“After another defeat of the French by the Prussians, a French soldier said to his companion while they were running off, ‘Vraiment cet Roi de Prusse est un brave homme. Je crois qu’il a servi en France.’” MR. GIFFARDIER. * * * * * “After the defeat of the French at Rosbach, there happened a ludicrous enough incident. A little French officer was taken prisoner by a tall, fierce, black hussar. After making him deliver up his sword, his watch, and his money, the hussar made him get up behind him and hold fast, and away he galloped; and all the time, with the greatest _sang froid_, he was eating apples out of his pocket, and now and then, with a humph, threw one over his shoulder to the officer, who, for fear of his displeasure, eat them every one most faithfully.” MR. GIFFARDIER, from the officer himself. * * * * * “When Boswell was a young, giddy, frolicsome dog in London, a parcel of sarcastical Scots, dining at Almack’s,[148] were enlarging much on his imprudence. ‘I do not know,’ said Dempster, ‘how Boswell may do in this world, but I am sure he would do very well in a better.’” From MISS DEMPSTER.[149] * * * * * “Boswell complained that he had too good a memory in trifles, which prevented his remembering things of consequence. ‘My head,’ said he, ‘is like a tavern, in which a club of low punch-drinkers have taken up the room that might have been filled with lords who drink Burgundy, but it is not in the landlord’s power to dispossess them.’” * * * * * “A gentleman was complaining that upon a long voyage their provisions were very bad, and, in particular, that their beef turned quite green. ‘Very right, sir,’ said Caleb Whitefoord,[150] ‘you know all flesh is grass, and therefore ought to be green.’” I was present. * * * * * “Boswell says that a man who sets out on the journey of life with opinions that he has never examined is like a man who goes a-fowling with a gun that has never been proved.” * * * * * “Boswell, who had a good deal of whim, used not only to form wild projects in his imagination, but would sometimes reduce them to practice. In his calm hours he said with great good humour, ‘There have been many people who built castles in the air, but I believe I am the first that ever attempted to live in them.’” * * * * * “A gentleman said of a clumsy wench that she was as hot as fire. ‘Yes,’ said Boswell, ‘but in a very different way. The fire feels nothing, but communicates the heat to other bodies; but this wench leaves all cold around her while she herself is burning.’” * * * * * “A young lady was wishing much to be her _own mistress_. ‘You are mine, miss,’ said her lover, ‘and that is much better.’” * * * * *