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
Where we are living now is in Southampton-street, and was the
house of Mr. Garrick, the author of "The School for Scandal," and
all Shakspeare's plays. The waiter tells us that Mr. Johnston, of
Covent-garden, and an old Goldsmith, of the name of Oliver, used very
often to dine with him in the very room in which I write this, and
that that excellent and amiable man, Sir George Beaumont, who, as you
know, wrote half Mr. Fletcher's works, and who is alive and merry at
this moment, used to dine here too--but that, I think, is a little
trow four,[14] for Garrick, I believe, has been dead more than two
hundred and fifty years.
I cannot let my house in Montague Place, because of the new
Universality in Gore Street--however, if I go and live there,
they say there will be a great many Bachelors in the College,
and perhaps I may get off one or two of my girls. I write this
while my French footer son-in-law is playing Macarty with his
Dulcimer Amelrosa--Macarty is, to my mind, little better than a bad
translation of all-fours into French; but above all, I cannot bare
to hear Mounsheer while he is a playing, for whenever he has got the
ace of spades in his hand, he talks of a part of Derbyshire which is
never mentioned in decent society not by no means whatsoever.
In Paris we saw Mr. Cannon, the Secretary of State, but without any
state at all--he was just like any other man--and as for his foreign
affairs, I saw none that he had--he was quite without pride--not at
all like Count Potto o' de Boggo, who is a great Plenipo there, and
struts about just as grand as the Roman Consols did, when they used
to have their Feces tied up in bundles and carried before them by
their Lickturs. I have no notion of paying such reverence to officers
of humane institution for my part, and I quite love Mr. Cannon for
his want of ostensibility.
We met with an uncommon unpleasant accident coming to town--one of
the horses, which was seized with the staggers, a disorder very like
St. Witulus's dance in men, broke his breeches in going down an ill,
which very nearly overturned the carriage, which we had hired at
Hastings; for of course we had no coach in the batow, and were glad
enough to catch a couple of flies even in this cold season, to convey
us to Tunbridge Wells, a place I had never seen before, and which is
like Cranburn Alley put out to grass--there are various ills about
the neighbourhood, which are named after Scripture, why I cannot
tell--we did not drink any of the waters, none of us being in any way
deceased.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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