English Jests and Anecdotes, Collected from Various SourcesVarious
General
English Jests and Anecdotes, Collected from Various Sources
Various
Anecdotes -- England; English wit and humor
A young master of arts, the very next day after the commencement,
having his course to a common place in the chapel, where were divers
that but the day before had taken their degree, chose his text out
of the eighth chapter of Job. The words were these: “We are but of
yesterday, and know nothing.” “This text,” said he, “doth fitly divide
itself into two branches--our standing and our understanding--our
standing in these words, ‘_We are but of yesterday_;’ our
understanding, ‘_We know nothing_.’”
A TRAVELLER DROWNED.
When a gentleman heard that a traveller, a friend of his, was drowned,
he fetched a great sigh and said, “Now God rest his soul, for he is
gone the way of all flesh.” “Nay,” said another, then standing by, “if
he be drowned, he is rather gone the way of all fish.”
A MONUMENT TO CRANMER.
The High Church at Oxford, having acquired a very large amount of
subscribed money to erect a temple or monument in honour of Archbishop
Cranmer, was desirous to find a site on the very spot where he was
buried. In their search they not only concluded that the spot had
been found but also his bones. To make quite certain these were sent
for examination to Professor Buckland, who, having examined them,
pronounced them to be the bones of a _cow_.
TALLEYRAND.
The wife of an ambassador, in passing before Talleyrand through an
ante-room to dinner, the latter looking up, exclaimed significantly,
“Ah!” The lady, speaking across the table during dinner, asked him
why he said “Oh!” Talleyrand, with a grave, self-vindicatory look,
answered, “_Madame, je n’ai pas dit oh! j’ai dit Ah!_”
DENTISTRY IN INDIA.
An English dentist practising in India got a commission to make a
set of teeth for the King of Delhi. The prime difficulty was how
to obtain the model, as the hand of a Christian in the royal mouth
would be counted an abomination. It was at last decided that if his
hands were washed in the Ganges contact might be permitted. The teeth
suited admirably. One of the courtiers declared they would be good for
nothing, and the king, to test them, desired him to put his finger in
his mouth and try. The king made a snap and nearly bit the finger in
two. Unhappily, the teeth suited so well that the king’s appetite,
being enormous, brought on a plethora, which nearly killed him, and the
teeth were consigned to the Ganges.
LONDON HOSPITALITY TO MEN OF GENIUS.
Sydney Smith was accustomed to entertain his friends with a
description of the _dining_ process by which Londoners extracted all
they wanted from new literary lions. “Here’s a new man of genius
arrived; put on the stew pan; fry away; we’ll soon get out of him all
we want.”
SELLING A HORSE.
A horse dealer had a horse for sale. The intending purchaser, intending
to use him as a hunter, was desirous of knowing his leaping qualities,
and enquired, “Would he take timber?” “He’d jump over your head,”
answers the other; “I don’t know what you call _that_.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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