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
Oh, Mr. Bull, Room is raley a beautiful place.--We entered it by
the Point of Molly, which is just like the Point and Sally at
Porchmouth, only they call Sally there Port, which is not known in
Room. The Tiber is not a nice river, it looks yellow; but it does
the same there as the Tames does here. We hired a carry-letty and
a cocky-olly, to take us to the Church of Salt Peter, which is
prodigious big:--in the center of the pizarro there is a basilisk
very high--on the right and left two handsome foundlings; and the
farcy, as Mr. Fulmer called it, is ornamented with collateral
statutes of some of the Apostates.
There is a great statute of Salt Peter himself, but Mr. Fulmer thinks
it to be Jew Peter, which I think likely too--there were three
brothers of the same name, as of course you know--Jew Peter the
fortuitous, the capillary, and toenails; and it is curos that it must
be him, for his toes are kissed away by the piety of the religious
debauchees who visit his shin and shrine--Besides, I think it is
Jew Peter, because why should not he be worshipped as well as Jew
Billy?--Mr. Fulmer made a pun, Lavy told me, and said the difference
between the two Jew Billies was, that one drew all the people to the
_sinagog_, and the other set all the people _agog to sin_--I don't
conceive his meaning, which I am afraid is a Dublin tender.
There was a large quire of singers, but they squeaked too much
to please me--and played on fiddles, so I suppose they have no
organs;--the priests pass all their time in dissolving sinners by
oracular confusion, which, like transmogrification, is part of their
doctoring--the mittens in the morning, and whispers at night, is just
equally the same as at Paris.
Next to Salt Peter's Church is the Church of Saint John the Latter
end, where the Poop always goes when he is first made--there is
another basilisk here covered with highro-griffins.
I assure you the Colocynth is a beautiful ruin--it was built for
fights, and Mr. Fulmer said that Hell of a gabbler, an Emperor,
filled his theatre with wine--what a sight of marvels Mr. B. oh, so
superb!--the carraway, and paring, and the jelly and tea-cup, which
are all very fine indeed.
The Veteran[10] (which I used foolishly to call the Vacuum till I
had been there), is also filled with statutes--one is the body of
the angel Michael, which has been ripped to pieces, and is therefore
said to be Tore-so--but I believe this to be a poetical fixture:--the
statute of the Racoon is very moving, its tail is prodigious long,
and goes round three on 'em--the Antipodes is also a fine piece of
execution.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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