Quips and Quiddities Part 22

R. H. BARHAM, _Life_.

There is safety in numbers, especially in odd numbers. The Three Graces never married, neither did the Nine Muses.

_Kenelm Chillingly_, in LORD LYTTON's novel.

_DISTICH._

There are three species of creatures who when they seem coming are going, When they seem going they come: Diplomats, women, and crabs.

JOHN HAY, _Poems_.

If a man might know The ill he must undergo, And shun it so, Then were it good to know.

But if he undergo it, Though he know it, What boots him know it?

He must undergo it.

SIR JOHN SUCKLING.

Barry Cornwall told me that when he and Charles Lamb were once making up a dinner-party together, Charles asked him not to invite a certain lugubrious friend of theirs. "Because," said Lamb, "he would cast a damper even over a funeral."

J. T. FIELDS, _Yesterdays with Authors_.

L'amour plait plus que le mariage, par la raison que les romans sont plus amusants que l'histoire.

CHAMFORT, _Maximes_.

The farmers daughter hath frank blue eyes; (_b.u.t.ter and eggs and a pound of cheese_) She hears the rooks caw in the windy skies, As she sits at her lattice and sh.e.l.ls her peas.

The farmer's daughter hath ripe red lips; (_b.u.t.ter and eggs and a pound of cheese_) If you try to approach her, away she skips Over tables and chairs with apparent ease.

The farmer's daughter hath soft brown hair; (_b.u.t.ter and eggs and a pound of cheese_) And I met with a ballad, I can't say where, Which wholly consisted of lines like these.

C. S. CALVERLEY, _Fly Leaves_.

Macready told a story of George B----, the actor, who, it seems, was not popular in the profession, being considered a sort of time-server: "There goes Georgius," said some one. "Not Georgium Sidus?" replied Keeley. "Yes," added Power, "Georgium _Any_-sidus."

R. H. BARHAM, _Life_.

I'm weary, and sick, and disgusted With Britain's mechanical din; Where I'm much too well known to be trusted, And plaguily pestered for tin; Where love has two eyes for your banker, And one chilly flame for yourself; Where souls can afford to be franker, But where they're well garnished with pelf.

I'm sick of the whole race of poets, Emasculate, misty, and fine; They brew their small beer, and don't know its Distinction from full-bodied wine.

I'm sick of the prosers, that house up At drowsy St. Stephen's--ain't you?

I want some strong spirits to rouse up A good resolution or two!

_Bon Gaultier Ballads_.

"On one occasion," said Brummell, "I called to inquire after a young lady who had sprained her ankle. Lewis, on being asked how she was, had said in the black's presence, 'The doctor has seen her, put her legs straight, and the poor chicken is doing well.' The servant, therefore, told me, with a very mysterious and knowing look, 'Oh, sir, the doctor has been here; she has laid eggs, and she and the chickens are doing well.'"

GRONOW, _Recollections_.

A Scottish clergyman had some years since been cited before the Ecclesiastical a.s.sembly at Edinburgh, to answer to a charge brought against him of great irreverence in religious matters, and Sir Walter [Scott] was employed by him to arrange his defence. The princ.i.p.al fact alleged against him was his having a.s.serted, in a letter which was produced, that "he considered Pontius Pilate to be a very ill-used man, as he had done more for Christianity than all the other _nine Apostles_ put together." The fact was proved, and suspension followed.

R. H. BARHAM, _Life_.

_ON DIDACTICS IN POETRY._

Parna.s.sus' peaks still catch the sun; But why--O lyric brother!-- Why build a Pulpit on the one, A Platform on the other?

AUSTIN DOBSON, in _Latter-Day Lyrics_.

My old fellow-traveller in Germany, himself an Irishman, being on the box of an Irish mail-coach on a very cold day, and observing the driver enveloping his neck in the voluminous folds of an ample "comforter," remarked, "You seem to be taking very good care of yourself, my friend." "Och, to be shure I am, sir," answered the driver; "what's all the world to a man when his wife's a widdy?"

J. R. PLANCHe, _Recollections_.

---- has nothing truly human about him; he can't even yawn like a man.

LADY ASHBURTON, _apud_ LORD HOUGHTON.

We are apt to be kinder to the brutes that love us than to the women that love us. Is it because the brutes are dumb?

GEORGE ELIOT, _Adam Bede_.

A frontispiece of a new magazine, With all the fas.h.i.+ons which the last month wore, Colour'd, and silver-paper leaved between That and the t.i.tle page, for fear the press Should soil with parts of speech the parts of dress.

LORD BYRON, _Beppo_.

"I wish to consult you upon a little project I have formed," said a noodle to his friend. "I have an idea in my head----" "Have you?"

interposed the friend, with a look of great surprise; "then you shall have my opinion at once: _keep it there_!--it may be some time before you get another."

HORACE SMITH, _The Tin Trumpet_.

On aime mieux dire du mal de soi-meme que de n'en point parler.