When Macpherson’s Homer came out (a book universally decried for a bombastical, affected style), a lady remarked one evening, in a large company, to Dr. Johnson, that she had been endeavouring to read it, but the style appeared so _old_, she could not go through it with any satisfaction. “You are perfectly right, madam,” says Johnson; “it is as _old_ as the _building of Babel_.”
Much about the time of the universal damnation of the above book, the Lord Advocate of Scotland, being in company with a number of _beaux esprits_, after haranguing with great vehemence and nationality on the general talents of Mr. Macpherson, he asserted there was not a man in England had ever the knack of _writing down a character_ more than he had. “I believe it most sincerely,” says a gentleman present; “and I think he has given a very recent proof of it, by _writing down_ one of the _first characters of all antiquity_.”
Dr. Paris, author of the well-known work on Diet, observing many of the miners in Cornwall to be deprived of legs and arms, and otherwise maimed, inquired the cause, and was shocked to learn that these men had been exposed for ages to the greatest dangers, from their using a metal in their excavations, which sometimes struck fire, and exploded the blasts prematurely. He immediately suggested a metal which was equally fitted for their trade, and was not liable to this dreadful objection. The poor men, truly grateful for his kindness, afterwards presented him with a piece of plate; on which was the following singularly apt and happy quotation from Virgil:--
“--------- Manet altâ mente repostum Judicium Paridis, spretæque injuria formæ.”
An English judge, when about to administer the oath to a dyer, observing his hand to be dark, called out, “Take off your glove.” The dyer, whose hand only bore the usual stain of his profession, promptly rejoined, “Put on your spectacles.”
Jack Bannister, praising the hospitality of the Irish, after his return from one of his trips to the sister kingdom, was asked if he had been in Cork. “No,” replied the wit, “but I saw a great many _drawings_ of it.”
When the Earl of Clancarty was captain of a man-of-war, and was cruising off the coast of Guinea, he happened to lose his chaplain, who was carried off by a fever; on which the lieutenant, who was a Scotchman, gave him notice of it, saying at the same time, “that he was sorry to inform him he had died a Roman Catholic.” “Well, so much the better,” said his lordship. “Hout awa, my lord; how can you say so of a British clergyman?” “Why,” said his lordship, “because I believe I am the first captain of a man-of-war that could boast of having a chaplain _who had any religion at all_.”