“And, pray, What News, Mr. Neverout?” “Why, Madam, Queen Elizabeth’s dead.” (It would be interesting to discover at exactly what date Queen Anne took the place of Queen Elizabeth in this grand old repartee, or who was the monarch referred to when the Virgin Queen was still alive. Aspirants to the degree of B. or D.Litt. might do worse than to take this problem as a subject for their thesis.)
Some of the choicest phrases have come down in the world since Mr. Wagstaff’s day. Thus, Miss Notable’s retort to Mr. Neverout, “Go, teach your Grannam to suck Eggs,” could only be heard now in the dormitory of a preparatory school. Others have become slightly modified. Mr. Neverout says, “Well, all Things have an End, and a pudden has two.” I think we may flatter ourselves that the modern emendation, “except a roly-poly pudding, which has two,” is an improvement.
Mr. Wagstaff’s second dialogue, wherein he treats of Polite Conversation at meals, contains more phrases that testify to the unbroken continuity of tradition than either of the others. The conversation that centres on the sirloin of beef is worthy to be recorded in its entirety:
Lady Smart. Come, Colonel, handle your Arms. Shall I help you to some Beef?
Colonel. If your Ladyship please; and, pray, don’t cut like a Mother-in-law, but send me a large Slice; for I love to lay a good Foundation. I vow, ’tis a noble Sir-loyn.
Neverout. Ay; here’s cut and come again.
Miss. But, pray; why is it call’d a Sir-loyn?
Lord Smart. Why, you must know that our King James the First, who lov’d good Eating, being invited to Dinner by one of his Nobles, and seeing a large Loyn of Beef at his Table, he drew out his Sword, and, in a Frolic, knighted it. Few people know the Secret of this.
How delightful it is to find that we have Mr. Wagstaff’s warrant for such gems of wisdom as, “Cheese digests everything except itself,” and “If you eat till you’re cold, you’ll live to grow old”! If they were a hundred years old in his day they are fully three hundred now. Long may they survive! I was sorry, however, to notice that one of the best of Mr. Wagstaff’s phrases has been, in the revolution of time, completely lost. Indeed, before I had read Aubrey’s “Lives,” Lord Sparkish’s remark, “Come, box it about; ’twill come to my Father at last,” was quite incomprehensible to me. The phrase is taken from a story of Sir Walter Raleigh and his son.
Sir Walter Raleigh [says Aubrey] being invited to dinner to some great person where his son was to goe with him, he sayd to his son, “Thou art expected to-day at dinner to goe along with me, but thou art so quarrelsome and affronting that I am ashamed to have such a beare in my company.” Mr. Walter humbled himselfe to his father and promised he would behave himselfe mighty mannerly. So away they went. He sate next to his father and was very demure at least halfe dinner time. Then sayd he, “I this morning, not having the feare of God before my eies, but by the instigation of the devill, went....”