Chapter C: S. CALVERLEY, Verses and Translations

Tommy Townshend, a violent, foolish fellow,
who was always talking strong language, said in
some debate, "Nothing will satisfy me but to
have the noble Lord [North]'s head; I will have his
head." Lord North said, "The honourable gentleman
says he will have my head. I bear him no malice in
return, for though the honourable gentleman says he will
have my head, I can assure him I would on no account
have his."

CHARLES GREVILLE, _Diary_.

With undissembled grief I tell,--
For sorrow never comes too late,--
The simplest bonnet in Pall Mall
Is sold for £1 8_s._

CATHARINE M. FANSHAWE.

Said the Gryphon, "Do you know why it's called
a whiting?"

"I never thought about it," said Alice.
"Why?"

"_It does the boots and shoes_," the Gryphon replied
very solemnly.

Alice was thoroughly puzzled. "Does the boots and
shoes?" she repeated in a wondering tone.

"Why, what are _your_ shoes done with?" said the
Gryphon. "I mean, what makes them so shiny?"

Alice looked down at them, and considered a little
before she gave her answer. "They're done with blacking,
I believe."

"Boots and shoes under the sea," the Gryphon went
on in a deep voice, "are done with whiting. Now you
know."

LEWIS CARROLL, _Alice in Wonderland_.

I'm always dull on Christmas Day,
It lets a flood of ills in,
For that's the time those birds of prey
Bring all their horrid bills in!

J. R. PLANCHÉ, _Songs and Poems_.

The wit of a family is usually best received among
strangers.

GEORGE ELIOT, _Middlemarch_.

Sweet maids in wimples fair y-wrought,
Shall smile upon thee. Thou shalt say,
Oft, by thy halidame, there's nought
So gracious and so fair as they,
But what thy halidame may be,
I trow 'tis useless asking me.

H. SAVILE CLARKE.

Le vrai honnête homme est celui qui ne se pique de
rien.

LA ROCHEFOUCAULD, _Réflexions_.

O memory! thou art but a sigh
For friendships dead and loves forgot,
And many a cold and altered eye
That once did say--Forget me not!

And I must bow me to thy laws,
For--odd although it may be thought--
I can't tell who the deuce it was
That gave me this Forget-me-not!

_Bon Gaultier Ballads._

What is Truth? "Bring me the wash-hand basin,"
is the reply of Pontius Pilate.

HEINRICH HEINE, _The Denunciator_.

_ON A RECENT ROBBERY._

They came and stole my garments,
My stockings, all my store,
But they could not steal my sermons,
For they were stolen before.

REV. HENRY TOWNSHEND.

Some folk's tongues are like the clocks as run on
strikin', not to tell you the time o' day, but
because there's summat wrong i' their own
inside.

_Mrs. Poyser_, in GEORGE ELIOT's _Adam Bede_.

'Tis said that he lived upon bacon and beans,
And that sometimes he dined upon salt pork and greens;
But he thought that such feeding was rather humdrum,--
"I've gone the whole hog," said little Tom Thumb.

As Tom once was crossing a river close by,
A salmon snapped up, as it would at a fly;
But as it was dark Tom did sing rather mum--
"I'm down in the mouth," said little Tom Thumb.

Next day a black raven poor Tom did espy,
Which carried him up to the heaven so high;
If the bird let him go, to the ground would he come--
"I'll be dashed if I do," said little Tom Thumb.

J. A. SIDEY, _Mistura Curiosa_.

It is often harder to praise a friend than an enemy.

W. HAZLITT, _Characteristics_.

_ON A CERTAIN PARSON._

By purchase a man's property is known:
Scarf's sermons and his livings are his own.

_Epigrams in Distich_ (1740).

I measure men's dullness by the devices they
trust in for deceiving others. Your dullest
animal is he who grins and says he doesn't mind
just after he has had his shins kicked.

MACHIAVELLI, in GEORGE ELIOT's _Romola_.

_GRAMMATICAL._

The least drop in the world I do not mind:
"Cognac" 's a noun I never yet declined.

H. J. BYRON, in _English Epigrams_.

"There is no middle course," said Charles X. to
Talleyrand, "between the throne and the
scaffold!" "Your Majesty forgets the post-chaise!"

CRABB ROBINSON, _Diary_.

I could not, while you shone,
Run all that heartless _babble off_
That marks the modern _Babylon_.

ROBERT REECE, in _Comic Poets_.

_TO AN IMPORTUNATE HOST
DURING DINNER AND AFTER TENNYSON._

Ask me no more: I've had enough Chablis;
The wine may come again, and take the shape,
From glass to glass, of "Mountain" or of "Cape;"
But, my dear boy, when I have answered thee,
Ask me no more.

Ask me no more: what answer should I give?
I love not pickled pork nor partridge pie;
I feel if I took whisky I should die;
Ask me no more--for I prefer to live:
Ask me no more.

Ask me no more: unless my fate is sealed,
And I have striven against you all in vain:
Let your good butler bring me Hock again:
Then rest, dear boy. If for this once I yield,
Ask me no more.

W. D. A.

Sir Robert Grant told a story well, and
could pun successfully without boring. By way
of instance, on the beach at Sidmouth he pronounced
the six beautiful Miss Twopennys to be the
"Splendid shilling."

LORD TEIGNMOUTH, _Reminiscences_.

Oh to be wafted away
From this black Aceldama of sorrow,
Where the dust of an earthy to-day,
Is the earth of a dusty to-morrow!

_Bunthorne_, in W. S. GILBERT's _Patience_.

One said, painters were cunning fellows, for they
had a colour for everything they did.

_Conceits, Clinches_, etc. (1639).

Dey vent to hear a breecher of
De last sensadion shtyle,
'Twas 'nough to make der tyfel weep
To see his "awful shmile."
"Vot bities dat der Fechter ne'er
Vos in Theologie.
Dey'd make him pishop in dis shoorsh,"
Said Breitmann, said he.