NORBURYANA[21];
CONTAINING
A RICH SELECTION OF LORD NORBURY'S
BEST PUNS,
Pure as Imported.

The counsel archly crack their joke
On every word the witness spoke;
The Jury, laughing, like the fun,
And Norbury sums up with a Pun.

[21] Many of these whims have never before appeared in print.

A good Pun has, from time immemorial, been quite as admissible in our courts of law, as a good plea; and not unusually has proved successful with the feelings of a jury, when the latter, left entirely to the more weighty arguments of precedents and rejoinder, would only have produced a temporary suspension of the understanding. Lord Norbury's talent as a punster is proverbial, and his wit upon all occasions as clear as his judgments are sound: scarcely a packet of Irish papers arrive in the sister kingdom, but the first inquiry of the humourist is after the last good thing of the Chief Justice's; and, if he fails to encounter a new pun, he retreats homewards like a city sportsman, without game for the morrow; for pun-less, he is quite as miserable as if he was penny-less; and if he cannot crack a new joke at the club, he is like to go cracked himself with vexation in consequence.

It is one of the evils attending eminence in any art, that many loose performances will be attributed to genius, for the sake of notoriety, which would cause a blush upon the cheek of the talented individual under whose cognomen they are surreptitiously launched forth into public life. Every new pun, made by the Emeralders, whether invented in the Four Courts of Dublin, or at the midnight orgies held in the broad and narrow Courts of London, at the Fives Court or the Tennis Court, the King's Court, or the Courts of law and equity, are all heaped upon the great original, Lord Norbury; who has, in consequence, as many sins of this sort to bear with, as any criminal that ever appeared before his legal tribunal. In selecting from an accredited stock, the compiler of this little book has endeavoured to affix to the Noble Punster, only, the legitimate offspring of his own creation; or at least such, if any one has stolen in, as may not disgrace his witty family.

LORD NORBURY'S MOTTO

Is, "Right can never die;" then, said his lordship, punning thereon, "right must be left for ever."