OLD JOKES.
Every man ought to read the jest-books, that he may not make himself disagreeable by repeating "old Joes" as the very last good things. One book of this class is little more than the copy of another as to the points, with a change of the persons; and the same joke, slightly varied, appears in as many different countries as the same fairy-tale. Seven years ago I found at Prague the "Joe" of the Irishman saying that there were a hundred judges on the bench, because there was one with two cyphers. The valet-de-place told me that when the Emperor and Metternich were together they were called "the council of ten," because they were eins und zero.
It is interesting to trace a joke back, of which process I send an example. In the very clever version of the Chancellor of Oxford's speech on introducing the new doctors (Punch, No. 622.) are these lines:
"En Henleium! en Stanleium! Hic eminens prosator:
Ille, filius pulchro patre, hercle pulchrior orator;
Demosthenes in herbâ, sed in ore retinens illos
Quos, antequam peroravit, Græcus respuit lapillos."
Ebenezer Grubb, in his description of the opposition in 1814, thus notices Mr. F. Douglas:
"He is a forward and frequent speaker; remarkable for a graceful inclination of the upper part of his body in advance of the lower, and speaketh, I suspect (after the manner of an ancient), with pebbles in his mouth."—New Whig Guide, 1819, p. 47.
In Foote's Patron, Sir Roger Dowlas, an East India proprietor, who has sought instruction in oratory from Sir Thomas Lofty, is introduced to the conversazione:—
"Sir Thomas. Sir Roger, be seated. This gentleman has, in common with the greatest orator the world ever saw, a small natural infirmity; he stutters a little: but I have prescribed the same remedy that Demosthenes used, and don't despair of a radical cure. Well, sir, have you digested those general rules?
Sir Roger. Pr-ett-y well, I am obli-g'd to you, Sir Th-omas.
Sir Thomas. Did you open at the last general court?
Sir Roger. I att-empt-ed fo-ur or five times.
Sir Thomas. What hindered your progress?
Sir Roger. The pe-b-bles.
Sir Thomas. Oh, the pebbles in his mouth: but they are only put in to practise in private: you should take them out when you are addressing the public."
I cannot trace the joke farther, but as Foote, though so rich in wit, was a great borrower, it might not be new in 1764.
H. B. C.
Garrick Club.