IF truth, perspicuity, wit, gravity, and every property pertaining to the ancient or modern epitaph, may be expected united in one single epitaph, it is in one made for Burbadge, t...
COUNSELLOR (afterwards Chief Justice) BUSHE, being on one occasion asked which of a company of actors he most admired, maliciously replied, The prompter, sir, for I have heard the...
DRYDEN'S description of wit is excellent. He says:-- A thousand different shapes wit wears, Comely in thousand shapes appears; 'Tis not a tale, 'tis not a jest, Admired with laught...
AN overbearing barrister, endeavoring to brow-beat a witness, told him he could plainly see a rogue in his face. I never knew till now, said the witness, that my face was a looking...
IT was a strange instance of alleged obedience to orders in the case of a father's will, which a brute of a fellow displayed in turning his younger brother out-of-doors. He was voc...
A WELL-KNOWN borrower stopped a gentleman whom he did not know, and requested the loan of a sovereign. Sir, said the gentleman, I am surprised that you should ask me such a favor,...
A LADY was asked by her friends if she really intended to marry Mr. ----, who was a good kind of a man, but so very singular. Well, replied the lady, if he is very much unlike othe...
THE facetious Mr. Bearcroft told his friend Mr. Vansittart, Your name is such a long one, I shall drop the sittart, and call you Van for the future.--With all my heart, said he: by...
HIS hair so black,--his beard so gray, 'Tis strange! But would you know the cause? 'Tis that his labors always lay, Less on his brain than on his jaws.
THE author of Alexander the Great, whilst confined in a madhouse, was visited by Sir Roger L'Estrange, of whose political abilities Lee entertained no very high opinion. Upon the k...
YOU have only yourself to please, said a married friend to an old bachelor. True, replied he, but you cannot tell what a difficult task I find it.
WHEN Dido mourned, AEneas would not come, She wept in silence, and was Di-Do-Dumb.
A CAPTAIN, remarkable for his uncommon height, being one day at the rooms at Bath, the late Princess Amelia was struck with his appearance; and being told that he had been original...
AN alderman of London once requested an author to write a speech for him to speak at Guildhall. I must first dine with you, replied he, and see how you open your mouth, that I may...
A FAIR devotee lamented to her confessor her love of gaming. Ah! madam, replied the reverend gentleman, it is a grievous sin;--in the first place consider the loss of time.--That's...
IT was the habit of Lord Eldon, when Attorney-General, to close his speeches with some remarks justifying his own character. At the trial of Horne Tooke, speaking of his own reputa...
SIR THOMAS OVERBURY says, that the man who has not anything to boast of but his illustrious ancestors, is like a potato,--the only good belonging to him is underground.
A WAG, on seeing his friend with something under his cloak, asked him what it was. A poniard, answered he; but he observed that it was a bottle: taking it from him, and drinking th...
WITH cards and dice, and dress and friends, My savings are complete; I light the candle at both ends, And thus make both ends meet.
BY imbecility and fears Will is restrain'd from doing ill; His mind a porcupine appears, A porcupine without a quill.
SIR WATKIN WILLIAMS WYNNE talking to a friend about the antiquity of his family, which he carried up to Noah, was told that he was a mere mushroom of yesterday. How so, pray? said...
A GENTLEMAN on circuit narrating to Lord Norbury some extravagant feat in sporting, mentioned that he had lately shot thirty-three hares before breakfast. Thirty-three hairs! excla...
A VERY old man, who was commonly very dull and heavy, had now and then intervals of gayety: some person observed, he resembles an old castle which is sometimes visited by spirits.
MAJOR B----, a great gambler, said to Foote, Since I last saw you, I have lost an eye.--I am sorry for it, said Foote, pray at what game?
(Spoken between the Third and Fourth Acts of Cowley's Tragedy The Fall of Sparta.) SO great thy art, that while we viewed, Of Sparta's sons the lot severe, We caught the Spartan fo...
DR. ROGER LONG, the celebrated astronomer, was walking, one dark evening, with a gentleman in Cambridge, when the latter came to a short post fixed in the pavement, but which, in t...
IN Bannister's time, a farce was performed under the title of Fire and Water.--I predict its fate, said he. What fate? whispered the anxious author at his side. What fate! said Ban...
TWO young officers, after a mess-dinner, had very much ridiculed their general. He sent for them, and asked them if what was reported to him was true. General, said one of them, it...