MISCELLANEOUS
Dunning.—The witty Lord Ross, having spent all his money in London, set out for Ireland, in order to recruit his purse. On his way, he happened to meet with Sir Murrough O'Brien, driving for the capital in a handsome phaëton, with six prime dun-coloured horses. "Sir Murrough," exclaimed his lordship, "what a contrast there is betwixt you and me! You are driving your duns before you, but my duns are driving me before them."
Steele & Addison.—A gentleman who was dining with another, praised the meat very much, and asked who was the butcher? "His name is Addison."—"Addison!" echoed the guest, "pray is he any relation to the essayist?"—"In all probability he is, for he is seldom without his steel (Steele) by his side."
A Tedious Preacher.—Mr. Canning was once asked by an English clergyman how he liked the sermon he had preached before him. "Why, it was a short sermon," quoth Canning. "Oh yes," said the preacher; "you know I avoid being tedious." "Ah, but," replied Canning, "you were tedious."
Charity sermon.—Sydney Smith, preaching a charity sermon, frequently repeated the assertion that, of all nations, Englishmen were most distinguished for generosity and the love of their species. The collection happened to be inferior to his expectations, and he said that he had evidently made a great mistake, for that his expression should have been, that they were distinguished for the love of their specie.
Pope the Poet.—This celebrated poet is said to have been once severely retorted upon. A question arose in company respecting the reading of a passage with or without a note of interrogation. Pope rather arrogantly asked one gentleman if he knew what a note of interrogation was. "Yes, sir: it is a little crooked thing that asks questions." Pope was little and deformed.
Estimate of Greatness.—Pope was with Sir Godfrey Kneller one day, when his nephew, a Guinea trader, came in. "Nephew," said Sir Godfrey, "you have the honour of seeing the two greatest men in the world."—"I don't know how great you may be," said the Guinea-man, "but I don't like your looks: I have often bought a man much better than both of you together, all muscles and bones, for ten guineas."
"Rejected Addresses."—The fame of the brothers James and Horatio Smith was confined to a limited circle, until the publication of "The Rejected Addresses." James used to dwell with much pleasure on the criticism of a Leicestershire clergyman: "I do not see why they ('The Addresses') should have been rejected: I think some of them very good." This, he would add, is almost as good as the avowal of the Irish Bishop, that there were some things in "Gulliver's Travels" which he could not believe.
The Two Smith's.—A gentleman took lodgings in the same house with James Smith, one of the celebrated authors of the "Rejected Addresses." His name was also James Smith. The consequence was an eternal confusion of calls and letters, and the postman had no alternative but to share the letters equally between the two. "This is intolerable, sir," said our author, "you must quit." "Why am I to quit more than you?" "Because you came last, and being James the Second you must abdicate."
Coleridge, the Poet, once dined in company with a person who listened to the conversation and said nothing for a long time; but occasionally nodded his head, and Coleridge concluded him a thoughtful and intelligent man. At length, towards the end of the dinner, some apple dumplings were placed on the table, and the listener had no sooner seen them than he burst forth, "Them's the fellows for me!" Coleridge adds: "I wish Spurzheim could have examined the fellow's head."
An Appropriate Successor.—Clerambault, who was deformed, was elected to succeed La Fontaine in the French Academy. On that occasion it was said that "La Fontaine was very properly succeeded by Esop."
Erskine.—Lord Kellie was amusing the company with an account of a sermon he had heard in Italy, in which the preacher related the miracle of St. Anthony preaching to the fishes, who, in order to listen to his pious discourse, held their heads out of the water. "I can credit the miracle," said Erskine, "if your lordship was at church." "I certainly was there," said the peer. "Then, rejoined Erskine, there was at least one fish out of water."
Memory.—A humorous comment on this system of artificial memory was made by a waiter at an hotel where Feinaigle dined, after having given his lecture on that subject. A few minutes after the Professor left the table, the waiter entered, with uplifted hands and eyes, exclaiming, "Well, I declare, the memory man has forgotten his umbrella!"
Parisian rag-picker.—An old chiffonnier (or rag picker) died in Paris in a state apparently of the most abject poverty. His only relation was a niece, who lived as servant with a greengrocer. This girl always assisted her uncle as far as her slender means would permit. When she heard of his death, which took place suddenly, she was upon the point of marriage with a journeyman baker, to whom she had been long attached. The nuptial day was fixed, but Suzette had not yet bought her wedding clothes. She hastened to tell her lover that their marriage must be deferred, as she wanted the price of her bridal finery to lay her uncle decently in the grave. Her mistress ridiculed the idea, and exhorted her to leave the old man to be buried by charity. Suzette refused. The consequence was a quarrel, in which the young woman lost at once her place and her lover, who sided with her mistress. She hastened to the miserable garret where her uncle had expired, and by the sacrifice not only of her wedding attire, but of nearly all the rest of her slender wardrobe, she had the old man decently interred. Her pious task fulfilled, she sat alone in her uncle's room weeping bitterly, when the master of her faithless lover, a young good-looking man, entered. "So, my good Suzette, I find you have lost your place!" cried he, "I am come to offer you one for life—will you marry me?" "I, Sir? you are joking." "No, indeed, I want a wife, and I am sure I can't find a better." "But everybody will laugh at you for marrying a poor girl like me," "Oh! if that is your only objection we shall soon get over it; come, come along; my mother is prepared to receive you." Suzette hesitated no longer; but she wished to take with her a memorial of her deceased uncle: it was a cat that he had kept for many years. The old man was so fond of the animal that he was determined even death should not separate them, and he had caused her to be stuffed and placed near his bed. As Suzette took puss down, she uttered an exclamation of surprise at finding her so heavy. The lover hastened to open the animal, when out fell a shower of gold. There were a thousand louis concealed in the body of the cat, and this sum, which the old man had contrived to amass, became the just reward of the worthy girl and her disinterested lover.
Integrity.—A Parisian stock-broker, just before his death, laid a wager on parole with a rich capitalist; and a few weeks after his death, the latter visited the widow and gave her to understand that her late husband had lost a wager of sixteen thousand francs. She went to her secretary, took out her pocket-book, and counted bank notes to the stated amount, when the capitalist thus addressed her: "Madame, as you give such convincing proof that you consider the wager binding, I have to pay you sixteen thousand francs. Here is the sum, for I am the loser, and not your husband."
During the speculations of 1837-38, Mr. C., a young merchant of Philadelphia, possessed of a handsome fortune, caught the mania, entered largely into its operations, and for a time was considered immensely rich. But when the great revulsion occurred he was suddenly reduced to bankruptcy. His young wife immediately withdrew from the circles of wealth and fashion, and adapted her expenses, family and personal, to her altered circumstances. At the time of Mr. C.'s failure, his wife was in debt to Messrs. Stewart and Company, merchants of Philadelphia, about two hundred dollars for articles which she had used personally. This debt, she had no means of liquidating. However after the lapse of twelve years, and when the creditors had of course looked upon the debt as lost, Mrs. C. was able to take the principal, add to it twelve years' interest, enclose the whole in a note and address it to Messrs. Stewart and Company. Messrs. Stewart and Company, upon the receipt of the money, addressed a note in reply to Mrs. C., in which they requested her acceptance of the accompanying gift, as a slight testimonial of their high appreciation of an act so honourable and so rare as to call forth unqualified admiration. Accompanying the letter was sent a superb brocade silk dress, and some laces of exquisite texture and great value.
Costume of the Sisters of Charity.—The Sisters of St. Vincent de Paul, at the time of their re-establishment in their house, in the Rue du Vieux Colombier, after the Revolution, wore black dresses and caps. On the fourth Sunday in Advent, 1804, Pope Pius the Seventh visited the community. He seemed surprised that the Sisters had not resumed the habit of their order; but he was told that no community had dared to show the religious habit abroad. He then spoke to the emperor, saying to him that the good daughters of charity "looked like widows." The emperor, at his request, gave authority to the Sisters to wear their habit, and they resumed it in the spring of 1805.
China-ware.—An English gentleman wanting a dessert-service of porcelain made after a particular pattern, sent over to China a specimen dish, ordering that it should be exactly copied for the whole service. It unfortunately happened that in the dish so sent over the Chinese manufacturer discovered a crack; the consequence was, that the entire service sent over to the party ordering it had a crack in each article, carefully copied from the original.
Dreaming.—It is a custom among the Canadian Indians, that when one dreams that another has rendered him any service, the person dreamed of thinks it a duty to fulfil the dream, if possible. A chief one morning came to the governor, Sir William Johnstone, and told him that he had last night dreamed that Sir William had made him a present of the suit of regimentals he wore. The governor readily presented them to him; but as the Indian was going out, "Stop," said Sir William, "I had almost forgot, but I dreamed about you last night; I dreamed that you gave me such a piece of land," describing a large tract. "You shall have it," said he, "but if you please, Sir William, we will not dream any more."
Lessing was remarkable for a frequent absence of mind. Having missed money at different times, without being able to discover who took it, he determined to put the honesty of his servant to a trial, and left a handful of gold on the table. "Of course you counted it?" said one of his friends. "Count it!" said Leasing, rather embarrassed; "no, I forgot that."
At a public sale, there was a book which Lessing was very desirous of possessing. He gave three of his friends at different times a commission to buy it at any price. They accordingly bid against each other till they had got as far as ninety crowns, there having been no other bidder after it had reached ten crowns. Happily one of them thought it best to speak to the others; when it appeared they had all been bidding for Lessing, whose forgetfulness in this instance cost him eighty crowns.
Edinburgh.—In a debate upon some projected improvement of the streets of Edinburgh, the Dean of Faculty wittily said that the forwardness of the clergy, and the backwardness of the medical faculty, had spoiled the finest street in Europe, alluding to the projection of the colonnade of St. Andrew's church and the recession of the Medical Hall in George's-street.
Maclaurin.—This celebrated Professor of Mathematics in Edinburgh College, and the able expounder of Newton's Principia, always dislocated his jaw, and was unable to shut his mouth, when he yawned. At the same time his instinct of imitation was so strong, that he could not resist yawning when he witnessed that act in others. His pupils were not slow in discovering, and taking advantage of this physical weakness. When tired of his lecture, they either began to yawn, or open their mouths in imitation of that act, and the prelection was interrupted. The Professor stood before them with his mouth wide open, and could not proceed till he rang for his servant to come and shut it. In the meantime the mischievous disciples of Euclid had effected their escape.
William III. and St. Evremond.—William was so little of a man of letters, that on the celebrated French writer, St. Evremond, being presented to him at St. James's, his majesty had nothing more àpropos to say than this, "You are, I believe, sir, a major-general in your master's service."
Music and Politics.—Dr. Wise, the musician, being requested to subscribe his name to a petition against an expected prorogation of Parliament in the reign of Charles II., wittily answered, "No, gentlemen, it is not my business to meddle with state affairs; but I'll set a tune to it, if you like."
Sion College.—Upon the recovery of George III. in 1789, the librarian and others connected with Sion College were at a loss what device or motto to select for the illumination of the building; when the following happy choice was made by a worthy divine, from the book of Psalms; "Sion heard of it and was glad."
Dean Swift having preached an assize sermon in Ireland, was invited to dine with the judges; and having in his sermon considered the use and abuse of the law, he pressed somewhat hard upon those counsellors, who plead causes, which they knew in their consciences to be wrong. When dinner was over, and the glass began to go round, a young barrister retorted upon the dean; and after several altercations, the counsellor asked him, "If the devil was to die, whether a parson might not be found, who, for money, would preach his funeral?" "Yes," said Swift, "I would gladly be the man, and I would then give the devil his due, as I have this day done his children."
Swift disliked nothing so much as being troubled with applications from authors to correct their works. A poor poet having written a very indifferent tragedy, got himself introduced to the dean in order to have his opinion of it; and in about a fortnight after, called at the deanery. Swift returned the play, carefully folded up, telling him he had read it, and taken some pains with it, and he believed the author would not find above half the number of faults that it had when it came into his hands. The poor author, after a thousand acknowledgments, retired in company with the gentleman who had introduced him, and was so impatient to see the corrections, that he stopped under the first gateway they came to, when to his utter astonishment and confusion, he saw that the dean had taken the pains to blot out every second line throughout the whole play, so carefully as to render them quite illegible.
Lady Carteret, wife of the Lord Lieutenant, said to Swift one day, "The air of Ireland is excellent and healthy." "For God's sake, madam," said Swift, falling down before her, "don't say so in England, for if you do they will tax it."
Dr Savage, who died in 1747, travelled in his younger days, with the Earl of Salisbury, to whom he was indebted for a considerable living in Hertfordshire. One day at the levee, the King (George I.) asked him how long he had resided at Rome with Lord Salisbury. Upon his answering him how long,—"Why," said the king, "you staid there long enough; how is it you did not convert the pope?"—"Because, sir," replied the doctor, "I had nothing better to offer him."
Sheridan.—This distinguished wit, upon being asked by a young member of parliament how he first succeeded in establishing his fame as an orator, replied, "Why, sir, it was easily effected. After I had been in St. Stephen's Chapel a few days, I found that four-fifths of the house were composed of country squires, and great fools; my first effort, therefore, was by a lively sally, or an ironical remark, to make them laugh; that laugh effaced from their stupid pates the recollection of what had been urged in opposition to my view of the subject, and then I whipped in an argument, and had all the way clear before me."
Sheridan.—The father of the celebrated Sheridan was one day descanting on the pedigree of his family, regretting that they were no longer styled O'Sheridan, as they were formerly. "Indeed, father," replied Sheridan, then a boy, "we have more right to the O than any one else; for we owe everybody."
Sheridan inquiring of his son what side of politics he should espouse on his inauguration to St. Stephen's chapel; the son replied, that he intended to vote for those who offered best, and that in consequence he should wear on his forehead a label, "To let;" to which the facetious critic rejoined, "I suppose, Tom, you mean to add, unfurnished."
Sheridan was once travelling to town in one of the public coaches, for the purpose of canvassing Westminster, at the time that Mr. Paull was his opponent, when he found himself in company with two Westminster electors. In the course of conversation, one of them asked his friend to whom he meant to give his vote? The other replied, "to Paull, certainly; for, though I think him but a shabby sort of a fellow, I would vote for anyone rather than that rascal Sheridan!" "Do you know Sheridan?" inquired the stranger. "Not I, sir," was the answer, "nor should I wish to know him." The conversation dropped here; but when the party alighted to breakfast, Sheridan called aside the other gentleman and said, "Pray who is that very agreeable friend of your's? He is one of the pleasantest fellows I ever met with; I should be glad to know his name?" "His name is Mr. T.; he is an eminent lawyer, and resides in Lincoln's Inn Fields." Breakfast being over, the party resumed their seats in the coach; soon after which, Sheridan turned the discourse to the law. "It is," said he, "a fine profession. Men may rise from it to the highest eminence in the state, and it gives vast scope to the display of talent; many of the most virtuous and noble characters recorded in our history have been lawyers. I am sorry, however, to add, that some of the greatest rascals have also been lawyers; but of all the rascals of lawyers I ever heard of, the greatest is one T., who lives in Lincoln's Inn Fields." The gentleman fired up at the charge, and said very angrily, "I am Mr. T., sir." "And I am Mr. Sheridan," was the reply. The jest was instantly seen; they shook hands, and instead of voting against the facetious orator, the lawyer exerted himself warmly in promoting his election.
Sterne.—Sterne used to relate a circumstance which happened to him at York. After preaching at the cathedral, an old woman whom he observed sitting on the pulpit stairs, stopped him as he came down, and begged to know where she should have the honour of hearing him preach the following Sunday. On leaving the pulpit the next Sunday he found her placed as before, when she put the same question to him. The following Sunday he was to preach four miles out of York, which he told her; and to his great surprise, he found her there too, and the same question was put to him as he descended from the pulpit. "On which," added he "I took for my text these words, expecting to find my old woman as before: 'I will grant the request of this poor widow, lest by her often coming, she weary me,'" One of the company immediately replied, "Why, Sterne, you omitted the most applicable part of the passage, which is, 'Though I neither fear God nor regard man.'"
Sporting.—Burton, in his "Anatomie of Melancholy," tells us of a physician in Milan, who kept a house for the reception of lunatics, and by way of cure, used to make his patients stand for a length of time in a pit of water, some up to the knees, some up to the girdle, and others as high as the chin, according as they were more or less affected. An inmate of this establishment, who happened, for the time to be pretty well recovered, was standing at the door of the house, and seeing a gallant cavalier ride past with a hawk on his fist, and his spaniels after him, asked, "What all these preparations meant?" The cavalier answered, "To kill game." "What may the game be worth which you kill in the course of a year?" rejoined the patient. "About five or ten crowns." "And what may your horse, dogs, and hawks, cost you for a year?" "Four hundred crowns." On hearing this, the patient, with great earnestness of manner, bade the cavalier instantly begone, as he valued his life and welfare; "for" said he, "if our master come and find you here, he will put you into his pit up to the very chin."
An American heroine.—During the summer of 1787, writes Mr. McClung, in his Sketches of Western Adventure, "The house of Mr. John Merrill, of Nelson County, Kentucky, was attacked by the Indians, and defended with singular address and good fortune. Merrill was alarmed by the barking of a dog about midnight, and on opening the door in order to ascertain the cause of the disturbance, he received the fire of six or seven Indians, by which one arm and one thigh were broken. He instantly sank upon the floor, and called upon his wife to close the door. This had scarcely been done when it was violently assailed by the tomahawks of the enemy, and a large breach soon effected. Mrs. Merrill, however, being a perfect amazon, both in strength and courage, guarded it with an axe, and successively killed or wounded four of the enemy as they attempted to force their way into the cabin. The Indians ascended the roof, and attempted to enter by way of the chimney; but here again they were met by the same determined enemy. Mrs. Merrill seized the only feather bed which the cabin afforded, and hastily ripping it open, poured its contents upon the fire. A furious blaze and stifling smoke instantly ascended the chimney, and brought down two of the enemy, who lay at her mercy. Seizing the axe she quickly despatched them, and was instantly afterwards summoned to the door, where the only remaining savage now appeared, endeavoring to effect an entrance. He soon received a gash in the cheek, which compelled him, with a loud yell, to relinquish his purpose, and return hastily to Chillicothe, where, he gave an exaggerated account of the fierceness, strength, and courage of the 'long knife squaw!'"
Another.—The subject of this anecdote was a sister of General Isaac Worrell. She died two or three years since in Philadelphia. The following tribute to her patriotism and humanity, was paid by a New Jersey newspaper, in July, 1849.—"The deceased was one of those devoted women who aided to relieve the horrible sufferings of Washington's army at Valley Forge—cooking and carrying provisions to them alone, through the depth of winter, even passing through the outposts of the British army in the disguise of a market woman. And when Washington was compelled to retreat before a superior force, she concealed her brother, General Worrell—when the British set a price on his head—in a cider hogshead in the cellar for three days, and fed him through the bung-hole; the house being ransacked four different times by the troops in search of him, without success. She was above ninety years of age at the time of her death."
Tyrolese peasant.—During a conflict at the farm of Rainerhof, in the Tyrolese war, in 1809, a young woman, who resided at the house, brought out a small cask of wine, with which to encourage and refresh the peasants: she had advanced to the scene of action, regardless of the tremendous fire of the Bavarians, carrying the wine upon her head, when a bullet struck the cask, and compelled her to let it go. Undaunted by this accident, she endeavoured to repair the mischief, by placing her thumb upon the orifice caused by the ball; and then encouraged those nearest her to refresh themselves quickly, that she might not remain in her dangerous situation, and suffer for her humane generosity to them.