Quips and Quiddities Part 49

CHARLES LAMB, _apud_ LEIGH HUNT.

_ON A THEATRICAL NUISANCE:_

Perched in a box which cost her not a _sou_, Giglina chatters all the evening through, Fidgets with opera-gla.s.s, and flowers, and shawls, Annoys the actors, irritates the stalls.

Forgive her harmless pride--the cause is plain-- She wants us all to know she's had champagne.

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

O, I know the way o' wives; they set one on to abuse their husbands, and then they turn round on one and praise 'em as if they wanted to sell 'em.

_Priscilla Lammeter_, in GEORGE ELIOT's _Mill on the Floss_.

"And hast thou slain the Jabberwock?

Come to my arms, my beamish boy!

O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!"

He chortled in his joy.

'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves Did gyre and gimble in the wabe; All mimsy were the borogroves, And the mome raths outgrabe.

LEWIS CARROLL, _Through the Looking-Gla.s.s_.

Mrs. Wordsworth and a lady were walking once in a wood where the stock-dove was cooing. A farmer's wife coming by, said, "Oh, I do like stock-doves!" Mrs. Wordsworth, in all her enthusiasm for Wordsworth's beautiful address to the stock-dove, took the old woman to her heart. "But,"

continued the old woman, "some like 'em in a pie; for my part there's nothing like 'em stewed in onions!"

B. R. HAYDON, _Diary_.

_TO AN AUTHOR._

In spite of hints, in spite of looks, t.i.tus, I send thee not my books.

The reason, t.i.tus, canst divine?

I fear lest thou shouldst send me thine.

MARTIAL, trans. by R. GARNETT.

A friend, who was about to marry the natural daughter of the Duke de ----, was expatiating at great length on the virtues, good qualities, and talents of his future wife, but without making allusion to her birth. "A t'entendre," observed Montrond, "on dirait que tu epouses une fille surnaturelle."

GRONOW, _Recollections_.

Reading new books is like eating new bread: One can bear it at first, but by gradual steps he Is brought to death's door of a mental dyspepsy.

J. R. LOWELL, _A Fable for Critics_.

Casey mentioned to me a parody of his on two lines in the "Veiled Prophet":-- "He knew no more of fear than one who dwells Beneath the tropics knows of icicles."

The following is his parody, which, bless my stars, none of my critics were lively enough to hit upon, for it would have stuck by me:-- "He knew no more of fear than one who dwells On Scotia's mountains knows of shoe-buckles."

THOMAS MOORE, _Diary_.

Why mourns my Eugene? In his dark eye of blue Why trembles the tear-drop to sympathy due?

Ah, why must a bosom so pure and refin'd Thus vibrate, all nerve, at the woes of mankind?

Like a sunbeam the clouds of the tempest between, A smile lights the eye of the pensive Eugene; And thus, in soft accents, the mourner replies, "Hang your mustard! it brings the tears in my eyes!"

R. H. BARHAM, _Ingoldsby Lyrics_.

Dress does not make a man, but it often makes a successful one. What all men should avoid is the "shabby genteel." No man ever gets over it. You had better be in rags.

_Vigo_, in LORD BEACONSFIELD's _Endymion_.

In moss-prankt dells which the sunbeams flatter (And Heaven it knoweth what that may mean; Meaning, however, is no great matter) Where woods are a-tremble, with rifts atween;

Thro' G.o.d's own heather we wonn'd together, I and my Willie (O love, my love!): I need hardly remark it was glorious weather, And flitter-bats waver'd alow, above.

Boats were curtsying, rising, bowing (Boats in that climate are so polite), And sands were a ribbon of green endowing, And O the sun-dazzle on bark and bight.

Thro' the rare red heather we danced together, (O love, my Willie!) and smelt for flowers: I must mention again it was glorious weather, Rhymes are so scarce in this world of ours.

C. S. CALVERLEY, _Fly Leaves_.

'Tis ridiculous for a lord to print verses. It is well enough to make them to please himself, but to make them public is foolish. If a man in his private chamber twirls his bandstrings, or plays with a rush to please himself, 'tis well enough, but if he should go into Fleet Street, and sit upon a stall, and twirl a bandstring, or play with a rush, then all the boys in the street would laugh at him.

SELDEN, _Table Talk_.

Here, in the gra.s.sy hollow, would be spread The snowy cloth--dimpled with various viands.

Ah! cleanly damask of our native land!

Ah! pleasant memory of pigeon-pie, Short-crusted--savoury-jellied--flow'ry-yolked!

Ah! fair white-bosomed fowl with tawny tongue Well married! lobster-salad, crisp and cool, With polished silver from clean crockery Forked up--washed down with drinks that make me now Thirsty to think of.

Yes, with ginger-pop These crags should echo.

Ah! rare golden gleam Of sack in silver goblets gilt within!-- Bright evanescent raptures of champagne-- Brisk bottled stout in pewters creamy-crowned!

G. J. CAYLEY, _Las Alforgas_.

Say, as the witty Duke of Buckingham did to the dog that bit him, "I wish you were married, and went to live in the country."

_Ellesmere_, in HELPS' _Friends in Council_.