Quips and Quiddities Part 30

H. F. CHORLEY, _Life_.

Fhairshon had a son, Who married Noah's daughter, And nearly spoilt ta flood, By trinking up ta water: Which he would have done, I at least believe it, Had ta mixture peen Only half Glenlivet.

_Bon Gaultier Ballads._

After the execution of the eighteen malefactors [in 1787], a female was bawling an account of them, but called them nineteen. A gentleman said to her, "Why do you say nineteen? There were but eighteen hanged." She replied, "Sir, I did not know you had been reprieved."

HORACE WALPOLE, _Correspondence_.

_ON THE MARRIAGE OF JOB WALL AND MARY BEST._

Job, wanting a partner, thought he'd be blest, If, of all womankind, he selected the Best; For, said he, of all evils that compa.s.s the globe, A bad wife would most try the patience of Job.

The Best, then, he chose, and made bone of his bone, Though 'twas clear to his friends she'd be Best left alone; For, though Best of her s.e.x, she's the weakest of all, If it's true that the weakest must go to the Wall.

HICKS, _apud_ J. C. YOUNG.

La vertu des femmes est peut-etre une question du temperament.

BALZAC, _Physiologie du Mariage_.

_ON ONE STEALING A POUND OF CANDLES._

Light-fingered Catch, to keep his hands in ure, Stole anything,--of this you may be sure, That he thinks all his own that once he handles,-- For practice' sake did steal a pound of candles; Was taken in the act:--oh, foolish wight!

To steal such things as needs must come to light!

_A Collection of Epigrams_ (1727).

At Hook's, one day the conversation turned on the Duke of c.u.mberland, and a question asked who he married. "Don't you know?" said Cannon; "the Princess de _Psalms_ (Salms),--good enough for _Hymn_ (him)."

W. JERDAN, _Memoirs_.

For me, I neither know nor care Whether a parson ought to wear A black dress or a white dress; Fill'd with a trouble of my own-- A wife who preaches in her gown, And lectures in her night-dress!

THOMAS HOOD.

Madame de ---- having said, in her intense style, "I should like to be married in _English_, in a language in which vows are so faithfully kept," some one asked Frere, "What language, I wonder, was _she_ married in?" "_Broken_ English, I suppose," answered Frere.

THOMAS MOORE, _Diary_.

Your magpies and stock-doves may flirt among trees, And chatter their transports in groves, if they please; But a house is much more to my taste than a tree, And for groves, O! a good grove of chimneys for me.

CHARLES MORRIS, _Lyra Urbanica_.

Again they asked me to marry them, and again I declined, when they cried,--"Oh, cruel man!

This is too much--too much!" I told them that it was on account of the muchness that I declined.

C. F. BROWNE, _Artemus Ward's Lecture_.

On one of the country gentlemen saying in Parliament, "We must return to the food of our ancestors,"

somebody asked, "What food does he mean?" "Thistles, I suppose," said Tierney.

THOMAS MOORE, _Diary_.

Maidens then were innocent, Blus.h.i.+ng at a compliment, Or a gaze.

But a blush a vanish'd grace is, For young ladies paint their faces Now-a-days,

Black their eyelids till they stare, Wash with soda, till their hair Looks like maize; 'Tis the fas.h.i.+on to be blonde _a la mode du demi-monde_ Now-a-days.

J. JEMMETT BROWNE, _Songs of Many Seasons_.

[Lady Charlotte Lindsay] said she had "sprained her ankle so often, and been told that it was worse than breaking her leg, that she said she had come to look upon a broken leg as a positive advantage."

LORD HOUGHTON, _Monographs_.

Blows are sarcasms turned stupid.

GEORGE ELIOT, _Felix Holt_.

They grieved for those who perished with the cutter, And also for the biscuit-casks and b.u.t.ter.

LORD BYRON, _Don Juan_.

Social arrangements are awful miscarriages; Cause of all crime is our system of marriages.

Poets with sonnets, and lovers with trysts, Kindle the ire of the Positivists.

Husbands and wives should be all one community: Exquisite freedom with absolute unity.

Wedding-rings worse are than manacled wrists-- Such is the creed of the Positivists.

MORTIMER COLLINS, _The British Birds_.

Fox, whose pecuniary embarra.s.sments were universally recognized, being attacked by a severe indisposition, which confined him to his apartment, Dudley frequently visited him. In the course of conversation, Fox, alluding to his complaints, remarked that he was compelled to observe much regularity in his diet and hours; adding, "I live by rule, like clockwork."

"Yes," replied Dudley; "I suppose you mean you go by _tick, tick, tick_."