Читать книгу: «The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 12, No. 326, August 9, 1828», страница 7

Various

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THE GATHERER

"A snapper-up of unconsidered trifles."
SHAKSPEARE.

BAPTISMAL PROMISES

One of the subjects for confirmation at a bishop's recent visitation, on being asked by the clergyman to whom she applied for her certificate of qualifications, what her godfathers and godmothers promised for her, said, with much naiveté, "I've a yeard that they promised to give me hafe a dozen zilver spoons, but I've never had 'em though."

A GOOD WIFE

The real portrait of a fine lady, wife to one of the ancient and noble family of the Fanes, Earls of Westmoreland, drawn by her husband, and inscribed in old characters upon a wall of a room in Buxton Place, a seat belonging to the noble family, near Maidstone, in Kent.—Taken from Mist's Journal.

"Shee feared God, and knew how to serve him; Shee assigned times for hir devotions and kept them; She was a perfect wife and a true friend, and shee joyed most to affect those nearest and dearest unto me; She was still the same: ever kind and never troublesome; oft preventing my desires, disputing none; providently managing all was mine; living in apparence above my state; yet advanced it; Shee was of a great spirit, sweetly tempered; of a sharp wit, without offence; of excellent speech, blest with silence; of a cheerfull temper modestly governed; of a brave fashion to win respect to daunt boldness; pleasing to all of hir sex; entyre with few, delighting in the best; ever avoiding all places and persons in the honours blemished; and was as free from doing ill as giving the occasion: Shee dyed as she lived, well and blessed; in hir greatest extremity most patient, sending up hir pure soule with many zealous prayers and hymnes to hir maker; powring forth hir passionate heart with affectionate streams of love to hir"—

"Husband" should have followed, but tradition tells us that by this time his grief swelled to such a height that he could not proceed any further.

T. H.

At the recent sale of a provincial theatre and its appurtenances, one article was to be included in the purchase, of which a short lease is by no means desirable—a new drop.

BRITISH TARS,

Who are so fond of harmony among themselves, have a great dislike to concord as applied to their enemies, and find even a disagreeable association in the very sound of the word, as the following anecdote will exemplify:—Among the illuminations for the last peace, were some of a very grand description, and on the door of a foreign ambassador in London, the words "Peace and Concord" figured at full length in characters of flame. "What say you, Mounsier, Conquered!" exclaimed an honest sailor, to whom a stander-by was explaining the mystic words; "shiver my timbers, who ever dared to call us 'Conquered' yet?" and so saying, was proceeding to extinguish the unlucky blaze, when a civil explanation, to which British bravery is ever ready to yield, restored Peace, and allowed Concord to continue.

REMEDY FOR DULNESS

Lord Dorset used to say of a very goodnatured, dull fellow, "'Tis a thousand pities that man is not illnatured! that one might kick him out of company."

NATIONAL COMPLAINTS

The Englishmen at Paris find fault with the French roast beef; the Frenchmen in London complain of the British brandy.

The English who visit Paris, imagine that the tavern-keepers have served in the cavalry, as they are so expert in making a charge.

A foreigner inquiring the way to a friend's lodging, whom he said lived at Mr. Bailey's, senior, was shown to the Old Bailey, by a Bow-street officer. When he entered the court he imagined that it was his friend's levee.

BENEFIT OF CORRECTION

A certain bishop declared one day, that the punishment used in schools did not make boys a whit better, or more tractable; it was insisted that whipping was of the utmost service, for every one must allow it made a boy smart.

FRENCH AND ENGLISH

"C'est la Soupe," says one of the best of proverbs, "qui fait le Soldat;" "It is the soup that makes the soldier." Excellent as our troops are in the field, there cannot be a more unquestionable fact, than their immense inferiority to the French in the business of cookery. The English soldier lays his piece of ration beef at once on the coals, by which means, the one and the better half is lost, and the other burnt to a cinder. Whereas six French troopers fling their messes into the same pot, and extract a delicious soup, ten times more nutritious than the simple Rôti could ever be.

THE FAMILY SUIT

The son-in-law of a chancery barrister having succeeded to the lucrative practice of the latter, came one morning in breathless ecstasy to inform him that he had succeeded in bringing nearly to its termination, a cause which had been pending in the court of scruples for several years. Instead of obtaining the expected congratulations of the retired veteran of the law, his intelligence was received with indignation. "It was by this suit," exclaimed he, "that my father was enabled to provide for me, and to portion your wife, and with the exercise of common prudence it would have furnished you with the means of providing handsomely for your children and grand-children."

PORK CHOPS

It is related, that Fuseli, the celebrated artist, when he wished to summon Nightmare, and bid her sit for her picture, or any other grotesque or horrible personations, was wont to prime himself for the feat by supping on about three pounds of half-dressed pork-chops.

ARDUOUS BAPTISM

An infant was brought for baptism into a country church. The clergyman, who had just been drinking with his friends a more than usual quantum of the genial juice, could not find the place of the baptism in his ritual, and exclaimed, as he was turning over the leaves of the book, "How difficult this child is to baptize!"