Quips and Quiddities Part 55

J. S. BLACKIE, _Musa Burschicosa_.

Punsters being abused, and the old joke repeated that "He who puns will pick a pocket,"

some one said, "Punsters themselves have no pockets." "No," said Lamb, "they carry only a _ridicule_."

CRABB ROBINSON, _Diary_.

It is always a pleasure to me when two of my friends like each other, just as I am always glad when two of my enemies take to fighting with each other.

HEINRICH HEINE, _Preface to Don Quixote_.

He stood on his head on the wild sea-sh.o.r.e, And joy was the cause of the act, For he felt as he never had felt before, Insanely glad, in fact.

And why? In that vessel that left the bay His mother-in-law had sail'd To a tropical country far away, Where tigers and snakes prevail'd.

_Songs of Singularity._

[Berkeley] had no ear for music himself, but music was an enthusiasm in the family, and he retained the well-known Signor Pasquilino for years to teach his children. It was then that the Signor, who had been learning English from a dictionary, exclaimed in an outbreak of grat.i.tude, "May G.o.d _pickle_ your lords.h.i.+p!"

A. C. FRASER, _Berkeley_.

Women always did, from the first, make a muss in a garden.

C. D. WARNER, _My Summer in a Garden_.

_GOOD ADVICE._

This gardener's rule applies to youth and age: When young "sow wild oats," but when old "grow sage."

H. J. BYRON, in _English Epigrams_.

The sacred slow harmonium bring, The gentler pianette, The cymbals, with sonorous ring, The dulcet flageolet.

Nor be the voice of glory dumb, Of conquest and of strife, Bring forth the stirring trump and drum, The shrill and piercing fife.

Ay, bring them all, my soul with glee To music I'll devote; Bring all--for all are one to me,-- I cannot play a note!

_Songs of Singularity._

We sometimes hate those who differ from us in opinion worse than we should for an attempt to injure us in the most serious point. A favourite theory is a possession for life; and we resent any attack upon it proportionably.

W. HAZLITT, _Characteristics_.

When Mrs. M'Gibbon was preparing to act Jane Sh.o.r.e, at Liverpool, her dresser, an ignorant country girl, informed her that a woman had called to request two box orders, because she and her daughter had walked four miles on purpose to see the play. "Does she know me?" inquired the mistress.

"Not at all," was the reply. "What a very odd request!"

exclaimed Mrs. M'G. "Has the good woman got her faculties about her?" "I think she have, ma'am, for I see she ha' got summut tied up in a red silk handkercher."

HORACE SMITH, _The Tin Trumpet_.

A clerke ther was, a puissant wight was hee, Who of ye Wethere hadde ye maisterie; Alway it was his mirthe and his solace To put eche seson's wethere out of place.

Whaune that Aprille shoures wer our desyre, He gaf us Julye sonnes as hotte as fyre; But sith ye summere togges we donned agayne, Eftsoons ye wethere chaunged to colde and rayne.

_Songs of Singularity._

I shouldn't like to be a man--to cough so loud, and stand straddling about on a wet day, and be so wasteful with meat and drink. They're a coa.r.s.e lot, I think.

_Denner_, in GEORGE ELIOT's _Felix Holt_.

Once the mastodon was: pterodactyls were common as c.o.c.ks: Then the Mammoth was G.o.d: now is He a prize ox.

Parallels all things are: yet many of these are askew: You are certainly I: but certainly I am not you.

Springs the rock from the plain, shoots the stream from the rock: c.o.c.ks exist for the hen: but hens exist for the c.o.c.k.

G.o.d, whom we see not, is: and G.o.d, who is not, we see: Fiddle, we know, is diddle: and diddle, we take it, is dee.

_The Heptalogia._

_A privileged person._--One who is so much of a savage when thwarted that civilized persons avoid thwarting him.

ANNE EVANS, _Poems and Music_.

I've studied human nature, and I know a thing or two; Though a girl may fondly love a living gent, as many do: A feeling of disgust upon her senses there will fall When she looks upon his body chopped particularly small.

W. S. GILBERT, _Bab Ballads_.

The Bishop of Exeter, in the course of conversation at a dinner-party, mentioned that many years since, while trout-fis.h.i.+ng, he lost his watch and chain, which he supposed had been pulled from his pocket by the bough of a tree. Some time afterwards, when staying in the same neighbourhood, he took a stroll by the side of the river, and came to the secluded spot where he supposed he had lost his valuables, and there, to his surprise and delight, he found them under a bush. The anecdote, vouched for by the word of a bishop, astonished the company; but this was changed to amus.e.m.e.nt by his son's inquiring whether the watch, when found, was going. "No," replied the bishop; "the wonder was that it was not gone."

GRONOW, _Recollections_.

_ON FORTUNE._

Fortune, they say, doth give too much to many: And yet she never gave enough to any.