A LANDED proprietor in the small county of Rutland became very intimate with the Duke of Argyle, to whom, in the plenitude of his friendship, he said: "How I wish your estate were in my county!" Upon which the duke replied: "I'm thinking, if it were, there would be _no room for yours_." MDLXXI.--AN UNEXPECTED CANNONADE. AT one of the annual dinners of the members of the Chapel Royal, a gentleman had been plaguing Edward Cannon with a somewhat dry disquisition on the noble art of fencing. Cannon for some time endured it with patience; but at length, on the man remarking that Sir George D---- was a great fencer, Cannon, who disliked him, replied, "I don't know, sir, whether Sir George is a great fencer, but Sir George is a great fool!" A little startled, the other rejoined, "Possibly he is; but then, you know, a man may be both."--"_So I see, sir_," said Cannon, turning away. MDLXXII.--ON BUTLER'S MONUMENT. WHILE Butler, needy wretch, was yet alive, No generous patron would a dinner give. See him, when starved to death and turned to dust, Presented with a monumental bust. The poet's fate is here in emblem shown,-- He asked for bread, and he received a stone. MDLXXIII.--A WORD IN SEASON. MRS. POWELL the actress was at a court of assize when a young barrister, who rose to make his maiden speech, suddenly stopped short and could not proceed. The lady, feeling for his situation, cried out, as though he had been a young actor on his first appearance, "Somebody _give him the word_,--somebody give him the word!" MDLXXIV.--"GETTING THE WORST OF IT." PORSON was once disputing with an acquaintance, who, getting the worst of it, said, "Professor, _my opinion_ of you is most contemptible."--"Sir," returned the great Grecian, "I never knew an _opinion_ of yours that was _not contemptible_." MDLXXV.--A SATISFACTORY EXPLANATION. ONE of the curiosities some time since shown at a public exhibition, professed to be a skull of Oliver Cromwell. A gentleman present observed that it could not be Cromwell's, as he had a very large head, and this was a small skull. "O, I know all that," said the exhibitor, undisturbed, "but you see this was his skull when _he was a boy_." MDLXXVI.--"I TAKES 'EM AS THEY COME." A CANTAB, one day observing a _ragamuffin-looking_ boy scratching his head at the door of Alderman Purchase, in Cambridge, where he was begging, and thinking to pass a joke upon him, said, "So, Jack, you are picking them out, are you?"--"_Nah, sar_," retorted the urchin; "I _takes_ 'em as they come!" MDLXXVU.--A CLIMAX. THE late Earl Dudley wound up an eloquent tribute to the virtues of a deceased Baron of the Exchequer with this pithy peroration: "He was a good man, an excellent man. He had the best _melted butter_ I ever tasted in my life." MDLXXVIII.--BLANK CARTRIDGE.