Chapter C: G. LELAND, Breitmann Ballads

The Bishop of St. David's has been studying Welsh
all the summer; it is a difficult language, and I
hope he will be careful,--it is so easy for him to
take up the Funeral Service and read it over the next
wedding-party, or to make a mistake in a tense in a
Confirmation, and the children will have renounced their
godfathers and godmothers and got nothing in their
place.

SYDNEY SMITH, _apud_ LORD HOUGHTON.

Beautiful soup, so rich and green,
Waiting in a hot tureen!
Who for such dainties would not stoop?
Soup of the evening, beautiful soup!
Soup of the evening, beautiful soup!

Beautiful soup! Who cares for fish,
Game, or any other dish?
Who would not give all else for two p
Ennyworth only of beautiful soup?
Pennyworth only of beautiful soup?

LEWIS CARROLL, _Alice in Wonderland_.

Writing to Manning, Charles Lamb says: "----
says he could write like Shakespeare if he had a
_mind_--so you see nothing is wanting but the
_mind_."

CRABB ROBINSON, _Diary_.

_ON BALLS AND OPERAS._

If by their names we things should call,
It surely would be properer
To term a singing-piece a _bawl_,
A dancing-piece a _hopperer_!

ANON.

Among all forms of mistake, prophecy is the most
gratuitous.

GEORGE ELIOT, _Middlemarch_.

_ON LOVE._

Love levels all--it elevates the clown,
And often brings the fattest people down.

H. J. BYRON, in _English Epigrams_.

The Hanoverian squires are asses who can talk of
nothing but horses.

HEINRICH HEINE, _Thoughts and Fancies_.

Sir George Warrender was once obliged to put off
a dinner-party in consequence of the death of
a relative, and sat down to a haunch of venison
by himself. While eating, he said to his butler, "John,
this will make a capital hash to-morrow." "Yes, Sir
George, if you leave off _now_!"

R. H. BARHAM, _Life_.

_TO CHLORIS._

Chloris, I swear, by all I ever swore,
That from this hour I shall not love thee more.
"What! love no more? oh, why this altered vow?"
Because I _cannot_ love thee _more_--than _now_.

THOMAS MOORE.

You close your petition with the words: "And we
will ever pray." I think you had better--you
need to do it.

MARK TWAIN, _Choice Works_.

Husbands, more covetous than sage,
Condemn this china-buying rage;
They count that woman's prudence little
Who sets her heart on things so brittle.

JOHN GAY, _Poems_.

Umbrella--an article which, by the morality of
society, you may steal from friend or foe, and
which, for the same reason, you should not lend
to either.

HORACE SMITH, _The Tin Trumpet_.

La curiosité n'est que la vanité. Le plus souvent
on ne veut savoir que pour en parler.

PASCAL, _Pensées_.

O how unlike our shores,
Where with ten thousand tongues each city roars!
There to all men, whate'er their age or walk,
Life's one great solemn business is to talk.
There what the penny press by morning write
Is echoed for a halfpenny at night:
There stump young Ministers; old Maids debate;
There loud Professors scold like Billingsgate:
There, as the World into the Church expands,
A moral Atheist spouts in parson's bands;
And poets, doubtful of the parts of speech,
Desperate of rhyme, acquire the art to preach.

_Windbag_, in COURTHOPE's _Paradise of Birds_.

Prince Metternich said to Lord Dudley,
"You are the only Englishman I know who
speaks good French. It is remarked, the
common people in Vienna speak better than the educated
men in London." "That may well be," replied
Lord Dudley. "Your Highness should recollect that
Buonaparte has not been twice in London to teach
them."

CRABB ROBINSON, _Diary_.

When a felon's not engaged in his employment,
Or maturing his felonious little plans,
His capacity for innocent enjoyment
Is just as great as any honest man's.

W. S. GILBERT, _Pirates of Penzance_.

She's an angel in a frock
With a fascinating cock
To her nose.

FREDERICK LOCKER, _London Lyrics_.

To speak highly of one with whom we are intimate
is a species of egotism.

W. HAZLITT, _Characteristics_.

The annals of our native land were lapsed in doubt and mystery,
Till Mr. Freeman t'other day discovered English History,
And now admonishes the world it is his fixed intention
To make it a monopoly and patent the invention.

F. D., in _Pall Mall Gazette_.

"It is rather sad," sighed Virginia, as she dived
into a box of French chocolate-creams, "to
think that all the poor people are drowned
that these things belonged to."

"They are not dead," said the Professor: "they still
live on this holy and stupendous earth. They live in
the use we are making of all they had got together. The
owner of those chocolate-creams is immortal because you
are eating them."

Virginia licked her lips, and said, "Nonsense!"

"It is not nonsense," said the Professor. "It is the
religion of Humanity."

W. H. MALLOCK, _The New Paul and Virginia_.

The sort of fun
I witnessed there _was_ "awful;"
Buffoonery devoid of all
That makes an art of folly,
Music that was "most music-hall,"
To hear "most melancholy."

J. R. PLANCHÉ, _Songs and Poems_.

You are a woman; you must never speak what
you think: your words must contradict your
thoughts: but your actions may contradict your
words. So, when I ask you if you can love me, you
must say no; but you must love me too. If I tell you
you are handsome, you must deny it, and say I flatter
you; and you must think yourself more charming than
I speak you, and like me for the beauty I say you have,
as much as if I had it myself.

_Tattle_, in CONGREVE's _Love for Love_.

Dear Poet, do not rhyme at all!
But if you must, don't tell your neighbour,
Or five in six, who cannot scrawl,
Will dub you donkey for your labour.
Be patient, but be sure you won't
Win vogue without extreme vexation;
Yet hope for sympathy,--but don't
Expect it from a near relation.

FREDERICK LOCKER, _London Lyrics_.

Nous pardonnons souvent à ceux qui nous ennuient;
mais nous ne pouvons pardonner à ceux qui
nous ennuyons.

LA ROCHEFOUCAULD, _Réflexions_.

There is a phrase we oft have seen
On bottle-labels writ,
And those who invalids have been
Best know the drift of it;
It may embody in a line
A world of chemic lore,
And skill to portion and combine--
_The mixture as before_.

This will apply to many things,
To oratory most,
Addresses made to kings and queens,
And wedding speech and toast;
For commonplace and compliment
Are mingled o'er and o'er;
_This_ saves the trouble to invent--
_The mixture as before_.

_Songs of Singularity._

I had forgotten to mention that essay, Miss
Daylmer; that is our essay on cookery,--the
one we always begin with in reading to ladies;
as Milverton said, "entirely within their province." I
wish they paid more attention to it; but people seldom
do attend to things within their province.

_Ellesmere_, in HELPS's _Friends in Council_.

There was an old waiter at Wapping
Drew corks for a week without stopping;
Cried he, "It's too bad!
The practice I've had!
Yet cannot prevent them from popping!"

There was an old priest of Peru,
Who dreamt he converted a Jew;
He woke in the night
In a deuce of a fright,
And found it was perfectly true.

There was an old witch of Malacca,
Who smoked such atrocious tob_acca_,
When tigers came near,
They trembled with fear,
And didn't attempt to att_acca_.

_Songs of Singularity._

A woman dictates before marriage in order that
she may have an appetite for submission afterwards.

GEORGE ELIOT, _Middlemarch_.

Sydney Smith, speaking of his being shampooed
at Mahomet's Baths at Brighton in 1840,
said they "squeezed enough out of him to make
a lean curate."

R. H. BARHAM, _Life_.

Now brim your glass, and plant it well
Beneath your nose on the table,
And you will find what philosophers tell
Of I and non-I is no fable.
Now listen to wisdom, my son!
Myself am the subject,
This wine is the object:
These things are two,
But I'll prove to you
That subject and object are one.

I take this glass in my hand, and stand
Upon my legs, if I can,
And look and smile benign and bland,
And feel that I am a man.
Now stretch all the strength of your brains!
I drink--and the object
Is lost in the subject,
Making one entity
In the identity
Of me, and the wine in my veins!

J. S. BLACKIE, _Musa Burschicosa_.

Punsters being abused, and the old joke
repeated that "He who puns will pick a pocket,"
some one said, "Punsters themselves have no
pockets." "No," said Lamb, "they carry only a
_ridicule_."

CRABB ROBINSON, _Diary_.

It is always a pleasure to me when two of my
friends like each other, just as I am always glad
when two of my enemies take to fighting with each
other.

HEINRICH HEINE, _Preface to Don Quixote_.

He stood on his head on the wild sea-shore,
And joy was the cause of the act,
For he felt as he never had felt before,
Insanely glad, in fact.

And why? In that vessel that left the bay
His mother-in-law had sail'd
To a tropical country far away,
Where tigers and snakes prevail'd.

_Songs of Singularity._

[Berkeley] had no ear for music himself, but
music was an enthusiasm in the family, and he
retained the well-known Signor Pasquilino for
years to teach his children. It was then that the Signor,
who had been learning English from a dictionary, exclaimed
in an outbreak of gratitude, "May God _pickle_
your lordship!"

A. C. FRASER, _Berkeley_.

Women always did, from the first, make a muss in
a garden.