Scotch Wit and Humor Part 27

=An Author and His Printer=

It is well known to literary people, that, in preparing works for the printer, after the proof sheets have been seen by the author, to go over them again, and clear them of what are called typographical errors--such as wrong spellings, inaccuracies of punctuation, and similar imperfections. In performing this office for a celebrated northern critic and editor, a printer, now dead, was in the habit of introducing a much greater number of commas than it appeared to the author the sense required. The case was provoking, but did not produce a formal remonstrance, until Mr. W----n himself accidentally afforded the learned editor an opportunity of signifying his dissatisfaction with the plethora of punctuation under which his compositions were made to labor.

The worthy printer coming to a pa.s.sage one day which he did not understand, very naturally took it into his head that it was unintelligible, and transmitted it to his employer, with a remark on the margin, that there appeared some "obscurity in it."

The sheet was immediately returned, with the reply, which we give _verbatim_: "Mr. J---- sees no obscurity here, except such as arises from the quant.i.ty of commas, which Mr. W----n seems to keep in a pepper-box beside him, for the purpose of dusting all his proofs with."

=A Keen Reproof=

A certain person, to show his detestation of Hume's infidel opinions always left any company where he happened to be, if Hume joined it. The latter, observing this, took occasion one day to reprehend it as follows: "Friend," said he, "I am surprised to find you display such a pointed aversion to me; I would wish to be upon good terms with you here, as, upon your own system, it seems very probable we shall be doomed to the same place hereafter. You think I shall be dammed for want of faith, and I fear you will have the same fate for want of charity."

=The Scotch Mason and the Angel=

The late Mr. Douglas, of Cavers, in Roxburghs.h.i.+re, one day walked into Cavers churchyard, where he saw a stonemason busily engaged in carving an angel upon a gravestone. Observing that the man was adorning the heavenly spirit, according to the custom of the age, with a grand flowing periwig, Mr. Douglas exclaimed to him, "in the name of wonder, who ever saw an angel with a wig?" "And in the name of wonder," answered the sculptor, "wha ever saw an angel _without_ ane?"

=A Whole-witted Sermon from a Half-Witted Preacher=

A half-witted itinerant preacher, well-known in the county of Ayr, was stopped one evening on the road to Stewarton, by a band of shearers, who insisted on his retiring to a neighboring field to give them a sermon.

After many attempts on his part to get off, and threats on theirs if he did not comply, the honest man was compelled to consent; and, from the back of his s.h.a.ggy haired sheltie, he delivered to his bare-footed audience the following extemporaneous effusion, taking for his text these words: "Naked came I out of my mother's womb, and naked shall I return thither." (Job 1: v. 21.) "In discoursing from these words," said the preacher, "I shall observe the three following things: (1) Man's ingress into the world; (2) His progress through the world; and (3) His egress out of the world. First, man's ingress into the world is naked and bare; secondly, his progress through the world is trouble and care; thirdly, his egress out of the world is n.o.body knows where. To conclude: If we do well here, we shall do well there. And I could tell you no more were I to preach a whole year."

=More Witty Than True=

There lived about the beginning of last century an Episcopalian clergyman of the name of Robert Calder, who was considered an extraordinary wit, and, who, at least, must be allowed to have used very extraordinary expressions. He published a _jeu d' esprit_ under the form of a catechism, in which a person is made to ask: "Who was the first Presbyterian?" The answer is "Jonah." "How do ye make Jonah out to be the first Presbyterian?" is again asked. "Why," answers the other, "because the Lord wanted him to gang east and he gaed wast!" (The same might be said of Adam and all who preceded or succeeded Jonah--not excepting Robert Calder.--Ed.)

=The Parson and His "Thirdly"=

A certain minister had a custom of writing the heads of his discourse on small slips of paper, which he placed on the Bible before him to be used in succession. One day when he was explaining the second head, he got so excited in his discourse, that he caused the ensuing slip to fall over the side of the pulpit, though unperceived by himself. On reaching the end of the second head, he looked down for the third slip; but alas! it was not to be found. "Thirdly," he cried looking around him with great anxiety. After a little pause, "Thirdly," again he exclaimed; but still no thirdly appeared. "Thirdly, I say, my brethren," pursued the bewildered clergyman; but not another word could he utter. At this point, while the congregation were partly sympathizing, and partly rejoicing at this decisive instance of the impropriety of using notes in preaching--which has always been an unpopular thing in Scotland, an old woman rose up and thus addressed the preacher: "If I'm no' mista'en, sir, I saw thirdly flee out at the east window, a quarter of an hour syne."

=Scotch Ingenuity=

The Jacobite lairds of Fife were once, on the occasion of an election, induced to sign the oath of abjuration in great numbers, in order to vote for a friend of their party. It was much against their conscience; but the case was such as to make them wink pretty hard. During the carousal which followed, Mr. Balfour, of Forrat, a Jacobite of the old stamp, began, to their surprise, to inveigh against them as a set of perjured rascals, not remembering apparently, that he had signed as well as the rest. They burst out with one universal question: "How can you speak this way, Forrat, since you are just as guilty as ony o' us?"

"That am I no'," said Forrat, with a triumphant air of innocence and waggery; "look ye at the list of names, and ye'll see the word _witness_ at the end of mine. I just signed as witness to your perjury!"

=Bolder Than Charles the Bold=

Joannes Scotus, the early Scotch philosopher, being in company with Charles the Bold, King of France, that monarch asked him good humoredly, what was the difference between a Scot and a sot. Scotus, who sat opposite the king, answered, "Only the breadth of the table."

="Short Commons"=

A Mid-Lothian farmer, observed to his ploughboy that there was a fly in his milk.

"Oh, never mind, sir," said the boy; "it winna droon; there's nae meikle o't."

"Gudewife," said the farmer, "Jock says he has ower little milk."

"There's milk enough for a' my bread," said the sly rogue.

=The Shoemaker and Small Feet=

A lady, who seemed rather vain, entered a bootmaker's shop one day with the usual complaint; "Why, Mr. S----, these boots you last made for me are much too big; I really can't understand how you always make that mistake. Can you not make small boots?"

"Ou, ay," quickly responded the man; "I can mak' sma' buits, but I'm sorry I canna mak' sma' feet."

=Pleasant Prospect Beyond the Grave=

An elderly lady, intending to purchase the upper flat of a house in Prince's Street, opposite the West Church Burying-ground, Edinburgh, from which the chain of Pentland Hills formed a beautiful background, after having been made acquainted with all its conveniences, and the beauty of its situation, elegantly enumerated by the builder, he requested her to cast her eye on the romantic hills at a distance, on the other side of the church-yard. The lady admitted that she had "certainly a most pleasant prospect _beyond the grave_."

=Pulpit Foolery=

The Rev. Hamilton Paul, a Scotch clergyman, is said to have been a reviver of Dean Swift's walk of wit in choice of texts. For example, when he left the town of Ayr, where he was understood to have been a great favorite with the fair s.e.x, he preached his valedictory sermon from this pa.s.sage, "And they all fell upon Paul's neck and kissed him."

Another time, when he was called on to preach before a military company in green uniforms, he preached from the words, "And I beheld men like trees walking." Paul was always ready to have a gibe at the damsels.

Near Portobello, there is a sea-bathing place named Joppa, and Paul's congregation was once thinned by the number of his female votaries who went thither. On the Sabbath after their wending he preached from the text, "Send men to Joppa." In a similar manner he improved the occasion of the mysterious disappearance of one of his paris.h.i.+oners, Moses Marshall, by selecting for his text the pa.s.sage from Exodus xxii, "As for this Moses, we wot not what is become of him." He once made serious proposals to a young lady whose Christian name was Lydia. On this occasion the clerical wit took for his text: "And a certain woman, named Lydia, heard us; whose heart the Lord opened, that she attended unto the things which were spoken of Paul." [9]

=A Restful Preacher=

Dean Ramsay relates that the Earl of Lauderdale was alarmingly ill, one distressing symptom being a total absence of sleep, without which the medical man declared he could not recover. His son, who was somewhat simple, was seated under the table, and cried out, "Sen' for that preaching man frae Livingstone, for fayther aye sleeps in the kirk." One of the doctors thought the hint worth attending to, and the experiment of "getting a minister till him" succeeded, for sleep came on and the earl recovered. [7]

=Why the Bishops Disliked the Bible=

A Bishop of Dunkeld, in Scotland, before the Reformation, thanked G.o.d that he never knew what the Old and New Testaments were, affirming that he cared to know no more than his Portius and Pontifical. At a diet in Germany, one Bishop Albertus, lighting by chance upon a Bible, commenced reading; one of his colleagues asked him what book it was. "I know not,"

was the reply, "but this I find, that whatever I read in it, is utterly against our religion." [9]

=The Same with a Difference=

A young wit asked a man who rode about on a wretched horse: "Is that the same horse you had last year?" "Na," said the man, brandis.h.i.+ng his whip in the interrogator's face in so emphatic a manner as to preclude further questioning; "na, but it's the same _whup_." [7]

=Official Consolation and Callousness=

A friend has told me of a characteristic answer given by a driver to a traveler who complained of an inconvenience. A gentleman sitting opposite my friend in the stage-coach at Berwick, complained bitterly that the cus.h.i.+on on which he sat was quite wet. On looking up to the roof he saw a hole through which the rain descended copiously, and at once accounted for the mischief. He called for the coachman, and in great wrath reproached him with the evil under which he suffered, and pointed to the hole which was the cause of it. All the satisfaction, however, that he got was the quiet unmoved reply, "Ay, mony a ane has complained o' _that_ hole." [7]

=Objecting to Scotch "Tarmes"=

In early times a Scotch laird had much difficulty (as many worthy lairds have still) in meeting the claims of those two woful periods of the year called in Scotland the "tarmes." He had been employing for some time, as workman, a stranger from the south, on some house repairs. The workman rejoiced in the not uncommon name in England of "Christmas." The laird's servant, early one morning, called out at his bedroom door, in great excitement, that "Christmas had run away, and n.o.body knew where he had gone." He turned in his bed with the earnest e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n, "I only wish he had taken Whitsunday and Martinmas along with him."