The Wise and Ingenious Companion, French and English;: or, A Collection of the Wit of the Illustrious Persons, Both Ancient and Modern — John Shaqi
The Wise and Ingenious Companion, French and English;: or, A Collection of the Wit of the Illustrious Persons, Both Ancient and ModernBoyer, Abel
General
The Wise and Ingenious Companion, French and English;: or, A Collection of the Wit of the Illustrious Persons, Both Ancient and Modern
Boyer, Abel
Anecdotes; Wit and humor
_Scilerus_, qui avoit plusieurs Enfans, étant sur le point de
mourir, leur donna à chacun un faisseau de fleches & leur commanda
de le rompre. Aprés que tous eurent fait reponse que la chose étoit
impossible, il tira les Fleches, & les rompit l’une aprês l’autre,
& prit de là occasion de leur dire: _Ceci vous doit apprendre,
mes Enfans, que si vous demeurez bien unis ensemble, vous serez
toûjours invincibles, & redoutables à vos Ennemis: Que si au
contraire vous admettez chez vous la division, vous de viendrez
foibles & faciles à vaincre._
151
_Pytho_ a Rhetorician of _Byzantium_, offer’d in a Sedition to
exhort the People of that City to Concord; and because he was
extraordinary fat, the People fell a laughing assoon as they
saw him. But this subtile Orator taking from their laughter the
beginning of his Speech: _You laugh_, said he, _at my bigness: I
have a Wife bigger yet than my self; nevertheless, when we agree,
one Bed is enough for us; but when we are at odds, the whole House
is too little to hold us_.
151
_Python_ Rhetoricien de _Bysance_, voulut en une Sedition
exhorter le Peuple de cette Ville à la Paix, & comme il ètoit
extraordinairement gros, le Peuple se mit à rire dés qu’il le vit
paroitre. Mais cêt adroit Orateur prenant de leur risée le sujet
de son Exorde: _Vous riez_, leur dit-il, _de ma grosseur, j’ay une
Femme encore bien plus grosse que moy; cependant quand nous sommes
d’accord, un seul Lit nous suffit, mais quand la division se met
entre nous, toute la maison est trop petite pour nous contenir._
152
_Diogenes_ the _Cynick_, seeing some Magistrates leading to the
place of Execution a Fellow who had stolen some little Vessel:
_Here are great Thieves_, cry’d he presently, _that carry a little
one to the Gallows_.
152
_Diogene_ le _Cynique_, qui voyoit des Magistrats conduire au
supplice un homme qui avoit dérobé quelque petit vase: _Voici_,
s’écria-t-il aussi-tôt, _de grands voleurs qui menent un petit
Larron à la Potence_.
153
King _Philip_’s Wife, Mother to _Alexander_ the Great, hearing
that her Son gave himself out to be the Son of _Jupiter_, and made
himself to be worship’d as a God, did put a shrewd Jest upon his
Vanity, in these Words: _I conjure you_, said she, in a Letter
which she wrote to him, _do not make any difference betwixt_ Juno
_and me any more_.
153
La Mere d’_Alexandre_ le grand, Femme de _Philippe_, apprenant que
son Fils se disoit Fils de _Jupiter_, & se faisoit adorer comme
un Dieu, en railla finement la Vanité dans ces Mots: _Je vous
conjure_, lui manda-t-elle _de ne me plus brouiller avec_ Junon.
154
A wicked Man, among the chief of _Athens_, asking a _Lacedemonian_,
who was the best Man in _Lacedemon_, received this ingenious, but
tart return: _’Tis he who least resembles thee_.
154
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