A BUNDLE OF DEFINITIONS.
The Seat of Pain.—A seat in the front row of the dress circle of the Adelphi Theatre, judging from first impressions, which they say last the longest, is decidedly the Seat of Pain.
A pew in a fashionable church is a religious ordinary, held every Sunday, price one shilling!
The weathercock, after all, points to the highest moral truth, for it shows man that it is a vane thing to a-spire.
The Horse Guards are the Bright Pokers of the army. They are kept up exclusively for show, most highly polished, but never intended to go into the thick of the fire.
Sons treat their governors like oysters: they never cease "sticking" them till they have made them "shell out."
The Press of England and the Press of France are both noted for their convictions—but the first are moral convictions, and the second legal ones.
Abd-el-Kader and a Turkey carpet are very much alike. They never come out so strongly, their designs are never so apparent, and their colours never have so much effect, as after a thorough good beating.
The Albert Hat is one of those things very much better described than felt.
Many ideas are exceedingly pretty, which, when inquired into, are found, like a necklace of birds' eggs, to hang upon the slightest thread, and to have absolutely nothing in them. Some authors evidently look upon ideas as children do upon birds' eggs—public property which there is no harm in stealing. They string them, too, very much in the same strain—drawing everything they can out of them, and decorating themselves afterwards with the empty shells.
Agricultural Sports.—About Autumn catch your prize labourer, and joke him at your annual Show; put him on a platform, and make good quiet fun of his having brought up sixteen children on five shillings a week for twenty years. Compliment him most highly on his sobriety and all the cardinal virtues, and give him a good-natured dig about his little potato ground. Give him a glass of wine and five shillings; and when you are tired of the absurdity, tell him to sit down, and call up your fattest pig and bull, and sustain the rollick of the day's amusements by awarding them premiums of 10l. and 15l. each. This is capital sport, and gentlefolks come far and near to see it, only we doubt if the poor labourer sees exactly the fun of it.
Truefitt on Shakspeare.—An aspiring hairdresser, who has been to see Romeo and Juliet, wishes to be informed whether the "parting" which the lady describes to be "such sweet sorrow" was in the middle, or only on one side? We are really unable to say with any certainty; but the faults of lovers, which often lead to a parting, are generally on both sides.
Portrait of Jim Crow, after Herbert.