A HORSEMAN crossing a moor, asked a countryman, if it was safe riding. Ay, answered the countryman, it is hard enough at the bottom, I'll warrant you; but in half-a-dozen steps the...
LORD BACON, speaking of commentators, critics, &c., said, With all their pretensions, they were only brushers of noblemen's clothes.
A LATE Duke of Norfolk had a fancy for owls, of which he kept several. He called one, from the resemblance to the Chancellor, Lord Thurlow. The duke's solicitor was once in convers...
A FARM was lately advertised in a newspaper, in which all the beauty of the situation, fertility of the soil, and salubrity of the air were detailed in the richest flow of rural de...
A VERY volatile young lord, whose conquests in the female world were numberless, at last married. Now, my lord, said the countess, I hope you'll mend.--Madam, says he, you may depe...
DR. ABERNETHY, the celebrated physician, was never more displeased than by hearing a patient detail a long account of troubles. A woman, knowing Abernethy's love of the laconic, ha...
AN old Scotch domestic gave a capital reason to his young master for his being allowed to do as he liked: Ye need na find faut wi' me, Maister Jeems, I hae been langer about the pl...
A BARRISTER opened a case somewhat confusedly. Mr. Justice Maule interrupted him. I wish, Mr. ----, you would put your facts in some order; chronological order is the best, but I a...
TAYLOR says, My best pun was that which I made to Sheridan, who married a Miss Ogle. We were supping together at the Shakespeare, when, the conversation turning on Garrick, I asked...
A FARMER, in a stage-coach with Charles Lamb, kept boring him to death with questions in the jargon of agriculturists about crops. At length he put a poser--And pray, sir, how are...
FOOTE praising the hospitality of the Irish, after one of his trips to the sister kingdom, a gentleman asked him whether he had ever been at Cork. No, sir, replied Foote; but I hav...
OF this tragedy, the production of Joseph Reed, author of the Register Office, Mr. Nicholls, in his Literary Anecdotes, gives some curious particulars. He also relates an anecdote...
A SEEDSMAN being lately held to bail for using inflammatory language respecting the Reform Bill, a wag observed, it was probably in the line of his profession--to promote business,...
VANE'S speeches to an hour-glass, Do some resemblance show; Because the longer time they run, The shallower they grow!
THEY say love's like the measles,--all the worse when it comes late in
POPE was one evening at Button's coffee-house, where he and a set of literati had got poring over a Latin manuscript, in which they had found a passage that none of them could comp...
BOBBY, what does your father do for a living?--He's a philanthropist, sir.--A what?--A phi-lan-thro-pist, sir,--he collects money for Central America, and builds houses out of the...
SERJEANT MAYNARD, a famous lawyer in the days of the Stuarts, called law an ars bablativa.
A VALIANT sailor, that had lost his leg formerly in the wars, was nevertheless, for his great prudence and courage, made captain of a ship; and being in the midst of an engagement,...
JERRY dying intestate, his relatives claimed, Whilst his widow most vilely his mem'ry defam'd: What! cries she, must I suffer because the old knave Without leaving a will, is laid...
AN Irish counsellor having lost his cause, which had been tried before three judges, one of whom was esteemed a very able lawyer, and the other two but indifferent, some of the oth...
AN Irishman was once brought up before a magistrate, charged with marrying six wives. The magistrate asked him how he could be so hardened a villain? Please your worship, says Padd...
PRAY, my lord, asked a fashionable lady of Lord Kenyon, what do you think my son had better do in order to succeed in the law?--Let him spend all his money: marry a rich wife, and...
THE attempt to run over the King of the French with a cab, looked like a conspiracy to overturn monarchy by a common-wheel.
A FELLOW stole Lord Chatham's large gouty shoes: his servant, not finding them, began to curse the thief. Never mind, said his lordship, all the harm I wish the rogue is, that the...
HOW are you this morning? said Fawcett to Cooke. Not at all myself, says the tragedian. Then I congratulate you, replied Fawcett; for, be whoever else you will, you will be a gaine...
A CITY policeman before Judge Maule said he was in the hens (N) division. Do you mean in the Poultry? asked the Judge.
AN avaricious fenman, who kept a very scanty table, dining one Saturday with his son at an ordinary in Cambridge, whispered in his ear, Tom, you must eat for to-day and to-morrow.-...
DURING the rage of republican principles in England, and whilst the Corresponding Society was in full vigor, Mr. Selwyn one May-day met a troop of chimney-sweepers, dressed out in...