English Jests and Anecdotes, Collected from Various SourcesVarious
General
English Jests and Anecdotes, Collected from Various Sources
Various
Anecdotes -- England; English wit and humor
When Dr. Johnson visited the University of St. Andrews, he took
occasion to inquire of one of the professors into the state of their
funds, and being told that they were not so affluent as many of their
neighbours, “No matter,” said the doctor drily; “persevere in the plan
you have formed, and you will get rich _by degrees_.”
MARCH OF POLITENESS.
Complaisance is no longer confined to the polite circles. A captain
of a vessel was lately called out of a coffeehouse at Wapping by a
waterman, with the following address: “An’t please your honour, the
tide is waiting for you.”
HACKNEY COACHMAN.
A hackney coachman, after putting up his horses in the evening,
took out the money he had received during the day, in order to make
a division between his master and himself. “There,” says he, “is
one shilling for master, and one for me;” and so on alternately
till an odd shilling remained. Here he hesitated between conscience
and self-interest, when the master, who happened to be a concealed
spectator, said, “I think, Thomas, you may allow me the odd shilling,
as I keep the horses.”
NO REASON TO REMOVE.
A gentleman dined one day with a dull preacher. Dinner was scarcely
over before the gentleman fell asleep, but was awakened by the divine,
and invited to go and hear him preach. “I beseech you, sir,” said he,
“to excuse me; I can sleep very well where I am.”
EXCLUSIVE PLUMBER.
Holroyd, king’s plumber, stood in the pit of the theatre at the time
that Hatfield fired at King George III., and it was reported that by
his lifting up the assassin’s arm at the moment he was firing, the
pistol was raised so that the ball went higher than the box his majesty
was seated in. Some one observed that “This was a very loyal thing in
the plumber.” “Why, yes,” replied a gentlemen present, “it looks like
it; but the motive might possibly be selfish; it perhaps arose from
Holroyd not choosing that anyone should serve the king with _lead_
except himself.”
CHARLES II.
As James II. when Duke of York, returned one morning from hunting, he
found his brother Charles in Hyde Park without any attendants, at what
was considered a perilous time. The duke expressed his surprise at
his majesty’s venturing alone in so public a place at so dangerous a
period. “James,” replied the monarch, “take care of yourself, and I am
safe. No man in England will kill _me_ to make _you_ king.”
REFORMATION.
A gentleman remarking that this age was infinitely more dissipated
and licentious than that which preceded it, an old officer took upon
himself the task of defending it. “Sir,” says he, “I grant that we get
drunk as completely as our fathers; but this I will say, that I have
not seen a wig burnt these forty years.”
INVISIBLE AND INCOMPREHENSIBLE.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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