“Two honest tradesmen, meeting in the Strand,
One took the other briskly by the hand;
‘Hark ye,’ said he, ‘’tis an odd story this,
About the crows!’ ‘I don’t know what it is,’
Replied his friend.—‘No! I’m surprised at that;
Where I come from, it is the common chat.
But you shall hear: an odd affair indeed!
And, that it happen’d, they are all agreed;
Not to detain you from a thing so strange,
A gentleman that lives not far from ’Change,
This week, in short, as all the Alley knows,
Taking a puke, has thrown up three black crows.’
‘Impossible!’ ‘Nay, but it’s really true;
I have it from good hands, and so may you.’
‘From whose, I pray?’ So having nam’d the man,
Straight to enquire his curious comrade ran.
‘Sir, did you tell?’—relating the affair.
‘Yes, sir, I did; and if it’s worth your care,
Ask Mr. Such-a-one, he told it me,—
But, by-the-bye, ’twas two black crows, not three.’
Resolv’d to trace so wondrous an event,
Whip, to the third, the virtuoso went.
‘Sir,’—and so forth. ‘Why, yes; the thing is fact,
Though in regard to number not exact;
It was not two black crows, but only one;
The truth of that you may depend upon.
The gentleman himself told me the case.’—
‘Where may I find him?’—‘Why, in such a place.’
Away goes he, and having found him out,
‘Sir, be so good as to resolve a doubt;’
Then to his last informant he referr’d,
And begg’d to know, if true what he had heard,
‘Did you, sir, throw up a black crow?’—‘Not I.’
‘Bless me! how people propagate a lie!
Black crows have been thrown up, three, two, and one:
And here, I find, all comes, at last, to none!
Did you say nothing of a crow at all?’
‘Crow—Crow—perhaps I might, now I recall
The matter over.’—‘And, pray, sir, what was’t?’
‘Why I was horrid sick, and, at the last,
I did throw up, and told my neighbour so,
Something that was—as black, sir, as a crow.’”
An Englishman and a Yankee were once talking about the speed at which the trains travelled in their respective countries. The Englishman spoke of the “Flying Dutchman” travelling sixty miles an hour.
“We beat that hollow,” said the Yankee. “Our trains on some lines travel so fast that they outgo the sound of the whistle which warns of their coming, and reach the station first.”
Of course the “Britisher” gave the palm to his American cousin, and said no more about English locomotive travelling.
Hyberbolism is a fault too much cultivated and practised among the “young ladies” of our schools and homes. They think it an elegant mode of speaking, and seem to rival each other as to which shall best succeed. An ordinary painting of one of their friends is “an exquisitely fine piece of workmanship, and really Reynolds himself could scarcely exceed it.” And that bouquet of wax flowers on the side-board “are not surpassed by the products of nature herself.” That young man lately seen in company at the house of Mrs. Hood “is one of the handsomest young gentlemen that I ever beheld; indeed, Miss Spencer, I never saw any one to equal him in reality or in picture.” To tell the truth, courteous reader, this said “young gentleman” was scarcely up to an ordinary exhibition of that sex and age of humanity; but this young lady, for some reason or other, could not help speaking of him as the “highest style of man.”
Our children are even found indulging in this exaggerated mode of speech, as the following may illustrate:—
“Oh, mother,” said Annie, as she threw herself into a chair, on her return from a walk, “I cannot stir another step.”
“Why, Annie,” answered her mother, “I thought your walk was pleasant, and not tiring at all.”
“It was such a long one,” said Annie; “I thought we should never have got home again. I would not walk it again for all the world.”
“But did you not enjoy the walk in the fields, Annie?”