47. Several years ago, when Mrs. Rogers the player was young and handsome, Lord North and Grey, remarkable for his homely face, accosting her one night behind the scenes, asked her with a sigh, what was a cure for love? Your Lordship, said she; the best I know in the world.
48. Colonel ——, who made the fine fireworks in St. James’s Square, upon the peace of Ryswick, being in company with some ladies, was highly commending the epitaph just then set up in the Abbey on Mr. Purcell’s monument—“He is gone to that place where only his own harmony can be exceeded.” Well, Colonel, said one of the ladies, the same epitaph might serve for you, by altering one word only: “He is gone to that place where only his own fireworks can be exceeded?”
49. Sir B—ch—r W—y, in the beginning of Queen Anne’s reign, and three or four more drunken tories, reeling home from the Fountain Tavern in the Strand, on a Sunday morning, cried out, We are the pillars of the church. No, said a whig, that happened to be in their company, you can be but the buttresses, for you never come on the inside of it.
50. After the fire of London, there was an act of parliament to regulate the buildings of the city; every house was to be three stories high. A Gloucestershire gentleman, a man of great wit and humour, just after this act passed, going along the street, and seeing a little crooked gentlewoman on the other side of the way, ran over to her in great haste; Lord, madam, said he, how dare you to walk the streets thus publicly? Walk the streets! and why not? answered the little woman. Because, said he, you are built directly contrary to act of parliament: you are but two stories high.
51. One Mr. Topham was so very tall and large, that if he was living now, he might be shewn at Yeate’s theatre for a sight. This gentleman going one day to inquire for a countryman a little way out of town, when he came to the house, he looked in at a little window over the door, and asked the woman, who sat by the fire, if her husband was at home? No, Sir, said she, but if you please to alight, and come in, I’ll go and call him.
52. The same gentleman walking across Covent Garden, was asked by a beggar-woman for a halfpenny, or farthing; but finding he would not part with his money, she begged he would give her one of his old shoes. He was very desirous to know what she could do with one shoe. To make my child a cradle, sir, said she.
53. King Charles II. having ordered a new suit of clothes to be made, just at a time when addresses were coming up to him from all parts of the kingdom, Tom Killigrew went to the tailor, and ordered him to make a very large pocket on one side of the coat, and one so small on the other, that the king could hardly get his hand into it; which seeming very odd, when they were brought home, he asked the meaning of it; the tailor said, Mr. Killigrew ordered it so. Killigrew being sent for, and interrogated, said, One pocket was for the addresses of his majesty’s subjects, the other for the money they would give him.
54. My Lord B—— had married three wives, who were all his servants; a beggar-woman meeting him one day in the street, made him a very low curtesy. Ah, bless your lordship, said she, and send you a long life; if you do but live long enough, we shall all be ladies in time.
55. Dr. Sadler, who was a very fat man, happening to go thump, thump, through a street in Oxford, where the paviours were at work, in the midst of July, the fellows immediately laid down their rammers. Ah, bless you, master, said one of them, it was very kind of you to come this way; it saves us a great deal of trouble this hot weather.