Here is another: A doctor lately was a captain made: It was a change of title, not of trade. On a farce written by one Dr. Hill, who was a poor physician and a bad writer: For physic and farces It was Voltaire who said of physicians, that "they are men who put drugs of which they know nothing, into bodies of which they know less." The best witticism against hydropathy was uttered by Charles Lamb, who said that the cold water cure had never been tried on a large scale but once, namely, in the deluge, and that "killed more than it cured." over the heavy miseries of too much port and plum-pudding: The French have taste in all they do, Of all epitaphs which are epigrams, this one by the earl of Rochester on Charles II. is perhaps the best: Here lies our sovereign lord the king, On long-winded epitaphs: One half will never be believed, The other never read. Col. R, who was famous for his exAnother enemy to cold water declared cellent fireworks, was highly commending that there was but one place in the Bible to a certain lady the epitaph of Purcell, where any person was represented as call- the eminent musician, in Westminster ing for water, to wit: Dives, and he want- Abbey:-"He is gone to that place where ed only a drop. only his own harmony can be exceeded." "Lord! Colonel," said the lady, "the same epitaph would serve admirably for you, by altering one word only- "He is gone to that place where only his own fire-works can be exceeded." Many are the epigrams upon drinking customs. Here is one of the best from the English poet Aldrich : If on my theme I rightly think, There are five reasons why men drink; Prior has left us this little story of a bibulous gentleman who had "shot the gulf," as Montaigne has it, and found himself waking up near the farther shore of the river Styx: When Bibo thought fit from the world to retreat, As full of champagne as an egg's full of meat, He waked in the boat; and to Charon he said, He would be rowed back, for he was not yet dead; "Trim the boat and sit quiet," stern Charon replied. "You may have forgot you were drunk when you died." Here is a feeling lament by a John Bull Epigrams which are aimed at personal foibles or characteristics form a very large class. Here is a good one, on a whimsical person: In all thy humors, whether grave or mellow, Thou 'rt such a touchy, testy, pleasant fellow, Hast so much wit and mirth and spleen about thee, There is no living with thee, or without thee. Some one having charged that a certain M. P. had no heart, the poet Rogers wrote this sharp retort : He has a heart, and gets his speeches by it. They say he has no heart, but I deny it; Here is one on a worthless character: Robert complained much one day That Frank had ta'en his character away; "I take your character," says Frank," why, zounds, I would not have it for ten thousand | Says his landlord to Thomas, "Your rent pounds." Here is one on a bad paymaster: His last great debt is paid-poor Tom's no more; Last debt! Tom never paid a debt before! Here is how Pat and the Yankee strove for the last word: A Pat, an old joker, and a Yankee, more sly, Once riding together, a gallows passed by; Said the Yankee to Pat, "If I don't make too free, Give the gallows his due, and pray, where would you be?" "Why honey," says Pat, "faith, that's easily known, I'd be riding to town by meself, all alone!" The poet Campbell, on being asked for "something original " for a young lady's album, wrote this: An original something, dear maid, you would win me To write, but how shall I begin? For I fear I have nothing original in me, Excepting original sin. Walter Savage Landor's epigram on the four Georges has at least as much truth as poetry in it: George the First was reckoned vile, And what mortal ever heard On a notorious liar: Honest Harry's alive! how d'ye know it? says Ned: O! I'm perfectly sure-for Dick said he was dead. Sir John Harrington wrote this: Treason doth never prosper; what's the reason? For if it prosper, none dare call it treason. This is spiced with Irish ready wit: I must raise, I'm so plaguily pinched for the pelf""Raise my rent!" replies Thomas, "your honor's main good, For I never can raise it myself!" On the weather: In England if two are conversing together, The subject begins with the state of the weather; And ever the same, both with young and with old, 'T is either too hot, or else it's too cold: 'Tis either too wet, or either too dry: The glass is too low, or else it's too high. But if all had their wishes once jumbled together, The devil himself could not live in such weather. And here is one on killing time: Old Time kills us all, Rich, poor, great and small, And 'tis therefore we rack our invention, In finding out ways To kill him by way of prevention! The world described: 'Tis a very good world that we live in, To lend and to spend and to give in: But to borrow, or beg, or to get a man's own, It is the worst world that ever was known. On the power of the lobby: Midas, they say, possessed the art, of old, Of turning whatsoe'er he touched to gold; This modern statesmen can reverse with ease, Touch them with gold, they'll turn to what you please. When Mr. Pitt, the first English minister who brought in the income tax, and filled the kingdom with paper money, went off the stage, this epigram was launched at the departed statesman : Of Augustus and Rome And left it of marble: We may say without vapor, That he found it of gold And he left it of paper. At a dinner given by a nobleman, Lalande was placed between Madame de Stael and Madame Recamier. "How lucky I am!" exclaimed Lalande; "here I am seated between wit and beauty." And without possessing either one or the other," exclaimed Madame de Stael. On Pope's Essay on Man: The famed essays on man in this agree, "Defend me, therefore, common sense, say I, "A fool," said Jeannette, "is a creature I "But hating," quoth John, "is immoral; Besides, my dear girl, it's a terrible fate To be found in a family quarrel! " And the whole race of hypochondriacs Here is Harrington's epigram on for- and borrowers of trouble are effectually tune: The definition of an ambassador as given by Sir Henry Wotton, was shrewd ly epigrammatic: "A foreign minister," said he, "is an honest man sent to lie abroad for the good of his country." It was Wallenstein who said that "the whole art of war consists in not running away." disposed of in this epigram, rendered from the French, by Mr. Emerson : Some of your hurts you have cured, And the sharpest you still have survived, But what torments of grief you endured From evils which never arrived! PUNS, WARRANTED GENUINE. When Governor Marcy was Secretary of State at Washington, a person, whose duty it was to receive callers on the Secretary and introduce them, in the discharge of his duties one day, could not find the Secretary in his office. After looking in vain for him, he rushed fran tically strained." AN Irish judge had a habit of begging pardon on every occasion. At the close of the assize, as he was about to leave the A bit of sound philosophy is summed bench, the officer of the court reminded up in this optimistic epigram: "When him that he had not passed sentence of we have not what we love, we must love death on one of the criminals, as he had what he have." intended. Dear me!" said his lordship; When Cowper writes in "The Task; ""I really beg his pardon,—bring him in." stood up bewildered. His knees quaked and his German silver glasses fell on the SCARING A CONNECTICUT FAR- floor. Then gathering himself together, MER. M. D. LANDON-“ ELI PERKINS." he picked up his newspaper and glasses and started for the train. "Whar's the man who wanted to lick me?" he shouted. "Whar's the man THE Hon. Charles Backus, of the San who called me a scoundrel? Whar's" Francisco minstrels, was once censured "Here he is," said Charley from the by the Speaker of the California Legis-rear platform, as he held his thumb derilature for making fun of his brother mem- sively to his nose amid the laughter of the bers. This broke poor Charley's heart, passengers. "Here I am, sir—I'm your and he joined a minstrel company, so's to Roman-take me be where no one would grumble when he indulged in a little pleasantry. The other day, Mr. Backus rode up through Stamford, Conn., with Mr. Lem Read, the bosom friend of the lamented minstrel, Dan Bryant. As the train stopped before the Stamford station for water, Mr. Backus saw a good old redfaced Connecticut farmer sitting in the station reading the Brooklyn scandal. "Do you want to see me get a good joke on that old duffer, Lem?" asked Mr. Backus, pointing to the old farmer. "Yes," said Lem; "le's see you." "Well, you wait till jes' before the train starts, Lem, and I'll show you fun -fun till you can't rest. Jes' you wait," said Charley, laughing and pounding the palm of his left hand with his ponderous right. "All right, I'll wait," said Lem. When the train came to a full stop, Mr. Backus jumped off, telling his friend Lem to save his seat, "for," said he, "as soon as the bell rings I want to bound back on the train." Then Mr. Backus rushed up to the innocent farmer, snatched the paper from his hands, stamped on it with a tragic stamp, and shaking his clenched fist in the poor man's face, exclaimed, "O, you old rascal! I've found you 't last, you miserable old scapegrace-now I'm goin' to lick the life out of you-you contemptible old scoundrel, you you" Ding-a-ding! ding-a-ding! ding-ading! went the bell, drowning Charley's voice, and the train began moving out, Yes, Pll lick you,' said Charley. "I'll get an ox whip and And then he jumped back from the astonished farmer and got on the last car of the train moving out. The old farmer was astonished. He Just then the bell went ding-a-ding again, and what do you think? Why, the train backed! It backed poor Charley right into the hands of the infuriated farmer, who took off his coat and went for that poor fun-loving minstrel. "You want to lick me, do you?" said the farmer, jumping on the platform, while Charley ran through the car. miserable dandy! You want to—" 66 You And then he chased that poor minstrel through the cars with his cane in the air, while his big fist came down on his back "You've found me, like a triphammer. have you? Yes, I guess you have!" said the old farmer, as Charley left his hat and one coat-sleeve in his infuriated grasp. "Evidently you have." Mr. Backus said, as he washed off the blood, and went in to interview a tailor in New Haven two hours afterwards, "I guess the next time I want to make Lem Read laugh I won't try to scare a Connecticut farmer." TOUCHING SOLICITUDE. AN Irishman, being recently on trial for some offence, pleaded not guilty," and the jury being in the box, the district attorney proceeded to call Mr. Furkisson as a witness. With the utmost innocence Patrick turned his face to the judge and said, "Do I understand, yer honor, that Mr. Furkisson is to be a witness forenenst me?" The judge said, dryly, "It seems "Well, thin, yer honor, I plade guilty sure, if yer honor plaise, not because I am guilty, for I'm as innocent as yer honor's suckin' babe, but jist on account of savin' Misther Furkisson's sowl." 80." SECURING A TENOR. THE Cornhill Magazine tell this story: "A French impresario was taking out to New Orleans an opera company, which by special agreement was only to include one tenor. Foreigners are usually bad sailors, and the first few days all the members of the company were seasick, one of the effects of which malady is that it weakens the voice so much, that people are frequently hoarse for several days after their recovery. Accordingly, as soon as the singers could crawl on deck, they commenced to try their voices, and among them the tenor, who always anxious to occupy a distinguished position, went on the bridge of the steamer for the purpose. What was his surprise on hearing an echo of his own-voice,another tenor. His amazement became disgust when he heard the third tenor running up the scale, a fourth, a fifth. He looked forward, and saw two men, eyeing him and each other with intense hatred; he looked aft, and saw two others similarly occupied. The five tenors simultaneously made a rush below to the manager's cabin, and demanded whether he had not expressly stipulated to each of them that he was to be his only tenor. "I know, I know," replied the manager; "and I will keep my word. You see, none of you have been to New Orleans before or you would understand. When we arrive the yellow fever is sure to be raging, and as you are fresh from Europe two of you will probably be carried off before, you land, and two more during the rehearsal. One will probably survive; he will be my first and only tenor." stolid Teuton, whose son Johannes, a bright and lively youth of sixteen years, was told to saddle the horse and ride to the mill with the grist, and hurry back. The grist was on such occasions placed in one end of the bag and a large stone in the other end to balance it. Johannes having thrown the sack across the horse's back, had got the grist evenly divided, and had no need of the stone to balance it. He ran to his father and cried : "Oh, father, come and see me; we don't need the stone any more." The old gentleman calmly surveyed the scene, and with a severely reproachful look said: 66 'Johannes, your fadder, your grandfadder, and your great-grandfadder, all went to de mill with de stone in one end of de bag, und de grist in de odder. Unt now you, a mere poy, sets yourself up to know more as dey do. Yust put de stone in de pag, and never more let me see such smartness like dat." A POOR HUSBAND. A lady went to a Dutch corner grocery the other day, for some trifling thing. The goods wanted were on the very top shelf. The woman placed a box on a chair, and climbed up to the shelf at the evident risk of her limbs. Her husband sat up by the stove, playing with a small dog. Lady said, Why don't you make your husband reach it?" A look of infinite contempt came into her face as she replied, "My husband! I got awfully sucked in mit dat man. He knows nothing but to play mit a dog." ANCESTRAL WISDOM. In Pennsylvania, not many years ago, dwelt the descendants of Peter Van Schreubendyke, who had cleared his own farm, guarded it carefully from the attacks of Indians, and willed it to his son Jacob. Situated in the interior and far from any settlement, the farm was transmitted in regular order from father to son, and at last became the property of Heinrich Van Schreubendyke, a good-natured, JOHNSON'S VIEW. Boswell once asked Johnson if there were no possible circumstances in which suicide would be justifiable. No," was the reply. "Well," says Boswell, "Suppose a man has been guilty of fraud he was certain would be found out." "Why then," says Johnson, "in that case let him go to some country where he is not known, and not to the devil, where he is known." |