قراءة كتاب Quips and Quiddities: A Quintessence of Quirks, Quaint, Quizzical, and Quotable
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Quips and Quiddities: A Quintessence of Quirks, Quaint, Quizzical, and Quotable
drinking my tea or my coffee,
I'm always a-thinking of thee, my Theoffy.
Rogers, apud Moore.
OBUS was very amusing. He is a great authority on Indian matters. We talked of the insects and the snakes, and he said a thing which reminded me of his brother Sydney: "Always, sir, manage to have at your table some fleshy blooming young writer or cadet, just come out, that the mosquitoes may stick to him, and leave the rest of the company alone."
Lord Macaulay, Life.
ADY GREENWICH, in a conversation with Lady Tweeddale, named the Saxons. "The Saxons, my dear," cried the Marchioness; "who were they?" "Lord, madam, did your ladyship never read the History of England?" "No, my dear; pray, who wrote it?"
Horace Walpole, Correspondence.
ON THE MARRIAGE OF A MR. LOT AND A MISS SALTER.
ECAUSE on her way she chose to halt,
Lot's wife, in the Scriptures, was turned into salt;
But though in her course she ne'er did falter,
This young Lot's wife, strange to say, was Salter.
Hicks, apud J. C. Young.
OOK was dining at Powell's one day, and the talk fell upon feu Jack Reeve. "Yes," said Theodore, when they were speaking of his funeral, "I met him in his private box, going to the pit."
H. F. Chorley, Life and Letters.
TO A BAD FIDDLER.
LD Orpheus played so well, he moved old Nick,
While thou mov'st nothing but thy fiddlestick!
A Collection of Epigrams (1727).
LADY from China who was dining with the Archbishop [Whately] told him that English flowers reared in that country lose their perfume in two or three years. "Indeed!" was the immediate remark, "I had no idea that the Chinese were such de-scent-ers."
E. J. Whately's Life of Whately.
ON THE ART UNIONS.
HAT Picture-Raffles will conduce to nourish
Design, or cause good colouring to flourish,
Admits of logic-chopping and wise-sawing:
But surely Lotteries encourage Drawing?
Thomas Hood, Whims and Oddities.
OBERT SMITH (brother of Sydney, and familiarly called "Bobus") was a lawyer and an ex-Advocate-General, and happened on one occasion to be engaged in argument with an excellent physician touching the merits of their respective professions. "You must admit," urged Dr. ——, "that your profession does not make angels of men." "No," was the retort, "there you have the best of it; yours certainly gives them the first chance."
Abraham Hayward, Essays.
N London I never know what I'd be at,
Enraptured with this, and enchanted by that;
I'm wild with the sweets of variety's plan,
And Life seems a blessing too happy for man.
But the Country, Lord help me! sets all matters right;
So calm and composing from morning to night;
Oh! it settles the spirits when nothing is seen
But an ass on a common, a goose on a green.
Charles Morris, Lyra Urbanica.
ARLER d'amour, c'est faire amour.
Balzac, Physiologie du Mariage.
T the Polish ball, the Lord Mayor said to Lady Douglas, who squints, "Which do you prefer, my lady, Gog or Magog?" "Of the three," said Lady Douglas, "I prefer your lordship!"
B. R. Haydon, Diary.
ON THE CAPPADOCIANS.
VIPER bit a Cappadocian's hide;
But 'twas the viper, not the man, that died.
Anon., from the Greek.
HE merits of a certain American diplomatist being on the tapis, [Washington Irving] said, in allusion to his pomposity, "Ah, he is a great man; and, in his own estimation, a very great man—a man of great weight. When he goes to the West, the East tips up."
J. C. Young, Diary.
HEN a rapt audience has encored "Fra Poco"
Or "Casta Diva," I have heard that then
The Prima Donna, smiling herself out,
Recruits her flagging powers with bottled stout.
C. S. Calverley, Verses and Translations.
believe everything. It saves one such a world of bore from intelligent people who are anxious to explain things you doubt about.
Lucy Forrester, in Brooks' Aspen Court.
ANK so friendly now with trade is,
Bill discounters titled ladies
Stoop to raise.
Manners used to make the man,
It is only money can
Nowadays.
J. Jemmett Browne,
