The Jest Book: The Choicest Anecdotes and SayingsLemon, Mark
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The Jest Book: The Choicest Anecdotes and Sayings
Lemon, Mark
Anecdotes -- Great Britain; English wit and humor
MDXXXVI.--LAW AND PHYSIC.
WHEN Dr. H. and Sergeant A. were walking arm-in-arm, a wag said to a
friend, "These two are just equal to one highwayman."--"Why?" was the
response. "Because it is a lawyer and a doctor--_your money or your
life_."
MDXXXVII.--EUCLID REFUTED.
"A PART," says Euclid, "one at once may see,
Unto the whole can never equal be";
Yet W----'s speeches can this fact control,
Of them a part is equal to the whole.
MDXXXVIII.--KEEPING IT TO HIMSELF.
BURKE once mentioned to Fox that he had written a tragedy. "Did you let
Garrick see it?" inquired his friend: "No," replied Burke; "though I had
the folly to _write_ it, I had the wit to keep it _to myself_."
MDXXXIX.--CLASSICAL WIT.
DR. MAGINN dining with a friend on ham and chicken, addressed Sukey
Boyle, his friend's housekeeper, thus: "You know, Boyle, what old Ovid,
in his 'Art of Love' (book iii.), says; I give you the same wish:--
"'Semper tibi _pendeat hamus_,'
May you always have a _ham_ hanging in your kitchen." The doctor
insisted that tea was well known to the Romans, "for," said he, "even in
the time of Plautus it was a favorite beverage with the ladies,--
"'Amant _te_ omnes mulieres.'"
_Miles Glor._, Act i., sc. i., v. 58.
Observing Sukey Boyle, he said to his friend, "Ah! John, I see you
follow the old advice we both learned at school, [Greek: Charizou te
Psyche], 'Indulge yourself with Sukey.'" There was some hock at dinner,
which he thus eulogized:--
"'Hoc tum saevas paulatim mitigat iras,
Hoc minuit luctus moestaque corda levat.'"
_Ov. Trist._, lib. iv., _el._ vi., v. 15, 16.
MDXL.--A PREFERABLE WAY.
ONE of the Kembles made his first appearance on the stage as an opera
singer. His voice was, however, so bad, that at a rehearsal the
conductor of the orchestra called out, "Mr. Kemble! Mr. Kemble! you are
murdering the music!"--"My dear sir," was the quiet rejoinder, "it is
far better to murder it outright, than to keep on _beating it as you
do_."
MDXLI.--A STOUT SWIMMER.
SOME one jocularly observed to the Marquis Wellesley, that, in his
arrangements of the ministry, his brother, the Duke, had thrown him
overboard. "Yes," said the Marquis; "but I trust I have strength enough
to swim _to the other side_."
MDXLII.--A CHOICE OF EVILS.
ONE asked his friend, why he married so _little_ a wife? "Why," said he,
"I thought you knew, that of all evils we should choose the _least_."
MDXLIII.--RESTING HERSELF.
A LABORER'S daughter, who had been in service from her childhood, would
frequently wish to be married, that, as she expressed herself, she might
_rest her bones_. Some time afterwards she got married, and her late
mistress meeting her, asked her, "Well, Mary, have you rested your bones
yet?"--"Yes, indeed," replied she, with a sigh, "I have rested my
_jaw-bones_."
MDXLIV.--A CHARTIST NOT A LEVELLER.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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