Chapter C: D. WARNER, My Summer in a Garden

_MARTIAL IN LONDON._

Exquisite wine and comestibles
From Slater, and Fortnum and Mason;
Billiards, écarté, and chess-tables;
Water in vast marble basin;
Luminous books (not voluminous)
To read under beech-trees cacuminous;
One friend, who is fond of a distich,
And doesn't get too syllogistic;
A valet who knows the complete art
Of service--a maiden, his sweetheart;--
Give me these, in some rural pavilion,
And I'll envy no Rothschild his million.

MORTIMER COLLINS, in _The Owl_.

He was much too disliked not to be sought after.
Whatever is once notorious, even for being
disagreeable, is sure to be coveted.

LORD LYTTON's _Pelham_.

_TO GIBBS, CONCERNING HIS POEMS._

You ask me if I think your poems good;
If I could praise your poems, Gibbs,--I would.

EGERTON WEBBE, _apud_ LEIGH HUNT.

What I admire in the order to which you belong
[the aristocracy], is that they do live in the air,
that they excel in athletic sports; that they can
only speak one language; and that they never read.
This is not a complete education, but it is the highest
education since the Greek.

_Phoebus_, in LORD BEACONSFIELD's _Lothair_.

_RELIABLE._

(A MILD PROTEST.)

Shut up a party who uses "Reliable"
When he means "Trustworthy;" 'tis undeniable
That his excuses are flimsy and friable,
And his conceptions of grammar most pliable.
No doubt he'd pronounce this line's last word "enviable:"
Invent, for bad fish (which he'd sell) the word "criable,"
Say that his faded silk hat might be dyeable,
And accent French vilely--allude to _le diable_.
If his name's William, 'twould be most enj'yable
To see Mr. Calcraft preparing to tie a Bill.
Now let Punch hope he has stamped out "Reliable."

SHIRLEY BROOKS, _Wit and Humour_.

"I see," said my clerical neighbour, addressing
myself, "you stick to port." "Yes," I said,
"and so am safe from being half-seas over."

W. H. HARRISON, _Reminiscences_.

All tradesmen cry up their own wares:
In this they agree well together:
The Mason by stone and lime swears;
The Tanner is always for leather;
The Smith still for iron would go;
The Schoolmaster stands up for teaching;
And the Parson would have you to know
There's nothing on earth like his preaching.

LORD NEAVES, _Songs and Verses_.

Matrimony--the high sea for which no compass
has yet been invented.

HEINRICH HEINE, _Musical Notes from Paris_.

O daughters! make your markets while you can,
For bloom soon groweth as the water wan;
The early bird picks up the marrying man.

_Once a Week._

He was the most even-tempered man I ever knew:
he was always cross.

MRS. JENKINS, _Within an Ace_.

I have a horse--a ryghte good horse--
Ne doe I envie those
Who scour ye plaine in headie course,
Tyll soddaine on theyre nose
They lyghte wyth unexpected force--
It ys--a horse of clothes.

I have a saddel--"Sayst thou soe?
With styrruppes, knyghte, to boote?"
I sayde not that--I answere "Noe,"--
Yt lacketh such, I woot--
It ys a mutton-saddel, loe!
Parte of ye fleecie brute.

LEWIS CARROLL, _Phantasmagoria_.

Story of Lord Middleton, out hunting, calling to
Gunter the confectioner to "Hold hard," and
not ride over the hounds. "My horse is so hot,
my Lord, that I don't know what to do with him." "Ice
him, Gunter, ice him."

R. H. BARHAM, _Life_.

She's rising now, and taking off her bonnet,
And probably will end by sitting on it;
For oft, as sad experiences teach,
The novice, trembling from his maiden speech,
Drops flustered in his place, and crushes flat
His innocent and all-unconscious hat.

_2nd Lady_, in G. O. TREVELYAN's _Ladies in Parliament_.

_ON A LEFT-HANDED WRITING-MASTER._

Though Nature thee of thy right hand bereft,
Right well thou writest with the hand that's left.

FRANCIS FULLER, _apud_ NICHOLLS.

We are never so much disposed to quarrel with
others, as when we are dissatisfied with ourselves.

W. HAZLITT, _Characteristics_.

The cockney, met in Middlesex, or Surrey,
Is often cold, and always in a hurry.

FREDERICK LOCKER, _London Lyrics_.

Speaking one day of a newly risen sect of religionists
who proscribed the use of animal food,
the Archbishop [Whately] said to Dr. Wilson,
"Do you know anything, Wilson, of this new sect?"
"Yes, my Lord; I have seen their confession of faith,
which is a book of cookery."

E. J. WHATELY's _Life of Whately_.

And I do think the amateur cornopean
Should be put down by law--but that's perhaps Utopian.