England, being less than £1,000 a year) not less than £5,397. 7*. 7d. were spent in the costs of collection and the annual dinners. Charity, it is said, covers a multitude of sins ; but then, in the case of charity dinners, such as the above, the " covers " should be dish-covers. Hats. Advices from Munich speak of the constructive treason jebrold's wit. 175 of certain hatters, who haver furnished sundry younfj men with Calabrian broad-brimmed hats ; the depth of their disafl'ection to be measured by the circumference of the felt. Tlie yount; men were taken to prison, not for what was in their beads, but for wliat was upon them ; not for what they thought, but for what they wore. Hats have played a distinguished part in politics ever since men had heads. Switzerland owes 8omethin;acious animal — its small eye wide awake to money— at once knows the value of the bit of silver, and exchanges it for buns. How much more sensible is the elephant than the cabman ! For lay a sixpence in the hands of a cabman, and his look of ignorance is almost afTecting. It would seem that the coin w as perfectly new to him ; that he had no more notion of its value than if it were a shekel struck in Jerusalem. A Court Noble. To hira the court of England was no doubt more sub- lime than the court of Solomon. Indeed to climb the baek-stuirs was to mount the true Jacob's ladder, that led directly to the stars — and garters ! JEBnOLl>'s WIT. 183 The Xjimit of the Law. Men will not bo made tempcraU' or virtuous by tbe Btrouj; hand of the law, but by the teachinj; and intlurnce of moral power. A man i« no more made sober by act of parliament than a woman is made chaste. Power Grows. The eaglet must have time. The beak that, in due season, wdl cleave a skull, at first has merely power to chip the eg};. Rowing in the Same Boat. "We row in the same boat, you know," said a literary friend to Jerrold. This literary friend was a comic writer, and a comic writer only. Jerrold replied, " True, my good lellow, we do row in the same boat, but with very ditk-rent skulls." Military Catechism for Young Ladies. Q. — Wliat is a soldier ? A diuk Q A Q — If in the infantry, a dear ; if in tbe cavalry, a — Who. of all men, best deserve the fair? — The brave. — Why should a woman prefer a soldier above all other male creatures ? A. — Because he wears such a very handsome dress ; carries gold upon his shoulders; gold all over his coat; wears a sword at his side, aud a love of a feather in his helmet or cap. Q, — What is the noblest work of woman ? A. — The work in regimental colours. 'n 184 jkbbold's wit. Q. — And when does she appear to the best advantage, as the roHninjT comforter of man ? A. — When, liavinf^ worked tlie aforesaid colours, she, in an appropriate speech about glory, to the regiment, presents them. Q. — Describe your notion of military glory. A. — A review in Hyde Park. Q. — And laurels P A. — A ball, and supper afterwards. " The Best of Husbands." This is a very rare animal ; but he is to be found. The existence of the unicorn has been successfully dis- puted ; and that very handsome and graceful animal, instead of being harncsHed to Her Majesty's state car- riage, as assuredly the species should be, could eight of them bo procured, is merely employed upon heraldic duty ; namely, to support Her Majesty's arms. But the good husband — let all our virgin readers take heart — is not fabulous. AVe cannot, certainly, make out, with the degree of precision that in things of value we love, his habitat. We do not think the creature is to be found at public masquerades, or billiard-rooms, or in soiled boots dancing the polka at the Casino de Venus, de Bacchus, or any other casino of any other disreputable heathen doily. The habits, too, of the best of husbands vary with the best of wives. Some are best for one particular virtue — some for another — and some for virtues too numerous to specify. Some best of husbands are always buying best of wives new gowns ; some best, again, are continually taking their belter-best to the opera or play ; in fact, in ten thousand different modes do the best of husbands show their superiority to the second-best, and the middling, and the fine ordinary, and those merely good for families. jebbold's wit. 185 But Mr. Brown, the best husband of the best Mrs. Brown, did — aoconlini; to that excellent woman — in the most devoted manner, display the paramount excellence of his marital qualities. Mrs. Brown herself, only on Thurs- day last, informed her dear friend Mrs. Smith, of the peculiarity that blest her with the best of men. Mrs. Smith had dropped in to talk of nothinjj, and have a dish of tea. Mrs. Sniitli hud left her bonnet, muff, and cloak, in Mrs. Brown's bed-room, and was seated at Mrs. Brown's fire. Mrs. Smith put her hands to her head, and softly sij^hed. Mrn. Brown. — What's the matter, my dear ? You don't look well ; nothing! particular, I hope? * Jfrs. Smi(/i. — Oh, no ! nothing. Only Smith again, as usual. .1//-5. i?rwfr;/.— Poor thing! "Well, I rfo pity you. What is it ? Mrs. Sinit/t. — Oh! my love, that club. He wasn't liome till two this morning, and I sitting up, and — yes, but you are a happy woman — 'tis no doubt, now, that, Mr. Brown Afrs. Brown. — Bless you, my dear ! He was reading the paper to me all the evening. Jlrs. Smil/i. — Ha I Mr. Brown is a good man. Mrs. Brown. — A good man, my dear? If I were to tell you all, you would say so. In fact, he's the best of husbands ; and one little thing will prove it. Mrs. SmitL — "What's that, Mrs. Brown? Mrs. Brotcn. — Why this, Mrs. Smith. You wouldn't once think it of the dear, kind soul ; but he's so fond of me, that all this bitter cold weather, he always goes up first to bed, to warm my place ! Now, I call that Mrs. Smith {raising her eyes and folding her hands, exclaims) — The Best of Husbands. 186 jebbold's wit. The Kit and Fiddle. " Well, what do you think ? " said Broupham to Sib- thorp, " we shall be just overrun with Tom Tliumbs and pigmies ; Scotland even threatens us to send us a whole kit of dwarfs ? " " With all my heart," exclaimed the great colonel, " she may send us the kit, so long as she keeps the fiddle." A Man of Doubtful Origin. Of a mysterious gentlen^.nn who spoke many lanuuages, and all equally well, and whose nj\Jtive country could nut be ascertained, Jerrold said, " It's my faith he was bora in a balloon." True Patriotism- The " new piece " was over, and the audience were delighted. Jones sat silent and motionless. " How is it, Jones," said Brown, "you do not applaud the new drama? " " Brown," replied Jones, *' I am an Englishman and a patriot : how then can I applaud these frequent successes of the French ? " An Obliging Offer. (A Chemist's Shop — Shopman and Old Lady.) Old Lady. — Now, are you sure this is carbonate of soda — not arsenic ? iSA/jt>nj an. — Quite certain, ma'am, — try it. Tlie Eeason why "Wellineton waited for the Prussijuis. The Duke of Wellington always likes to take his time. jebrold's wit. 187 At "Waterloo he would wait for tlie Prussians ; and only bet-ause, if Le'd licked the French before, he didn't know how else to spend the evening. A Morning iu " The Barber's Chair." Scene : — A Barber s Shop in Seven Dials. NuTTS {the barber) shaving Nosebag. Pcckeu, Bleak, Tickle, Slowgoe, jSightflit, Limpy, and other customers come in and go out. Nightjlit. — Any news Mr. Nutts P Nothing in the paper ? Nutts. — Nothing. Nightjlit. — Well, I'm blest if, according to you, there ever is ! If an earthquake was to swallow up London to-morrow, you'd say " There's nothing in the paper, only the earthquake !" JS'iitfs. — The fact is, Mister Nightflit, I've had so much news in my time, I've lost the flavour of it — couldn't relish anything weaker than a battle of "Waterloo, now ; even murders don't move me — no, not even the pictures of 'em in the newspapers, with murderer's hair in full curl, and a dress-coat on him, as if blood, like prime Twaukay, was to be recommended to the use of families. Tickle. — There you go again, Nutts, always biting at human natur. It's only that we're used to you, else I don't know who'd trust you to shave him. Slowgoe. — Tell me, is it true what I have heard — are the "Whigs really in ? Nutts. — In ! Been in so long, they're half out by this time! As you're always so long after everybody else, I wonder you ain't in with 'em. Bleah. — Come now — I was born a Whig, and won't 188 jebrold's wit. stand it ! In the battle of the constitution, arn't the Whigs always the foremost? Nutts. — Why, as in other battles, that sometimes depends upon how many are pushing 'em behind. Tickle. — Tlierc's another bite ! Why, Nutts, you don't believe irood of nobody. What a cannibal you are! It's mj belief you'd live on human 'arts. Nutts. — Why not? It's what half the world lives upon — Whi^9 and Tories ! 'Tell you what ! you see them two cats : one of them I call Whij;, and t'other Tory — they are so like the two-lejjced ones. You see Whij; there, a-wipin<; his whiskers — well, if in the ni>;ht he kills the smallest mouse that ever squeaked, what a clatter be does kivk uj) — he keeps me and my wife awake for hours ; and sometimes — now this is so like a Whif^ — to catch a mouse not worth a fardin. he'll bring down a row of plates, or a teapot, or a punch-bowl, worth half a guinea ; and in the morning, when he shows us the measly little mouse, doesn't he put up his back, and purr as loud as a bagpipe, and walk in and out my legs for all the world as if the mouse was a dead rhinoceros ! Doesn't he make the most of a mouse that's hardly worth lifting with a pair of tongs and throwing in the gutter 'i Well, that's Whig all over. Now there's Tory lying all along the hearth, and looking as innocent as though you might shut him up in a dairy with nothing but his word and honour. Well, when he kills a mouse, he makes hardly any noise about it. But, this I will say — he's a little greedier than Whig ; he'll eat the varmint up, tail and all. No conscience for that matter. Bless you, I've known him make away with rats that he must have lived in the same house with for years. Bleak.— V*c\\, I hate a man that has no party. Every man that is a man ought to have a side. Nutts. — Then I'm not a man ; for I'm all round like a jkbbold's wit. 189 nincpin. That will do, .Mr. Noscba}?. Now, Mister Slowfjoe, I believe you're next. {Slowgoe taken the chair.) Slowgoe. — Is it true what I have heard, that the Duke of Wellinfiton (a preat man the Duke, only Catholic 'mancipation is a little speck upon him) — is it true that tlie Duke's to have a "questrian statue on the Hyde Park arch P Tickle. — Why it was true, only the cab and 'bus men have petitioned Parliament aj^ainst it. They said it was such bad taste. Would frijjhten their horses ! Slowgoe. — Shouldn't wonder. And what's become of it "e ' Tickle. — Why, it's been at livery in the Harro