Imágenes de página
PDF
ePub

WIT AND JUDGMENT COMPARED.

Wit is brushwood, judgment timber: the one gives the greatest flame, the other yields the durablest heat; and both meeting make the best fire. Overbury.

THE ORIGIN OF BOTTLED ALE.

Without offence it may be remembered, that Alexander Nowell leaving a bottle of ale, when fishing, in the grass, he found it some days after, no bottle, but a gun, such the sound at the opening thereof. And this is believed-casualty is mother of more inventions than industry-the origin of bottled ale in England.

SUPPER.

Thomas Fuller.

I consider supper as a turnpike through which one must pass in order to go to bed.

APPEARANCE DECEPTIVE.

Edwards.

To reject wisdom because the person who communicates it is uncouth and his manners are inclegant, what is it but to throw away a pincapple, and assign for a reason the roughness of its coat?

IIorne.

ILL-WILL.

It is a true word of Gerson, that in a pennyworth of strife, there is not a halfpennyworth of love; and we say truly, ill-will never said well.

A NATIONAL GRIEVANCE.

Bishop Hall.

I know not whether his observation, with the reason thereof, be worth the inserting, who first took notice that our cattle for food are English when feeding in the field, but French when fed on in a family.

English. 1, sheep; 2, ox; 3, calf; 4, hog; 5, pig.

French. 1, mutton; 2, beef; 3, veal; 4, bacon; 5, pork.

Whereof he assigned this reason-that after the Norman Conquest the French so tyrannised over their English tenants, that they forced them to keep and feed their cattle, but the Monsieurs eat all their good meat after it was slaughtered. Thomas Fuller.

PREFERMENT.

Where preferment goes more by favour than by merit, the rejected have more honour than the elected. Thomas Fuller.

G

APPLAUSE NOT ACCORDING TO MERIT.

He is treated like a fiddler, whose music, though liked, is not much praised because he lives by it; while a gentleman performer, though the most wretched scraper alive, throws the audience into raptures. Goldsmith..

THE VARIOUS FORMS OF WIT.

Sometimes it lieth in pat allusion to a known story, or in seasonable application to a trivial saying, or in forging an apposite tale: sometimes it playeth in words and phrases, taking advantage from the ambiguity of their sense, or the affinity of their sound: sometimes it is wrapped up in a dress of humorous expression: sometimes it lurketh under an odd similitude: sometimes it lodgeth in a sly question, in a smart answer, in a quirkish reason, in a shrewd intimation, in cunningly diverting, or cleverly retorting an objection: sometimes it is couched in a bold scheme or speech, in a tart irony, in a Justy hyperbole, in a startling metaphor, in a plausible reconciling of contradictions, or in acute nonsense: sometimes a scenical representation of person or things, a counterfeit

speech, a mimical look or gesture passeth for it: sometimes an affected simplicity, sometimes a presumptuous bluntness, giveth it being: sometimes it riseth only from a lucky hitting upon what is strange, sometimes from a crafty wresting obvious matter to the purpose; often it consisteth in one hardly knows what, and springeth up one can hardly tell how. Its ways are unaccountable and inexplicable, being answerable to the numberless rovings of fancy and windings of language.

Barrow

AN EXPERT Cook.

The King of Bithynia, in some expeditions against the Scythians, in the winter, and at a great distance from the sea, had a violent longing for a small fish called aphy—a pilchard, a herring, or an anchovy. His cook cut a turnip to the perfect imitation of its shape; then fried in oil, salted, and well powdered with the grains of a dozen black poppies. His majesty's taste was so exquisitely deceived, that he praised the root to his guests as an excellent fish.

Disraeli.

THE FASHION OF RELIGION.
Religion is like the fashion.

One man wears

his doublet slashed, another laced, another plain, but every man has his doublet. So every man has his religion. We differ about trimming. Selden.

ADVICE DIFFICULT TO APPRECIATE.

In general, it is with advice as with taxation; we can endure very little of either, if they come to us in the direct way. They must not thrust themselves upon us. We do not understand their knocking at our doors; besides, they always choose such inconvenient times, and are for ever talking of arrears. Helps.

SERVICEABLE ARMOUR.

A soldier upon his march found a horse shoe, and stuck it in his girdle, where, passing through a wood, some of the enemy lay in ambush, and one of them discharged his musket, and the shot by fortune lighted against the fellow's horse shoe. 'Ah, ha!" quoth he, "I perceive that little armour will serve a man's turn, if it be put on in the right place." Wit and Mirth, 1635.

[ocr errors]
« AnteriorContinuar »