THE PARSON AND BUTCHER. A parson and a butcher chanced, they say, To meet and moralize one Sabbath day. Is sure the first to feel the stroke of fate; THE CLOCK. A mechanic his labor will often discard, MASCULINE. "What pity 'tis," said John, the sage, "That women should, for hire, Expose themselves upon the stage, By wearing men's attire!" "Expose!" cries Ned, who loves a jeer; "In sense you surely fail: What do the darlings have to fear When clad in coats-of-male?" IN RETURN FOR A LADY'S SKETCH OF THE APOLLO. If fair Apollo drew his bow As well as you have drawn it here, No wonder that he carries woe To many a maiden far and near. One difference, though, I understand, You keep your beaux upon the quiver. WIDOWS. As in India, one day, an Englishman sat With a smart native lass at the window, "Do your widows burn themselves? pray tell me that?" "Do they burn? ah, yes," the gentleman said, The following epigram by Samuel Rogers, on Lord Dudley's studied speeches in Parliament, was pronounced by Byron, in conversation with Lady Blessington, "one of the best in the English language, with the true Greek talent of expressing, by implication, what is wished to be conveyed:" Ward has no heart, they say, but I deny it: He has a heart, and gets his speeches by it. On the marriage of Dr. Webb with Miss Gould, a classical friend sent him the following:: Tela fuit simplex statuens decus addere telæ, AFTER GOING TO LAW. This law, they say, great nature's chain connects, In me behold reversed great nature's laws,— SAME JAWBONE. Jack eating rotten cheese did say, A FUNNY DETERMINATION. Queenly Miss Quaint, the aim of whose life "I'll hear him all day, if I walk on my head!” "Good!" said old Hunx, with a comical smile; "But please, if you're late, don't come up the broad aisle!" MARRIAGE À LA MODE. "Tom, you should take a wife." "Nay, God forbid!" 66 "Jealous!" "Eighteen." Alarming!" "Witty." "Nay, that's worse!" QUID PRO QUO. "Marriage, not mirage, Jane, here in your letter: With your education, you surely know better." Quickly spoke my young wife, while I sat in confusion, ""Tis quite correct, Thomas: they're each an illusion." WOMAN-CONTRA. When Adam, waking, first his lids unfolds In Eden's groves, beside him he beholds WOMAN-PRO. Not she with traitorous kiss her Saviour stung, She, when apostles shrunk, could danger brave; ABUNDANCE OF FOOLS. The world of fools has such a store, Must bide at home, and bolt his door, And break his looking-glass.-LA MONNOYE. THE WORLD. "Tis an excellent world that we live in To lend, to spend, or to give in; But to borrow, or beg, or get a man's own, 'Tis just the worst world that ever was known. TERMINER SANS OYER. "Call silence!" the judge to the officer cries; DOUBLE VISION UTILIZED. An incipient toper was checked t'other day, In his downward career, in a very strange way. The effect of indulgence, he found to his trouble, Was that after two bottles he came to see double; When with staggering steps to his home he betook him, He saw always two wives, sitting up to rebuke him. One wife in her wrath makes a pretty strong case; But a couple thus scolding, what courage could face? Empromptus. ONE day, as Dr. Young was walking in his garden at Welwyn in company with two ladies, (one of whom he afterwards married,) the servant came to acquaint him that a gentleman wished to speak with him. "Tell him," said the doctor, "I am too happily engaged to change my situation." The ladies insisted that he should go, as his visitor was a man of rank, his patron, and his friend. But, as persuasion had no effect, one took him by the right arm, the other by the left, and led him to the garden-gate; when, finding resistance in vain, he bowed, laid his hand upon his heart, and, in that expressive manner for which he was so remarkable, spoke the following lines :Thus Adam looked when from the garden driven, And thus disputed orders sent from heaven. Like him I go, but yet to go I'm loath; Like him I go, for angels drove us both. Hard was his fate, but mine still more unkind: Ben Jonson having been invited to dine at the Falcon Tavern, where he was already deeply in debt, the landlord promised to wipe out the score if he would tell him what God, and the devil, and the world, and the landlord himself, would be best pleased with. To which the ready poet promptly replied : God is best pleased when men forsake their sin; The world's best pleased when thou dost sell good wine; And you're best pleased when I do pay for mine. A well-known instance of self-extrication from a dilemma is thus rendered in rhyme : When Queen Elizabeth desired That Melville would acknowledge fairly Or his own sovereign, Lady Mary? The puzzled knight his answer thus expressed :- Burns, going into church one Sunday and finding it difficult to procure a seat, was kindly invited by a young lady into her pew. The sermon being upon the terrors of the law, and the preacher being particularly severe in his denunciation of sinners, the lady, who was very attentive, became much agitated. Burns, on perceiving it, wrote with his pencil, on a blank leaf of her Bible, the following: Fair maid, you need not take the hint, Nor idle texts pursue: "Twas only sinners that he meant, One evening at the King's Arms, Dumfries, Burns was called from a party of friends to see an impertinent coxcomb in the form of an English commercial traveller, who patronizingly invited the Ayrshire Ploughman to a glass of wine at his table. Entering into conversation with the condescending stranger, Burns soon saw what sort of person he had to deal with. About to leave the room, the poet was urged to give a specimen of his facility in impromptu versifying, when, having asked the name and age of the conceited traveller, he instantly penned and handed him the following stanza,—after which he abruptly departed : In seventeen hundred forty-nine, And cuist it in a corner; Shaped it to something like a man, And ca'd it Andrew Horner. After Burke had finished his extraordinary speech against Warren Hastings, the latter (according to the testimony of his private secretary, Mr. Evans) wrote the following sarcastic impromptu : Oft have we wondered that on Irish ground Dr. Johnson's definition of a note of admiration (!), made on the moment, is very neat : |