PREFACE. THIS little Treasury of Table Talk is a réchauffé of good things. The gleanings which fill its pages have been gathered up during a course of miscellaneous reading. In them will be found blended together, "In most admired disorder," apophthegm, aphorism, and anecdote. It is a liberal collection of passages, which, by reason of their wisdom, their truth, or their humour, caught the fancy of the editor as being worthy of repetition. In addition to many authors who are thus "held by the button," as it were, for the first time, the reader who is interested in this curious branch of literature will observe that the famous French Ana, and the no less celebrated English Table Talk of Selden, Walpole, Coleridge, and others, have not been overlooked. For his own part, the editor will simply paraphrase the remark of Montaigne, and say, that he has here made only a nosegay of culled flowers, and brought nothing of his own save the string which ties them. A TREASURY OF TABLE TALK. CONVERSATION. Guests should be neither loquacious nor silent; because eloquence is for the forum, and silence for the bed-chamber. Varro. HOW A LAWYER ENTERED HEAVEN. There is a pleasant story of a lawyer, who, being refused entrance into heaven by St Peter, contrived to throw his hat inside the door; and then, being permitted by the kind saint to go in and fetch it, took advantage of the latter's fixture as doorkeeper to refuse to come back again. Leigh Hunt. |