The Choice Humorous Works, Ludicrous Adventures, Bons Mots, Puns, and Hoaxes of Theodore HookHook, Theodore Edward
General
The Choice Humorous Works, Ludicrous Adventures, Bons Mots, Puns, and Hoaxes of Theodore Hook
Hook, Theodore Edward
English wit and humor
"The hotel which I have mentioned is in the Rue de la Pay, so called
from its being the dearest part of the town. At one end of it is the
place Fumdum, where there is a pillow as high as the Trojan's Pillow
at Rome, or the pompous pillow in Egypt; this is a beautiful object,
and is made of all the guns, coats, waistcoats, hats, boots and
belts, which belonged to the French who were killed by the cold in
Prussia at the fire of Moscow.
"At the top of the pillow is a small apartment, which they call
a pavillion, and over that a white flag, which I concluded to
be hoisted as a remembrance of Buonaparte, being very like the
table-cloths I noticed at Callous.
"We lost no time in going into the gardens of the Tooleries, where we
saw the statutes at large in marvel--here we saw Mr. Backhouse and
Harry Edney, whoever they might be, and a beautiful grope of Cupid
and Physic, together with several of the busks which Lavy has copied,
the original of which is in the Vacuum at Rome, which was formerly an
office for government thunder, but is now reduced to a stable where
the Pope keeps his bulls.
"Travellers like us, who are mere birds of prey, have no time to
waste, and therefore we determined to see all we could in each day,
so we went to the great church, which is called Naughty Dam, where
we saw a priest doing something at an altar. Mr. Fulmer begged me
to observe the knave of the church, but I thought it too hard to
call the man names in his own country, although Mr. Fulmer said he
believed he was exercising the evil spirits in an old lady in a black
cloak.
"It was a great day at this church, and we staid for mass, so called
from the crowd of people who attend it--the priest was very much
incensed--we waited out the whole ceremony, and heard Tedium sung,
which occupied three hours.
"We returned over the Pont Neuf, so called from being the north
bridge in Paris, and here we saw a beautiful image of Henry Carter;
it is extremely handsome, and quite green--I fancied I saw a likeness
to the Carters of Portsmouth, but if it is one of his family, his
posteriors are very much diminished in size and figure.
"Mr. Fulmer proposed that we should go and dine at a tavern called
Very--because every thing is very good there; and accordingly we
went, and I never was so malapropos in my life--there were two or
three ladies quite in nubibus; but when I came to look at the bill of
fare, I was quite anileated, for I perceived that Charlotte de Pommes
might be sent for for one shilling and twopence, and Patty de Veau
for half-a-crown. I desired Mr. Fulmer to let us go; but he convinced
me there was no harm in the place, by shewing me a dignified
clergyman of the Church of England and his wife, a eating away like
any thing.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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