The Reverend Sydney Smith, on the bare suggestion that Lord John Russell's Church Commission should collect the Church revenues, and pay the hierarchy out of them, imagined and described the scene of payment in the following irresistible words:—"I should like to see this subject in the hands of H. B. I would entitle the print,—
"The Bishops' Saturday Night; or,
Lord John Russell at the
Pay-Table."
"The Bishops should be standing before the pay-table, and receiving their weekly allowance; Lord John and Spring Rice counting, ringing, and biting the sovereigns, and the Bishop of Exeter insisting that the Chancellor of the Exchequer has given him one which was not weight. Viscount Melbourne, in high chuckle, should be standing with his hat on, and his back to the fire, delighted with the contest; and the Deans and Canons should be in the background waiting till their turn came, and the Bishops were paid; and among them a Canon of large composition, urging them not to give way too much to the Bench. Perhaps I should add the President of the Board of Trade, recommending the truck principle to the Bishops, and offering to pay them in hassocks, cassocks, aprons, shovel-hats, sermon-cases, and such like ecclesiastical gear."
["Rather Than Otherwise."]
Theodore Hook gives somewhere a finished trait of one of those characters who are so dreadfully tenacious of truth, that they will not risk losing their hold of it by a direct answer to the simplest question. A gentleman who was very much in debt had a servant with this sort of scrupulous conscientiousness. He was horribly dunned and in such daily danger of arrest, that the sight of a red waistcoat (which the myrmidons of the sheriff wore in the last century) threw him into a sort of scarlet fever. One day he had reason to believe that during his absence an unpleasant visitor of that description had called, and on returning, he was very particular in his inquiries respecting the persons who had been at the house. His cautious servant partly described one calling who excited his alarm. "What kind of man was he?" The girl could not say. "Had he any papers in his hand?" She did not observe. "Did he wear top-boots?" The cautious housemaid could not charge her memory. At last, as a final effort to satisfy his curiosity, the tantalized debtor gasped out a final question, "Had he," he asked almost dreading the answer, "a red waistcoat?" The girl stood for a moment in an attitude of profound cogitation, and after she had worked up her master to the highest pitch of impatience by delay, drawled out, "Well, sir, I think he had—rather than otherwise."
[Classic Soup Distribution.]
While the Relief Act was in operation in Ireland, in time of famine, one of the committees received the following answer to an advertisement for the post of clerk:—
"Qui Bavium non odit, amet tua carmina, Mævi."
Virg. Ecl. iii., 90.
"Ego sum—I am
Parvus homo—A little man,
Aptus vivere—Fit to live
In quod dabis—On what you'll give;
Per totam diem—And, the whole day,
Familiariter—'In the family way.'
Distribuere—Out to deal
Farinam Indicam—Indian meal,
Aut jus Soyerum—Or Soyer's soup,
Multo agmini—To many a troup,
Mulierum et hominum—Of woman and man
Stanneo vase—With a tin can.
Hoc tibi mitto—I send this in,
(Ne peccatum—No Murtherin' sin,)
Nam locum quæro—For a place I seek,
Ut quaque hebdomada—That every week
Fruar et potiar—We may 'hob and nob'
Quindecem 'Robertullis'—On Fifteen 'Bob.'"