Quips and Quiddities Part 1

Quips and Quiddities.

by William Davenport Adams.

PREFACE.

This is a modest little volume. It consists but of selections from the Editor's note-book, and its object is but to amuse. It does not even aspire to be read consecutively. The Compiler's hope is only that it may be found a pleasant companion at spare moments--that it may be considered handy for the pocket, and be thought agreeable to dip into.

To that end, two things have been aimed at in selecting--brevity and variety. There is scarcely anything in the volume that cannot be read almost at a glance, and the matter ranges over a wide extent of literary effort--over play and poem, over essay and novel, over maxim and epigram, over memoir and diary. There is pun, and there is parody; there is satire, and there is sarcasm.

In a word, the little book may say, with Lafontaine, "Diversite c'est ma devise." There is diversity even in the arrangement, which consists merely of a general alternation of the prose and verse. For the rest, the quips and quiddities are in intentional disorder.

Let it be added that, though there are a few anonymous pa.s.sages, most are duly attributed to their writers, together with references to the volumes from which they have been taken. In this, every care has been exercised to arrive at accuracy. The idea of completeness is, of course, foreign to a selection of this sort, and it may be mentioned that the Editor has been specially anxious to avoid as much as possible the ground covered by Mr. Leigh in his "Jeux d'Esprit," and by Mr. Dobson in his "Literary Frivolities." His aim, indeed, has been to take the freshest and least hackneyed of the pa.s.sages in his collection, though he has not hesitated to include a venerable saying when it has seemed to him as good as it is venerable.

In conclusion, the Compiler desires to express in the most hearty manner his indebtedness to those numerous living writers whose bright and airy fancies form, in his opinion, one of the chief attractions of the book. He ought, perhaps, to apologize to those writers for presenting their fancies in a manner so generally fragmentary and disconnected. But that the contents of the book should be thus disconnected and fragmentary was part and parcel of its plan and origin, and, that being the case, the Editor hopes to be excused.

He may state that, in those few cases where a piece of verse is given entire, it is distinguished by the presence of a heading. The epigrams, maxims, and anecdotes are, of course, reproduced as written--being, in their very nature, of the brevity essential to a quip.

Further: on the principle that no book, however unpretending, should be without an Index, the Compiler has supplied one for the present volume.

W.D.A.

"Shall I tell thee one thing, Poins?"

"Yes, faith; and let it be an excellent good thing."

I _Henry IV._, ii. 2.

QUIPS AND QUIDDITIES.

When Miss Callender, afterwards Mrs. Sheridan, published a novel, the hero of which commits forgery, that wicked wit, Sydney Smith, said he knew she was a Callender, but did not know till then that she was a Newgate Calendar.

f.a.n.n.y KEMBLE, _Record of a Girlhood_.

An estate and beauty joined, are of an unlimited, nay, a power pontifical; make one not only absolute, but infallible. A fine woman's never in the wrong.

_Lady Betty_, in CIBBER's _Careless Husband_.

_THEOPHILUS._

When I'm drinking my tea I think of my _The_; When I'm drinking my coffee I think of my _Offee_; So, whether I'm drinking my tea or my coffee, I'm always a-thinking of thee, my Theoffy.

ROGERS, _apud_ MOORE.

Bobus was very amusing. He is a great authority on Indian matters. We talked of the insects and the snakes, and he said a thing which reminded me of his brother Sydney: "Always, sir, manage to have at your table some fleshy blooming young writer or cadet, just come out, that the mosquitoes may stick to him, and leave the rest of the company alone."

LORD MACAULAY, _Life_.

Lady Greenwich, in a conversation with Lady Tweeddale, named the Saxons. "The Saxons, my dear," cried the Marchioness; "who were they?" "Lord, madam, did your ladys.h.i.+p never read the History of England?" "No, my dear; pray, who wrote it?"

HORACE WALPOLE, _Correspondence_.

_ON THE MARRIAGE OF A MR. LOT AND A MISS SALTER._

Because on her way she chose to halt, Lot's wife, in the Scriptures, was turned into salt; But though in her course she ne'er did falter, This young Lot's wife, strange to say, was Salter.

HICKS, _apud_ J. C. YOUNG.

Hook was dining at Powell's one day, and the talk fell upon _feu_ Jack Reeve. "Yes," said Theodore, when they were speaking of his funeral, "I met him in his private box, going to the pit."

H. F. CHORLEY, _Life and Letters_.

_TO A BAD FIDDLER._

Old Orpheus played so well, he moved old Nick, While thou mov'st nothing but thy fiddlestick!

_A Collection of Epigrams_ (1727).

A lady from China who was dining with the Archbishop [Whately] told him that English flowers reared in that country lose their perfume in two or three years. "Indeed!" was the immediate remark, "I had no idea that the Chinese were such de-scent-ers."

E. J. WHATELY's _Life of Whately_.

_ON THE ART UNIONS._

That Picture-Raffles will conduce to nourish Design, or cause good colouring to flourish, Admits of logic-chopping and wise-sawing: But surely Lotteries encourage Drawing?

THOMAS HOOD, _Whims and Oddities_.

Robert Smith (brother of Sydney, and familiarly called "Bobus") was a lawyer and an ex-Advocate-General, and happened on one occasion to be engaged in argument with an excellent physician touching the merits of their respective professions.

"You must admit," urged Dr. ----, "that your profession does not make angels of men." "No,"

was the retort, "there you have the best of it; yours certainly gives them the first chance."

ABRAHAM HAYWARD, _Essays_.