Dr. Henniker being in private conversation with the late Earl of Chatham, his Lordship asked him, among other questions, how he defined wit? “My lord,” said the doctor, “wit is like what a pension would be, given by your lordship to your humble servant, _a good thing well applied_.”
A vagrant called at a house on a Sunday and begged for some cider. The lady refused to give him any, when he reminded her of the oft-quoted remark, that she “might entertain an angel unawares.” “Yes,” said she, “but angels don’t go about drinking cider on Sundays.”
Dr. Wing, being asked where a young lady’s _waist_ began, replied, “At the altar. The moment they have you trapped, they come down upon your pocket-book like a hawk upon a May bug. After they are married they are all _waste_.” What a libellous fellow!
When Lord Thurlow was at the bar, his clerk was one day reading to him a legal instrument, and when he came to the part, “_I do devise all that farm to_,” &c., &c., he was seized with so very violent a fit of coughing that he could not proceed, on which the testy lawyer exclaimed, “Read on, _with a curse to you--your_ heirs and _their_ heirs _for ever_.”
Mr. Tierney once observed of this noble and learned lord, who was much given to swearing and parsimony, that he was a rigid disciplinarian in his religion, for that in his house it was _passion week in the parlour, and lent in the kitchen, all the year round_.
A gentleman complaining to his bootmaker that a pair of boots recently sent were too short, and that he wanted a pair to cover the whole calf, had the following _jeu d’esprit_ sent to him:----
These boots were never made for me, They are too short by half; I want them long enough, d’ye see, To cover all the calf. Why, sir, said Last, with stifled smile, To alter them I’ll try; But if they _cover all the calf_, They must be _five feet high_.
A celebrated divine, who had prided himself upon his originality, and who would reject his best thought if he imagined it was traceable to any previous author, was startled one day by a friend coolly telling him that every word of his favourite discourse was stolen from a book he had at home. The astonished writer, staggered by his friend’s earnestness, begged for a sight of this volume. He was, however, released from his misery by the other smilingly announcing the work in question to be “Johnson’s Dictionary,” where, continued his tormentor, “I undertake to find every word of your discourse.”