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 [iNTURZ 
 
 CROTESQUBS 
 BY ALICE 
 WOODWARD
 
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 Jerrold. W. ed. 
 
 Bon-mots of the 
 ~^~y 19th century 
 
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 BON-MOTS OF THE 
 NINETEENTH CENTURY.
 
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 ^ IhiVtour Jias justly been regarded as the Jinest 
 perfection of foetic genius. He nvho wants it., be 
 his other gifts 7vhat they may, has only half a 
 mind; an eye for what is aboi'e him, not for what 
 is about him or belozv him'' — Thomas Carlyle. 
 
 " Wit's bright rockets with their trains offre." — 
 Oliver Wendell Holmes. 
 
 '■ Let us then laiigli heartily at all hui/iorous 
 things, smile at all witty things, and be content to 
 find something wholesome and frof table even in a 
 jest.'" — Serjeant Cox. 
 
 " The protnptness to laugh is an excellent /ro- 
 genitorial foundation for the wit to come in a 
 people" — George Meredith.
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 T N the preface to ' ' Bon-Mots of the Eighteenth 
 Century " I quoted a number of more or less 
 contradictory authorities to discover what it was 
 that the last century writers meant by wit. The 
 word certainly had a wider signification in the 
 days of Addison, of Pope, of Johnson, for it 
 not only meant what it means to-day, but it 
 was frequently, perhaps most often, used of 
 cleverness. Generally a man of ability was re- 
 ferred to as a man of wit, whereas to-day we 
 should accord the title almost, if not entirely, to 
 those who either on paper or in conversation 
 seasoned their remarks with the je-ne-sais-quoi 
 of wit. And yet we are now but little nearer a 
 clear definition of the word. If we turn to the 
 dictionary we do not get very much assistance ; 
 we find that the word may be used as synony- 
 mous with mind, understanding, intellect, judg- 
 ment, sense, sagacity, etc. We then find it 
 means ' ' a man of genius " ! and at length come 
 to the following attempt in the direction we 
 desire: "The faculty of associating ideas in a 
 new and unexpected manner ' or " the associa-
 
 6 Introduction. 
 
 tion of ideas in a manner natural, but unusual 
 and striking, so as to produce surprise joined 
 with pleasure." And the dictionary describes it, 
 too, as ' ' the faculty of associating ideas in a new 
 and ingenious, and at the same time natural 
 and pleasing way, exhibited in apt language 
 and felicitous combination of words and 
 thoughts, by which unexpected resemblances 
 between things apparently unlike are vividly 
 set before the mind, so as to produce a shock 
 of pleasant surprise." This is a fairly good 
 description, though the surprise occasioned need 
 by no means be invariably pleasant. 
 
 Another point which has given rise to a good 
 deal of anmsing and more or less unsatisfactory 
 discussion, is as to the distinction between wit 
 and humour. The discussion would, it appears, 
 of necessity be doomed to failure, for, after all, 
 there is, surely, no real dividing line. Many 
 of Sydney vSmith's bon-mots are marked by 
 Hashing wit, many by fresh rollicking humour, 
 and many others by a mixture of both of these 
 qualities ; it is, for example, diflkult to decide 
 whether wit or humour predominates in the 
 following remark of the facetious Canon's : "It 
 is a great proof of shyness to crumble your 
 bread at dinner. I do it when I sit by the 
 Bishop of London, and with both hands when 
 I sit by tlic Archbishop." If the tendency has 
 been to narrow the term wit, no such narrowing 
 process has taken place with the word humour.
 
 Introduction. 7 
 
 Indeed, writers on the subject probabl)- give a 
 wider signification to the word than does the 
 average reader. Humour, despite its deeper 
 meaning to Thackeray and others, is no doubt 
 confused in the minds of many persons with 
 fun and farce. In conversation (whether spoken 
 or written) humour may be likened to the sun- 
 shine irradiating all, while wit is more akin to 
 the lightning flash — brilliant in its cause, and 
 maybe, blasting in its effect. The following 
 passages will show some nineteenth century at- 
 tempts at defining this elusive quality. The date 
 given after each name is that of the author's 
 death. 
 
 James Beattie (1803): That unexpected 
 discovery of resemblance between ideas sup- 
 posed dissimilar, which is called wit, and that 
 comic exhibition of singular characters, senti- 
 ments, and imagery, which is denominated 
 humour. . . . Men laugh at puns ; the wisest 
 and wittiest of our species have laughed at 
 them ; Queen Elizabeth, Cicero, and Shakes- 
 peare laughed at them ; clowns and children 
 laugh at them ; and most men, at one time or 
 other, are inclined to do the same : — but in 
 this sort of low wit, is it an opposition of mean- 
 ness and dignity that entertains us ? Is it not 
 rather a mixture of sameness and diversity, — 
 sameness in the sound, and diversity in the 
 signification ?
 
 8 Introduction. 
 
 SyDxNEY Smith (1845): Now this notion of 
 wit, — that it consists in putting those ideas 
 together with quickness and variety wherein 
 can be found any resemblance or congruity, in 
 order to excite pleasure in the mind, — is a little 
 too comprehensive, for it comprehends both 
 eloquence and poetry. In the first place we 
 must exclude the idea of their being put to- 
 gether quickly, as this part of the definition 
 applies only to colloquial wit. . . . The fact 
 is, that the combinations of ideas in which 
 there is resemblance and congruity, will as 
 often produce the sublime and the beautiful, as 
 well as the witty ; — a circumstance to which 
 Mr Locke does not appear to have attended in 
 the very short and cursory notice he has taken 
 of wit. Addison's papers in the Spectator on 
 this subject are more dedicated to the establish- 
 ment of a good taste in wit, than to an analysis 
 of its nature. He adds to this definition, by 
 way of explanation, that it must be such a re- 
 semblance as excites delight and surprise in 
 the reader ; but this still leaves the account of 
 wit as it found it, without discriminating the 
 witty from the sublime and the beautiful, for 
 many sublime and beautiful passages in poetry 
 entirely correspond with this definition of wit. 
 ... It is plain tiiat wit concerns itself with the 
 relations which subsist between our ideas : and 
 the first obser\'ation which occurs to any man 
 turning his attention to this subject is that it
 
 Introduction. 9 
 
 cannot, of course, concern itself with all the 
 relations which subsist between all our ideas ; 
 for then every proposition would be witty; — 
 The rain wets me through, — Butter is spread 
 upon bread, — would be propositions replete 
 with mirth ; and the moment the mind ob- 
 served the plastic and diffusible nature of butter 
 and the excellence of bread as of substratum, 
 it would become enchanted with this flash of 
 facetiousness. Therefore, the first limit to be 
 affixed to that observation of relations, which 
 produces the feeling of wit, is, that they must be 
 relations which excite surprise. If you tell me 
 that all men must die, I am very little struck 
 with what you say, because it is not an assertion 
 very remarkable for its novelty ; but if you were 
 to say that man was like a time-glass, — that 
 both must run out and both must render up 
 their dust, I should listen to you with more 
 attention, because I should feel something like 
 surprise at the sudden relation you had struck 
 out between two such apparently dissimilar 
 ideas as a man and a time-glass. ... I think 
 I have some colour for saying, that wit is pro- 
 duced by those relations between ideas which 
 excite surprise, and surprise only. Observe, I 
 am only defining the caztses of a certain feeling 
 in the mind called wit ; —I can no more define 
 the feeling itself, than I can define the flavour 
 of venison. We all seem to partake of one 
 and the other, with a very great degree of satis-
 
 10 Introduction. 
 
 faction ; but why each feeling is what it is, and 
 nothing else, I am sure I cannot pretend to 
 determine. 
 
 Thomas De Quinxey (1859): While wit is 
 a purely intellectual thing, into every act of the 
 humorous mind there is an influx of the moral 
 nature ; rays, direct or refracted, from the will 
 and the affections, from the disposition and the 
 temperament, enter into all humour ; and thence 
 it is that humour is of a diffusive quality, per- 
 vading an entire course of thought ; while wit 
 — because it has no existence apart from certain 
 logical relations of thought which are definitely 
 assignable, and can be counted even — is always 
 punctually concentrated within the circle of a 
 few words. 
 
 Leigh Hunt (1859): Wit is the polypus 
 power of the mind, by which a distinct life 
 and meaning is imparted to the different parts 
 of a sentence after they are severed from each 
 other ; or it is the prism dividing the simplicity 
 and candour of our ideas into a parcel of motley 
 and variegated hues ; or, it is the mirror broken 
 into pieces, each fragment of which reflects a 
 new light from surrounding objects : or it is the 
 untw isting the chain of our ideas, whereby each 
 link is made to hook on more readily to others 
 than when they were all bound together by 
 habit, and with a view to a sei purpose.
 
 Introduction. II 
 
 Edward William Cox (1879): The pun 
 is, indeed, one of the shapes which wit and 
 humour take, and I should question the wit or 
 the humour of any man who could not either 
 make a pun himself, or relish it when made by 
 others. I mean, of course, a true pun, having 
 a contrast of ideas, and not a mere senseless 
 play upon sound and letters. . . . Wit never 
 lies in a single idea ; it grows out of the relation- 
 ship of two or more ideas. A single word con- 
 veying a single thought is never witty, although 
 it may surprise or please. But what is the re- 
 lationship that must exist between the ideas in 
 order to constitute wit? That is the problem 
 to be solved. Some say it must be an unex- 
 pected relationship, or rather the unexpected 
 discovery of it, for that surprise is a necessary 
 ingredient. But if surprise is necessary to wit, 
 there may be surprise without the slightest 
 approach to it ; for instance, many of the finest 
 passages in our poetry surprise by apt similes 
 and unexpected beauties, yet there is not the 
 least wit in them. These passages are beautiful 
 or sublime — not witty ; and indeed, the two are 
 never found together. Where all is beauty and 
 sublimity there is no wit. Thus, by a sort of 
 exhaustive process, we have reached this point 
 — that wit is a relationship of two or more ideas 
 by which surprise is awakened. If any other 
 feeling is more powerful than surprise wit does 
 not exist.
 
 12 Introduction. 
 
 Thomas Carlyle (i88i): Humour is pro- 
 perly the exponent of low things ; that which 
 first renders them poetical to the mind. The 
 man of humour sees common life, even mean 
 life under the new light of sportfulness and love. 
 . . . Wit he (Schiller) had, such wit as keen 
 intellectual insight can give ; yet even of this 
 no large endowment. Perhaps he was too 
 honest, too sincere, for the exercise of wit ; too 
 intent on the deeper relations of things to note 
 their more transient collisions. Besides, he dealt 
 in Affirmation, and not in Negation; in which 
 last it has been said, the material of wit chiefly 
 lies. 
 
 The Century Dictionary (1891) : In more 
 recent use wit in the singular generally implies 
 comic wit ; in that sense it is different from 
 humour. One principal difference is that wit 
 always lies in some form of words, while humour 
 may be expressed by manner, — as a smile, a 
 grimace, an attitude. 
 
 Four noted wits of the nineteenth century — 
 Sydney Smith, Charles Lamb, Douglas Jerrold 
 and Theodore Hook — will be found barely re- 
 presented in the following pages, as their bon- 
 mots have been collected in the earlier volumes 
 of this series. 
 
 W. J.
 
 BON-MOTS OF THE 
 NINETEENTH CENTURY.
 
 BON-MOTS 
 
 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 QILBERT A BECKETT said once: "It 
 seems that anything Hkely to have an 
 a7ifiual increase is hable to be tithed. Could 
 not Lord S., by virtue of this hability, contrive 
 to get rid of a part of his stupidity." 
 
 "1^7 HEN the Duke of WelUngton was un- 
 popular he had all the windows in 
 Apsley House broken by the mob. 
 
 15
 
 i6 Bon-Mots 
 
 "It is strange," said A Beckett, "that the 
 Duke will not renounce his political errors, 
 seeing that ?w pains have been spared to con- 
 vince him of them." 
 
 — A/wv^— 
 
 A LUXURIOUS citizen enquired of Aber- 
 nethy, " Pray, doctor, what is the cure 
 for gout ? " 
 
 " Live upon sixpence a day, and earn it /" 
 was the prompt reply. 
 
 'T'HIS celebrated doctor much disliked full 
 descriptions of their complaints from his 
 patients, and when a lady who was consulting 
 him insisted on enlarging upon her symptoms, 
 saying, "Whenever I lift my arm it pains me 
 exceedingly," 
 
 "Why then, ma'am, ' said the unsympathetic 
 medico, " you are a great fool for doing so." 
 
 -^A/\/\f\r— 
 
 A VERBOSE patient, ill of a complaint of 
 many years' standing, having applied to 
 the famous doctor for advice, began telling 
 him tlie whole history of her health when he 
 interrupted her, asking how long her story 
 would take to tell. The answer was, about 
 twenty minutes.
 
 Of the Nineteenth Century, 17 
 
 Abernethy at once asked her to proceed, and 
 added that he had to see a patient in the next 
 street, and he hoped she would try Xo finish by 
 the time he returyied. 
 
 "\^HEN certain bubble schemes were nourish- 
 ing (more or less) in the early part of the 
 century, Abernethy met some friends who had 
 risked large sums in what ultimately proved to 
 be a fraudulent speculation ; they told him that 
 they were about to paitake of a banquet, the 
 expenses of which were to be defrayed by the 
 company. 
 
 "If I am not very much deceived," com- 
 mented the doctor, ' ' you will have nothing but 
 bubble ami squeak in a short time." 
 
 A BERNETHY'S manners were by no means 
 marked by that suaviter ifi modo which is 
 taken as a sign oi fortiter hi re, and on one 
 occasion when the Duke of York consulted him 
 the doctor is said to have stood in front of the 
 Royal patient with his hands in his pockets, 
 whistling coolly and waiting to be addressed. 
 
 ' ' I suppose you know who I am ? " asked the 
 astonished Duke. 
 
 " Suppose I do : what of that ? If your
 
 1 8 Bon-Mots 
 
 Highness of York wishes to be well you must 
 do as the Duke of Wellington often did in his 
 campaigns, cut off the supplies, and the enemy 
 will quickly leave the citadel." 
 
 -W\/\/\/V— 
 
 V/^THEN a woman called upon Abernethy 
 in great trouble because her son had 
 swallowed a coin, he asked — 
 
 "Pray, madam, was it 
 a counterfeit ? " 
 " No, sir, certainly not." 
 ' ' Then it will pass of 
 course," responded the 
 witty physician. 
 
 — 'Al\l\t^— 
 
 CIR JAMES SCAR- 
 *^ LETT. Chief Justice 
 of the Queen's Bench, once 
 received a hard hit from 
 an old barrister, Adolphus. 
 Provoked by something 
 which counsel had said, the judge who was not 
 apparently greatly interested in the case, sud- 
 denly exclaimed— 
 
 " Mr Adolphus, we arc not at tlic Old Bailey." 
 "No," was the retort, "for there the judge 
 presides and not the counsel."
 
 A 
 
 Of the Nineteenth Century. 19 
 
 LEARNED counsel in the Exchequer 
 having sUpped into a false quantity spoke 
 
 of a n idle prosequi. 
 
 "Consider, sir," said Baron Alderson, "that 
 
 this is the last day of term, and don't make 
 
 things mitiecessarily long." 
 
 — A/VW— 
 
 T \ /"HEN a barrister was addressing the Court 
 of Exchequer in an insurance dispute, he 
 was interrupted by Baron Alderson, who ob- 
 served — 
 
 " Mr Martin, do you think any office would 
 insure your life? Remember yours is a brief 
 existence." 
 
 — aAJSjv^ — 
 
 'yHP: oath was being administered on the 
 swearing in of a jury when one of the 
 men asked the Clerk of the Court to ' ' speak 
 up." 
 
 "Stop," said Baron Alderson, "are you 
 deaf?" 
 
 "Yes, of one ear." 
 
 "Then you may leave the box, for it is 
 necessary that jurymen should hear do^h 
 sides."
 
 20 
 
 Bon- Mots 
 
 "DARON ALDERSON neatly censured an 
 
 unskilful counsel by remarking " Mr , 
 
 you seem to think that the art of cross-examina- 
 tion is to examine crossly." 
 
 A BACHELOR who had beautifully fitted 
 up his rooms, was somewhat noted for 
 his want of hospi- 
 tality, and on show- 
 ing his place to Al- 
 vanley, the latter 
 promptly said — 
 
 " H'm ! well / 
 should like a little 
 less gilding and 
 more carving." 
 
 — A/vVw— 
 
 J OKI) A L VAN- 
 LEY spoke of 
 a rich friend who 
 had become poor, 
 as a man who 
 " muddled away 
 liis fortune in pay- 
 ing his tradesmen's 
 bills ! " 
 — vVVW—
 
 Of the Nineteenth Century. 21 
 
 'X'HIS nobleman returning from fighting a 
 duel, gave a guinea to the hackney coach- 
 man who had driven him to and from the 
 scene of combat. Surprised at the sum the 
 driver said — 
 
 " My lord, I only took you to " 
 
 "My friend," interrupted Alvanley, "the 
 guinea is not for taking me there, but for 
 d ringing me back." 
 
 AT a fete at Hatfield House tablea7ix vivants 
 were among the chief amusements. Scenes 
 from Ivanhoe were among the selections, but 
 Lady Salisbury was unable to find a guest who 
 would pose as Isaac of York. At length she 
 begged Lord Alvanley "to make the set com- 
 plete by doing the Jew." 
 
 "Anything within my power your lady- 
 ship may command," replied Alvanley, "but, 
 though no man in England has tried oftener, 
 I never could do a Je^v in my life." 
 
 ^^/"-■^LKING one Sunday morning up St 
 James's Street, Lord Alvanley saw a 
 hearse standing at the door of a gambling 
 "hell." Going up to the mutes, he took off 
 his hat and said with a polite bow, 
 
 " Is the devil really dead, gentlemen?"
 
 22 Bon- Mots 
 
 /^NE of Lord Alvanley's witticisms gave rise 
 to the belief that Solomon, the Jew money- 
 lender, caused the downfall and disappearance 
 of Beau Brummell. On some friends remarking 
 that had the Beau remained in London some- 
 thing might have been done for him by his old 
 associates, Alvanley answered — 
 
 ' ' He has done quite right to be off ; it was 
 Solomon's judgment. " 
 
 — fJ\/\/\r- — 
 
 CIR LUMLEY SKEFFLNGTON'S spec- 
 tacle of T/ie Sleeping Beauty, produced at 
 great expense on the stage, having reappeared 
 after some years' seclusion, Alvanley on being 
 asked by a friend to name a smart-looking 
 individual whom they met, said — 
 
 "It is a second edition of The Sleepi?ig 
 Beauty, bound in calf, richly gilt and illustrated 
 by many cuts." 
 
 —'AlSjSt.r— 
 
 A GAY man named Judge, imprisoned in 
 the King's Bench, was said to be the 
 first instance of a judge reaching the bench 
 without having been called to the bar. 
 
 "Well," answered Alvanley, "many a bad 
 judge has been taken from the bench and placed 
 at the bar."
 
 Of the Nineteenth Century, 
 
 23 
 
 VyHEN Alvanley was proceeding to the 
 appointed rendezvous to take part 
 in a duel, the friend who accompanied him 
 said : 
 
 "Let what will come of it, Alvanley, the 
 world is extremely indebted to 
 you for calling out this fellow as 
 you have done." 
 
 ' ' The world indebted to me, 
 my dear fellow ! I am devilishly 
 glad to hear it, for then the world 
 and I are quits." 
 
 CAYS Samuel Rogers :— Monk 
 Lewis was a great favourite 
 at Oatlands (the Duke of York's 
 residence). One day after the 
 dinner, as the Duchess was leav- 
 ing the room, she whispered 
 something into Lewis's ears. 
 He was much affected, his eyes 
 filling with tears. We asked 
 what was the matter. 
 
 'Oh," replied Lewis, "the Duchess spoke 
 so rery kindly to me ! " 
 
 "My dear fellow," said Colonel Armstrong, 
 "pray don't cry, I daresay she didn't mean 
 it."
 
 24 Bon-Mots 
 
 "XXTHEN Lady Ashburton was seriously ill 
 and her medical attendant made known 
 her disease, she met a friend, saying, " You see 
 I have been crying ; but tears must be good 
 for — for — for the dropsy." 
 
 — wWVv— 
 
 " TN talking of my own compositions," says 
 Thomas Moore, "I mentioned the ten- 
 dency I had sometimes to run into consecutive 
 fifths, and adding sometime after that Bishop 
 was the person who now revised my music, 
 Lord Auckland said ' Other Bishops take care 
 of the tithes but he looks after the fifths.' " 
 
 — ^/WVv^ 
 
 A N anecdote of Dr l^arnes, who is now about 
 ninety-five years of age (says Thomas 
 Moore) rather amused me. Being sometimes 
 inclined to sleep a little during the sermon a 
 friend who was with him in his pew one 
 Sunday lately, having joked with him on his 
 having nodded now and then, Barnes insisted 
 he had been awake all the time. 
 
 "Well then," said his friend, "canyon tell 
 me what the sermon was about?" "Yes, I 
 can," he answcrefl, " it was about lialf an hour 
 too long."
 
 B 
 
 Of the Nineteenth Century. 25 
 
 ARRINGTON, a noted pickpocket, is re- 
 sponsible for the following famous couplet, 
 which concluded a prologue he wrote for a farce 
 acted at Botany Bay— 
 
 " True patriots we, for be it understood, 
 We left our country for our country's good." 
 
 "D EDMOND BARRY in criticising a fellow- 
 actor admitted that he had shone in a 
 certain character— 
 
 "Yes, he played that part pretty well; he 
 hadn't ti?ne to study it I" 
 
 -^A/W- — 
 
 A MAN who had travelled much in America 
 was telling long rhodomontade stories 
 about the natives, at a small dinner party at 
 Lord Barrymore's when the host, with a sly 
 wink at the company, asked — 
 
 " Did you ever meet any of the Chick-chows, 
 Sir Arthur?" 
 
 " Oh, several ; a very cruel race." 
 
 ' ' The Cherry-chows ? " 
 
 "Oh, very much among them: they were 
 particularly kind to our men." 
 
 "And pray, did you know anything of the 
 Totteroddy-bow-wows ? " 
 
 This however was too much, and the poor 
 traveller became aware that he was being 
 quizzed.
 
 26 Bon- Mots 
 
 CYDNEY BLANXHARD once rather dis- 
 concerted a number of the chief con- 
 tributors to Punch. The occasion was a dis- 
 cussion, across the walnuts and 
 the wine, of "known wants" in 
 the world of books. As though 
 suddenly struck with the hap- 
 piest of happy thoughts he ex- 
 claimed he would go home 
 forthwith and start — a COMIC 
 Punch ! 
 
 — WVW— 
 
 'X'HE then President of the 
 French Republic having 
 asked Lady Blessington how 
 long she purposed remaining in 
 France, she coolly enquired — 
 "And you?" 
 
 /"^NE of Bishop Blomfield's best bon-tfiots\\7\.s 
 uttered during his last illness. He inquired 
 what had been the subjects of his two Arch- 
 deacon's charges, and was told that one was 
 on the art of making sermons and the other on 
 churchyards. 
 
 "Oh, I see," said the Bishop, "composition 
 and de-composition ! "
 
 Of the Nineteenth Century. 27 
 
 V\/'HEN standing in 1837 (as plain Mr Dis- 
 raeli) for Marylebone, the Elarl of 
 Beaconsfield was asked by one of the electors 
 ' ' on what he stood ? ' ' 
 
 " On my head ! " was the ready reply. 
 
 A FRIEND of Bishop Blomfield's interceded 
 with him on behalf of a clergyman who 
 was constantly in debt, but was a man of talents 
 and an eloquent preacher ; " In fact, my lord, 
 he is quite a St Paul." 
 
 " Yes," replied the Bishop drilv, " in prisons 
 
 oftr 
 
 -w\/\/Vv— 
 
 \A/'HEN, at the consecration of a church, 
 where the choral parts of the service had 
 been a failure the incumbent asked the Bishop 
 what he thought of the music, he replied, 
 "Well, at least it was according to Scriptural 
 precedent — the singers zvent before, the minstrels 
 follozi'ed after." 
 
 'X'HE Bishop's definition of an archdeacon 
 has become classic. "An archdeacon," 
 said he, " is an ecclesiastical officer, who per- 
 forms archidiaconal functions."
 
 28 
 
 Bon- Mots 
 
 "DOOTH, the eminent tragedian, had a broken 
 nose, referring to which a familiar friend 
 said, " I like your acting, Mr Booth ; but, to be 
 frank with you — I caji't get over yotir ?iose/" 
 
 " No wonder, madam," said he, " the bridge 
 is gone ! " 
 
 TIT" HEN Lord Rowen became a member of 
 the House of Lords a friend said to him, 
 " You need do nothing but assent to the 
 judgments of your colleagues." 
 
 "In that case," said Bowen, 
 "I had better take the title of 
 Concurry." 
 
 COMEONE having mentioned a 
 work entitled, " A Defence of 
 the Church of England, by a 
 Beneficed Clergyman," Bowen 
 suggested, " In other words, a de- 
 fence of the Thirty-Nine Articles 
 by a ho7ia-Jide holder for value. ' 
 
 -^At\[\f>r— 
 
 A JURIST was neatly defined by the witty 
 
 judge as "a person who knows a little 
 
 about tlic laws of every country exce])t his own."
 
 Of the Nineteenth Century. 29 
 
 ■\^7"HEN Bowen was in America with Lord 
 Houghton he was invited to a grand 
 party at Richmond. The Governor of Virginia, 
 formerly a Confederate-General, who had been 
 wounded in battle, apologised for retiring early 
 because he had a ball in his back. Bowen 
 promptly and amusingly remarked that such an 
 arriere pens^e was a sufficient excuse. 
 
 A PUBLISHER who was supposed to drive 
 hard bargains with authors, built a church 
 at his own expense. 
 
 "Oh," said Lord Bowen, "the old story. 
 ' Sanguis martyrum semen ecclesice.' " 
 
 —MJSJV' — 
 
 VyHEN the Prince of Wales's Httle dog at 
 Homburg would not follow his master's 
 heel, Bowen .slily remarked that it was the 
 only thing there that did not run after his 
 Royal Highness. 
 
 'T' HE following conundrum dates from Bowen's 
 Oxford period : — ' ' Why is a certain famous 
 cricketer rightly called a good bat ? Because a 
 bat is a little creature which goes in very early 
 in the morning and does not come out till very 
 late in the evening."
 
 30 Bon-Mots 
 
 CIR JOHX BOWRING during a theological 
 conversation is said to have summed up liis 
 objections to the marriage service used by the 
 Church of England as follows : — " Look at it ; 
 ' with this ring I thee wed ' — that's sorcery ; 
 ' with my body 1 thee worship ' — that's idolatry ; 
 and ' with all my worldly goods I thee endow ' 
 — that's a lie ! " 
 
 — aAAA^ — 
 
 JOHN BRIGHT was once walking with one 
 of his sons — then a schoolboy — past the 
 Guard's monument in Waterloo Place. The 
 boy caught sight of the single word inscribed 
 upon it, "Crimea," and asked his father what 
 it signified. 
 
 The statesman's answer was as brief as the 
 inscription, but it was emphatic, "a crime." 
 
 T ORD KLDON having resigned the Great 
 Seal, a barrister lamented this, saying — 
 
 " To me his loss is irreparable. Lord Eldon 
 always behaved to me like a father." 
 
 "Yes," quietly remarked Brougham, "I 
 understand he always treated you like a child." 
 
 r\Y a popular preacher Lord Brougham said 
 his style was so inflated that one of his 
 sermons would fill a balloon.
 
 Of the Nineteenth Century. 
 
 31 
 
 'X*HE Duke of Gloucester, conversing with 
 Brougham on the burning topic of 
 Reform, grew so warm in the argument that 
 he observed hastily that the Chancellor was 
 very near a fool. 
 
 Brougham readily replied that he could not 
 think of contradicting the Duke, and declared 
 that he fully saw the force of his Royal High- 
 ness's positiojt.
 
 32 Bon-Mots 
 
 "L> ROUGH AM and Pollock were bitter rivals 
 as counsel. In a lead mine case the 
 latter, who was for the proprietors of the 
 mine, complained of the encroachments which 
 Brougham's clients had made upon the 
 property, which he represented as of great 
 value. Brougham said that the estimate 
 which his learned friend formed of the 
 property was vastly exaggerated, but that it 
 was no wonder that a person who found it 
 so easy to get gold for his lead should 
 appreciate that heavy metal so highly. 
 
 /^N another occasion Pollock laid down a 
 point of law in a dogmatic fashion. 
 "Mr Pollock," said Brougham, with delicious 
 sarcasm, "perhaps, before you rule the point, 
 you will suffer his Lordship to submit a few 
 observations on it to your consideration." 
 
 A I'RIIONI) of Lord Hrougliam's wishing to 
 have his portrait taken, asked the states- 
 man who would be the best artist to give the 
 commission to. 
 
 " Rosa Honheur, Landscor, or Andsell," 
 promptly answered Brougham. 
 
 " But they are all animal painters." 
 " That's just what I meant."
 
 Of the Nineteenth Century. 
 
 33 
 
 TDEAU BRUMMELL was at a party where 
 his snuff-box being particularly admired 
 was handed round for inspection. One gentle- 
 man finding it difficult to raise the lid foolishly 
 applied a dessert knife to 
 it. The Beau was in an 
 agony as to the fate of his 
 treasure, but fearful of being 
 impolite, so, addressing the 
 host, he said — 
 
 "Will you be good 
 enough to tell your friend 
 that my snuff-box is not an 
 oyster." 
 
 — WV\A/^ 
 
 "LJ E was 
 
 dressed, 
 
 so well 
 said one 
 
 friend of another to Beau Brummell, " that 
 people turned to look at him. " 
 
 'Then he was not well dressed," said the 
 Beau emphatically. 
 
 -^AA/V^ 
 
 A SKED by a friend if he did not think Miss 
 Kelly's acting in the J/a/^/ and the Magpie 
 exceedingly natural Byron replied, ' ' I really am 
 no judge, I was never hmocent of stealing a 
 spoon." 
 
 c
 
 34 
 
 Bon-Mots 
 
 /^HIEF JUSTICE BURKE was dining with 
 the Duke of Richmond, when Lord Lieu- 
 tenant of Ireland, at Sir Wheeler Cuff's. On 
 their entertainer getting drunk, and falling 
 from his chair, the Duke endeavoured to lift 
 him up, when Burke exclaimed — 
 
 " How, your Grace ! you, an Orangeman and 
 a Protestant, assist in elevating the host ! " 
 
 — A/\/\/V^ — 
 
 T ORD BYRON sat in Parliament for but a 
 very short period, but during it a petition 
 was presented setting forth the wretched con- 
 dition of the Irish peasantry. The petition 
 was but very coldly received by the Lords 
 spiritual and temporal, and this called forth 
 from the poet — 
 
 "Ah, what a misfortune it is for the Irish 
 that they were not boni black! They would 
 then have had friends in both houses." 
 
 — "'AAA"— 
 
 /^N the anniversary of his marriage Byron 
 wrote the following epigram, "To Pene- 
 lope," in a letter to Moore — 
 
 " This day of all our days has done 
 The worst for me and you ; 
 'Tis now six years since we were one, 
 And five since we were two''
 
 Of the Nineteenth Century. 35 
 
 "THOMAS MOORE speaking of first love 
 compared it to a potato, because ' ' it shoots 
 from the eyes." 
 
 ' ' Or rather," added Lord Byron, ' ' because it 
 becomes less hy pairing." 
 
 T ORD DUDLEY, then plain Mr Ward, 
 began life as a Whig, but when older 
 and titled he turned Tory. Some time after 
 the change, Byron on being asked what it 
 would take to re-W/iig' Dudley said that "he 
 must first be re- Warded." 
 
 'yHE following epigram despite its coarse- 
 ness is too clever not to be quoted among 
 Byron's good things — 
 
 " A lady has told me, and in her own house, 
 She does not regard me three skips of a louse; 
 I forgive the dear creature whate'er she has said, 
 For women will talk of what runs in their head I " 
 
 'yXT'HEN Joseph Hume was making his 
 strongest retrenching and popular efforts 
 in Parliament, Canning remarked, "Hume is 
 an extraordinary ordinary man."
 
 36 Bon-Mots. 
 
 /^ANNING and a friend were looking at a 
 picture of the Deluge, in which an elephant 
 was seen struggling in the waters, while the ark 
 had floated some distance away. 
 
 "I wonder," said the statesman's friend, 
 "that the elephant did not secure an inside 
 place." 
 
 "He was too late," my friend, suggested 
 Canning ; "he was detained packing up his 
 trunk." 
 
 ''PHE person who does not relish the following 
 reply of Canning's ' ' can have no percep- 
 tion of real wit," according to Tom Moore. 
 
 A lady having asked the silly question, " Why 
 have they made the spaces in the iron gate at 
 Spring Gardens so narrow?" Canning answered 
 " Oh, madam, because such very fat people used 
 to go through." 
 
 /^ANNING protested against a friend ex- 
 patiating on the beauty of the French 
 language: "Why, what on earth, sir, can be 
 expected of a language which has but one word 
 for liking and hn'ing, and jDuts a fine woman 
 and a leg of mutton on a par — J'aime Julie, 
 J'aime un gigot /"
 
 38 Bon-Mots 
 
 T TPON a very tall and very stout Oxford 
 friend Canning wrote the following 
 epigram — 
 
 That the stones of our chapel are both black and white, 
 
 Is most undeniably true ; 
 But as Douglas walks o'er them both morning and 
 night, 
 
 It's a wonder they're not black and blue. 
 
 HTHE Assistant Clerk in the House of Com- 
 mons remarked to Canning — 
 
 "You have heard, sir, that Cross has killed 
 his elephant ? " 
 
 "Yes," said the statesman, "Cross people 
 often lose their best friends for a trifle." 
 
 — A/\/V\A — 
 
 A FTER Legge was appointed Bishop of Ox- 
 ford, he had the temerity to ask two 
 wits, Canning and Frere, to be present at his 
 first sermon. 
 
 " Well," said he to Canning, " how did you 
 like it?" 
 
 'Why, I thought it rather — short." 
 
 " Oh, yes, I am aware that it was short ; but 
 I was afraid of being tedious." 
 
 " You Wilt' tedious. "
 
 Of the Nineteenth Century. 
 
 39 
 
 r\N one occasion Fitzgerald recited a poem 
 of his own at the Literary Fund anniver- 
 Poefa nascitnr nonjitz," said Canning. 
 
 sary. 
 
 j'ANv^ 
 
 "\ XT' HEN Charles Wynne was suggested as 
 
 Speaker, Canning said it would never do 
 
 to have a man with such a voice, for members 
 
 would feel tempted to address him as "Mr 
 Squeaker." 
 
 /"'^ANNING, on being asked what was the 
 German for astronomy, answered readily, 
 though wholly ignorant of the language, 
 " Oh, twinkle-craft, to be sure."
 
 40 Bon-Mots 
 
 '\7'ERY neat was Canning at times in his House 
 of Commons retorts — "Gentlemen oppo- 
 site," he said on one occasion, "are always 
 talking of the people as distinguished from the 
 rest of the nation. But strip the nation of its 
 aristocracy, strip it of its magistrates, strip it of 
 its clergy, of its merchants, of its gentry, and I 
 no more recognise a people than I recognise in 
 the bird of Diogenes the man of Plato." 
 
 — A/\/\/\/v. — 
 
 A T an annual dinner of the Chapel Royal a 
 guest plagued Edward Cannon with a 
 long harangue on fencing. The witty cleric 
 endured it for some time with a certain show of 
 patience. At length his tormentor remarked 
 that Sir George D. was a great fencer. 
 
 " I don't know, sir," burst out Cannon, 
 ' ' whether Sir George is a great fencei-, but I 
 do know Sir George is a great fool ! " 
 
 ' ' Possibly he is," said the other a bit surprised, 
 " but then, you know, a man may be both." 
 
 "So I see, sir," said Cannon pointedly, and 
 turned away. 
 
 " A/TACAULAY is well for a while," said 
 Thomas Carlylc, " VnU one wouldn't 
 liz'C under Niagara."
 
 Of the Nineteenth Century 41 
 
 C PEAKING of human felicity in terms of 
 arithmetic he said, "The product of 
 happiness is to be found not so much in in- 
 creasing your numerator as in lessening your 
 denominator." 
 
 "^/"HEN the Here and the Hereafter were 
 being contrasted Carlyle said — 
 " We must make people feel that heaven and 
 hell are not places for drinking sweet wine, or 
 being broiled alive, some distance off, but they 
 are here before us and within us, in the street, 
 and at the fireside." 
 
 r\F Leigh Hunt he spoke with savage sarcasm. 
 ' ' He is dishonest even for a Cockney — he 
 has learnt from that kind of upbringing to re- 
 gard shoemakers and tailors as/erce naturce — 
 creatures that you are authorised to make any 
 use of without notion of payment." 
 
 —^Al\f\J^r— 
 
 TV/j" ANY of Carlyle's sayings show much of the 
 character of his writings. Of the fire- 
 works on the declaration of peace after the 
 Crimean war he said, "There is something 
 awful, and something childish, too, in them — 
 a sort of hell and Tommv affair."
 
 42 Bon-Mots 
 
 A SCHOOL for public speaking ! I wish we 
 had a school for private thought. 
 
 — WV'W— 
 
 /^ARLYLE could cleverly sketch character in 
 the course of conversation. 
 " I daresay Lord Raglan," said he, "will rise 
 quietly at the last trump, and 
 remain entirely composed dur- 
 ing the whole day, and show 
 the most perfect civility to both 
 oarties." 
 
 pURGATORY, the Sage of 
 
 Chelsea described as, "a 
 
 sort of gentleman's waiting 
 
 room, till the train comes by." 
 
 — ^AA/V' — 
 
 'IX/'HEN, owing to failing 
 health, in 1868, Lord 
 Derby resigned the Premier- 
 ship and Disraeli was given the 
 task of forming a ministry. Lord Chelmsford 
 said "The old Covernment was the Derby, 
 this will be the Hoax."
 
 Of the Nineteenth Century. 43 
 
 ■pjISCUSSING the pohtical situation with 
 Lord Clarendon in 1829 Macaulay ex- 
 pressed curiosity as to the terms in which the 
 Duke of WeUington would recommend the 
 Catholic Relief Bill to the Peers. 
 
 " Oh," said Lord Clarendon, " it will be easy 
 enough. He'll say : ' My lords ! Attention ! 
 Right about face ! March ! ' " 
 
 pLEADING before the House of Lords in 
 an appeal case, Mr John Clerk happened 
 once to say, " In plain English, ma Lords." 
 
 "In plain Scotch, you mean, Mr Clerk," 
 jocosely interrupted Lord Eldon. 
 
 " Na matter," retorted the ready advocate, 
 "in plain cotnmon sense, ma Lords, an' that's 
 the same in a' languages, ye'U ken." 
 
 -ANV'f— 
 
 pJARTLEY COLERIDGE amusingly de- 
 scribed Harriet Martineau as a " mono- 
 maniac about ^t-^^^thing." 
 
 —A/VVVv— 
 
 " COME men," said Coleridge, "are like 
 musical glasses — to produce their finest 
 tones, you must keep them u<et.''
 
 44 Bon-Mots. 
 
 /^OLERIDGE in conversation once said: 
 " Dr William Smith, of Norwich, asking 
 me what I thought of the Mofithly Revieiv, and 
 its editor, Dr Aiken, I was provoked by his 
 evident wish that I should say something in its 
 favour, to reply, ' That all men of science or 
 literature could attest that the one was a void 
 Aiken, and the other an aching void.' " 
 
 WERY happy was Coleridge's epigram on a 
 minor poet of his day — 
 
 " Swans sing before they die ; 'twere no bad thing 
 Should certain persons die before they sing." 
 
 — /^WV^ 
 
 /^OLERIDGE is said to have been so con- 
 spicuously bad an equestrian, that when 
 on horseback he generally attracted unfavour- 
 able notice. Riding once along a country road 
 he met a wag who thought to get a laugh at 
 his expense. 
 
 "I say, young man," cried the rustic, "did 
 you see a tailor on the road ? " 
 
 "Yes," replied the poet readily, "and he 
 told me that if I went a little further I should 
 meet x\. goose.'"
 
 46 Bon-Mots 
 
 T^O most men, the poet happily said, "experi- 
 ence is Uke the stern lights of a ship, which 
 illumine onl\' the track it has passed." 
 
 X/OU abuse snuff! Perhaps it is the final 
 cause of the human nose. 
 
 — AAyvv^ — 
 
 "y RUTH is a good dog ; but beware of bark- 
 ing too close to the heels of an error, lest 
 you get your brains kicked out. 
 
 — aa/w^- 
 
 "\X^HEN Leopold said that he was called to 
 ' ' reij^fi over four million noble Belgians," 
 Coleridge remarked that it would have been 
 more appropriate if he had said that he was 
 called to " rein in four million restive asses." 
 
 —^J\f\JV^— 
 
 /^OLERIDGE spoke of a passage in an 
 author which he had been reading as 
 "the sublime dashed to pieces by cutting too 
 close with the fiery four-in-hand round the 
 corner of nonsense ! "
 
 Of the Nineteenth Century. 47 
 
 lyTACKIXTOSH having intimated his sur- 
 prise at Coleridge's high estimation of 
 one so much his inferior as Wordsworth, 
 Coleridge was indignant and finely replied, 
 
 "I do not wonder that you should think 
 Wordsworth a small man — he runs so far 
 before us all, that he dzvarfs himself in the 
 distance."
 
 48 Bon-Mots 
 
 C PEAKING of his old schoolmaster Cole- 
 ridge said ' ' that he hoped his soul was in 
 heaven, and that he was borne there by a host 
 of cherubs all face and wing, and without any- 
 thing to excite his whipping propensities." 
 
 —A/\/\/V^— 
 
 /^OLERIDGE offended a Methodist lady who 
 was his partner at whist by calling for her 
 last truvip, and confessing that though he 
 always thought her an angel, he had not before 
 known her to be an archangel. 
 
 T ISTON and his wife had spent the evening 
 with George Colman, the younger, when 
 as it was getting late the comedian said to his 
 wife (a very /<?//Vt' person) "Come, Mrs L. let 
 us be going." 
 
 " Mrs L. indeed ! " said Colman, " Mrs Inch 
 you mean." 
 
 e IR THOMAS COULSON who was present 
 at the burning of Urury Lane Theatre, 
 observing several engines hastening to the spot 
 after the fire was extinguished, remarked to a 
 friend that they were " in^ens cui lumen 
 adeptum."
 
 Of the Nineteenth Century 49 
 
 /^NE day when some one remarked that 
 ' ' Christianity is part and parcel of this 
 law of the land." Lord Cranworth, then plain 
 Mr Rolfe, said— 
 
 ' ' Were you ever em- 
 ployed to draw up an 
 indictment against a 
 man for not loving his 
 neighbour as himself?" 
 
 T ORD DERBY, hav- 
 ing been asked 
 why he did not confer 
 the Order of the Thistle 
 upon a certain Scots 
 peer, remarked that the 
 reason was obvious, 
 the noble lord was "such an ass he'd eat it." 
 
 A UBREY DE VERE, the distinguished poet, 
 described the Tories as persons who 
 wished to uninvent printing, and undiscover 
 America. 
 
 — ^/\/\/Vv^ — 
 
 A YOUNG Poet having offered Charles 
 
 Dickens some verses entitled Orient Pearls 
 
 at Random Strung, for one of his magazines 
 
 the novelist brief y replied, "Too much string." 
 
 D
 
 50 Bon-Mots 
 
 COM EON E peevishly complained to Dr 
 Donaldson (a noted Cambridge tutor of his 
 day), " You take the words out of my mouth.' 
 "You are very hard to please," replied 
 Donaldson, "would you have liked it better if 
 I had made you swallow them ?" 
 
 -^AAfj^r— 
 
 'X'HE term sound Divhie being used, Crabb 
 Robinson has recorded. I said, " I do 
 not know what is a sound divine," quoting 
 Pope — 
 
 " Dulness is sacred in a sound divine," 
 
 " But I do," said Donaldson, " it is a divine 
 who is vox et prceterea 7iihU." 
 
 -/AAA'— 
 
 T ADY C". offering a wagor, was asked what 
 it should be. 
 
 ' ' A featlier from one of my wings when I 
 am an angel." 
 
 " 1 would recommend your lady.ship, " said 
 Donaldson, "to abstain from such wagers. 
 There is great danger, if you do not, that you 
 may he pliickcJ.'
 
 Of the Nineteenth Century. 51 
 
 COMEONE remarked at a dinner-table, "If 
 you give me at dinner a good dish of fish 
 after soup, I want no more." 
 
 "That is not my doctrine," said Dr Donald- 
 son ' ' on such a theme I am content to be held 
 superficial y 
 
 — vv/Wv— 
 
 Tr\'ORSAY was irritated at receiving anony- 
 mously some offensive verses sealed with 
 a wafer and thimble. 
 These verses caused 
 great laughter at the 
 Beau's expense; 
 D'Orsay, however, 
 had a shrewd idea 
 as to their author, 
 a would-be dandy, 
 deeply marked by 
 smallpox, and meet- 
 ing him at a club he 
 called out to him, 
 ' ' The next time, vion 
 cher, that you write 
 an anonymous letter, 
 don't seal it with the 
 end of your nose." 
 
 -^AAM-
 
 52 Bon-Mots 
 
 r*RABB ROBINSON records the following 
 witticism by his friend W. B. Donne. 
 Being one day at Trinity College to dinner, he 
 was asked to write a motto for the college 
 snuff-box, which was always circulating on the 
 dinner-table. 
 
 "Considering where we are," said Donne, 
 "there could be nothing better than Quicunqne 
 vultl" 
 
 —'Al\/\l^r— 
 
 TyrONCKTON MILNES having proposed 
 to pay the Irish clergy, D'Orsay called 
 out — 
 
 " L'Eglise Catholique en Irlande ! C'est 
 im payable ! " 
 
 CIR JOHN DOYLE, having been severely 
 wounded by a highwayman's pistol-shot 
 was carried to a house near by, and a surgeon 
 summoned. 
 
 " I am afraid. Sir John," the doctor remarked, 
 " that you are suffering great pain?" 
 
 " Very great, indeed," was the reply. 
 
 " May I ask," continued the surgeon, " what 
 kind of pain ?" 
 
 " Well," retorted the old soldier, who never 
 lost either his readiness or his good humour, 
 "it is not easy to describe exactly, so suppose 
 we call it a shooting pain."
 
 Of the Nineteenth Century. 53 
 
 A POLITICIAN had changed his party and 
 had been rewarded for his opportune 
 apostacy by office. Sir John Doyle attacked 
 him in a speech full of sarcastic banter. The 
 victim answered in a A^ery solemn tone, 
 
 ' ' My gallant and honourable friend is, I 
 know, well versed in the classics ; these are 
 not times for so light and flippant a style, and 
 I must beg of him to remember the maxim — 
 Duke est desipere hi loco." 
 
 Sir John jumped up at once and readily re- 
 taliated as follows : " I am very much obliged 
 to my right honourable friend for his classical 
 quotation, and beg to return it to him with a 
 literal construe — Duke est, it is pleasant ; de- 
 sipere, to make a fool of one's self: in loco, in 
 place." 
 
 T ORD DUDLEY (the Ward, to whom 
 Rogers' famous epigram refers) referring 
 to Rogers well known cadaverous appearance 
 asked him how it was, seeing that he was so 
 well off, that he did not set up a hearse. 
 
 -WWW— 
 
 "DEING asked if he had read one of the 
 " Waverley" novels Lord Dudley said — 
 ' ' Why, I am ashamed to say I have not ; 
 but I have hopes it will soon blow over."
 
 54 Bon- Mots 
 
 A VIENNA lady visiting England remarked 
 to Lord Dudley. 
 
 ' ' What wretchedly bad French you all speak 
 in London ! " 
 
 "It is true, Madame," he answered, "we 
 have not enjoyed the advantage of having the 
 French twice in our capital." 
 
 ^A/\/\/Vv— 
 
 CERGEANT VAUGHAN in a cause being 
 tried in the Court of Common Pleas asked 
 a witness a question which was one rather of 
 law than oifaci. 
 
 " Brother Vaughan," interposed Lord Chief 
 Justice Eldon, " this is not quite fair ; you wish 
 the witness to give you, for 7iothiiig, what you 
 would not give him under two guineas " 
 
 — WVVv^ 
 
 "ryHEN Eldon was told that the mob had 
 taken away the horses from Erskine's 
 carriage after a famous trial, and drawn him 
 home in triumph to Sergeant's Inn, he asked 
 " If they had ever returned them ?" 
 
 — A/WV^- 
 
 V^rilEN suffering from gout in both feet — 
 where, though painful, it is not danger- 
 ous — Eldon said "I do not much mind gout 
 below the knee, provided it is not ' ne plus ultra.' "
 
 Of the Nineteenth Century. 
 
 55 
 
 JOSEPH HUME in one of his speeches 
 J attacked Lord Ekion calling him a ' ' curse 
 to the country," and about the same time called 
 the Bishop of London 
 a "firebrand." Said 
 Lord Eldop, " I met 
 the Bishop at the Ex- 
 hibition, and as it hap- 
 pened to be an uncom- 
 monly cold day I told 
 him that t/ie airse of the 
 country was so very cold 
 that I hoped he would 
 allow him to keep hini- 
 self warm by sitting next 
 to ihejirebrand." 
 
 A FTER the Ministry, 
 in which Eldon 
 was Lord Chancellor, had resigned, a friend 
 meeting him, said — 
 
 "You are now then, my lord, one of the 
 Ex's." 
 
 "Yes," said Eldon, ' ' and in this instance the 
 X's were far from Y's." 
 
 T ORD ELDON himself related the following : 
 
 Lord Donoughmore came to me upon the 
 
 woolsack upon a day in which something was to
 
 56 Bon-Mots 
 
 pass on the Catholic question, and an eminent 
 prelate it was understood was to vote with 
 Donoughmore. Entering into conversation 
 with me, Lord Donoughmore said, 
 
 " What say you to us now ? We have got a 
 great card to-night." 
 
 I said, ' ' What card do you mean ? I know 
 the Kitig is not with you ; there is no Queen ; 
 there is only another great card." 
 
 "What," said Donoughmore, "the Right 
 Reverend Prelate a Knave/" 
 
 "You have called him so," said I, " I have 
 not." 
 
 'T' HE old Duke of Norfolk having fallen fast 
 asleep in the House of Lords was evoking 
 much amusement by the din caused by "that 
 tuneful nightingale, his nose," when the Lord 
 Chancellor announced from the woolsack with 
 solemn emphasis that the Commons had sent 
 up a Bill for "enclosing and dividing Great 
 Snoring (Snorum) in the County of Norfolk ! " 
 
 ■Af\J\j\r^ — 
 
 A 
 
 C0UNSI<2L at the Chancery Bar, by way 
 of denying collusion suspected to exist 
 between him and the counsel representing 
 another party, said.
 
 Of the Nineteenth Century. 57 
 
 " My Lord, I assure your Lordship there is 
 no understanding between us." 
 
 The Chancellor observed, ' ' I once heard a 
 Squire in the House of Commons say of him- 
 self and another Squire, ' We have never, 
 through life, had but one idea betzveen Jts,' but 1 
 tremble for the suitors when I am told that two 
 eminent practitioners at my bar have no tinder- 
 standing between them ! " 
 
 — ^AA/W— 
 
 /^N the memorable day when the case of 
 Metcalfe v. Thompson was decided in the 
 Court of Chancery, Eldon showed much wit. 
 The case was an application to dissolve an in- 
 junction against an invasion of the plaintiffs 
 patent for hair brushes, the invention being 
 that some of the hairs should be long and 
 others short. No counsel appearing for the 
 plaintiff, the Chancellor said. 
 
 " This injunction must be brushed off, unless 
 some counsel be had in a few minutes to 
 support it." 
 
 The brush of an old wig-maker being pro- 
 duced on behalf of the defendant, and being 
 the same to a hair as the plaintiffs brush, the 
 Chancellor said, waggishly, 
 
 "Is it a Foxs brush? (alluding to a well- 
 known old hair dresser in the Temple. ) This 
 old brush Mr Treslove, is rather an odd sort of
 
 58 
 
 Bon-Mots 
 
 thing ; but when you and I get as old, and our 
 tresses have been as well worn as these, we 
 shall look, perhaps, quite as antique." 
 
 "My Lord," said Treslove, "I advised my 
 client not to show his brush." 
 
 "There, I must say, that you being a 
 pursuer was at fault ; for if an injunction is 
 granted by this Court, the article on which the 
 injunction is granted must be lodged with the 
 Master. I remember, in a case oiivasfe, that 
 a person who made an affidavit actually affixed 
 his oak trees to his affi- 
 davit, to show the Court 
 of what nature the trees 
 were." 
 
 —N\/\J\f^— 
 
 TORD ELLEN- 
 ^ BOROUGH on 
 observing a noble orator 
 yawn during one of his 
 own speeches said, 
 fellow docs show some 
 but this is encroaching 
 
 "Come, come, the 
 symptoms of taste, 
 on our province." 
 
 — A/\/\/V>. — 
 
 " TVT^ Lord," said a barrister fond of figura- 
 tive oratory, in a case before Lord 
 Ellenborougli, "I appear l)cforo you in the
 
 Of the Nineteenth Century. 59 
 
 character of an advocate from the city of 
 London ; my Lx)rd, the city of London herself 
 appears before you as a supphant for justice. 
 My Lord, it is written in the book of nature " 
 
 "What book?" interrupted Ellenborough. 
 
 ' • The book of nature." 
 
 " Name the page," said Lord Ellenborough, 
 holding his pen uplifted as if to note the in- 
 formation. 
 
 A PRETENTIOUS man said in Lord Ellen- 
 borough's hearing, " I sometimes employ 
 myself as a doctor." 
 
 "Very likely," commented his lordship, 
 adding, ' ' but is any one fool enough to employ 
 you in that capacity ? " 
 
 — vvvVv^ 
 
 p LEADING before Lord Ellenborough a 
 nervous barrister several times made use 
 of the expression " my unfortunate client." 
 
 " There, sir, the Court is with you," said the 
 judge. 
 
 — ^AA/\/V^ 
 
 ■\^HEN a learned judge observed that m a 
 certain case he had ruled in a certain 
 manner, Ellenborough remarked — 
 
 "You rule ! — you were never fit to rule any- 
 thing but a copy-book. "
 
 6o Bon -Mots 
 
 A FRIEND met Lord Ellenborough leaving 
 the House of Lords when a certain peer 
 was speaking, and enquired "What, are you 
 going?" 
 
 "(loing — why yes," answered Ellenborough, 
 " I am accountable to God Almighty for the 
 use of my time." 
 
 /^PPOSED to Brougham in one case Ellen- 
 borough in speaking of it said, "Mr 
 Brougham's nose was always twitching and 
 quivering ; and, as if conscious it deserved 
 being pulled, seemed anxious to get out of 
 the way." 
 
 A BARRISTl^R having quoted Joseph Miller 
 in illustrating his case, Ellenborough in- 
 terrupted him l)y asking whether he meant the 
 Jocicultural or the Horticultural Miller. 
 
 — ^\/\/Vw— 
 
 'yOWARDS the end of the Easter Term, a 
 tiresome conveyancer, who had occupied 
 the Court the whole day about the merger of a 
 term, the Chief Justice said to him — 
 
 " I am afraid, sir, the Term, although a long 
 one, will merge in your argument."
 
 Of the Nineteenth Century. 
 
 6i 
 
 COMEONE pointing out the error in the 
 
 inscription, Mors ja?iua vita, upon Lord 
 
 Kenyon's tomb, Lord EUenborough remarked — 
 
 " Don't you know that that 
 was by Kenyon's express de- 
 sire as he left it in his will, 
 that they should not go to 
 the expense of a dipthong? " 
 
 •yO a dull witness Lord 
 EUenborough said, 
 " Why you are an industrious 
 fellow ; you must have taken 
 great pains with yourself, for 
 no man was ever ?iaturally so 
 stupid." 
 
 A NOBLE lord in one of his speeches kept 
 saying, " I ask myself so and so, &c." 
 ••Yes," broke in Lord EUenborough, " and a 
 damned foolish answer you'll get." 
 
 —'A/\/\jsr— 
 
 A BARRISTER who affected a sanctimoni- 
 ous style used great solemnity in a very 
 trumpery case and freely interlarded his address
 
 162 Bon-Mots 
 
 to the jury with " I call Heaven to witness ! as 
 God is my Judge ! " and so on. 
 
 Lord Ellenborough at length could stand it 
 no longer and burst out with, "Sir, I cannot 
 allow the law to be thus profaned in open 
 Court. I must proceed to fine you — five 
 shillings an oath." 
 
 A TIRESOME barrister was arguing at in- 
 ordinate length a question upon the rate- 
 ability of certain lime quarries to the relief of 
 the poor, and contended that ' ' like lead and 
 copper mines, they were not rateable, because 
 the lime stone in them could only be reached 
 by deep borhig, which was matter of science.' 
 
 "You will hardly succeed in convincing us, 
 sir," said the Chief Justice, " that every species 
 of boring, is ' matter of science ' ! " 
 
 A CELEBRATED conveyancer, Preston, 
 arguing a case on the construction of a 
 will assumed that the Judges whom he ad- 
 dressed were ignoiant of the first principles 
 of real property and thus began his erudite 
 harangue — 
 
 "An estate \w fee simple, my lords, is the 
 highest estate known to tlio law of ICngland."
 
 Of the Nineteenth Century. 63 
 
 "Stay, stay," said the Chief Justice with 
 consummate gravity, "let me take that down." 
 He wrote and read slowly and emphatically, 
 " An estate — in fee simple — is — the highest 
 estate — known to — the law of England:" 
 adding, "Sir, the Court is much indebted to 
 you for the information." 
 
 There was only one person present who did 
 not perceive the irony. That person having not 
 yet exhausted the Year Book, when the shades 
 of evening were closing upon him, applied to 
 know when it would be their Lordship' s pleasure 
 to hear the remainder of his argument. 
 
 " Mr Preston," said Lord Ellenborough, "we 
 are bound to hear you out, and I hope we shall 
 do so on Friday — but, alas ! pleasure has been 
 long out of the question." 
 
 A QUAKER coming into the witness-box, 
 not in the garb of his fellow- religionists, 
 but rather smartly dressed, refused to take 
 the oath but required to be examined on his 
 affirmation. 
 
 Lord Ellenborough asked if he was really a 
 Quaker, and on being answered in the affirma- 
 tive exclaimed, " Do you really mean to impose 
 upon the Court by appearing here in the disgiiise 
 of a reasonable being ? "
 
 64 Bon-Mots 
 
 T\/"HEN the Cabinet of "all the talents" 
 were dining together, a certain member 
 of it, notable for his greed, was absent. Some- 
 one observed that he was seriously ill and likely 
 to die. 
 
 "Die!" said Lord Ellenborough, "why 
 should he die ? What would he get by that ? " 
 
 — A/\/\,V>- — 
 
 pJENRY HUNT, the famous demagogue, 
 having been brought up to receive sen- 
 tence upon a conviction for holding a seditious 
 meeting, began his address in mitigation of 
 punishment, by complaining of certain persons 
 who had accused him of ' ' stirring up the 
 people by dangerous eloquence.''^ 
 
 "My impartiality as a Judge," said Lord 
 Ellenborough, in a mild tone, "calls upon me 
 to say, sir, that in accusing you of that they do 
 you a great injustice. " 
 
 r\P Michael Angelo Taylor, who, though very 
 short of stature, was well knit, and thought 
 himself a very great mati. Lord Ellenborough 
 said, "His father, the sculptor, had fashioned 
 him for a pocket Hercules."
 
 66 Bon-Mots 
 
 /^HRISTMAS EVANS, a celebrated Welsh 
 preacher, once publicly expressed thank- 
 fulness for Jenny Lind's beautiful singing. A 
 member of his congregation objected to this 
 countenancing of a carnal pleasure and asked, 
 from the steps of the pulpit, whether a man 
 dying at one of Jenny Lind's concerts would 
 go to heaven, 
 
 "Sir," replied the preacher, "a Christian 
 will go to heaven wherever he dies, but a fool 
 remains a fool, even on the pulpit-steps." 
 
 A LBANY FONBLANQUE, one of the 
 wittiest political writers of his day, said 
 once in conversation that Sir Robert Peel was 
 always tossing himself up, and doubtful whether 
 he would come down heads or tails. 
 
 CIR WILLIAM GARROW, when King's 
 counsel, cross-examined a tailor as follows : 
 
 "Upon your oath, sir, where did this con- 
 versation happen?" 
 
 "In the back parlour, off my shop; my 
 cutting room." 
 
 "What were you then about yourself?" 
 
 "Walking about." 
 
 "Aye, just taking a stroll in your cabbage 
 garde ri.^^
 
 Of the Nineteenth Century. 67 
 
 A GOOD mot is repeated as made by \\'. S. 
 Gilbert, whose "pretty wit" has given 
 some of the brightest comic operas to the 
 stage. He was leaving 
 a crowded reception 
 and was mistaken, when 
 standing in the hall, as 
 one of the servants by 
 a pompous party who 
 said — 
 
 " Call me a cab." 
 
 "You are a four- 
 wheeler," said Gilbert. 
 
 The wrath of the other 
 rose at once, and he was proceeding to angry 
 expostulation when Gilbert blandly interposed 
 with— 
 
 ' ' Well, you know, you asked me to call you 
 a cab — and I couldn't call you hansom." 
 
 — vVW^— 
 
 TLJAVIXG kept a dinner party waiting 
 beyond the appointed hour a certain 
 fashionable clergyman apologised to his host, 
 saying that he had been detained and that he 
 arrived feeling " like a crumpled rose-leaf." 
 
 " Rose-leaf ! Cabbage-leaf ! " exclaimed 
 Gilbert who was standing near. 
 
 [Had the clerg>'man been as sharp as the 
 dramatist he might have retorted that at least 
 he was not a Savoy. '\
 
 68 Bon-Mots 
 
 A FRENCH lady said, "I should like to be 
 married in English, in a language in which 
 vows are so faithfully kept." 
 
 ' ' What language, I wonder, was she married 
 in?" someone asked Frere. 
 
 ''Broken EngUsh, I suppose." was the reply. 
 
 CIR WILLIAM CELL neatly reproved a 
 friend who was somewhat free in his use 
 of the word "blasted " by saying— 
 
 ' ' That is not language for good society, sir ; 
 it is too much of the ^olic dialect." 
 
 — N\l\jv^ — 
 
 " QNE day, when at Eton," said Sir F. H. 
 Doyle, "I was steadily computing the 
 odds for the Derby, as they stood in a morn- 
 ing newspaper. Gladstone looked over my 
 shoulder to look at the horses named. Now 
 it happened that the Duke of Grafton owned 
 a colt named Hampden, who figured in the 
 aforesaid list. ' Well,' cried Gladstone, reading 
 off the odds, ' Hampden at any rate I see is in his 
 proper place, between 'Aeal and Ljmacy.^ For 
 such in truth was the position occupied by the 
 four-footed namesake of the illustrious rebel."
 
 Of the Nineteenth Century. 69 
 
 COMEONE having declared that Moore, in 
 his biography, had murdered Sheridan, 
 George the Fourth is reported to have said — 
 
 " I won't say that Mr Moore has murdered 
 Sheridan, but he has certainly attempted his 
 life." 
 
 TN 1852, after a change of opinions and then 
 a fresh change back to his old ones. Sir 
 James Graham re-stood for Carlisle, abolish- 
 ing all necessity for explanations by the simple 
 words — 
 
 " Well, gentlemen, the zi'ariderer has re- 
 turned." 
 
 TIJE was duly elected, and in returning thanks 
 said that somebody had declared that if 
 he were returned Carlisle would be called a 
 refuge for the destitute — " W^ell, that was a 
 better name for it to bear than an hospital for 
 the incurable.'" 
 
 glR JAMES GRAHAM, in addressing the 
 House of Commons in 1847 on the connec- 
 tion between the rate of wages and the price of 
 food, reiterated his declaration that experience 
 had convinced him that the former had a 
 constant tendency to rise in proportion as the
 
 7o Bon-Mots 
 
 latter fell. Lord George Bentinck, who was 
 sitting on the front Opposition Bench below 
 him, threw back his head, and looking at him, 
 exclaimed — 
 
 " Ah ! yes, but you know you said the other 
 thing before." 
 
 A shout of laughter, in which Sir James 
 joined, was followed by cheers and counter 
 cheers, and curiosity was on tip-toe for the 
 retort. 
 
 From his perch (as he used to call it) the ex- 
 minister looked down at his noble antagonist 
 and said, in a tone of ineffable humour, 
 
 "The noble Lord's taunts fall harmless upon 
 me ; — 1' m not in office now." 
 
 A SQUIB having been published when Sir 
 James Graham was a candidate, calling 
 him a n^eathercock, he retorted by saying, 
 "Very likely on the day of election I shall 
 show which way the wind blows." 
 
 ^wvw— 
 
 W" 
 
 'HEN the celebrated singer Grisi (who 
 married Mario) was at St Petersburg, 
 and walking out with her children, she met the 
 l"2mpcror, who facetiously enquired, 
 "Arc these your little Grisettes ?" 
 " No, your Majesty," she replied, " they are 
 my Marionettes."
 
 Of the Nineteenth Century. 
 
 71 
 
 "\A7'HEN Macaulay was rapidly rising as 
 
 politician it was rumoured that Robert 
 Grant, one of the 
 ministers, was to be 
 offered a foreign posi- 
 tion to make room for 
 the younger man. One 
 evening in the House, 
 Macaulay endeavour- 
 ing to reach one of 
 the higher benches, 
 stumbled over Grant's 
 outstretched legs. This 
 roused the drowsy 
 Minister, who apolo- 
 gised, adding pointedly, " I am very sorry 
 indeed, to stand in the way of your mounting." 
 
 ^AA/v^ 
 
 QENERAL ULYSSES GRANT, when Presi- 
 dent, having taken a fancy to a butcher's 
 horse, purchased it for two hundred and fifty 
 dollars. Later, after driving out with vSenator 
 Conkling, Grant said, "Come to the stable 
 and look at a new horse I've bought." 
 
 The visitor looked the animal over thoroughly, 
 poked him here, punched him there, and did 
 all that a first-class Senator and horseman 
 should in such a case. 
 
 " Where did you get hitn ? " asked Conkling.
 
 72 Bon-Mots 
 
 "I bought him of a butcher," replied the 
 President. 
 
 " How much did you pay for him ? " 
 
 "Two hundred and fift 3' dollars," answered 
 Grant. 
 
 "Well," said the Senator, "he may be a 
 very good animal, and doubtless is ; but if it 
 were my case, I think I would rather have the 
 money than the horse." 
 
 " That is what the butcher thought," readily 
 rejoined the President. 
 
 OOBERT HALL, the celebrated preacher, 
 was a man who is credited with many 
 conversational good things. Being told that 
 his animation increased with years, he said, 
 
 "Indeed! Then I am like touchwood, the 
 more decayed the easier fired." 
 
 —J\/\/\/V^— 
 
 ■pEING told that the Archbishop of Canter- 
 bury's chaplain came into the room to say 
 grace and then went out, he said, 
 
 "So that is being great! His Grace, not 
 choosing to present his own requests to the 
 King of Kings, calls in a deputy to take up his 
 messages. A great man, indeed ! "
 
 Of the Nineteenth Century. 73 
 
 /^F a certain preacher, Hall said that his head 
 was so full of everything but religion, that 
 one might be tempted to fancy that he had a 
 Sunday soul, which he screwed on in due time, 
 and took off every Monday morning. 
 
 -^vVWv— 
 
 TN matters of conscience, first ihoiights are 
 best ; in matters of prudence the last. 
 
 "r\R MAGEE having said that the Catholics 
 had a church and no religion, and the 
 Dissenters a religion and no Church, Robert 
 Hall retorted, 
 
 " It is false, but is an excellent stone to pelt 
 a Dissenter with." 
 
 —H\l\hi— 
 
 A FTER reading the life of a certain Bishop, 
 Hall said, " Poor man ! I pity him. He 
 married public virtue in his early days, but 
 seemed for ever afterwards to be quarrelling 
 with his wife. " 
 
 — A/Wv-— 
 
 g PEAKING of Waterloo, Hall said, "The 
 battle and its results appeared to me to 
 put back the clock of the world six degrees."
 
 74 Bon-Mots 
 
 A LADY who had been asked to assist some 
 charity with a subscription said that she 
 would wait and see. 
 
 "Ah!" remarked Hall, "She is watching, 
 not to do good but to escape from it." 
 
 'T'HE proprietor of a comic periodical called 
 upon James Hannay (author of Singleton 
 Fontenoy) and said that he wanted a first-rate 
 article, "something in the style of Swift, with 
 a dash of Sterne." 
 
 "Very good," said the accommodating 
 author; " in that case I shall require a cheque 
 of corresponding value — something in the style 
 of Rothschild, with a dash of Baring." 
 
 "ySZHEN Lord Harrowby was one of the 
 Ministers he had occasion to visit George 
 the Fourth at Brighton. His Majesty, out of 
 temper with the Minister for some reason, 
 received him but coldly, saying, 
 
 "You are come down, my Lord, to see your 
 son, I suppose," 
 
 "Yes, your Majesty," answered he with 
 spirit, "and for that soldw'"
 
 Of the Nineteenth Century, 
 
 75 
 
 H 
 
 ANNAY met a friend in the street one morn- 
 ing, and observing that he had a black 
 eye, and \vas otherwise injured about the face, 
 came to the conclusion that the man (a well- 
 known imbiber) had been drinking freely on the 
 previous night. 
 
 "Hollo!" he exclaimed with a significant 
 look, " what have you been doing, my boy?" 
 
 "Well," answered the other, anxious to dis- 
 guise the truth, "the fact is I was walking 
 rapidly along the Strand when a thundering big 
 dog ran between my legs, and threw me on my 
 head." 
 
 ' ' Ha ! " said Hannay with an expressive 
 finger pointed at his friend's lips, "let me 
 advise you to fake a hair of that dog.
 
 76 Bon-Mots 
 
 CIR HENRY HAWKINS was dining once 
 with a local magnate somewhere near 
 Chester on the Cup Day, and among those 
 invited to meet him was the Bishop of the 
 diocese. Now, it happened that Sir Henry 
 arrived at the house nearly an hour late, and it 
 also happened that one of the party had earlier 
 in the day seen the learned Judge quit the 
 London train at Chester. 
 
 "Do you know what won the Cup?" the 
 host asked the Judge. 
 
 Sir Henry looked surprised. "The Chester 
 Cup ! Ah ! yes. I saw a number of people in 
 a field near the railway, and I heard the news- 
 paper boys call out, 'Winner of the Cup,' so I 
 concluded that this 7i<as the Cup day." 
 
 "And you didn't buy a paper?" the Bishop 
 maliciously put in. 
 
 The Judge assumed an air of bland conde- 
 scension, and said: "No; I thought it was 
 unnecessary to buy one. I had been told I 
 should have the privilege of meeting yotir 
 lordship to-night." 
 
 — v\/V\a/— 
 
 vy HEN Sir Henry (then Mr Hawkins, Q.C. ), 
 was engaged in arguing a case before 
 Lord Campbell he had occasion several times 
 to refer to a damage done to a brougham ; 
 which word hv pronounced as it is spelt, 
 broui'h-ani.
 
 Of the Nineteenth Century. 77 
 
 " If my learned friend," said Lord Campbell 
 with a smile, " will adopt the usual designation 
 and call the carriage a d/v'am, it will save the 
 time of the Court. " 
 
 The counsel bowed, and accepted the cor- 
 rected pronunciation during the latter part of 
 his speech. When Lord Campbell summed 
 up the evidence he had to refer to the omnibus 
 which had damaged the brougham and in 
 doing so he pronounced this word in full as it 
 is spelt. 
 
 " I beg your Lordship's pardon," broke in 
 Mr Hawkins, "but if your Lordship will adopt 
 the usual designation for such a vehicle, and 
 call it a b?4s." 
 
 The loud laughter which ensued, and in 
 which Lord Campbell joined, prevented the 
 conclusion of the sentence. 
 
 "l^/TIEN Hazlitt lived in a street off 
 Piccadilly, a friend called upon him one 
 morning, and as he was going further on, pro- 
 posed a walk up the street. 
 
 "I cafnioi walk up the street," said Hazlitt, 
 with affected sadness, ' ' for it is Down Street 
 both ways. "
 
 78 Bon-Mots 
 
 -pHE REV ROWLAND HILL preaching at 
 Wapping is reported to have said ap- 
 propriately, " There are among you some great 
 sinners, some large sinners, 
 and I may say some IVap- 
 ''ifi.e sinners." 
 
 A 
 
 — A/wv^ — 
 
 DISSENTER remon- 
 strated with Rowland 
 Hill for coming to chapel 
 (he was then past eighty) in 
 liis brougham. 
 " Is this,' enquired the Methodist, " the way 
 our Lord himself used to attend Divine wor- 
 ship?" 
 
 Rowland Hill read this epistle from the pulpit 
 on the following Sunday, admitting with an air 
 of ingenuous penitence tliat our Saviour had 
 not been in the habit of using a brougham, 
 " But," added he, " to atone for my indiscretion, 
 if the writer of this letter will come into the 
 vestry after service next Sunday, bringing along 
 with him a saddle and bridle, I will ride /lim 
 home ! " 
 
 — MA'V^^- 
 
 T^HIS witty preacher was in the Iiabit of going 
 
 to various flissenting chapels not troubling 
 
 himself about minute differences of creed. One 
 
 Sunday he found himself among strangers.
 
 Of the Nineteenth Century. 79 
 
 The ordinary worship was concluded and the 
 Sacrament about to be administered. Rowland 
 Hill, on presenting himself as a communicant, 
 was stopped by one of the elders who wished 
 to know if he belonged to their special per- 
 suasion. 
 
 "Well," was the answer, "I am a sincere 
 Christian and accept all the great Christian 
 doctrines with absolute faith, but as to being 
 one of you, 1 do not suppose that I am." 
 
 " In that case," said the elder, " I am afraid 
 that we cannot admit you to our table." 
 
 "Oh, indeed," retorted Rowland Hill, "I 
 beg you ten thousand pardons, I would not 
 intrude for the world ; but then, you see, I 
 thought it was the Lords Table." 
 
 — ^AA/v-— 
 
 "QISPUTING with a friend as to whether the 
 letter H was really a distinct letter or 
 merely an aspiration, Rowland Hill contended 
 that it must be the former, as otherwise it 
 would have been a very serious matter for him, 
 making him ill all the days of his life. 
 
 — ^Wv— 
 
 C AID one of Rowland Hill's congregation : 
 " Oh, Mr Hill, how is it that you say such 
 out-of-the-way things in your sermons." 
 
 "Why," answered the preacher, "some of 
 you are such out-of-the-way sinners."
 
 8o Bon-Mots 
 
 HTHE eccentric preacher always rode a great 
 deal, and preserved excellent health, so 
 that when a medical friend inquired who at- 
 tended him, he replied, "My physician has 
 always been a horse and my apothecary an 
 ass!" 
 
 /^NE day in Rowland Hill's chapel there 
 was a thinner attendance than usual, 
 when a sudden shower of rain came on and 
 the building rapidly filled. 
 
 Said the witty preacher : " I have often heard 
 of religion being used as a cloak, but never 
 before as an umbrella." 
 
 — v\/\/Vv— 
 
 "IITHEN Rowland Hill was preaching once for 
 a public charity a note was handed up 
 to him asking if it would be right for a bank- 
 rupt to contribute. He noticed the matter in 
 the course of his sermon, and said decidedly 
 that such a person could not do so in Christian 
 honesty. 
 
 ' ' But, my friends," he added, ' ' I would advise 
 you who are not insolvent not to pass the plate 
 this evening, as the people will be sure to say 
 ' There goes the bankrupt I ' "
 
 Of the Nineteenth Century. 
 
 8r 
 
 /^N announcing from the pulpit the amount 
 of a hberal collection, he said : ' ' You have 
 behaved so well on this occasion, that we mean 
 to have another collection next Sunday. I 
 have heard it said of a good cow, that the more 
 you milk her the more she will give." 
 
 AN adherent of Antinomianism, 
 
 fond of the bottle, asked one day 
 do you think, Mr Hill, 
 a glass of spirits will 
 drive grace out of my 
 heart ?" 
 
 " No," he replied, 
 ' ' for there is none in 
 it." 
 
 — A/y/vv^ 
 
 who was 
 : ' ' Now, 
 
 TN the middle of his 
 discourse when 
 preaching to one of his 
 most crowded congre- 
 gations, Rowland Hill 
 was annoyed by a great 
 commotion in the gal- 
 lerj-. For a time he took no notice of it ; but 
 finding it increasing, he paused in his sermon, 
 and looking in the direction in which the con- 
 fusion prevailed, exclaimed : 
 F
 
 82 Bon Mots 
 
 " What's the matter there? The devil seems 
 to have got among you ! " 
 
 A plain countryman immediately started to 
 his feet and addressing Mr Hill in reply said, 
 " No, sir, it ar'n't the devil as is a doing on it ; 
 it's a lady wot's fainted ; and she's a fat 'un, 
 sir, as don't seem likely to come too in a hurry." 
 
 "Oh, that's it, is it," observed the preacher, 
 drawing his hand across his chin, " then I beg 
 the lady's pardon — and the devil's too." 
 
 —'Afsr^^r— 
 
 A LADY who led but a gay, worldly life once 
 remarked to the popular preacher : " Oh ! 
 I am afraid lest, after all, I should not be 
 saved ! " 
 
 ' ' I am glad to hear you say so, for I have been 
 long afraid for you, I assure you," answered 
 Hill. 
 
 -^AAA^ - 
 
 vyHEN Wilkie showed Hogg, the Ettrick 
 Shepherd, some of his pictures, the latter 
 looked over them one by one, and when it was 
 apparent that he was expected to say soniething, 
 he looked first at the works and then at the 
 painter several times, as though comparing 
 them together, and then said with doubtful 
 meaning, " It's 7veel you're so young a man."
 
 L' 
 
 Of the Nineteenth Century. 83 
 
 ORD PORCHESTER having informed 
 Lady Holland that he had a poem 
 coming out, she replied in a commiserating 
 tone, ' ' Dear, dear, I am sorry to hear that — 
 can't you suppress it?" 
 
 /^N an indifferent translation of Suetonius 
 being published by one Philemon Hol- 
 land, an indefatigable translator. Lord Holland 
 remarked — 
 
 " Philemon with translations so doth fill us, 
 He won't let Suetonius be tranquillus." 
 
 -'AA/V^- 
 
 T ORD HOLLAND said of Robert Southey 
 when Poet Laureate — 
 
 " Our Laureate Bob defrauds the King, 
 He takes his cash and does not sing : 
 Yet on he goes, I know not why, 
 Singing for us who do not buy." 
 
 — 'AAA'*' — 
 
 TJTOLMES once tried his hand at amateur 
 
 photography, and wrote on the back of 
 
 his pictures, " Taken by O. W. Holmes & Sun."
 
 84 Bon -Mots 
 
 A S an elaborately dressed young lady stepped 
 out on the hotel piazza to admire the 
 sunset, a friend whispered to Oliver "Wendell 
 Holmes, " The young lady is in evening dress." 
 "The close of the day, my dear sir," re- 
 marked Holmes. 
 
 "That's Holmes's pun," was the reply. 
 "I'm worsted," added the poet. 
 
 — ^VWVv— 
 
 A CANVASSER for " The Century Diction- 
 ary " called, teasing him for a subscription. 
 
 "No," said the Doctor, "I'm too old — 
 eighty years— I shan't live to see the ' Century 
 finished." 
 
 To this the encouraging book agent said : 
 " Nay, Doctor, you won't have to live so very 
 much longer to use our book; we've already got 
 toG." 
 
 "And you may go to /, if you like," ex- 
 claimed the little Doctor. 
 
 "-'AAA/-— 
 
 LJOOD accounted for a Quaker's love of tlie 
 sea by saying it was natural for a Quaker 
 to like the ocean for its broad brim. 
 
 CMALL draughts according to Hood can 
 scarcely be termed drinking. " Pi'n/s 
 cannot be doomed />o/M'\ons."
 
 86 Bon-Mots 
 
 A GOOD church minister was happily de- 
 scribed by Thomas Hood as "piety 
 parsonified." 
 
 — A/\/vw- 
 
 C PEAKING of a dirty neighbourhood 
 through which he had passed, Hood 
 said it gave him the back-slum-bago ! 
 
 —AJ\f\r^— 
 
 TOURING a theatrical performance a tall 
 man in the pit persisted in standing 
 despite repeated calls to "sit down." 
 
 " Let him alone," said Hood, in a tone that 
 the offender could not but hear, "he is a tailor, 
 and rest 'uig himself !'' 
 
 The fellow collapsed into his seat. 
 
 — ^A/VW— 
 
 •yHE Duke of Devonshire, having asked 
 Hood for a list of book-titles to be put on 
 the sham volumes in a library, immediately 
 received the following : — 
 
 "On Cutting Off Heirs with a Shilling," by 
 Barber Beaumont. 
 
 " Percy Vere " (in forty volumes) 
 
 "Tadpoles ; or. Tales out of my Own Head." 
 
 Malthus's "Attack of Infantry."
 
 88 Bon -Mots 
 
 "The Life of Zimmermann," by Himself. 
 
 " Pygmalion," by Lord Bacon. 
 
 " Boyle on Steam." 
 
 " Haughtycultural Remarks; or, London 
 Pride." 
 
 "Voltaire, V'olney, Volta, ' (three vols. ) 
 
 " Barrow on the Common Weal." 
 
 "Campaigns of the Brit. Arm.," by one of 
 the German Leg. 
 
 " Recollections of Bannister," by Lord Stair. 
 
 " Cursory Remarks on Swearing." 
 
 " In-i-go on Secret Entrances." 
 
 T^HEODORE HOOK made many jokes at 
 the expense of Samuel Rogers, whose 
 cadaverous appearance caused him to be a 
 frequent Ijutt of the wits. Meeting the poet at 
 a funeral, Hook offered him a friendly caution, 
 saying that it would be as well for him to keep 
 out of the sight of the undertaker lest that 
 functionary should claim him as one of his old 
 customers. 
 
 TT was Hook, loo, wiio was responsible for 
 the story which recounted how Rogers, on 
 hailing a coach in St l^iul's Churchyard, was 
 received with a cry of " Ho ! ho! my man ; I'm 
 not going to be had in that way : go back to
 
 Of the Nineteenth Century. 89 
 
 " IVT^^'^ history," Lord Houghton said, "is 
 hke that portion of Africa in Arrow- 
 smith's map — dry country abounding in dates ! " 
 
 'T*RUST in leaders has tne same relation to 
 politics that credit has to commerce. 
 
 'X'HE Carlton Club was once stigmatised by 
 Lord Houghton as ' ' that political scul- 
 lery." 
 
 A N unsuccessful speech of Disraeli's was 
 
 described by his witty opponent as being 
 
 "like the Hebrew language 7c///wut //le J>oiuh'." 
 
 — A/WV" — 
 
 'T'HE worst 01 self-government is that every- 
 body is trying to govern his neighboui, 
 and nobody to govern himself 
 
 T ORD HOUGHTON, when visiting Ger- 
 many as plain Mr Milnes, said that the 
 solitude of Hanover was such that Zimmermann 
 himself could not stand it— and died there. 
 
 X 
 
 V
 
 90 Bon-Mots 
 
 TT was the same poet-politician who said that 
 in Germany all the books were in sheets 
 and all the beds without. 
 
 "LJ AVE you heard the last argument in favour 
 of the Wife's Sister? * It is unanswerable. 
 If you marry two sisters, you have 
 'v^\'M °"^y °^^ mother-in-law ! 
 
 ^V\/\/\/V— 
 
 'HE first of September, one Sun- 
 day morn, 
 I shot a hen peasant in standing corn, 
 Without a license ; combine who can 
 Such a cluster of crimes against God and man. 
 
 TTOUGHTON described Carlyle's language 
 as cifierous — " all ashes and sackcloth in 
 the face of the summer sun." 
 
 "MfO intensity of literary starlight can make a 
 moral noonday. 
 
 * Lord Houghton was strongly in favour of legal- 
 ising marriage with a deceased wife's sister.
 
 Of the Nineteenth Century. 91 
 
 "T^HE doctrine of plenary inspiration accord- 
 ing to Lord Houghton " reduces the Bible 
 to an Act of Parliament." 
 
 — ^A/\/\r' — 
 
 'T*HE poet-politician neatly satirised Society 
 in a riddle. 
 
 Why is the present English social system like 
 the Ptolemaic system of astron- 
 omy ? 
 
 Because it is full of circles 
 which cu^ one another. 
 
 —^^y\/\^ — 
 
 A LADY said to Houghton, 
 ' ' You are a man of a large 
 heart." 
 
 "That may be," he answered, 
 ' ' but it is not near so useful 
 as a narrow mind," 
 
 TJOLD over your head the umbrella of re- 
 ligious reverence, and though you get 
 damp with infidelity you will not be wetted 
 through.
 
 92 
 
 Bon-Mots 
 
 T ORD HOUGHTON defined good con- 
 versation as being to ordinary talk what 
 whist is to playing cards. 
 
 — A/Wv^- 
 
 ■|y|RS LEIGH HUNT " had httle toleration 
 for Byron, drunk or sober.'' 
 
 "Trelawny, here," said the poet one day, 
 "has been speaking against my morals." 
 
 "It is the first time I ever heard of them," 
 quietly remarked Mrs Hunt. 
 
 TN ridicule of an epigrammatist of the 
 day, Leigh Hunt hit off a number of imi- 
 tations, of which a couple may find a place 
 here — 
 
 CONCKKNING JONES. 
 
 "Jones eats his lettuces undressed ; 
 D'yoii ask the reason ? 'Tis confessed,— 
 That is the way Jones likes them best." 
 
 To Thomson, concerning Dixon and 
 Jackson. 
 
 " How Dixon can with Jackson bear, 
 You ask me, Thomson, to declare ; — 
 Thomson, Dixon's Jackson's heir.''
 
 Of the Nineteenth Century. 93 
 
 T EIGH HUNT, on being asked by a Tady at 
 
 dessert if he would not venture upon an 
 
 orange, replied that he would be very happy to 
 
 do so. but was afraid that he would tumble off. 
 
 r\R RICHARD HURD in four lines neatly 
 summed up what he looked upon as the 
 essentials of three " late historians " — 
 
 " Teach me, Historic jNIuse, to mix 
 Impiety with politics, 
 So shall I write, nil aliud posco. 
 Like my loved Gibbon, Hume, and Roscoe." 
 
 — 'Al\f\t\r— 
 
 CIR RICHARD JEBB having been called in 
 to a would-be patient who was but a malade 
 imagi?iaire, told him frankly what he thought, 
 and declined to prescribe. 
 
 ' ' Now you are here," said the valetudinarian, 
 " I shall be obliged to you. Sir Richard, if you 
 will tell me how I must live ; what I may eat, 
 and what I may not." 
 
 "My directions on that point," said the 
 doctor, ' ' will be few and simple ! You must not 
 eat the poker, shovel or tongs, for they are hard 
 of digestion ; nor the bellows, because they are 
 7oindy ; but eat anything else you please ! "
 
 94 Bon- Mots 
 
 A WEALTHY patron of religion who was 
 giving a dinner in honour of Edward 
 Irving, said to that distinguished preacher : 
 "What a profound and wise thought, sir, 
 that was which I heard from Dr Chalmers — 
 that God is more offended by the breach of a 
 small commandment than a great one ! " 
 
 " Do you suppose, sir," replied Irving, " that 
 Dr Chalmers meant that it is a greater offence 
 in God's eyes to cut a finger than to cut a 
 throat ? " 
 
 — A/Wv- — 
 
 TT having been said that during the stay of 
 some Russians in h'ngland they had eaten 
 great quantities of tallow candles, Jekyll re- 
 marked that such must be bad for the liver but 
 good for the lights. 
 
 "DEING asked why he no longer spoke to a 
 lawyer of the name of Peat, Jekyll said : 
 " I choose to give up his acquaintance ; I have 
 common of Turbary, and have a right to cut 
 Peat." 
 
 — t^j\l\l\f — 
 
 JEKYLL at Merchant Taylors' Hall being 
 asked by one of the body to translate the 
 motto, Concordia res parvcB crescunt, said that 
 it meant "Nine tailors make a man."
 
 Of the Nineteenth Century. 
 
 95 
 
 T ORD CHAxXCELLOR ELDON and Sir 
 
 Arthur Pigot having been observed by 
 
 Jekyll to pronounce the word lien differently 
 
 — the former lion, and the latter lean — he hap- 
 pily hit off their difference in the following* 
 epigram : — 
 
 " Sir Arthur, Sir Arthur, why, what do you mean 
 By saying the Chancellor's lion is lean ? 
 D'ye think that his kitchen's so bad as all that, 
 That nothing within it will ever get fat?" 
 
 JEKYLL, having been informed that one of 
 his friends, a brewer, had been drowned in 
 his own vat, quietly remarked, "Ah! he was 
 found floating in his own xuaterv bier."
 
 96 Bon-Mots 
 
 A FRIEND informed Jekyll that he had 
 visited a certain parsimonious nobleman's 
 kitchen and that he saw the spit shining as 
 bright as if it had never been used. 
 
 "Why do you mention his spit?" enquired 
 Jekyll; "you must know that nothing turns 
 upon that." 
 
 — vV\/'/v^ 
 
 TT was in reference to the same nobleman 
 that Jekyll observed, "It is Lent all the 
 year round in his kitchen, and Passion week in 
 the parlour." 
 
 JEKYLL, in a barrister's chambers, saw a 
 squirrel in a revolving cage; "Ah! poor 
 devil," said he, " he's going the Home Circuit." 
 
 BSERVING a certain Serjeant, well known 
 for his prosiness, bustling into a court 
 where he was engaged in a case, Jekyll wrote 
 the following imjjromptu — 
 
 " Heboid the serjeant, full of fire, 
 Lonp shall his hearers rue it ; 
 His purple K-irments came from Tyre 
 His argumcnts,^^? to it," 
 
 O
 
 Of the Nineteenth Century. 97 
 
 A VERY small man named Else, an attorney, 
 approached Jekyll one day in great in- 
 dignation, saying— 
 
 "Sir, I hear you have called me 
 a pettifogging scoundrel. Have 
 you done so, sir ? " 
 
 " No, sir," replied the wit with 
 a look of contempt. "I never 
 said you were a pettifogger or a 
 scoundrel ; but I did say you were 
 little Else:' 
 
 A N old lady having been brought forward as 
 a witness to prove a tender having been 
 made, Jekyll made the following punning epi- 
 gram — 
 
 " Garrow, forbear I that tough old jade 
 Can never prove a tender maidy 
 
 TEKYLL had been asked to dine at Lans- 
 J downe House on the day when the ceiling 
 fell down, but had to refuse, having an engage- 
 ment to meet the judges. Speaking of this he 
 said — 
 
 " I had been asked to Ruat Cceluvi, but 
 dined instead with Fiat Justitia." 
 
 G
 
 98 Bon-Mots 
 
 TV/TORE personal than polite was Jekyll's 
 remark to a Welsh judge who had been 
 suitor for all manner of places — "As you have 
 asked the Ministry for everything else, ask them 
 for a piece of soap and a ?iail brush." 
 
 —AlV^^r— 
 
 T N making a speech at a dinner of the Fish- 
 mongers' Company, Erskine hesitated and 
 made a sad job of it, so Jekyll enquired whether 
 it was in honour of the Company that he 
 floundered so. 
 
 C 
 
 RABB ROBINSON writes as follows in his 
 diary under date 1818 : — This year there 
 were great changes in the law courts. Of the 
 judicial promotions Jekyll said that they came 
 by titles very different, viz., C. J. Abbott by 
 descent, J. Best by hitrusion, and Richardson 
 by the operation of law. The wit of the two first 
 is pungent ; the last a deserved compliment. 
 
 CAID the witty Jekyll at the expense of a 
 profession oft the butt of the jokers — 
 
 " One Doctor single like the sculler plies, 
 The patient struggles and by inches dies ; 
 But two physicians, like a pair of oars, 
 Waft him right smoothly to the .Stygian shores."
 
 Of the Nineteenlh Century. 
 
 99 
 
 vy HEN Sir William Scott, then nearing his 
 three score years and ten, married the 
 Dowager Marchioness of Sligo, his friends made 
 merry over the match ; more 
 especially because it was said 
 that the lady was of an inde- 
 pendent character. On the 
 door of their house beneath a 
 brass plate displaying his wife's 
 name, Sir William placed an- 
 other with his own. 
 
 "Why, Sir William," said 
 Jekyll, making a call of con- 
 gratulation, " I am sorry to 
 see you knock under." 
 
 Sir William Scott made no 
 answer to the pleasantry at the 
 time, but transposed the brass 
 plates. 
 
 " Now, Jekyll," said he when 
 they met next, "you see I no 
 longer knock under." 
 
 'No, Sir William," replied 
 ihe wit, " I see you knock up now." 
 
 -^aAJVv— 
 
 -^yHEN LADY CORK gave a party at 
 which she wore a most enormous plume, 
 Jekyll said, "She was exactly like a shuttle- 
 cock — all Cork and feathers."
 
 loo Bon-Mots 
 
 r\N the Emperor of China's hint to Lord 
 Macartney, that he had better hasten his 
 departure, as the rainy season was coming on, 
 Jekyll wrote the following impromptu — 
 
 " The sage Chian-ti 
 
 Has looked in the sky, 
 And he says we shall soon have wet weather ; 
 
 So I think my good fellows, 
 
 As you've no umbrellas, 
 You'd better go home, dry, together," 
 
 A MESSAGE was sent across the House to 
 Jekyll (in the Opposition) begging for the 
 rest of these verses, but the wit answered — 
 
 "Tell them, if they want papers they must 
 move for them. JVe find it very hard to get 
 them even so." 
 
 /'^N one occasion a dull and prosy member of 
 Parliament asked Jerrold, "Have you read 
 my last speech ? " 
 
 " I sincerely hope so," replied the wit. 
 
 " H"^'^ ^ fine-hoarted fellow," said someone 
 of a friend. 
 "Yes." said Jerrold, "you might trust him 
 with /////t;/</ jokes." 
 
 I
 
 Of the Nineteenth Century. loi 
 
 "LJERAUD, an ambitious playwright, had 
 produced a tragedy which met with 
 more than it deserved, a siicces d'estime. The 
 author immediately after its production can- 
 vassed his friends as to their real opinion of its 
 value, and everyone paid him the inevitable com- 
 pliment. At length Heraud came to Douglas 
 Jerrold, who in reply to the question nmst have 
 given but half-hearted praise, for the author 
 expostulated, " Don't you really think it good? 
 So-and-so says it reminds him of ^schylus," 
 
 "That's it," at once retorted Jerrold, " that's 
 it — burlesque-lus. 
 
 A CERTAIN individual hearing people speaW 
 at table about age and appearance, said 
 to Jerrold who sat opposite, "Jerrold, don't 
 you think I look younger than I am ? " 
 
 " It's not your looks, my boy," briskly 
 answered Jerrold, "it's your conversation." 
 
 — ^A/\JV' — 
 
 ^NGUS B. REACH always persisted that 
 the proper pronunciation of his patrony- 
 mic was Re-ack, and when he was once im- 
 pressing this upon Jerrold the wit retorted, 
 "Oh! I see, Re-ack when we speak of you, 
 and Reach when we read vou."
 
 102 
 
 Bon- Mots 
 
 TOURING a meeting of the Rational Club, 
 Fitzball (the celebrated slow-music and 
 
 blue-fire dramatist of the minor theatres) 
 begged of someone near him, 
 who would keep on shouting 
 ' ' Waiter ! " at the top of his 
 voice, to have pity on his ears, 
 saying, "Please bear in mind, 
 old boy, I've got a head on my 
 shoulders." 
 
 " For my part, Fitz," Douglas 
 Jerrold cried across the table, 
 " I think you've only got a 
 pimple on your shoulders — 
 which will never come to a 
 head." 
 
 -^W/^ 
 
 / "pLATTERY is said to have been defined by 
 Jerrold as "the milk of human kindness 
 
 turned to butter. 
 
 ■'A/\/V^~ 
 
 H, 
 
 F. CHORLEY having written a play for 
 the Haymarkct, it was produced during 
 1854 but only ran for three nights "owing to 
 the war," as the author complainingly put it. 
 
 "No, my dear boy," rejoined Jerrold, to 
 whom the complaint was made, "I am afraid 
 it's thc//t'a'."
 
 Of the Nineteenth Century 103 
 
 ^^HE same writer called forth the following 
 remark from Jerrold : " \\'hy, Chorley, 
 your hair's red ; your waistcoat's red ; your /^ 
 necktie's red ; — in fact everything about you is 
 red except your books." 
 
 —'AAAf^r— 
 
 ■r\OUGLAS JERROLD said of the Secretary 
 to the British Bank, who began the busi- 
 ness of the day with prayer in the place of "his 
 peculations, that he very appropriately opened 
 with, " Let us/m'." 
 
 A LARGE party was dining at Sir William 
 Cope's residence at Bramshill to meet 
 Bishop Wilberforce, then recently appointed 
 to the see of ^^'inchestel». The conversation 
 was very brilliant, a remark of Charles Kings- 
 ley's being remembered by ^^'ilberforce as a 
 particularly happy one. The talk was of the 
 Irish Church which had recently been dis- 
 established and had hurriedly proceeded to 
 make sweeping changes in the Prayer-Book. 
 
 "It is," said Kingsley, "like the behaviour 
 of a man, who, having been with his goods 
 violently ejected from his house in a thunder- 
 storm, should take that opportunity of re- 
 arranging his furniture." 
 
 X
 
 I04 Bon-Mots 
 
 A SKED what mind was, Jerrold answered, 
 "No matter." 
 "Well," said his questioner, "what is matter 
 
 then?" 
 
 " Oh ! " said Jerrold, " never mind." 
 
 ^ "IZENNY, the dramatist, said of Luttrell's 
 " Advice to Julia " — "it is too lon^, and 
 not /troad enough." 
 
 -^A/\/\/V— 
 
 "p\IGNUM, a singer, was 
 complaining to old Kny- 
 vett, the king's composer, that 
 his healtli was much impaired, 
 and what was very extraordin- 
 ary that so strong a degree of 
 sympathy existed between him 
 and his brother, that one was 
 no sooner taken ill than the 
 other felt symptoms of the same indisposition, 
 whatever it might be. 
 
 "We are both of us very unwell now," 
 added Dignum, "and, as our complaint is 
 supposed to be an affection of the lungs, we 
 are ordered to take asses' milk ; but, unfor- 
 tunately, we have not been al)le to get any.
 
 Of the Nineteenth Century. 105 
 
 though we have tried all over London ; can 
 you tell me what we had better do ? " 
 
 "Do?" answered Knyvett, " why don't you 
 suck one another ? " 
 
 COMEONE who was present at a " particu- 
 larly lively and facetious" dinner with 
 Charles Lamb reports that one of the diners 
 said to him, "Mr Lamb, I shall be happy to 
 take wine with you. Is that the hock you have 
 before you?" 
 
 " Hoc est," replied the ready Elia, 
 
 —J'A/\f\r^- 
 
 Tr\E QUINCEY was beginning to expatiate 
 with some warmth upon the value of 
 Wordsworth's poetry, complaining that Lamb 
 did not do full justice to it. 
 
 Lamb at once broke in with, " If we are to 
 talk in this strain, we ought to have said grace 
 before we began our conversation." 
 
 T AMB at the dinner-table had upset his glass 
 by accident, when the host promptly re- 
 marked, "Never mind, it is soon replaced," 
 
 "Ah!" said Lamb, shaking his head, " oc- 
 cidit."
 
 r- 
 
 1 06 Bon- Mots 
 
 ■\X7"HEN Lord John Russell was desirous of 
 persuading Lord Langdale to resign the 
 Mastership of the Rolls for the Lord Chan- 
 eellorship, he paid him many high compliments 
 on his great talents. 
 
 "It is quite useless talking, my lord," said 
 Langdale. " So long as I enjoy the I?o//s, I 
 care nothing for your butter.'' 
 
 -■WV^ 
 
 T_r EARING someone sing a song of Moore's 
 in which occurs the line — 
 
 " Our couch shall be roses bespangled with dew" 
 
 Landor said that any sensible girl would retort 
 
 ""J'wouid give me rheumatics, and so it would you." 
 
 T AN DOR declared that Carlyle made a few 
 ideas go further than anyone had ever 
 done before — 
 
 " If you see a heap of books thrown on the 
 floor, they look ten times as many as when 
 orderly on the "^lielf. " 
 
 COMIC people were discussing predestination 
 when I)r I^ardner neatly remarked, "If 
 we were judged before we were born, then 
 certninly we were never born to be judged."
 
 Of the Nineteenth Century. 107 
 
 T^HERE was a certain aspirant to dramatic 
 fame who wrote a farce, and asked f>ed 
 Lawrence's (one of the founders of the Savage 
 Club) candid opinion about it. 
 
 "Egad, my boy," said Lawrence, "it is a 
 screamer ! " 
 
 ' ' Ah ! " replied the gratified author, ' ' I meant 
 it to be so. Isn't it smart and sharp now?" 
 
 "Tart and sharp it is," said Lawrence en- 
 thusiastically, "why, the mere reading of it 
 set my teeth on edge." 
 
 ■r\R LEIGH, Master of Balliol, was told how 
 in a recent dispute among the Privy Coun- 
 cillors, the Lord Chamberlain had struck the 
 table with such force as to split it. 
 
 "No, no, no," replied the Master, "I can- 
 not persuade myself that he split the table — 
 though I believe he divided the Board ! " 
 
 -^A/VV'T— 
 
 A BRAHAM LINCOLN, wittiest of American 
 Presidents, being asked how he felt when 
 the news came to him of a serious party defeat, 
 remarked — 
 
 "I felt somewhat like the boy in Kentucky 
 who stabbed his toe while running to see his 
 sweetheart. He said he was too big to cry, 
 and too badly hurt to laugh."
 
 [o8 
 
 Bon-Mots 
 
 A N Englishman calling at the White House 
 enlarged to the untravelled President Lin- 
 coln upon the differences between Englishmen 
 and Americans. 
 
 " Great difference in many respects," said the 
 visitor, ' ' great difference ! You Americans do 
 things that an Englishman 
 would never think of doing. 
 Now, for instance, an English 
 gentleman would never think 
 of blacking his own boots." 
 
 "Ah, indeed!" said Lincoln, 
 " whose would he black?" 
 
 — A/\/\/V>< — 
 
 'X'HE comedian Liston ob- 
 serving, at Drury Lane 
 Theatre, a parcel of MS., one 
 side of which was smeared 
 /\li Ktf Fl with blood, remarked : "That 
 ^'^^^^^ parcel contains a manuscript 
 
 tragedy." 
 On being asked why, he replied, "Because 
 xhQji/th act is peeping out at one corner of it." 
 
 T ISTON remarked upon Howard Payne's 
 habit of dressing up old plays as new 
 ones : ' ' That if he took as much payne and 
 trouble, to write something original, as he did 
 to rob others, he would be the most paynes- 
 taking writ<T of nonsense in existence."
 
 Of the Nineteenth Century. 109 
 
 ■LJENRY WADSWORTH LONGFEL- 
 LOW was introduced to a gentleman 
 named Longworth, when someone commented 
 on the similarity of their names. 
 
 " Yes," said the poet modestly, " but in this 
 case I feai' Pope's line will apply : ' tuorth 
 makes the man, and want of it the/ei/cnv.'' " 
 
 — A/\/\/V< — 
 
 /^N hearing a celebrated singer, Miss Tree, 
 Luttrell happily extemporised the follow- 
 mg epigram : — 
 
 " On this Tree if a nightingale settles and sings, 
 This Tree will return her as good as she brings." 
 
 TT being remarked to Luttrell that some 
 persons had opposed the building of the 
 Waterloo Bridge, saying it would spoil the 
 river, 
 
 "Gad, sir!" exclaimed the wit, " if a very 
 few sensible persons had been attended to, we 
 should still be champing acorns." 
 
 — WVW— 
 
 I 
 
 T was Luttrell who gave the oft-quoted 
 description of the English climate— "On a 
 fine day it is like looking up a chinuiey ; on a 
 rainy day like looking down.''
 
 no Bon-Mols 
 
 A TRAVELLER was discussing the lasso as 
 useful in catching men as well as animals, 
 when Luttrell interposed with — 
 
 "Why, the first S3'llable alone has caught 
 many a man." 
 
 -^A/\/V\f— 
 
 r^OME, come, for trifles never stick, 
 
 Most servants have a failing : 
 Yours, it is true, are sometimes sick, 
 But mine are ahoays aleiug. 
 
 T UTTRELL said of Rogers's sumptuously 
 illustrated /fa/y, that the work would 
 have been dished but for \.\\q plates.
 
 Of the Nineteenth Century. 1 1 1 
 
 'pOM MOORE mentioned that someone had 
 said of a retired hat-maker's very dark 
 complexion that he looked as if the dye of his 
 old trade had got engrained ^to his face. 
 
 "Yes," said Luttrell, " darkness that may be 
 feltr 
 
 T UTTRELL'S jokes were chietly puns, 
 according to Lord John Russell. For 
 instance when Croker had charged the public 
 with war-salary on account of Algiers, and 
 thereby excited much indignation, it happened 
 that someone at dinner talked of the name of 
 Croker Mountains given to land supposed to 
 be seen in one of the voyages to the North 
 Pole. 
 
 "Does anything grow on them?" asked 
 someone. 
 
 " Nothing, I believe, but a little wild celery" 
 (salary), said Luttrell. 
 
 — •A/\A/^ — 
 
 TN the early thirties when England was 
 agitated by the Reform discussion, Luttrell 
 said — 
 
 " In one Latin word is comprised the history 
 of the two parties at present. ' Reform-Ldo,' 
 says the Whig ; * Keformido,' says the Tory."
 
 112 
 
 Bon -Mots 
 
 COMEONE remarked to Sir F. Gould, "I 
 am told you eat three eggs every day at 
 breakfast." 
 
 " No," answered Gould ; " on the contrary." 
 ' ' W'hat is the contrary of 
 eating three eggs?" asked a 
 bystander. 
 
 " Laying three eggs, I sup- 
 pose," volunteered Luttrell. 
 
 —^AA/V' — 
 
 TT being remarked of a dis- 
 tinguished diner-out that 
 
 there would be on his tomb 
 "he dined late" — Luttrell added, "and died 
 early." 
 
 — ^A/VW — 
 
 e PEAKING of O'Connell, Luttrell happily 
 V applied the line§ — 
 
 *' Through all the compass of the notes he ran, 
 The diapason closing full in Dan." 
 
 A T a crowded dinner party at Holland House, 
 Lady Holland bid her company "make 
 room " for a late arrival. 
 
 "It must certainly be made, for it docs not 
 exisf." commentctl Luttrell.
 
 Of the Nineteenth Century. 113 
 
 ■p EFERRIXG to the salary attached to a 
 new judgeship, Lord Brougham said it 
 was all moonshine. 
 
 "May be so, my lord," quietly observed 
 Lord Lyndhurst ; ' ' but I have a strong notion 
 that, moonshine though it be, you would like 
 to see theyfnr/ quaiier of it." 
 
 — -aA/V/— 
 
 V^/'HEN Lyndhurst was Lord Chancellor he 
 declared that his method of selecting a 
 judge was : " I look out for a gentleman, and 
 if he knows a little law so much the better." 
 
 T YXDHURST said of his eminent rival, 
 Brougham, that he was the merest sciolist, 
 with a smattering of well-nigh everything — 
 except the law. 
 
 — 'y\,/\/\A — 
 
 J^ORD LYNDHURST described a Chan- 
 cellor's work as being divisible into three 
 parts — "First, the business that is with labour 
 done ; second, that which does itself ; third, 
 the work which is not done at all."
 
 114 Bon-Mots 
 
 /"'LEAVE the newsvendor, when tried in the 
 Court of Exchequer, conducted his own 
 case. He began his defence by saying that he 
 was afraid that before he sat down, he should 
 give some rather awkward illustrations of the 
 truth of the adage, that he who acts as his own 
 counsel has a fool for his client. 
 
 " Ah ! Mr Cleave," said Lyndhurst, who was 
 judge, "don't you mind that adage — it 7iias 
 framed by the la^vyers." 
 
 —j'ANv^— 
 
 T ITTLE love was lost between Brougham 
 and Macaulay, and each gave but grud- 
 ging admiration to the gifts of the other. 
 Macaulay described Brougham on one occasion 
 as "a kind of semi-Solomon, half knowing 
 everything from the cedar to the hyssop." 
 
 — A/\/\/V. — 
 
 TN one of his letters to a friend Macaulay 
 wrote : 
 
 " The other day I was overtaken by a hearse 
 as I was strolling along, and reading the nigiit 
 expedition of Uiomede and Ulysse 
 
 "'Would you like a ride, sir? said the 
 driver. ' Plenty of room.' 
 
 "I could not help laugliing. 'I daresay 1 
 shall want such a carriage some day or other. 
 l'.ut T am not ready yet.'"
 
 Of the Nineteenth Century. 115 
 
 A'^T'HEX it was rumoured that new peers 
 
 were to be created to ensure the safe 
 
 passage of the Reform Bill of 1832 through the 
 
 House of Lords, Macaulay parodied a nin-sery 
 song as follows — 
 
 " What though now opposed I be? 
 Twenty peers shall carry me. 
 If twenty won't, thirty will, 
 For I'm his Majesty's bouncing Rill."
 
 ii6 Bon-Mots 
 
 TV/TACAULAY on one occasion asked his 
 banker to explain to him the distinction 
 between the different classes of Spanish Stock, 
 — Active, Passive, and Deferred. Having 
 listened for some time attentively, "I think," 
 said the historian, " that I catch your meaning. 
 Active Spanish Bonds profess to pay interest 
 now, and do not. Deferred Spanish Bonds 
 profess to pay interest at some future time, 
 and will not. Passive Spanish Bonds profess 
 to pay interest neither now, nor at any future 
 time. I think that you might buy a large 
 amount of Passive Spanish Bonds for a very 
 small sum ! " 
 
 COMEONE having mentioned an acquaint- 
 ance who had gone to the West Indies, 
 hoping to make money, but had only ruined 
 the complexions of his daughters, Macaulay 
 immediately improvised the following verse — 
 
 " Mr Walker was sent to Berljice 
 
 By the greatest of statesmen and earls. 
 He went to bring back yellow boys, 
 I5ut he only ])rou.£;ht back yellow girls." 
 
 TXTHEN poor attenuated Samuel Rogers com- 
 plained that he could not find accom- 
 modation at any hotel in a country town during 
 an election. Sir James Mackintosh asked why he 
 did not seek a snug lie down in the churchyard.
 
 1 18 Bon-Mots 
 
 A FTER Lord Macaulay had sailed for India, 
 between fifty and sixty strops were found 
 in his chambers hacked into pieces, and razors 
 without end. About the same period, having 
 hurt his hand, he was obliged to send for a 
 barber. After the operation Macaulay enquired, 
 what had he to pay ? 
 
 "Oh, sir," said the man, "whatever you 
 usually give the person who shaves you." 
 
 "In that case," answered Macaulay, "I 
 should give you a great gash on each cheek." 
 
 T ORD JOHN RUSSELL has recorded : I 
 remember sitting by him (Sir James 
 Mackintosh) when a great lawyer, disclaiming, 
 from the Treasury Bench, all participation in 
 the opinions of the Liberal party, said, "I 
 could see nothing to tempt me in the views of 
 gentlemen opposite." 
 
 "For views, read prospects," whispered 
 Mackintosh to me. 
 
 — A/\/V\A — 
 
 'T'EA, Maginn insisted, must have been known 
 to the Romans, for it was evidently a 
 favourite beverage with the ladies in Plautus' 
 time, 
 
 " ' Aniant (e o»ines imilieres.'"
 
 Of the Nineteenth Century. 1 19 
 
 T^R MAGINN was one of the readiest of 
 wits in employing classical quotations. 
 When dining on ham and chicken at a friend's 
 house, he thus addressed that friend's house- 
 keeper, ' ' You know what old Ovid says in his 
 Art of Love ; I give you the same wish — 
 ' Semper tihipettdfea/ /laniits' 
 
 ' May you always have a /lam hanging in 
 your kitchen.' " 
 
 -^AA/V'f— 
 
 r\YlD was made to eulogise hock by the 
 doctor's quotation of — 
 
 " ' Hoc turn saevus paulatim mitigat iras, 
 
 Hoc minuit luctus moestaque corda levat.' " 
 
 A 
 
 — -A/VV^ — 
 
 MAN who consents to be shown as a lion, 
 runs the risk of being at last metamor- 
 phosed into an ass. 
 
 — 'AAi'W- 
 
 "P\R MAGINN in commenting on the change 
 which a dozen years had made in the 
 Comte d'Orsay — 
 
 " Believe me. dear Comte, that twelve years do not 
 pass, 
 And leave not some signs as they go , 
 They may fly with the zvings 0/ tJte haivk — but 
 alas ! 
 They are marked by \^^fcet 0/ the crcnv .'"
 
 I20 Bon-Mots 
 
 T^HEODORE HOOK told Mathews how 
 when he was supping once with Peake, 
 that dramatist surreptitiously removed from his 
 plate several slices of tongue ; and, 
 as though much annoyed by the 
 practical joke, Hook finished by 
 asking — 
 
 "Now, Charles, what would _)v« 
 do to anybody who treated you in 
 such a manner?" 
 
 "Do?" exclaimed Mathews, "if 
 any man meddled with my tongue, 
 I'd lick him ! " 
 
 —'AM^n— 
 
 ISITING Wakefield when it 
 was in a state of miserable 
 trade depression, Mathews announced his vari- 
 ous pieces but drew no audiences. Disheartened 
 he continued his tour, and at Edinburgh was 
 asked how much money he had made at Wake- 
 field. 
 
 " Not a shilling ! " he replied. 
 
 " Not a shilling?" said his friend sceptically, 
 "why, didn't you go there to star ?" 
 
 "Yes," said the comedian with a melancholy 
 grin, "but they spell it with a ve in Wake- 
 field."
 
 Of the Nineteenth Century. 121 
 
 •yHE younger Charles Mathews was destined 
 for the profession of an architect, and on 
 the elder Mathews being asked what his son 
 was going to do — 
 
 "Why," answered he, "he is going to draw 
 houses like his father." 
 
 ■\^HEN Mathews was very ill, a friend who 
 was attending him gave him in mistake 
 some ink instead of medicine. Discovering his 
 error, the friend exclaimed in horror — 
 
 "Good heavens ! Mathews, I have given you 
 ittkl" 
 
 "Never mind, my boy — never mind," said 
 the sick man in a faint voice, " I'll swallow a 
 bit — of blotting paper /" 
 
 PHARLES MATHE\\'S, who had been 
 waiting on the box seat of a coach on a 
 frosty day, said to the driver when at length 
 he appeared — 
 
 " If you stand here much longer, Mr Coach- 
 man, your horses will be hke Captain Parrj-'s 
 ships." 
 
 " How's that, sir?" 
 
 ' ' ^^'hy , frozefi at the pole. "
 
 122 Bon- Mots : 
 
 ■pJANDING an order for the theatre to a 
 friend, Mathews asked — 
 
 "'Who was the first man recorded in history 
 who didn't pay? " 
 
 "Why, really I never gave it a thought, and 
 so I give it up," said the perplexed friend. 
 
 ' ' Why, Joseph, of course, " said the comedian, 
 "did not his brothers put him in the pit for 
 nothing?" 
 
 A BARRISTER was addressing a Court, 
 over which Baron Maule presided, and 
 was stating his case in a very haphazard 
 fashion, when the Baron interrupted him with, 
 ' ' Mr Barker, could you not state your facts 
 in some kind of order ? Chronological is the 
 best, but if you cannot manage that try some 
 other ; alpliabetical, if you please." 
 
 AT a Bohemian dinner Robert Soutar, of the 
 Morning Advertiser, having said some- 
 thing, pointed to the host of the evening. 
 Augustus Mayliew took him to task, saying, 
 that for his conduct he would never be admitted 
 to heaven. " AV sutor ultra portas !" St 
 Peter would cry out to him; "Nay, Soutar, 
 you will not get beyond these gates."
 
 Of the Nineteenth Century. 
 
 123 
 
 A CITY policeman, a witness before Maule, 
 having said he was in the "hens (N) 
 division," the judge quietly ob- 
 served, "Do you mean the 
 Poultry f" 
 
 —'Af\J\f^ — 
 
 nPHE editor of the Exafnincr 
 having made a savage 
 onslaught on Maule, a friend, 
 as friends will, drew his atten- 
 tion to the offending passage. 
 
 "Well, I can't understand 
 it," said the judge, " I never did him a favour. 
 
 TN connection with 
 a celebrated bank 
 smash Mr Serjeant 
 Ballantyne tells the 
 following stor>' : My 
 old friend Henry All- 
 worth Merewether is 
 credited with a good 
 joke in connection 
 with their failure. 
 ° <i After it had occurred, 
 °» he was coming down 
 the steps of the bank- 
 ing house and nearly tumbled. A friend who 
 
 ^
 
 124 Bon-Mots 
 
 happened to be passing, expressed a hope that 
 he was not hurt. " Oh, no," said he, " I have 
 only lost my balance." 
 
 "T^ISCUSSING a recent masquerade Lady 
 Clare happened to remark that she was 
 always "found out " at such festivities. 
 
 "Ah!" said Tom Moore, "that shows you 
 are not the ^/a//'-ob.scure." 
 
 " CIR," said Lord Mulgrave to a chaplain 
 who had preached at inordinate length, 
 "there were some things in your sermon of to- 
 day I never heard before." 
 
 "Oh! my lord," said the flattered clerg}'- 
 man, "it is a common text, and I could not 
 have hoped to have said anything new on the 
 subject." 
 
 " I heard the clock strike twice!" 
 
 —"AAJSfv — 
 
 AN actor was being rallied by his com- 
 panions on the ill-cut of a new coat, and 
 he apologised by saying ' ' it was his tailor's 
 fault." 
 
 "Yes, poor man," remarked Mundcn, "and 
 his viisfortuve, too. '
 
 Of the Nineteenth Centurv. 12: 
 
 T ADY CAROLIXE LAMB, it was reported, 
 
 had in a moment of passion knocked / 
 down one of her pages with a stool. Lord 
 
 Strangford having told this to Moore, the poet 
 observed — 
 
 " Nothing is more natural for a literary lady 
 than to double down a page." 
 
 "I would rather," replied his companion, 
 ' ' advise Lady Caroline to turn over a new 
 leaf."
 
 126 Bon-Mots 
 
 A/TUN DEN, when confined to his bed with 
 illness, was told by a friend that his 
 dignified indisposition was the laugh of the 
 green-room. 
 
 " I love to laugh, and to make others laugh," 
 said he, " yet I would much rather they should 
 make me a sfa7iding)o\^G." 
 
 V\7'HEN the Tithe Corporation Act was 
 
 passed, it met with the warmest support 
 
 of Lord Plunkett, who had a son in the Church. 
 
 "I wonder, " said a friend, "how it is that 
 so sensible a man as Plunkett cannot see the 
 imperfections in the Act." 
 
 "Pooh, pooh! the reason's plain enough," 
 said Xorbury ; "he has f/te son /;/ //is eye." 
 
 T ORD NORBURY, riding in company with 
 
 a legal friend, seeing a beautiful woman 
 
 pass by, exclaimed "Who is that lovely girl?" 
 
 " Miss Glass," replied the barrister. 
 
 "Glass," repeated tiie judge, "by the love 
 which man bears to woman, I should often 
 become intoxicated, could I press such a. glass 
 to my lips."
 
 Of the Nineteenth Century. 127 
 
 "NTORBURY and Judge Bailey were compar- 
 ing ages, when the former said the other 
 looked particularly youthful for his years ; ' ' you 
 certainly have as little of the Old Bailey about 
 you as any judge I know." 
 
 — /AAA"— 
 
 A WITNESS of doubtful integrity being 
 closely interrogated by Lord Norbury, 
 turned to an acquaintance and said in a 
 whisper not intended for the judge's ears, that 
 he did not come there to be ' ' queered by the 
 old uu." 
 
 "I'm old, it's true," instantly said Norbury 
 in his own canting phrases, "and I'm r7ifn 
 sometimes, and for once I'll be queer, and send 
 you to quod." 
 
 — '^t\f\JV' — 
 
 COME delay happening in a cause which was 
 being heard before Lord Norbury, his lord- 
 ship enquired the reason. He was answered 
 that Mr Serjeant Joy, who was to lead, was 
 absent, but that Mr Hope the soUcitor had 
 said that he would return immediately. 
 
 The judge immediately put himself in a good 
 humour by appositely quoting — 
 
 " Hope told a flattering tale, 
 That/ty would soon return."
 
 128 Bon-Mots 
 
 A N attorney having died in poverty, a shilling 
 subscription was set on foot to pay for his 
 funeral. 
 
 "Only a shilling to bury an attorney ! " ex- 
 claimed Lord Chief Justice Norbury. " Here's 
 a guinea ; go and bury one and hventy of f hem.'" 
 
 A SPORTING barrister on circuit was 
 narrating his exploits to Lord Norbury, 
 
 and declared that he had shot thirty-three hares 
 before breakfast. 
 
 "Thirty-three hairs/" echoed Norbury 
 " zounds, sir! then you must have been firing 
 at a zcig. "
 
 Of the Nineteenth Century. 129 
 
 COMEONE, describing Lawrence's portrait 
 of Croker to Peel, said, ' ' Why, you can see 
 the very quiver of his hps. " 
 
 "Yes," said Peel, "and the arrow coming 
 out of it." 
 
 (~^H ARLES PHILLIPPS was a witty barrister 
 who once scored admirably off irritable 
 old Adolphus. The former had gradually ab- 
 sorbed much of the business of the latter, who 
 said to him in the counsel's robing room — 
 
 ' ' You remind me of three B's — Blarney, 
 Bully, and Bluster." 
 
 " Ah ! " retorted the other, "you never com- 
 plained of my B's until they began to suck your 
 honey." 
 
 A T a festive gathering Con Lyno undertook 
 to recite something. 
 ' ' Come, come, Lyne, stand up while you do 
 it," said Plunket, "and nobody at least can 
 say you are Co?i seated. " 
 
 ""\X/'ELL," said a friend to Plunket, "you 
 see my predictions have come true." 
 "Indeed!" answered he, "I always knew 
 you were a dore. but I did not know you were 
 an aiignr." 
 
 I
 
 130 Bon-Mots 
 
 T ORD PLUNKET by no means relished 
 his forced resignation of the Irish Lord 
 Chancellorship and his being superseded by 
 Lord Campbell. When the latter was expected 
 in Dublin a great storm was raging, and a 
 friend suggested to Plunket that the passage 
 was likely to make his successor sick of his 
 promotion. 
 
 " Yes," said Plunket ruefully, " but it won't 
 make him throw up the seals." 
 
 T ORD REDESDALE was much puzzled by 
 one of Plunket's best Jeux desprit. A 
 cause was argued in Chancery, wherein the 
 plaintiff prayed that the defendant should be 
 restrained from suing him on certain bills of 
 exchange, as they were nothing but " kites." 
 
 "Kites!" exclaimed the judge, "Kites! 
 Mr Plunket ? Kites never could amount to the 
 value of these securities. I don't understand 
 the statement at all, Mr Plunket." 
 
 "It is not to be expected that you should, 
 my lord, answered Plunket. "In England 
 and in Ireland kites are quite difterent things. 
 In England the wind raises the 'kites,' and in 
 Ireland the ' kites' raise the; wind." 
 
 — MAA'*^
 
 132 Bon- Mots 
 
 SOMEONE praising a waterfall said, "Why, 
 it's quite a cataract ! " 
 " Oh, that's all my eye," said Plunket. 
 
 — MA/\^— 
 
 TT was Plunket who said that "if a cause 
 were tried before Day (the Justice) it would 
 be tried in the dark." 
 
 JOHN POOLE (the author oi Paul Pry) and 
 •J Mathews were invited to dine with D'Egville 
 at Brighton. The host enquired Mathews' 
 favourite dish, and learning that it was a roast 
 leg of pork with sage and onions, ordered 
 accordingly. The dinner duly arrived, but 
 D'Egville, who was carving, could not find the 
 stuffing ; he kept turning the joint over, but in 
 wain. At length Poole quietly remarked to 
 him, ' ' Don't make yourself unhappy, D'Egville ; 
 perhaps it is in the other lejy/" 
 
 "YATTIKN an actor named I'riest was perform- 
 ing at one of the principal theatres, it 
 was remarked at the (Jarrick Club tliat there 
 were a great many men in the pit. 
 
 "IVobably, " quietly remarked PooK-, "they 
 were .nil clerks ivho luroe taken Priest's orders,"
 
 Of the Nineteenth Century. 133 
 
 TX a conversation on phrenology Poole 
 hazarded the suggestion that the drunkard 
 had a barrel organ. 
 
 — vVW*'^ 
 
 pLUMER, one time M.P. for Hertfordshire, 
 once gained the vote of a wavering con- 
 stituent by his ready wit. He had called on a 
 shopkeeper and asked for his vote. The shop- 
 man stiffly refused, and on being asked why, 
 answered, 
 
 " Because you voted against the Repeal of 
 the Corporation and Test Acts." 
 
 It happened that there was standing in the 
 shop a journeyman with a pimply nose. 
 Plumer called to him, 
 
 " How long have you been here?" 
 
 " More than twenty years." 
 
 "Tell me, don't you like a drop ? 
 
 ' ' Oh, yes ! " 
 
 And every now and then take a little more 
 than is quite prudent?" 
 
 " Oh, yes ; now and then." 
 
 "See now," cried out Plumer, "how much 
 better your master treats you than he does me ; 
 he has kept you for twenty years, who every 
 now and then have done what you ought not, 
 and he turns me off for a single fault ! " 
 
 The vote was secured.
 
 134 Bon-Mots 
 
 /^N hearing Moore sing one of his " Irish 
 Melodies " someone remarked — 
 " Everything that's national is delightful." 
 "Except the National Debt," promptly 
 
 added Poole. 
 
 — V\/\/\//>— 
 
 A FRIEND having asked Mrs Procter (wife 
 of " Barry Cornwall ") how it was that she 
 and a certain acrid critic got on together, she 
 replied, 
 
 "Oh! very well, indeed; we sharpen each 
 other like two knives.' 
 
 — A/\/\/V< — 
 
 TV/TRS TROLLOPE'S book on America was 
 being very severely handled at one of 
 Rogers' breakfast parties. Dean Milman de- 
 fended the traveller, saying that he was aware 
 of what hard usage she had to complain by his 
 acquaintance with her. 
 
 "Oh, yes," broke in Rogers, "he is acquainted 
 with Mrs Trollope. He had the forming of 
 her mind." 
 
 \T one of these celebrated breakfasts the 
 subject of conversation happened to be 
 T.ady Parke. 
 
 "She is so good," declared Rogers, "that 
 when she goes to Heaven she will find no 
 difference except that her ankles will be thinner 
 and her head better dressed."
 
 Of the Nineteenth Century. 135 
 
 "DRISK old Lady Cork complained to the 
 poet, "You never take me anywhere." 
 "Oh, I will take you everywhere," replied 
 Rogers, and then after a pause, he added, ' " and 
 never bring you back again." 
 
 T N a conversation on the Game Laws, Rogers 
 said, "If a partridge, on arriving in this 
 country, were to ask, what are the Game Laws? 
 and somebody would tell him they are laws for 
 the protection of gatne, ' What an excellent 
 country to live in,' the partridge would say, 
 ' where there are so many laws for our protec- 
 tion.'" 
 
 — -A/S/V^ — 
 
 TJTAVING been requested by Lady Holland 
 to ask Sir Philip Francis whether he was 
 the writer of Junius' Letters, he approached 
 Francis, and asked — 
 
 "Will you. Sir Philip, — will your kindness 
 excuse my addressing you a single question ?" 
 
 "At your peril, sir," was the harsh and laconic 
 answer, 
 
 Rogers beat a retreat, and when asked the 
 result of his application said, "I don't know 
 whether his is Junius ; but if he be, he is certainly 
 Junius Brutus."
 
 136 Bon- Mots 
 
 " "pOUND Rogers," wrote Tom Moore to a 
 friend, "in high good humour. In 
 talking of Miss White, he said, ' How wonder- 
 fully she does hold out : they may say what 
 they will, but Miss WTiite and -1/molonghi are 
 the most remarkable things going.' " 
 
 "pOGERS asked the name of a slow-going 
 
 coach by which he was travelling, and on 
 
 0^ being told that it was the "Regulator," re- 
 
 Q^ marked, " I thought so— for all the others go 
 
 by it." 
 
 TT being remarked by someone that the 
 dinner-hour was dways being made later 
 and later, Rogers said, " Yes ; it will soon end 
 in one never dining until to-morrcnv." 
 
 A^NE of Rogers' favourite stories was of an 
 Englishman and a Frenchman who agreed 
 to fight a duel in a darkened room . The Englisli- 
 JT man, unwilling to kill his antagonist, fired up 
 ^ the chimney, and — brotii^ht do7on the French- 
 _^ man. "When I tell this story in France," 
 ) Rogers was wont to add, " I make the English- 
 man go up the chimney."
 
 138 Bon-Mots 
 
 ■p OGERS said that the man who would keep 
 up with the rush of new publications must 
 often do as the flea does — skip. 
 
 T N conversation with Rogers a friend observed, 
 " I never put my razor into hot water, as I 
 find it injures the temper of the blade." 
 
 " No doubt of it," observed the poet ; "show 
 me the blade that is not o?if of temper when 
 plunged into Jwt 7cater." 
 
 "D OGERS neatly retaliated on Ward (Lord 
 Dudley) who had, as a friend, written a 
 cold review of one of liis poems. The retalia- 
 tion took the form of the following well-known 
 epigram, — 
 
 •' Ward has no heart, they say ; but I deny it ; — 
 He has a heart, and gets his speeches by it." 
 
 — WWv — 
 
 'IIW'HEN Dean Milman observed that he 
 should read no more prose translations 
 from poets, "What," exclaimed Rogers readily, 
 "not the Psalms of David to your congrega- 
 tion?"
 
 Of the Nineteenth Century. 1 39 
 
 TirHEN Croker's review of Macaulay's His- 
 tory appeared in the Quarterly, Rogers 
 said that the critic "in- 
 tended murder, but com- 
 mitted suicide." 
 
 QN Hallam's publish- 
 ing a supplementary 
 volume to ihe Middle Ages, 
 Rogers said, "Here is 
 Hallam, who has spent 
 his whole life in contra- 
 dicting everybody, now obliged to publish 
 volume to contradict himself." 
 
 ■—^AAtv^- 
 
 TT being said that George the Fourth in- 
 tended holding a Drawing Room, Rogers 
 remarked that His Majesty would then be a 
 seqtience in himself — King, Queen and Knave, 
 
 —'Af\/V^ — 
 
 COMEOXE having remarked that Payne 
 Knight had become very deaf, Rogers 
 said, " 'Tis from want of practice; he is the 
 worst listener I know."
 
 140 Bon-Mots 
 
 "DOGERS, to a young poet : " Don't you be 
 so hard on Pope and Dryden, — yoic don't 
 know what ive may come to." 
 
 — W\A/"^ 
 
 " "LJOW many persons will dance over 
 Brougham's grave," said Rogers and 
 ^ then added, after a pause, "but they will be 
 very sure he is in it first." 
 
 CTEWART ROSE, a friend of Tom Moore's, 
 said ' ' that he had learned from Lord 
 X Byron's poetry that two bulls make a nightin- 
 gale." (Bulbul). 
 
 A 
 
 COMPOSER brought a couple of operas 
 to submit to Rossini's judgment, and 
 Rossini after hearing one; played over, mean- 
 ingly observed " I prefer the other," 
 
 "DOSSINI was discussing Wagner with a 
 friend who was an enthusiastic admirer 
 of the Bayreuth genius. 
 
 ' ' Dans la nuisique de Wagner," said Rossini, 
 " il y a de beaux moments ct de manvais quarts 
 d'hcure. '
 
 Of the Nineteenth Century. 
 
 141 
 
 "\\7'HEN Rossini dined with a certain lady 
 whose dinners were known to be ar- 
 ranged as economically as possible, the meal 
 was as usual an unsatisfactory one. The 
 maestro left the table nearly as hungry as when 
 he sat down. 
 
 ' ' I hope that you will soon do me the honour 
 to dine with me again," said 
 the hostess as he was about 
 to leave. 
 
 "Indeed, I will," replied 
 he, "this minute, if you 
 like." 
 
 — A/\J\/\^ — 
 
 e PEAKING of some of 
 Swinburne's earlier erotic 
 poems, Dante Gabriel Ros- 
 setti is reported to have said, 
 "Yes, there is no doubt 
 that Swinburne is />oe/a 
 nascitiir, but unfortunately, 
 cation." 
 
 no)i Jit for publi- 
 
 -^AAJV-r 
 
 TOURING the stormy days of 1848 four 
 stalwart supporters of a crude Socialism 
 entered the bank of Baron Anselm de Roths- 
 child at Frankfort, and insisted on seeing the 
 Baron himself.
 
 142 Bon-Mots 
 
 " You have millions on millions," said they 
 to him, ' ' and we have nothing ; you must 
 divide with us." 
 
 "Very well," said the financier suavely; 
 " what do you suppose the firm of Rothschild 
 is worth?" 
 
 " About forty million of florins." 
 
 " Forty millions, you think, eh ? Now there 
 are forty millions of people in Germany ; that 
 will be a florin a piece. Here's yours." 
 
 -w\/\/Vv— 
 
 S 
 
 IR JAMES SCARLETT was cross-e.xamin- 
 ing a witness whose evidence he considered 
 might be damaging unless he could be bothered 
 a little. His chief point of vulnerability was 
 self-esteem, and when, portly and over-dressed, 
 he entered the witness-box, the relentless bar- 
 rister began— 
 
 " Mr John Tomkins, I believe?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " You are a stock- broker?" 
 
 " I havi!" 
 
 Scarlett looked closely at him for a moment 
 or two, and then remarked quietly, "And a 
 very fine, wcll-drcsscd hatn you are, sir." 
 
 The shout of laughter with which this sally 
 was greeted disconcerted the witness, and 
 counsel gained his point.
 
 Of the Nineteenth Century. 143 
 
 C PEAKING of his own playing Rubinstein 
 
 said that at every concert he dropped 
 
 notes enough to furnish two ordinary concerts. 
 
 -wvw^ 
 
 r^RABB ROBINSON records how he ventured 
 to spar with the German philosopher 
 Schelling : Some strange 
 and unintelligible remarks 
 had been made on the 
 mythology as well of tlie 
 Orientalists as the Greeks, 
 and the important part 
 played by the Serpent. 
 A gentleman present ex- 
 hibited a ring, received 
 from England, in the form 
 of a serpent. 
 
 "Is the serpent the 
 symbol of English philo- 
 sophy?" said Schelling to 
 me. 
 
 "Oh, no ! " I answered; 
 ' ' the English take it to ap- 
 pertain to German philo- 
 sophy because it changes 
 its coat every year." 
 
 " A proof," he replied, " that the English do 
 not look deeper than the coat. " 
 
 F 
 
 
 r 
 
 1^
 
 144 Bon-Mots 
 
 QAYS Crabb Robinson in his Diary: "Mr 
 Scargill breakfasted with me. A sensible 
 man. He said an Englishman is never happy 
 but when he is miserable ; a Scotchman is never 
 at home but when he is abroad ; an Irishman 
 is at peace only when he is fighting." 
 
 — wvw^- 
 
 CIR WALTER SCOTT advised Samuel 
 Rogers to try his fortune in medicine, in 
 which he would be sure to succeed, if there was 
 any truth in physiognomy, on the strength of 
 his having a perpetual /(7^?Vj' Hippocratica. 
 
 f\P some imitators of the style of Dr Johnson, 
 Scott said, "Many can make Johnson's 
 report, but few can carry his bullet ^ 
 
 — aWv. — 
 
 "IX^HEN Wakley, of the Laucet, who had had 
 his house burnt down but had to sue the 
 Fire Office for the insurance on it, entered 
 Parliament he became a popular speaker. 
 After one of his speeches, however, a friend 
 remarked, " //<• will never sot the Thames on 
 fire. " 
 
 " No," said Shield in an audible wliispcr, 
 "unless he hnd first insmed it."
 
 Of the Nineteenth Century. 145 
 
 ■p) EAN SHI PLEY, on getting into his carriage 
 with about a dozen children, and giving 
 sixpence to a , beggar woman, "God be with 
 you," said she. 
 
 " God, forbid! my good woman," said the 
 Dean, " there's quite enough of us alread}'." 
 
 C HUTER, the comedian, explained as follows 
 his reasons for preferrmg to wear stockings 
 with holes in them to having them darned : — 
 ' ' A hole may be the accident of a day, and will 
 pass upon the best gentleman, but a darn is 
 premeditated poverty." 
 
 — 'AA/V''^- 
 
 "pOBUS SMITH (brother of the witty canon) 
 gave good advice to Macaulay when the 
 latter was about to start for 
 the East to take up his 
 official position at Calcutta. 
 " Always manage to have 
 at your table some fleshy, 
 blooming, young writer or 
 cadet, just come out ; that 
 the mosquitoes may stick to him, and leave 
 the rest of the company alone." 
 K
 
 146 Bon-Mots 
 
 TLIORACE SMITH once puzzled a company 
 by suddenly asking for a solution of the 
 following charade — 
 
 " ^Ty first is a dropper, my second a propper, 
 and my whole a whopper ! " 
 
 No answer was of course forthcoming, when 
 Smith explained that the word was Falstaff. 
 
 -wvvNa^— 
 
 T ORD LYNDHURST having mentioned 
 that an old lady friend of his kept her 
 books in detached book-cases, the male authors 
 in one, and the female authors in another, ' ' I 
 suppose her reason was," said James Smith, 
 " that she did not wish to add to her library." 
 
 — A/\/Vv^— 
 
 A GENTLEMAN of the same name as James 
 Smith (one of the authors of Rejected 
 Addresses) having taken lodgings in the same 
 house, the consequence was incessant confusion. 
 Some particularly aggravating instance of mis- 
 taken identity having taken place, the author 
 said to the new-comer — 
 
 " This is intolerable, sir, and you must quit." 
 ' ' Why am I to quit more than you ? " 
 "Because you are James the Second — and 
 must abdicate. "
 
 Of the Nineteenth Century. 147 
 
 "T^HE {oWowing Jeux desprii were hit off at a 
 dinner table by James Smith and Sir 
 George Rose, in allusion to Craven St., Strand, 
 where the former resided — 
 
 S>nzi/i. 
 
 " At the top of the street ten attorneys find place 
 And ten dark coal barges are moored at its base : 
 Fly, Honesty, fly, to some safer retreat, 
 For there's craft in the river and crafi in the 
 street." 
 Rose. 
 
 •' Why should Honesty fly to some safer retreat, 
 From attorneys and barges, 'od rot 'em? 
 For they lawyers axe just at the top of the street, 
 And the barges are just at the bottom." 
 
 — A/\/\/V«— 
 
 T T being said in the presence of James Smith 
 that the confectioners had found a method 
 of discharging the ink from old parchment by 
 a chemical process and then making the parch- 
 ment into isinglass for their jellies, he neatly 
 remarked, "Oh, then, nowadays a man may 
 eat his deeds as well as his words. " 
 
 /^N another occasion a young man, thinking 
 to pay him a compliment, said, "Mr 
 Smith, you look like a Conservative." 
 
 "Certainly, sir," replied the wit, "my 
 crutches remind me that I am no member of 
 the viovement \)-xx\'^.''
 
 148 Bon-Mots 
 
 'T'HE following lines were the last written by 
 James Smith — 
 
 " Though a railroad, learned Rector, 
 
 Passes near your parish spire ; 
 
 Think not, sir, you Sunday lecture 
 
 E'er will overwhelm'd expire. 
 
 Put not then your hopes in weepers, 
 
 Solid work my road secures ; 
 Preach whateer you will— ;;y sleepers 
 
 Never will a.waken}'ou >:<;." 
 
 ■ ^AJ\M- 
 
 J AMES SMITH would not be betrayed into 
 the expression of any definite political 
 views: "My opinions are those of the lady 
 who sits next to me, and as the fair sex are 
 generally 'perplexed like monarchs with the 
 fear of change,' I constantly find myself 
 Conservative."
 
 A 
 
 Of the Nineteenth Century. 149 
 
 N author having ceased to write after 
 receiving a pension, Smith said, "it was 
 only natural — he had become Sl pen-shunner." 
 
 CMITH maintained that Mademoiselle Mars 
 was not the real appellation of the great 
 actress, but only a nom de guerre ! 
 
 'yO Lady Blessington, Smith said: "The 
 newspapers tell me that your carriage is 
 very highly varnished. This, I presume, means 
 your wheeled carriage. The merit of your 
 personal carriage has always been, to my mind, 
 its absence from all varnish ; the question 
 requires that a jury should be iiupanneUed." 
 
 -— AAA/-V— 
 
 OMITH tired off the following impromptu 
 verses at Gore House — 
 
 " Mild Wilberforce, by all beloved, 
 Once owned tliis hallowed spot : 
 Whose zealous eloquence improved 
 The fettered negro's lot. 
 
 " Yet here still Slavery attacks 
 Whom Blessington invites ; 
 The chains from which he freed the Blacks, 
 She fastens on the Whites."
 
 150 Bon-Mots 
 
 "LTAVING been chaffing a man — who was 
 tender on the subject — about his age, 
 Smith was met with ' ' This is enough to try a 
 man's fortitude." 
 
 "It should have done that ten years ago," 
 was the retort, "at present it must try your 
 Jiftyinde." 
 
 JAMES SMTTH addressed the following lines 
 to a wealthy vinegar merchant — 
 
 " Let Hannibal boast of his conquering sway, 
 
 Thy liquid achievements spread wider and 
 quicker ; 
 By vinegar he through the Alps made liis way, 
 But thou through the world by the very same 
 liquor." 
 
 'yO Strahan, the king's printer, who was 
 suffering from gout and old age yet kept 
 his faculties unimpaired, Smith offered the 
 following happy tribute — 
 
 "Your lower limbs seemed far from stout. 
 
 When last I saw you walk ; 
 The cause I presently found out. 
 
 When you began to talk. 
 The i)ower that props the body's length 
 
 In due jiroportion spread, 
 In you mounts upwards, and the strength 
 
 All settles in the head."
 
 Of the Nineteenth Century, 151 
 
 "X^HEN Sothern (of Lord Dundreary fame) 
 was in New York he hired an attenuated 
 livery horse for a drive. Having stopped at a 
 wayside taveri!, his servant was covering the 
 animal with a rug, when a friend coming up 
 enquired— 
 
 "Say, Ned, what do 
 you put that blanket 
 over your horse for ? " 
 
 ' ' Oh," was the actor's 
 reply, "that is to keep 
 the wind from blowing 
 the hay out of him." 
 
 ^YHEN Lord Mel- 
 bourne was in- 
 specting the Reform 
 Club kitchen, he re- 
 marked to vSoyer, the chef, that his female 
 assistants were all very pretty. 
 
 "Yes, my lord," said Soyer, "plain cooks 
 will not do here." 
 
 —A/\/\/v — 
 
 JyJR SERJEANT SPANKIE in a Finsbury 
 
 election contest was opposed to Messrs 
 
 Buncombe and Wakley, the former of whom 
 
 was not famous for paying his debts, and the
 
 152 Bon- Mots 
 
 latter was accused of having burnt his house 
 down. Spankie having soHcited an elector for 
 his support was told he had already promised 
 to vote for his two opponents. 
 
 "Well," said he, "I only hope you may 
 have the one for a debtor and the other for a 
 tenant." 
 
 -wVWy— 
 
 A GENTLEMAN seated between Madame 
 de Stael and a very pretty woman said 
 he was indeed fortunately situated, being placed 
 between Genius and Beauty. 
 
 "This is the first time," said Madame de 
 Stael, "that I have been praised for my 
 beauty." 
 
 -^A/\M'— 
 
 "XXTHEN George Stephenson was examined 
 before a Parliamentary Committee with 
 reference to his new locomotive, one member 
 of the committee pressed him with many ques- 
 tions, and at length put the following case: 
 "Suppose, now, one of these engines to be 
 going along a railroad at the rate of nine or 
 ten miles an hour, and that a cow were to 
 stray upon the line and get in the way of the 
 engine ; would not that, think you, be a very 
 awkward circumstance?" 
 
 "Yes," replied Stephenson, witli a twinkle in 
 his eye, " verra awkward indeed— /or ike coo."
 
 Of the Nineteenlh Century. 153 
 
 C PEAKING of the Revised Version of the 
 New Testament, Spurgeon said in a 
 caustic manner that transhitors should possess 
 a perfect knowledge of both the language from 
 which, and the one into which, they translate. 
 Now it seemed to him that the revisers, who 
 were most likely excellent Greek scholars, had 
 but an indifferent knowledge of English. 
 
 JOHN STERLING described Carlyle as 
 •^ preaching "silence" through a trumpet, 
 and proclaiming "good-will to man" by 
 mouths of cannon. 
 
 T ORD ELDON having made some fun at 
 Lord Stowell's expense, saying, ' ' my 
 brother takes regular exercise twice a day — in 
 eating" the latter neatly retaliated with, "my 
 brother will drink zny given quantity of wine." 
 
 TT was Lord Stowell, too, who, when asked 
 what the Lord Chancellor killed when he 
 went out with a shooting party, answered, " He 
 killed— /*/ /«<?."
 
 154 Bon-Mots 
 
 'T'HE Duchess of Sutherland when at the 
 Queen's famous masked ball was told 
 
 that a certain peer, of uncertain fame, was to 
 be her partner in the 
 quadrille, she immedi- 
 ately said — 
 
 " How dull it will be 
 for him to be so long 
 with someone of decent 
 character." 
 
 'T'HE author of " In- 
 goldsby" is respon- 
 sible for the following 
 Young Sutton, Lord Can- 
 terbury's son, calling one 
 day at Saunders and Ot- 
 ley's library, was very 
 angry because they had 
 not sent some books he 
 had ordered. He was, as usual, pretty warm, 
 so much so that one of the partners could bear 
 it no longer and told him as nmch. 
 
 " I don't know who you are," was the answer, 
 " but I don't want to annoy you personally, as 
 you may not be the one in fault ; it's your con- 
 founded house that I blame. You may be 
 Otley, or you may be Saunders ; if you arc 
 Saunders, damn Otley ; if you are Otley, damn 
 Saunders. I mean nothing personal tojv/^"
 
 Of the Nineteenth Century. 155 
 
 A MOT which has been credited to various 
 v/its is ascribed by " The Old Bohemian " 
 to Frank Talfourd, son of the author of Ion. 
 There was an admiring young friend of his 
 who was occasionally pestering him with some 
 unmeaning remark or the other. 
 
 " Frank," said this youth to him one night at 
 the Lyceum, " Frank, you never wear a great- 
 coat." 
 
 "No," replied Frank, after a moment's 
 reflection, " I don't think I ever was." 
 
 — ^WV-'^ 
 
 ■yiTE call everyone//^ //?■// that is not military," 
 said a young officer to Talleyrand. 
 "And we," replied the wit, "call everything 
 that is not military civil." 
 
 -wWV/— 
 
 ATADAME DE STAEL, having fallen out 
 with Talleyrand, made him figure in her 
 next book as a vicious old woman, while she 
 painted herself as Delphine. Chancing to meet 
 m a fashionable assembly soon after the publica- 
 tion of the book, Talleyrand, with a polite bow. 
 said — 
 
 " I understand, Madame, that in your latest 
 novel you and I both figure disguised as 
 females."
 
 156 Bon-Mots 
 
 /^F a fashionably dressed lady Talleyrand 
 remarked that her attire began too late, 
 and finished too soon. 
 
 HTALLEYRAND visited a dying friend who 
 groaned, " I suffer the torments of hell." 
 "Already ! " mercilessly said the wit. 
 
 COMEONE having asked, "Is not Geneva 
 ^ dull?" 
 
 "Yes," said Talleyrand, "especially when 
 they amuse themselves. " 
 
 /^F a well-known woman the witty politician 
 said, "She is insupportable," and then 
 added, as if conscious that he had gone too far, 
 " It is her only defect." 
 
 — A/y/vv^. — 
 
 A FRIEND having remarked that Chateau- 
 briand complained that he was going deaf, 
 " He believes himself deaf," said Talleyrand, 
 "because he can get no one to speak to him."
 
 Of the Nineteenth Century. 157 
 
 "DEING asked if a certain authoress was not 
 a "Httle tiresome," Talleyrand replied, 
 ' ' Not at all — she was 
 perfectly tiresome." 
 
 'pALLEYRAND was 
 enjoying a game of 
 whist when the conver- 
 sation turned on the re- 
 cent union of an elderly 
 lady of rank. 
 
 " However," said one 
 of the players, "could 
 Madame de S. make 
 such a match ? A person of her birth to marry 
 a valet de chambre ! ' ' 
 
 "Ah," remarked the wit, " it was getting late 
 in the game ; at nine loe don't reckon honours." 
 
 TT was worse than a crime — it was a blunder. 
 
 T_T AVING married a woman more remarkable 
 for the beauty of her person than for any 
 mental qualities, Talleyrand vindicated his 
 choice, saying — 
 
 "A clever wife often compromises her hus- 
 band; a stupid one only compromises herself. "
 
 158 Bon-Mots 
 
 'T'HE Comte d'Artois wished to be present a^ 
 the Councils of Louis XVIII., but Talley- 
 rand opposed the project. D'Artois attended, 
 however, and reproached him. 
 
 "One day," replied the diplomatist, "your 
 Majesty will thank nie for having displeased 
 Your Royal Highness." 
 
 — vWW — 
 
 "DOBUS SMITH expatiated upon the beauty 
 of his mother. 
 " Ah ! " said Talleyrand, ' ' it was your father, 
 then, who was so plain." 
 
 — WW^ — 
 
 'T'HE author of a celebrated work on the 
 Polish revolution said to Talleyrand — 
 "I never did but one mischievous work in 
 my life. " 
 
 "And when will it be ended?" enquired the 
 wit. 
 
 — A/\/vv> — 
 
 pOUCHE and Talleyrand had quarrelled, 
 and the former said — 
 
 " You need not triumph in your rank ; under 
 a usurpation the greatest scoundrel may be 
 the Prime Minister if he pleases." 
 
 " How fortunate," retorted the caustic wit, 
 "that you condescended to be Minister of 
 Police."
 
 Of the Nineteenth Centur 
 
 •59 
 
 TN answer to Madame de Stael who asked 
 him if she and a certain beautiful young 
 lady were both in danger 
 of drowning, which would 
 he help first, Talleyrand 
 said, with much meaning, 
 " You, madam, can swim, 
 I believe." 
 
 Q AYS Thomas Moore : 
 The wife of some am- 
 bassador coming to din- 
 ner, Talleyrand, on her 
 passing him, looked up 
 and exclaimed signifi- 
 cantly, "Ah!" In the 
 course of the dinner, the lady having asked 
 him across the table why he had uttered the 
 exclamation of oh ! on her entrance, Talley- 
 rand, with a grave, self vindicatory look, an- 
 swered, "Madam, I did not say oh! I said 
 ah!" Comical, very, without one's being able 
 to define why it is so. 
 
 -'AA/V— 
 
 /~\NE who squinted enquired — 
 
 ' ' How do matters go with you ? ' 
 " As you see," answered Talleyrand.
 
 i6o Bon-Mots 
 
 CAID Charles X. to Talleyrand: " There *is 
 no niiddle«course between the Throne and 
 the Scaffold." 
 
 "Your Majesty forgets the Post-chaise," 
 slyly remarked the wit. 
 
 T^HEN Dr Talmage was staying at an 
 hotel once, he was much pestered by 
 importunate visitors. Being busy, he at length 
 said he would see no one. A messenger, how- 
 ever, brought up a visitor's card. Talmage 
 repeated his instructions. Again the same 
 card was sent up, and the doctor sent a message 
 to the visitor to come the next day, that he 
 wouldn't see the angel Gabriel if he came. 
 The messenger stared in astonishment and 
 went, but returned a third time with the card. 
 This time Dr Talmnge went down to see who 
 could be so persistent. 
 
 A man stepped up to him saying, " You are 
 Mr Talmage?" 
 
 " I am, sir." 
 
 "Well, sir. I ani an evolutionist, and I want 
 to discuss that question with you. I am also 
 an annihilationist. I believe that when I die 
 that will be the end of me." 
 
 "Thank God for that," devotedly ejaculated 
 Talmage, and walked off, leaving the i)ore.
 
 Of the Nineteenth Century. i6i 
 
 ■gAYARD TAYLOR once called on Hum- 
 boldt, who, after a cordial reception, said, 
 
 "You have travelled much, Mr Taylor, and 
 seen many ruins, and now you see another." 
 
 "Not a ruin," replied the poet, "but a 
 pyramid." 
 
 HTHACKERAY and a friend were one day 
 walking up one of the streets leading out 
 of the Strand when they saw- 
 on a window the legend — 
 ' ' Mutual Loan Fund Associa- 
 tion." 
 
 " I wonder," said the friend, 
 " what that means?" 
 
 " Oh, it means," replied the 
 novelist, "that they have got 
 no money and that they lend 
 it to one another." 
 
 T 
 
 -vvvv^- 
 
 HERE goes Wordsworth browsing on life, 
 ruminating and cud-chewing for everlast- 
 
 — v\/\/\/\,^ 
 
 " TF Goethe is a god," Thackeray is reported 
 to have said, " I'm sure I'd rather go to 
 the other place." 
 
 L
 
 i62 Bon-Mots 
 
 Jl/rONCKTON MILNES said to Thackeray, 
 "Was not your audience with Goethe 
 very aw'ful ? " 
 
 "Yes," said the great novelist, "hke a visit 
 to a dentist." 
 
 A CLEVER but noisy vulgar tragedian was 
 neatly described by Thackeray as ' ' Mac- 
 ready and onions." 
 
 — .vwvx— 
 
 r^ODWIN in the full pride of his theory of 
 perfectibility having said that he "could 
 educate tigers," Dr Thomson quietly remarked, 
 " I should like to see him in a cage with two of 
 his pupils." 
 
 —'A/VV^— 
 
 TN the course of one of his speeches in the 
 House of Commons, Fox said^ 
 
 "If anything on my part, or on the part of 
 those with whom I acted, was in obstruction 
 to peace, I could not lie on my pillow with 
 ease. ' 
 
 " If he could not //> on his pillow with ease," 
 remarked Tierney to his neighbour, " he can lie 
 in this House with ease."
 
 Of the Nineteenth Century. 163 
 
 /^NE of the country members in the House of 
 
 Commons, in the course of his speech, said, 
 
 "We must return to the food of our ancestors." 
 
 "What does he mean ? " exclaimed someone. 
 
 "Thistles, I suppose," said Tierney. 
 
 — A/\/\/\^ — 
 
 T^IERNEY neatly said that he was sure Sir 
 Philip Francis had written Jjinius, for 
 he was the proudest man he ever knew, and 
 no one ever heard of 
 anything he had done -^ ' 
 
 to be proud of. ^— , 
 
 nrHE popular 
 comedian, J. L. 
 Toole, was travelling once in a very slow train 
 on the Great Eastern Railway. A prolonged 
 stay was made at one station and the actor, 
 catching sight of the name of it, called a 
 porter and blandly asked for the station- 
 master. All politeness, that official hurried 
 up to the carriage where Toole sat looking as 
 solemn as a judge. 
 
 "What is it, sir?" 
 
 "At what time is the funeral to take place?" 
 
 "Funeral, sir? whose funeral?" enquired 
 the bewildered station-master. 
 
 "Whose funeral!" echoed Toole, "why, 
 have we not come to Bury St Edmunds ? "
 
 164 Bon- Mots 
 
 A CCORDING to Toole, the best thing that 
 an artist can do to improve his taste is to 
 clean his palate. 
 
 A N amateur painter showed one of his 
 canvases to J. M. W. Turner and asked 
 for his opinion on it. 
 
 " My lord," said the great artist, "you want 
 nothing but poverty to become a very excellent 
 painter." 
 
 /^NCE at a dinner of artists and literary men, 
 a minor poet proposed the toast of the 
 painters a/id glaziers of Great Britain. The 
 toast was drunk, and Turner, after returning 
 thanks, proposed the liealth of the paper- 
 stainers. Tlie laugh was neatly turned against 
 the poet, and writers have been "paper- 
 stainers" ever since. 
 
 -^AAA^-- 
 
 ■\7t7"HKN ex- President Hayes was preparing to 
 leave the White House, it was proposed 
 to present his wife with a volume of autographs 
 in recognition of her success in "running 
 the Presidency" on teetotal principles. Mark 
 Twain offered as his contribution — "Total
 
 Of the Nineteenth Century. 165 
 
 abstinence is so excellent that it is impossible 
 to carry its principle to too great a length. 
 I therefore totally abstain— oven from total 
 abstinence." 
 
 — A/\J\/\r^ — 
 
 "LT GRACE TWISS was standing close to a 
 portly lady who was waiting for her 
 carriage, when the friend \\ho was with him 
 said — 
 
 " Look at that fat Lady L., isn't she like a 
 great white cabbage." 
 
 "Yes," answered Twiss, in a discreetly loud 
 tone, "yes, she is like one — all heart, I believe." 
 
 T 
 
 HE only daughter of Twiss married the 
 editor of the Times, and after his death, 
 she married his successor, John Delane. 
 Speaking of this double event, her father said, 
 " She took the Times and Supplement." 
 
 — 'AAA^ — 
 
 'X'WISS, when a man taking a panorama of 
 London from St. Paul's Cathedral re- 
 mained long swung from the dome, said, " It 
 was a dom}'-si\\y-a.\ry (domiciliary) visit."
 
 1 66 Bon-Mots 
 
 "^XTHEN Weber was conducting the rehearsals 
 of his Oberon at Covent Garden, he 
 quietly remarked to one of the singers — 
 
 " I am very sorry you take so 
 much trouble." 
 
 "Oh! not at all," was the 
 reply. 
 
 "Yes," added the musician, 
 ' ' but I say yes — dat is, why 
 you tak de troble to sing so 
 many notes dat are not in de 
 book f" 
 
 TT being pointed out to the Marquis Wellesley 
 that his brother, the Duke, in arranging 
 the ministry, had thrown him overboard. 
 
 "Yes," observed the Marquis, "but I trust I 
 have strength enough to swim fo the other side." 
 
 — •Al\/\fv — 
 
 /^NE day when George the Fourth was talking 
 about his youtliful exploits, he mentioned, 
 with particular satisfaction, that he had made 
 a body of troops charge down the Devil's Dyke 
 (near Brighton). Upon which the Duke of 
 Wellington merely observed to him, "Very 
 steep, sir."
 
 Of the Nineteenth Century. 167 
 
 TN a moment of unwise conviviality a guest at 
 the Duke of Wellington's table enquired — 
 
 "Allow me to ask, as we are all here titled, 
 if you were not surprised at Waterloo?" 
 
 " No," replied the Duke, ''but I am 71010.^ 
 
 — WW^- 
 
 COME enthusiastic woman was expatiating 
 before the Iron Duke about the glories of 
 a victory. 
 
 "My dear madam," said Wellington, "a 
 victory is the greatest tragedy in the world, 
 except one, — and that is a defeat." 
 
 —'A{\/\r^— 
 
 'T'HE circulating library at Dublin was known 
 as Morrow's, and the Rev. Mr Day was 
 once a popular preacher in the same city. 
 
 "How inconsistent," said Whately, "is the 
 piety of certain ladies here. They go to Day 
 for a sermon, and to Morroio for a novel." 
 
 T^R KNOX having been appointed Bishop of 
 Down, the promotion was rather unpopu- 
 lar, and Archbishop Whately remarked, "The 
 Irish government will not be able to stand many 
 more such Knocks Dcnvn as this ! "
 
 i68 
 
 Ron-Mots 
 
 A CLERGYMAN who had to preach before 
 Archbishop Whately begged to be let off, 
 saying — 
 
 " I hope your Grace will excuse my preaching 
 next Sunday. " 
 
 "Certainly," said the 
 Archbishop. 
 
 The Sunday came and 
 no sermon from the 
 clergyman, so later the 
 Archbishop said to him, 
 ' ' Well, Mr , what be- 
 came of you? we expected 
 you to preach to-day." 
 
 ' ' Oh ! your Grace said 
 yOu would excuse my 
 preaching to-day." 
 
 ' ' Exactly ; but I did not say I would excuse 
 yon from preaching." 
 
 — aWVv^ 
 
 ■pXAMINING a young clergyman. Arch. 
 
 '^ bishop Whately posed him by asking — 
 
 "What is the difference between a form and 
 
 a ceremony? The meaning seems nearly the 
 
 same ; yet there is a very nice distinction." 
 
 A number of answers having been given, the 
 witty cleric him.self explained the difference, 
 thus — "You sit upon a forvi, but you stand 
 upon ceremony."
 
 Of the Nineteenth Century. 169 
 
 'X'HE witty Aichbibhop was fond of these 
 posing questions, and at a dinner party 
 he suddenly called out to the host— 
 
 "Mr , what is the proper female com- 
 panion of this John Dory." 
 
 A munbcr of answers having been hazarded, 
 the propounder was asked for his own reply. 
 
 "Anne Ch(K<\>, of course." 
 
 T T having been remarked that Dr Parr was the 
 greatest smoker, WTiatcly denied it, saying 
 that he himself was " above Parr." 
 
 --AA/V/' 
 
 T 
 
 O a person who, having been asked a 
 puzzling question, invariably closed his 
 eyes in the intensity of the effort to solve it, 
 Wliately said, "Sir, you resemble an ignorant 
 pedagogue, who keeps his pupils in darkness." 
 
 -^Al\l\rj— 
 
 T^HE conundrum is not a particularly brilliant 
 form of wit, but some of Archbishop 
 Whately's "posers" were distinctly neat. 
 "Why," he asked his neighbour at a public 
 meeting, "is Ireland the richest country in the 
 world? Because its capital is always Dublin 
 (doubling)."
 
 I70 Bon -Mots 
 
 A NOTHER ingenious one is the following— 
 "Why is the Wicklow railway the most 
 unmusical line in the world ? Because it has a 
 Bray, a Dundrum and a Stillorgan upon it." 
 
 TXTH ATELY had many assailants on account 
 of his latitudinarian views, and referring 
 
 to some of these he said : "A lobster (and the 
 same may be seen in a 
 pawn) always faces you, 
 as if ready to maintain 
 his post and do battle ; 
 but when you approach, 
 he gives a flap with his 
 tail and flys back two or 
 three feet ; and so on, 
 again and again, always 
 showing his assailants a 
 bold front, and always 
 retreating. I have met 
 
 with many such me//." 
 
 ^T a farewell dinner at the Archbishop's 
 palace to a Bishop-elect of Cork, a bottle 
 of rich old port, instead of making a rapid 
 circuit rested before the guest of the evening. 
 
 "Come," cried W'liately, "though you are 
 John Cork, you must not s/o/> the bottle here."
 
 Of the Nineteenth Century. 171 
 
 " I see, your Grace," replied the Bishop-elect, 
 who was well equal to the occasion, "is dis- 
 posed to draiu me out. But though charged 
 with Cork, I am not going to be screwed." 
 
 "We are all most anxious to see you ele- 
 vated," was the rejoinder. 
 
 "Well," said the guest, "I leave to your 
 Grace, as a disciple of Peel, the privilege of 
 opeiiing the port. 
 
 — A/vw^ 
 
 "r\R WHATELY was fond of inventing short 
 stories which he could repeat to enforce a 
 given point, for example : An Irish parson of 
 the old school, in whom a peiception of the 
 ridiculous was developed with a Rabelaisian 
 breadth of appreciation, was asked by a clod- 
 hopper to explain the meaning of a miracle. 
 
 "Walk on a few paces before me," said his 
 reverence, which having done, the peasant was 
 surprised to feel in the rear a kick, administered 
 with decided energy. 
 
 " What did you do that for?" demanded the 
 young man, angrily. 
 
 "Simply to illustrate my meaning," replied 
 the cleric, blandly. " If you had not felt me, 
 it would have been a miracle."
 
 172 Bon-Mots 
 
 ■p\R WHATl'^LY surprised a medical man 
 by suddenly asking, "Why does the 
 operation of hanging kill a man?" 
 
 "Because," began the learned explanation, 
 "inspiration is checked, circulation is stopped, 
 and blood suffuses and congests the brain — " 
 
 " Bosh ! " interrupted the Archbishop, "it is 
 because the rope is not long enough to let his 
 feet touch the ground." 
 
 --AVV-^— 
 
 TN opposing capital punishment Whately said 
 wittily but with evident truth — 
 "Every instance of a man's suffering the 
 penalty of the law is an instance of the failure 
 of that penalty in effecting its purpose, which 
 is, to deter. " 
 
 V^THATELY was fond of lioaxing his com- 
 pany by asking them extravagant ques- 
 tions. He once mystified a gathering of clergy- 
 men by asking why it was that white sheep eat 
 more than black sheep. Various answers were 
 proposed by tlie divines present. 
 
 At all tlie profound speculations, however, 
 the Archbisliop sliook his head gravely, and at 
 length proceeded with nuich solenmity to 
 explain that "white sheep eat more because 
 there are more of tliem."
 
 174 Bon -Mots 
 
 HTHE Archbishop was very fond of gardening, 
 and once when he was indulging in his 
 favourite pursuit a friend referred to Pinel's 
 system for dealing with the insane, that of 
 employing them in gardening and other health- 
 ful pursuits. 
 
 "I think gardening w'ould be a dangerous 
 indulgence for lunatics," commented Whately. 
 
 "Why so?" asked the advocate of Pinel's 
 method, in some surprise. 
 
 " Because they might grow madder!'' 
 
 — wWw- 
 
 A LOQUACIOUS prebendary was suddenly 
 
 asked by Whately, "Pray, sir, why are 
 
 you like the bell of your own church-steeple?" 
 
 " Because," said the other, sententiously, " I 
 am always ready to sound the alarm when the 
 church is in danger." 
 
 "By no means," remarked the Archbishop, 
 " it is because you have an empty head and a 
 long tongue." 
 
 -~rJ\f\t\h— 
 
 pERHAPS the best known of all Whately's 
 conundrums is the following : 
 
 Why can a man never starve in the Great 
 Desert? 
 
 Because he can eat the sand lohich is there. 
 
 But what Ijrought the sandwiches there? 
 
 Noah sent Ham, and his descendants Jtius- 
 tered and bred.
 
 Of the Nineteenth Century. 175 
 
 "l/'yHEN Lord Gough returned to Ireland, 
 honoured for his subjugation of Runjeet 
 Singh and the Sikhs, the Archbishop enquired 
 as to the proportion of the belhgerent parties, 
 and the soldier was proceeding with a numeri- 
 cal statement when Whately cut it short by 
 saying, "he already knew; — they were Sikhs, 
 and we won." 
 
 —j'AAA^^- 
 
 A MAN directed Whately's attention to a 
 powerful draught horse, saying, "There 
 is nothing which he cannot draw." 
 
 " H'm ! " said the cleric, "can he draw an 
 inference?" 
 
 — "AAA''— 
 
 'X'HE caustic way in which the Archbishop 
 snubbed a young aide-de-camp was very 
 characteristic. Apropos of Dr Murray, who 
 wore a cross at one of the castle levies, the 
 young man inquired, "what was the difference 
 between a Romanist bishop and a jackass?" 
 
 Dr Whately gave it up. 
 
 ' ' One wears a cross upon his breast and the 
 other on his back," explained the pert A. D.C, 
 
 "Do you know the difference between an 
 aide-de-camp and a donkey?" asked Whately. 
 
 " No?" said the other interrogatively. 
 
 "Nor I, either," was the reply.
 
 176 Bon-Mots 
 
 VyHEN, old and ill, the Archbishop was 
 met, leaning on the arm of his chaplain, 
 by a friend, he was saluted with " I hope your 
 Grace is better to-day." 
 
 " Oh, I am very well, indeed, if I could only 
 persuade some strong fellow like you to lend 
 me a pair of legs." 
 
 ' ' I shall be only too happy to lend you my 
 legs, if your Grace has no 
 objection to lend me your 
 head in exchange." 
 
 "What, Mr A.," ex- 
 claimed the cleric, 
 brightening up at the 
 exchange of witticisms, 
 "you don't mean to say 
 that you are willing to 
 exchange two widcrstand- 
 i?igs for one?" 
 
 — ^A/VW— 
 
 /^F a popular preacher 
 Whately said that he 
 aimed at nothing — a7id 
 hit it. 
 
 —'Af\/\f^f— 
 
 A PROVERB is the wisdom of many and 
 the wit of one.
 
 Of the Nineteenlh Century. 1 77 
 
 A T one of Lydia Wliite's small and most 
 agreeable dinners in Park Street, the 
 company (most of them except the hostess, a 
 noted party-giver of her day, being Whigs) 
 were discussing in rather a querulous strain the 
 desperate prospects of their party. 
 
 "Yes," said Sydney Smith, "we are in a 
 most deplorable condition ; we must do some- 
 thing to help ourselves ; I think we had better 
 sacrifice a Tory virgin." 
 
 This was pointedly addressed to Lydia 
 White, who at once catching and applying the 
 allusion to Iphigenia, answered, "I believe 
 there is nothing tiie Whigs would not do to 
 raise the -wind. " 
 
 V\7"HEN Wieland, the German philosopher, 
 lay upon his death-bed, he insisted upon 
 looking at a prescription which the doctor had 
 just written. 
 
 " I see," said he, "it is much the same with 
 my life and the doctor's Latin, they arc both 
 at an end." 
 
 -"AAA/"- — 
 
 /^N the formation of the famous political 
 "cave" over the disestablishment of the 
 Irish Church question. Bishop Wilberforce said 
 that Gladstone had made a new commandment 
 —Thou shalt not conunit Adullamy. 
 M
 
 178 
 
 Bon-Mots 
 
 TN the "good old days" when Parliamentary 
 elections were more loosely conducted, 
 Miss Wilberforce, whose brother was a candi- 
 date for Hull, offered a new gown to the wives 
 of all freemen who voted for him. The state- 
 
 ment was received with cries of " Miss Wilber- 
 force for ever ! * 
 
 " I thank you, gentleman," that lady readily 
 observed, "but I cannot agree with you; for 
 really, I do not wish to be Miss Wilberforce 
 for ever /" 
 
 —fJ^/\/\fv—
 
 Of the Nineteenth Century. 179 
 
 AT the time when the Baroness (then Miss) 
 Coutts was much occupied with the found- 
 ing of Columbia Market she happened to be 
 driving Bishop Wilberforce into the city. In 
 the course of the drive, the conversation turned 
 on the origin of the designations of the various 
 City Companies. 
 
 "I daresay, Bishop, you do not know the 
 meaning of a Dry-salter?" said Miss Coutts. 
 
 "Oh, yes, I do — Tate and Brady ^ was 
 Wilberforce's ready reply. 
 
 \\/'HEN Bishop WUberforce and Lord Pal- 
 merston were together in the country, 
 the Premier offered to take the Bishop to Church 
 in his carriage ; the Bishop, however, preferred 
 to go on foot. A heavy shower came down just 
 as the carriage overtook the pedestrian. Pal- 
 merston immediately popped his head out of 
 the carriage window, and said — 
 
 " How blest is he who ne'er consents 
 By ill advice to ivalk ! " 
 
 The Bishop was equal to the occasion, and 
 retorted — 
 
 " Nor stands in sinner's ways, nor sits 
 Where men profanely talk.''
 
 i8o Bon-Mots 
 
 V^THEN a noble Admiral of the White was 
 introduced to William the Fourth to 
 return thanks for his promotion the King, 
 obsening his snowy hail", said playfully, "White 
 at the main. Admiral ! white at the main /" 
 
 — A/vw-— 
 
 -^ILLIAM THE FOURTH saved himself 
 very neatly once when in an awkward 
 position. He was at table with a number of 
 officers when, pointing to an empty bottle, he 
 bid one of his servants "take away that marine, 
 there." 
 
 "Your Majesty!" exclaimed a colonel of 
 marines, alittlo nettled, "do you compare an 
 empty bottle to a member of our branch of the 
 service?" 
 
 "Yes," replied the King, struck by a happy 
 thought, ' ' I mean to say it lias done its duty 
 once, and is ready to do it again." 
 
 "^XTHEN Lord Houghton, then R. M. Milnes, 
 proposed going to the State masked 
 ball as the Father of English poetry, William 
 Wordsworth, then poet-laureate, said — 
 
 " If Richard Milnes goes to the Queen's ball 
 in the cliaracter of Chaucer, it only remains for 
 me to go to it in that of Richard Milnes 1 " 
 
 i
 
 Of the Nineteenth Century. i8i 
 
 QUOTING some Latin verses to a legal 
 friend who did not appear to understand 
 them, a learned barrister added — 
 
 "Don't you know the lines? They are in 
 Martial." 
 
 "Marshall? Oh, yes, Marshall, who wrote 
 on underwriting," 
 
 "Not so bad," said the first speaker, "for 
 after all there is not so much difference between 
 an voider writer and a ininor poet." 
 
 A N idler who was boasting of his ancient 
 family, was very neatly reproved by a 
 farmer who was among his listeners. 
 
 "So much the worse for you," said he, 
 " for, as we say, the older the seed the worse the 
 crop." 
 
 CEEING a noted man of learning enjoying 
 w^th considerable gusto the pleasures of 
 the table, a would-be wag rallied him with — 
 
 "So, sir, philosophers, I see, can indulge in 
 the greatest delicacies." 
 
 "And why not," retorted the other; "do 
 you think Providence intended all the good 
 thinsfs for fools?"
 
 1 82 Bon- Mots 
 
 A BARRISTER in court said in the course 
 of his address, "Everyone, my lord, is 
 supposed to know the law of the land." 
 
 "Ever>'one, except Her Majesty's judges," 
 interposed the judge with a smile. 
 
 " If your lordship pleases," came the counsel's 
 prompt retort. 
 
 — »A/\/Vv>— 
 
 ■\X7HEN Sir John Bowring was Parliamentary 
 candidate he had some amusing experi- 
 ences. At Penrhyn a voter calmly said to him 
 — it was in the "good old days" of barefaced 
 bribery and corruption — " If you don't believe 
 in the Trinity, and wish us to vote for you, we 
 must have ten shillings a head instead of five." 
 
 AT Kirkcaldy the same candidate was met 
 with the uncompromising statement, 
 ' ' We 7vill have a religious man to represent 
 us, even if we go to hell to find him." 
 
 A WITTY historian saifl of Napoleon the 
 Third's narrative of Sedan, " It reads like 
 nothing Ijut an account of the ist of September 
 by an escaped partridge."
 
 Of the Nineteenth Century. 183 
 'T'HE ke3'note to good manners is B natural. 
 
 T^EFENDING himself from raillery, a 
 physician said — 
 
 ' ' I defy any person whom I ever attended, 
 to accuse me of ignorance or neglect." 
 
 "That you may do safely," said one of his 
 companions, " for you know, doctor, dead men 
 tell no tales." 
 
 —'AfSA/^f— 
 
 ■QR PITCAIRN had one Sunday stumbled 
 into a Presbyterian church, probably to 
 beguile a few idle moments, and seeing the 
 parson apparently overwhelmed by the im- 
 portance of his subject — " WTiat makes the 
 rm.n greei f" said he to one who stood near 
 him. 
 
 "By my faith, sir," answered the other, 
 "you would perhaps greet, too, if you were 
 in his place, a^id had as little to say." 
 
 A CERTAIN learned serjeant inclined to be 
 irascible, was advised by the court not to 
 s/i(ru> temper but to shoxo cause.
 
 184 Bon-Mots 
 
 T3 EPRIMANDING a sexton for his drunken- 
 ness, a doctor was somewhat startled at 
 receiving the following witty reply — 
 
 ' ' Sir, I thought you would have been the 
 last man alive to appear against me, as / have 
 covered so mavy blunders of yours.'" 
 
 — MAAa^- 
 
 A RETIRED singer, who had acquired a 
 large fortune by marriage, being asked 
 on one occasion to oblige the company, 
 knowingly replied that he ' ' would rather 
 imitate the nightingale, which does not sing 
 after it has made its nest." 
 
 ■\^7'ISHING to annoy an old man who was 
 his rival in an affair of the heart, a 
 young man inquired his age. 
 
 "I can't exactly tell," replied the other, 
 " but I can inform you that an ass of twenty is 
 older than a man of sixty." 
 
 w\/vvv— 
 
 " T NEVER was ruined but twice," a wit is 
 reported to have remarked in a legal 
 company; "once when I lost a lawsuit, and 
 once when I gaitied one."
 
 Of the Nineteenth Century. 185 
 
 T ORD COCK BURN was sitting on a hillside 
 with a shepherd, and observing the sheep 
 resting in the coldest situation, observed to his 
 companion — 
 
 "John, if I were a sheep, I would lie on the 
 other side of the hill." 
 
 "Ah, my lord," answered the shepherd, 
 "but if ye had been a sheep ye would hae had 
 mair sense." 
 
 ■\X7"HEN a worthy city baronet was gazing 
 one evening at the illuminations in front 
 of the Mansion House, an old acquaintance 
 came up to him and said — 
 
 "Well, Sir William, are you studying astro- 
 nomy?" 
 
 "No, sir," replied the alderman, "I am 
 studying gas-tronomy. " 
 
 A DRAMATIC translator who was introduc- 
 ing a well-known comedian to Madame 
 Vestris, said — 
 
 "Madame, this is Mr B., who is not such a 
 fool as he looks." 
 
 "True, madame," neatly added the actor, 
 ' ' and that is the great diference between me 
 and my friend."
 
 l86 Bon-Mots 
 
 A QUAKER addressed the following remark 
 to a man who was voluminously abusing 
 him — "Have a care, friend, thou mayest run 
 thy face against viyjist." 
 
 " "XIITHY, Mr B.," said a new-comer to a small 
 man in company with half a dozen 
 very tall ones, " I did not see you at first, you 
 are so small." 
 
 "Very likely," replied he, "I am like a 
 sixpenny-bit among six copper pennies — not 
 easily perceived , but worth the zvhole of t ham." 
 
 A HEAVY drinker having a dish of grapes 
 
 placed before him at dessert, said loftily — 
 
 " Thank you, I don't take my wine in pills." 
 
 r\N a. learned judge being asked the difference 
 
 between law and equity courts, he replied, 
 
 ' ' At common law you are done for at once ; 
 
 at c(]uity you are not so easily disposed of. 
 
 One \s prussic acid, and tlic other laudanum." 
 
 'T'HE expression "black as your hat" was 
 neatly defined by someone as meaning 
 " darkness which may he felt."
 
 Of the Nineteenth Century. 187 
 
 U EARING it said that the British Empire is 
 one on which the sun never sets, a wit 
 added, "and it is one where the tax gatherer 
 never goes to bed. " 
 
 JOKING with a young barrister, a judge said, 
 " If you and I were to be turned into a 
 horse and an ass, which would you choose to 
 be?" 
 
 "The ass to be sure," said the barrister. 
 ' ' Why ? " enquired the other. 
 " I've heard of an ass being made a judge, 
 but a horse never." 
 
 A BARRISTER, having badgered a very diffi- 
 cult witness, said that she had drass enough 
 to make a saucepan. 
 
 "And you have sai/ce enough to fill it," was 
 the woman's ready retort. 
 
 — ^/VVw- 
 
 COMEONE attempted to defend a bad play 
 by saying, " It was not hissed." 
 "That is true," said one who had seen it, 
 "for no one can kiss and yawn at the same 
 time."
 
 1 88 Bon- Mots 
 
 ■\X7'HEN a judge had delivered judgment in 
 a particular case in a hasty manner, a 
 Queen's Counsel present observed in a tone 
 loud enough to reach the bench — 
 
 "Good heavens! every judgment by this 
 court is a mere toss up." 
 
 " But heads seldom win," added the learned 
 counsel for the losing side. 
 
 — /AAA/^- 
 
 A JOKE may sometimes lead to a quarrel, 
 but it may also sometimes settle one. A 
 fire-eating Irishman challenged a barrister, and 
 being very lame requested that he might have 
 a support. 
 
 "Suppose," said he, "I lean against this 
 milestone?" 
 
 "With pleasure," said the other, "on con- 
 dition that I j//ay lean against the next." 
 
 A USTRALASIA (New Holland) was the sub- 
 ject for the Chancellor's Prize Poem for 
 1823. This was being discussed at a party of 
 Johnians, when someone observing that it was 
 a bad subject, another replied — 
 
 "Not at all, it is at least a transporting 
 one."
 
 Of the Nineteenth Century. 189 
 
 AID a military man at a dinner table : " If 
 
 I were so unlucky as to have a stupid son, 
 
 1 would certainly make him a.parso7i." 
 
 " You think differently, sir, irom your father," 
 neatly replied a clergyman who was present. 
 
 — Myvv^-— 
 
 A N author had been praising a brother pen- 
 man very heartily to a third person. 
 
 "It is very strange, was the reply, "that 
 you speak so well of him, for he says that yon 
 are a charlatan." 
 
 "Oh,' replied the other, "perhaps we are 
 both mistaken."
 
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