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

_HOME THEY BROUGHT._

Home they brought her lap-dog dead,
Just run over by a fly;
Jeames to Buttons, winking, said,
"Won't there be a row? oh my!"

Then they called the flyman low,
Said his baseness could be proved,
How she to the Beak should go,--
Yet she neither spoke nor moved.

Said her maid (and risked her place)
"In the 'ouse it should have kept,
Flymen drives at such a pace"--
Still the lady's anger slept.

Rose her husband, best of dears,
Laid a bracelet on her knee,
Like a playful child she boxed his ears,--
"Sweet old pet!--let's have some tea!"

SHIRLEY BROOKS, _Wit and Humour_.

_ON BLESSED IGNORANCE._

He is most happy, sure, that knoweth nought,
Because he knows not that he knoweth not.

ROBERT HEATH (_circa_ 1585-1607).

Alone amid the festive throng
One infant brow is sad!
One cherub face is wet with grief,--
What ails you, little lad?

Why still with scarifying sleeve
That woful visage scrub?
Ah, much I fear, my gentle boy,
You don't enjoy your grub.

Here, on a sympathetic heart,
Your tale of suffering pour.
Come, darling! Tell me all. "_Boo--boo--
I can't eat any more!_"

H. CHOLMONDELEY PENNELL, _Puck on Pegasus_.

Never take a sheet-bath--never. Next to meeting
a lady acquaintance who, for reasons best known
to herself, don't see you when she looks at you,
and don't know you when she sees you, it is about the
most uncomfortable thing in the world.

MARK TWAIN, _Choice Works_.

The critic's lot is passing hard--
Between ourselves, I think reviewers,
When call'd to truss a crowing bard,
Should not be sparing of the skewers.

FREDERICK LOCKER, _London Lyrics_.

To-morrow the critics will commence. You
know who the critics are? The men who have
failed in literature and art.

_Phoebus_, in LORD BEACONSFIELD's _Lothair_.

That climax of all human ills--
The inflammation of his weekly bills.

LORD BYRON, _Don Juan_.

On n'a guère de défauts qui ne soient plus pardonnables
que les moyens dont on se sert pour les
cacher.

LA ROCHEFOUCAULD, _Réflexions_.

Meeting a friend one day, when the weather had
taken a most sudden and unaccountable turn
from cold to warmth, the subject was mooted
as usual, and characterized by the gentleman as being
"most extraordinary." "Yes," replied [Compton], "it
is a most unheard of thing; we've jumped from winter
into summer without a spring."

_Memoir of Henry Compton._

"Pray what is this Permissive Bill,
That some folks rave about?
I can't with all my pains and skill,
Its meaning quite make out?"
O! it's a little simple Bill,
That seeks to pass _incog._,
To _permit_ ME--to _prevent_ YOU--
From having a glass of grog.

LORD NEAVES, _Songs and Verses_.

Quelque mal qu'un homme puisse penser des
femmes, il n'y a pas de femme qui n'en pense
encore plus mal que lui.

CHAMFORT, _Maximes_.

With thy fogs, all so thick and so yellow,
The most approved tint for _ennui_,
Oh, when shall a man see thy fellow,
November, for _felo-de-se_?

J. R. PLANCHÉ, _Songs and Poems_.

"Life," continued Mr. Rose, "is a series of
moments and emotions."
"And a series of absurdities, too, very
often," said Dr. Jenkinson.
"Life is a solemn mystery," said Mr. Stocks, severely.
"Life is a damned nuisance," muttered Leslie to himself.

W. H. MALLOCK, _The New Republic_.

The world's an ugly world. Offend
Good people, how they wrangle!
Their manners that they never mend,--
The characters they mangle!
They eat, and drink, and scheme, and plod,--
They go to church on Sunday;
And many are afraid of God--
And more of _Mrs. Grundy_.

FREDERICK LOCKER, _London Lyrics_.

I went away the first, in order to give the men an
opportunity of abusing me; for whenever the
men abuse, the women, to support alike their
coquetry and the conversation, think themselves called
upon to defend.

_Pelham_, in LORD LYTTON's novel.

There's one John Bright, a Manchester man,
Who taught the Tories to rule,
By setting their stamp on his patent plan
For renewing the youth of John Bull;
But I say that it won't do at all.
To seek for salvation
By mere numeration
Of polls would surprise,
If they were to rise,
Not a little both Plato and Paul.

J. S. BLACKIE, _Musa Burschicosa_.

Une femme vertueuse a dans le coeur une fibre du
moins ou de plus que les autres femmes; elle est
stupide ou sublime.

BALZAC, _Physiologie du Mariage_.

_ON SCOTCH WEATHER._

Scotland! thy weather's like a modish wife;
Thy winds and rains for ever are at strife;
Like thee the termagants their blustering try,
And, when they can no longer scold, they cry.

AARON HILL (1685-1750).

Went with Lamb to Richman's. Richman produced
one of Chatterton's forgeries. In one
manuscript there were seventeen different kinds
of e's. "Oh," said Lamb, "that must have been written
by one of the--
'Mob of gentlemen who write with _ease_.'"

CRABB ROBINSON, _Diary_.

_SCIRE TUUM NIHIL FIT._

To have a thing is little, if you're not allowed to show it,
And to know a thing is nothing, unless others know you know it.

LORD NEAVES.

You're at an evening party, with
A group of pleasant folks,--
You venture quietly to crack
The least of little jokes,--
A lady doesn't catch the point,
And begs you to explain,--
Alas! for one who drops a jest
And takes it up again!

You drop a pretty _jeu-de-mot_
Into a neighbour's ears,
Who likes to give you credit for
The clever things he hears;
And so he hawks your jest about,
The old, authentic one,
Just breaking off the point of it,
And leaving out the pun!

JOHN GODFREY SAXE, _Poems_.

[Montrond's] death was a very wretched one.
Left alone to the tender mercies of a well-known
"lorette" of those days, Desirée R----,
as he lay upon his bed, between fits of pain and drowsiness,
he could see his fair friend picking from his shelves
the choicest specimens of his old Sèvres china, or other
articles of _vertu_. Turning to his doctor, he said, with a
gleam of his old fun, "Qu'elle est attachante, cette
femme-là!"

GRONOW, _Recollections_.

We love thee, Ann Maria Smith,
And in thy condescension
We see a future full of joys
Too numerous to mention.

There's Cupid's arrow in thy glance,
That by thy love's coercion
Has reached our melting heart of hearts,
And asked for one insertion.

There's music in thy honest tone,
And silver in thy laughter;
And truth--but we will give the full
Particulars hereafter.

R. H. NEWELL, _Orpheus C. Kerr Papers_.

"Of course you know the three reasons which take
men into society in London?" I said, after a
pause.

"No, I don't. What are they?"

"Either to find a wife, or to look after one's wife, or
to look after somebody else's."