Quips and Quiddities Part 34

"I believe that nothing in the newspapers is ever true," said Madame Phoebus.

"And that is why they are so popular,"

added Euphrosyne; "the taste of the age being so decidedly for fiction."

LORD BEACONSFIELD, _Lothair_.

He that would s.h.i.+ne, and petrify his tutor, Should drink draught Allsopp in its "native pewter."

C. S. CALVERLEY, _Verses and Translations_.

Lauk, sir! Love's all in the fancy. One does not eat it, nor drink it: and as for the rest--why, it's a bother.

_Corporal Bunting_, in LYTTON's _Eugene Aram_.

"Mr. O----'s affairs turn out so sadly that he cannot have the pleasure of waiting upon his lords.h.i.+p at his agreeable house on Monday next.--N.B. His wife is dead."

J. C. YOUNG, _Diary_.

Why, the Scotch tunes are just like a scolding, nagging woman. They go on with the same thing over and over again, and never come to a reasonable end. Anybody 'ud think the Scotch tunes had always been asking a question of somebody as deaf as old Taft, and had never got an answer yet.

_Bartle Ma.s.sey_, in GEORGE ELIOT's _Adam Bede_.

_SOUL OF LADY._

Tell me, in this night of snow, Of happy Almack's, or the Row!

Say in what carriages what fair Consume the ice in Berkeley Square; Or who in shops, with doubtful eye, Explore the silks they never buy; And how the hair is dressed in town, And what the shape of boot and gown?

_WINDBAG._

Snow-mantled shadow, would you know The fas.h.i.+ons of the world below?

Still the coiled chignon starward towers, Still false back-hair falls down in showers; But now all subtle souls revert To the abbreviated skirt, Whose velvet _paniers_ just denote The gown, that else were petticoat.

Nor is such _nave_ attire enough: Elizabeth's archaic ruff Rings every neck; besides, they rival, With a High-Gothic-Hat-Revival, Old Mother Hubbard, and renew Arcadianly the buckled shoe, To show, what's just a trifle shocking, The dimple of a snowy stocking.

W. J. COURTHOPE, _The Paradise of Birds_.

Be virtuous, and you will be eccentric.

MARK TWAIN, _Choice Works_.

_DON'T WE?_

We're informed that, in Happy j.a.pan, Folks are free to believe what they can; But if they come teaching, And preaching and screeching, They go off to gaol in a van.

Don't you wish _this_ was Happy j.a.pan?

s.h.i.+RLEY BROOKS, _Wit and Humour_.

I hope I appreciate the value of children. We should soon come to nothing without them.

Without them the common school would languish.

But the problem is, what to do with them in a garden. For they are not good to eat, and there is a law against making away with them. The law is not very well enforced, it is true; for people do thin them out with constant dosing, paregoric, and soothing-syrups, and scanty clothing. But I, for one, feel it would not be right, aside from the law, to take the life, even of the smallest child, for the sake of a little fruit, more or less, in the garden. I may be wrong; but these are my sentiments, and I am not ashamed of them.

C. D. WARNER, _My Summer in a Garden_.

_ON DR. TRAPP'S TRANSLATION OF VIRGIL._

Mind but thy preaching, Trapp; translate no further: Is it not written, "Thou shall do no murder"?

_The Poetical Farrago_ (1794).

Shortly before his death, being visited by a clergyman whose features as well as language were more lugubrious than consoling, Hood looked up at him compa.s.sionately, and said, "My dear sir! I'm afraid your religion doesn't agree with you."

J. R. PLANCHe, _Recollections_.

_ON GRAPES AND GRIPES._

In Spain, that land of monks and apes, The thing called wine doth come from grapes; But, on the n.o.ble river Rhine, The thing called gripes doth come from wine.

S. T. COLERIDGE, _apud_ J. C. YOUNG.

Of Diggle, Barham used to tell many absurd stories.

The most amusing of his practical jokes was one in which Barham had a share. The two boys having, in the course of one of their walks, discovered a Quakers' meeting-house, forthwith procured a penny tart of a neighbouring pastry-cook; furnished with this, Diggle marched boldly into the building, and, holding up the delicacy in the midst of the grave a.s.sembly, said with perfect solemnity, "Whoever speaks first shall have this pie." "Friend, go thy way," commenced a drab-coloured gentleman, rising, "go thy way, and----" "The pie's yours, sir!" exclaimed Master Diggle, politely, and placing it before the astounded speaker, hastily effected his escape.

R. H. D. BARHAM, _Life of Barham_.

Talking of some poor relations who had been recipients of his bounty for years, Compton said, "Yes, sir, the whole tribe of them leaned on me for years;" and then added, in his own peculiar manner, "Forty years long was I grieved with this generation."

_Memoir of Henry Compton._

_THE ORANGE._

It ripen'd by the river banks, Where, mask and moonlight aiding, Dons Blas and Juan play their pranks, Dark Donnas serenading.

By Moorish damsel it was pluck'd, Beneath the golden day there; By swain 'twas then in London suck'd-- Who flung the peel away there.