MCCXXXIV.—WELL SAID.
A gentleman, speaking of the happiness of the married state before his daughter, disparagingly said, "She who marries, does well; but she who does not marry, does better."—"Well then," said the young lady, "I will do well; let those who choose do better."
MCCXXXV.—SLEEPING AT CHURCH.
Dr. South, when once preaching before Charles II., observed that the monarch and his attendants began to nod, and some of them soon after snored, on which he broke off in his sermon, and said: "Lord Lauderdale, let me entreat you to rouse yourself; you snore so loud that you will awake the king!"
MCCXXXVI.—SHERIDAN CONVIVIAL.
Lord Byron notes: "What a wreck is Sheridan! and all from bad pilotage; for no one had ever better gales, though now and then a little squally. Poor dear Sherry! I shall never forget the day he, and Rogers, and Moore, and I passed together, when he talked and we listened, without one yawn, from six to one in the morning."
One night, Sheridan was found in the street by a watchman, bereft of that "divine particle of air" called reason, and fuddled, and bewildered, and almost insensible. The watchman asked, "Who are you, sir?" No answer. "What's your name?" A hiccup. "What's your name?" Answer, in a slow, deliberate, and impassive tone, "Wilberforce!" Byron notes: "Is not that Sherry all over?—and, to my mind, excellent. Poor fellow! his very dregs are better than the first sprightly runnings of others."
MCCXXXVII.—THE WORST OF TWO EVILS.
Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, in King Charles II.'s time, was saying one day to Sir Robert Viner, in a melancholy humor: "I am afraid, Sir Robert, I shall die a beggar at last, which is the most terrible thing in the world."—"Upon my word, my lord," said Sir Robert, "there is another thing more terrible which you have to apprehend, and that is that you will live a beggar, at the rate you go on."