In a company where Johnson and Foote were together, the emigration of the Scotch to London became the subject of conversation: Foote insisted that the emigrants were as numerous in the former, as in the present reign; the doctor the contrary: this dispute continued with a friendly warmth for some time, when Johnson called out, “You are certainly wrong, Sam; but I see how you are deceived; you cannot distinguish them now as formerly, for the fellows all come _breeched_ to the capital of late years.”
Some one jocularly observed to the Marquis Wellesley that in his arrangements of the ministry, “His brother the Duke had thrown him overboard.” “Yes,” said the Marquis, “but I trust I have strength enough left to swim _to the other side_.”
Frog Morgan, a barrister of very diminutive size, before he was much known at the bar, had commenced an argument, when Lord Mansfield, not aware of his stature, called upon him repeatedly to get up, conceiving that he was not addressing the court standing. “My lord, I am up,” screamed out the little man; “and I have been up these ten minutes.”
Sergeant Prince, a contemporary of Murphy, the translator of Tacitus, has described that gentleman as the most lengthy and soporific speaker of his time. Bar, Bench, jurors, attorneys--nay, even the javelin-men, nodded under their somnolescent influence. A counsel getting up to reply to him, began, “Gentlemen, the long speech of the learned sergeant----” “I beg your pardon, sir,” interrupted Mr. Justice Nares, “you might say the long soliloquy of the learned sergeant, for my brother Prince has been talking an hour to himself.”
An officer was defending himself before Sir Sydney Smith for not having attacked a certain post, because he had considered it _unattackable_. “Sir,” said the gallant chief, “that word is not in English.”
At the commencement of the French revolutionary war, an honest farmer, who read his Bible every Sunday, went to his rector, and asked him whether he did not think that the contest would go very hard with the French? The rector replied, that, if pleased God, he hoped it would. “Nay,” said the farmer, “I am sure it will then; for it is said by the prophet Ezekiel, chap. xxxv. verse 1, ‘Son of man, set thy face against _Mount Sier_;’ now, my wife, who is a better scholar than I am, says this can be nothing but _Mounseer_, the Frenchman; and in almost the next verse it is still stronger, for there the prophet adds, ‘O, _Mount Sier_, I am against thee and I will make thee most desolate.’”