66

family, still subsisting in that ancient kingdom; not yet read even large type, and it is that which bat, being a foreigner in Troy, to which city he convinces us there is something yet to do."-"That led some of his countrymen, in the defence of there is, sir," answered the patient, Priam, as Dictys Cretensis learnedly observes, to do, to make me read any type, for I never a great deal Hector fell in love with his daughter, and the could read at all." father's name was Andrew Mackay. The young lady was called by the same name, only a little. softened to the Grecian accent.

Horne Tooke, in his Diversions of Purley, introduces the derivation of King Pepin from the Greek noun osper? as thus-osper, eper, oper; diaper; napkin, nipkin, pipkin, pepin-kingKing Pepin! And, in another work, we find the etymology of pickled cucumber from King JereDiah! exempli gratia, King Jeremiah Jeremiah King; Jerry, king; jerkin, girkin, pickled cu cumber! Also, the name of Mr. Fox, as derived from a rainy-day; as thus-Rainy-day, rain a little, rain much, rain hard, reynard, fox!

OPTICAL DEFICIENCY.

WOMAN'S RESOLUTION.

O! cry'd Arsenia, long in wedlock blest,
Her head reclining on her husband's breast,
What comfort could be found in widow'd life?
Should death divide thee from thy doating wife,
How the thought shakes me !-heav'n my Strephon

gave,

Or give the lost Arsenia half his grave."

Jove heard the lovely mourner, and approv'd;
"And should not wives like this," said he,
luv'd?

Take the soft sorrower at her word; and try
How deeply-rooted woman's vows can lie.'

be

'Twas said, and done-the tender Strephon
dy'd;

Arsenia two long months-t' out-live him try'd;
But in the third-alas !-became a bride.

VICE VERSA

A Frenchman once asked what difference there

BARRISTERS.

A poor man once lost his sight by an accident, and having been placed under some skilful oculist, luckily and strangely recovered it; he was instructed to use it gradually, and was able at length to look boldly and firmly at distant objects, saw with ease ships on the horizon, boats in the dis-was between M. de Rothschild, the loan broker, tance, houses, horses, dogs, flies, and even fleas ; and Herod ? "It is," he was told," that Herod but still, to the astonishment of the faculty, he was was the King of the Jews, and Rothschild the Jew trable to read the largest type. As reading was of the Kings." > be the criterion of his recovery, away went the dappointed oculists, and doctors, and apotheca- A gentleman when attending York Assizes, Ties, physicking lancetting, lotioning, rubbing, wrote to a friend as follows:-" I spend most of and brushing at the eyes as hard as they possibly my time in the Nisi-prius Court. Besides that the fold, till at the termination of a fortnight, they trials are of a less painful nature than those at the bad exhausted all their skill, and nearly killed crown end, the bar have certainly there the widest Their patient. "Gentlemen," said the sufferer, scope for the display of talent. I visited it for the I bless you for your exertions, I assure you I first time on Tuesday, in company with my worthy e quite well enough. I have sufficiently reco-friend Timothy. We set off early in order to se. vered the use of my eyes to satisfy myself; I see cure a good place. The streets through which we Lasse horses and cows five fields distant. I see passed were all alive, and the castle was evidently this goat upon the window frame-I am satisfied." the centre of general attraction. The bearers of "Ah!" said one of the professors," but your blue bags (for green is now discarded,) were parti greatest enjoyment is yet denied to you-you can-[cularly nimble.

L

THE LAUGHING PHILOSOPHER.

Some

VAT YOU PLEASE.

Some years ago, when civil faction

A third

"There, with like haste, by several ways they run, as conveniently as if they had been placed there Some to undo-and some to be undone." for the express purpose of being seen. My friend was in danger of laughing outright, and a fourth were conversing with each other by when his eye caught a first glimpse of the galaxy signs and nods, across the table. It was an awof wigs, which make so many foolish faces wise, fully pleasant sight, and can only be paralleled by and so many wise faces foolish."-" Odds bob. an equal number of grave divines playing at hunt bins," said he, but they are a rum looking set." the slipper in their canonicals, in the midst of a And sure enough they are. I never look upon public assembly, if such a thing should ever occur, them, without being reminded of the Ugly Club at Oxford, mentioned by the Spectator. frowned from under deep wigs. These Timothy took to be the Chamber Counsel, of whose unfathomable legal knowledge he had often heard. Others mounted fierce wigs, and pert wigs. These, he doubted not, were the formidable lawyers he had read of, who terrify poor witnesses so in crossexamination. A few sported sly wigs; and a great many were encumbered with wigs that bore no character at all. All these he set down as the briefless. There were new moon phizzes and full moon phizzes; sleepy eyes and sleepless eyes; staring eyes and squinting eyes; sharp noses and snub noses; hook noses and long noses; twisted noses and twittering noses; in short, features differing as much from each other as possible, but all agreeing in that true legal characteristic-Oddity! "What formidable gloom their faces wear! How wide their front!-how deep and black the

rear!

How do their threatening heads each other throng!"

Their employments, also, as Timothy remarked, were some of them equally comical, Those who were not concerned in the cases before the Court, were killing their time, and perhaps smothering their chagrin, by reading a newspaper, or French novel; or sketching caricatures; or cracking jokes; or perpetrating puns. One graceless wag was moulding paper pellets with his finger and thumb, and discharging them at his second neighbour, over the shoulder of the first. Another was scrutinizing a bevy of beauties, who occupied one of the most conspicuous portions of the Court,

4

And children in the general distraction,
Rag'd like a fury thro' the fields of Gaul;
When common sense in common folk was dead,
Were taught to curse as soon as they could squall.
And France, determin'd not to have a head,
And murder shew'd a love of nationality;
Decapitated all the higher class,
When coronets were not worth half-a-crown,
To put folks more on an equality;
For Mother Red-cap, up at Camden-town ;
And liberty in bonnet-rouge, might pass
Full many a Frenchman then took wing,
Bidding soup-maigre an abrupt farewell,
Sans cash, sans clothes, almost sans ev'ry thing.
And hither came pell-mell,

Two Messieurs, who about this time came over,
Half-starv'd, but toujours gai;
(No weasels e'er were thinner)
Trudg'd up to town from Dover,

Their slender store exhausted on the way,
Twas morn, and from each ruddy chimney top
Extremely puzzled how to get a dinner.
Each house-maid, cherry-cheek'd, her snow white
The dun smoke-wreaths were slowly curling;
Before the door was gaily twirling. [mop

From morn till noon, from noon till dewy eve,

Our Frenchman wander'd on their expedition;
Great was their need, but sorely did they grieve,
Stomach and pocket in the same condition,
At length, by mutual consent they parted,
And different ways on the same errand started.

This happen'd on a day most dear
To epicures, when general use
Sanctions the roasting of the sav'ry goose!
Towards night, one Frenchman, at a tavern near,
Stopp'd, and beheld the glorious cheer;
While greedily he sniff'd the luscious gale in,
That from the kitchen windows was exhaling,
And instant set to work his busy brain,

And sniff'd and long'd, and long'd and sniff'd again.
Necessity's the mother of invention,

(A proverb I've heard many mention,)

So now, one moment saw his plan completed,
And our sly Frenchman at a table seated.

The ready waiter at his elbow stands

Sir, will you favour me with your commands? "We've roast and boil'd, sir, choose you those or these.'

"Sare! you are very good, sare! PLEASE."

Quick at the word,

--

VAT YOU

Upon the table smokes the wish'd for bird!
No time in talking did he waste,

But pounc'd pell-mell upon it;

Drumstick and merry-thought he pick'd in haste,
Exulting in the merry thought that won it!
Pie follows goose, and after pie comes cheese ;-
"Stilton or Cheshire, sir?"—“AH, Vat
PLEASE!"

YOU

But Bonniface, who dearly lov'd a jest,
(Although sometimes he dearly paid for it,)
And finding nothing could be done-you know,
(For when a man has got no money,

To make him pay some would be rather funny!)
Of a bad bargain made the best,
Acknowledg'd much was to be said for it;
Took pity on the Frenchman's meagre face,
And Briton-like forgave a fallen foe,
Laugh'd heartily, and let him go !

Our Frenchman's hunger thus subdued,
Away he trotted in a merry mood;
When, turning round the corner of a street,
Who but his countryman chanc'd he to meet,
To him, with many a shrug and many a grin,
He told how he had taken Jean Bull in!
Fir'd with the tale, the other licks his chops,
Makes his congee, and seeks this shop of shops.
Ent'ring, he seats himself, just at his ease,
"What will you take, sir?"-" VAT YOU PLEASE."
The waiter look'd as pale as Paris plaster,
And, up stairs running, thus address'd his master-
"These d-d Monseers, come over sure in pairs;
"Sir, there's another "" VAT YOU PLEASE!" down
stairs !"

This made the landlord rather crusty,
Too much of one thing-the proverb's somewhat
musty;

Once to be done, his anger didn't touch,
But when a second time they tried the treason,
It made him crusty, sir, and with good reason;
There is a kind of instrument
You would be crusty, were you done so much!

Which greatly helps a serious argument,
And which, when properly applied, occasions
Some most unpleasant tickling sensations!
'Twould make more clumsy folks than Frenchmen
skip;

Twould strike you presently- a stout horsewhip!

This instrument our MAITRE D'HOTE
Most carefully conceal'd beneath his coat,
And, seeking instantly the Frenchman's station,
Address'd him with the usual salutation.

Our Frenchman, bowing to his thread-bare
Determin'd whilst the iron's hot to strike it, [knees,
Pat with his lesson answers-" VAT YOU PLEASE!"
But scarcely had he let the sentence slip,
Than round his shoulders twines the pliant whip!
"Sare! sare! ah, misericorde! parbleu!
Got d-m, monsieur, vat make you use me so?
Vat call you dis?"-" Lord, don't you know?
That's what I please," says Bonny how d'ye

like it?

amples," repeated Yorick, smiling at the same time at the non-chalance of my father, who had now placed his left leg on the top bar of the grate, a posture which betrayed a most unseemly fissure in his lower vestment, are a disgrace to the religion we profess."-" In your church, Mr. Yorick," said Dr. Slop, sitting upright in his chair, and in a very professional voice, marriage is not one of the communions, and therefore the immorality of the breach of the vow," con

Your friend, although I paid dear for his funning,tinued Dr. Slop, with somewhat less fluency than
Deserv'd the goose he gain'd, sir, for his cunning;
But you, monsieur, or else my time I'm wasting,
Are goose enough--and only wanted basting!"

ADULTERY.

A Shandean Fragment.

"Poor

before" is not so great, as with you marriage has more of a civil nature."-" The parties," replied Yorick," in our church, approach the altar, and, in the sight of God and man, vow eternal fidelity to each other, and therefore 1 conceive the adulterer of either side forfeits all "It is a shame-it is a disgrace to our laws- claim"-" To a separate maintenance," observed to our manners-to our religion," exclaimed my father very quickly, who had for some time Yorick, with more than his usual elevation of resumed the perusal of his marriage articles. tone. My father waked him from his reverie, And the children, you know, Mr. Yorick," conand expected, from the earnestness of Yorick, an tinued my father very scientifically. elaborate disquisition on the laws, manners, or dear little things, and they are included in the religion. He drew, with great complacency of guilt of either sinner?" asked my uncle Toby, look, and much inquisitiveness of aspect, his chair whilst a big tear stood in his eye, and his bosom towards that of Yorick, who pointed with his heaved with convulsive pity. Mrs. Wadman's finger to several paragraphs in the paper, which bewitching looks came across my uncle Toby's he had been reading, dated from Doctors' Com-imagination. Her age, which had not passed the mons. My father surveyed them with calmness, probability of being a mother, and her vivacity, or rather indifference. My father had been long which had created certain doubts and apprehenmarried, and the subject of adultery was one of sions in the bosom of an old bachelor with a those few speculations which had never agitated wound in his groin, all rushed at the same time his pericranium, or produced one eloquent speech, upon his reservoir of ideas, and the tone of his or one pointed observation. My father, besides voice was so elegiac, and the mode of putting the the inconvenience of the hip-gont, was never, as question so very energetic, that my father's spor my mother used to relate, a very fond lover. He tive fancy was immediately on tiptoe; he rubbed had never written sonnets to praise her charms, the right side of his nose with great rapidity, and, or elogies to deplore her cruelty. My father had stifling a smile, he approached my uncle Toby's only written his name to the marriage articles. chair, and looking at him with great earnestness, These valuable MSS. he had all the morning been “My dear brother, has then the late Mrs. Wademployed in perusing, or dandling on his knee man done us the honour?"-" The late!” repeated before the fire-side. On Yorick's exclamation, my uncle with great surprise. My father drew my father, in hopes of some fresh subject, put his inference, and resumed his chair and studies them hastily into his pocket. "The many ex-in perfect composure.

READY-MADE SPEECH,

Not,

LAUGHING PROHIBITED.
To prove pleasure but pain, some have hit on a
project,

We're duller the merrier we grow,
Exactly the same unaccountable logic,

That talks of cold fire and warm snow
For me born by nature,

and in whom also I place the most perfect confidence; I say, sir, I trust they will preserve the Adapted to all Occasions. privileges of this assembly from the lawless banSir,-Unused, unacquainted, unhabituated, un-ditti of acquitted felons, who, not having been accustomed to public speaking, I rise, sir, in con- killed off, insult us daily by their negative sucsequence of having caught your eye, sir, to ex-cesses, and circulate their seditious principles, to press, with the utmost diffidence, my humble ideas the danger of every respectable man in the com on the important subject now before the house. munity, who may, by possessing property, become I will, therefore, sir, be bold to affirm, and I am an object of their diabolical depredations also free to declare, that I by no means meet the however, to trespass any longer upon the patience ideas of the nubble Lud. I will not, however, go of the house, I shall conclude by observing, with over the same grounds or commit myself, by taking the great Latin poet of antiquity, up a principle without the most perfect consider. Quid sit futurum cras, fuge quærere: ation. But as I am now upon my legs, I cerCarpe diem. tainly shall not blink the question; nor am I at all inclined to meet him half way, because, on the first blush of the business, I was determined to scout the idea in toto; for if, sir, the well-being of civilized society, and the establishment of order and tranquility, is the grand object of our investigation, I cannot hesitate to pronounce-Sir! I cannot hesitate to pronounce, that I want words to express my indignation at the general tenour of the arguments so ably agitated by the honourable member on my left hand. But, sir, the idea does not attach; and when my learned friend professed to lay down his principles with so much method, he only proved his weakness by undertaking to cleanse the Augean stable, and to perform the labours of Hercules himself. No, sir, I am again free to assert, and, sir, I am by no means disinclined to prove, that if gentlemen, under the existing circumstances, do not act with vigour and unanimity against the introduction of French principles, our glorious constitution, produced by the wisdom of our ancestors, may fall to the ground, sir! yes, fall to the ground, by the impulse of a Jacobin innovation. But on this head, we are ripe to deliberate; and I trust the gentlemen with whom I have the honour to act, and who constitute the decided majority of this honourable house; for whose worth, integrity, firmness, perspicuity, ingenuity, perseverance, and patriotism I have the most dignified respect,

For humour and satire,
I sing, and I roar, and I quaff;
Each muscle I twist it,

I cannot resist it,

A finger held up makes me laugh;
For since pleasure's joy's parent, and joy begets
mirth,

Should the subtilest casuist, or soph upon earth,
Contradict me, I'd call him an ass and a calf,
And boldly insist once for all;
That the only criterion of pleasure's to laugh,
And sing toll de roll loll de loll.
Vainly bountiful Nature shall fill up life's measure,
If we're not to enjoyment awake;
Churls that cautiously filtrate and analyze pleasure
Deserve not that little they take.

For me who am jiggish,
And funny, and giggish,
Such joys are too formal by half:
I roar, and I revel,

Drive care to the devil,
And hold both my sides while I laugh.

For since pleasure, &c