Quips and Quiddities Part 6

Who knows if what Adam might speak Was mono- or poly-syllabic; Was Gothic, or Gaelic, or Greek, Tartaric, Chinese, or Arabic?

It may have been Sanskrit or Zend-- It must have been something or other; But thus far I'll stoutly contend,-- It wasn't the tongue of his mother.

LORD NEAVES, _Songs and Verses_.

Men's natures are neither black nor white, but _brown_.

CHARLES BUXTON, _Notes of Thought_.

Oh, Love's but a dance, Where Time plays the fiddle!

See the couples advance,-- Oh, Love's but a dance!

A whisper, a glance,-- "Shall we twirl down the middle?"

Oh, Love's but a dance, Where Time plays the fiddle!

AUSTIN DOBSON, _Proverbs in Porcelain_.

I met a man in Oregon who hadn't any teeth--not a tooth in his head--yet that man could play on the ba.s.s drum better than any man I ever met.

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

The Duke of Rutland, at one of his levees, being at a loss for something to say to every person he was bound in etiquette to notice, remarked to Sir John Hamilton that there was a prospect of an excellent crop. "The timely rain," observed the duke, "will bring everything above ground." "G.o.d forbid, your excellency!" exclaimed the courtier. His excellency stared, whilst Sir John continued, sighing heavily as he spoke, "Yes, G.o.d forbid! for I have _three wives_ under it!"

SIR JONAH BARRINGTON, _Memoirs_.

"You are old," said the youth, "and your jaws are too weak For anything tougher than suet; Yet you finished the goose, with the bones and the beak,-- Pray, how did you manage to do it?"

"In my youth," said his father, "I took to the law, And argued each case with my wife; And the muscular strength which it gave to my jaw Has lasted the rest of my life."

LEWIS CARROLL, _Alice in Wonderland_.

Le monde recompense plus souvent les apparances du merite que le merite meme.

LA ROCHEFOUCAULD, _Reflexions_.

Curran told an anecdote of an Irish parliament man, who was boasting in the House of Commons of his attachment to trial by jury. "Mr.

Speaker, by the trial by jury I have lived, and by the blessing of G.o.d, with the trial by jury I will die!"

Curran sat near him, and whispered audibly, "What, Jack! do you mean to be hanged?"

CRABB ROBINSON, _Diary_.

They roused him with m.u.f.fins--they roused him with ice-- They roused him with mustard and cress-- They roused him with jam and judicious advice-- They set him conundrums to guess.

LEWIS CARROLL, _Hunting of the Snark_.

My old friend Maltby, the brother of the bishop, was a very absent man. One day at Paris, in the Louvre, we were looking at the pictures, when a lady entered who spoke to me, and kept me some minutes in conversation. On rejoining Maltby, I said, "That was Mrs. ----. We have not met so long, she had almost forgotten me, and asked me if my name was Rogers." Maltby, still looking at the pictures, "And was it?"

ROGERS, _apud_ J. R. PLANCHe.

No one likes to be disturbed at meals Or love.

LORD BYRON, _Don Juan_.

What is man's end? To know and to be free.

Think you to compa.s.s it by tracts and tea?

ALFRED AUSTIN, _The Season_.

To preach long, loud, and d.a.m.nation, is the way to be cried up. We love a man that d.a.m.ns us, and we run after him again to save us.

SELDEN, _Table Talk_.

It's such a very serious thing To be a funny man!

JOHN G.o.dFREY SAXE, _Poems_.

A bore cannot be a good man: for the better he is, the greater bore he will be, and the more hateful he will make goodness.

LADY ASHBURTON, _apud_ LORD HOUGHTON.

Parson Wilbur sez he never heerd in his life Thet th' Apostles rigged out in their swaller-tail coats, An' marched round in front of a drum and a fife, To get some on 'em office, an' some on 'em votes; But John P.

Robinson he Sez they didn't know everythin' down in Judee.

J. R. LOWELL, _Biglow Papers_.

I could resign that eye of blue, Howe'er its splendour used to thrill me; And e'en that cheek of roseate hue-- To lose it, Chloe, would not kill me.

That sunny neck I ne'er should miss, However much I raved about it; And sweetly as that lip can kiss, I think I could exist without it.

In short, so well I've learned to fast, That, sooth, my love, I know not whether I might not bring myself at last To do without you altogether.

THOMAS MOORE.