The lively device upon Mrs. Clarke's seal, which tickled the fancy of the gallant Colonel Mac Mahon, was a worn out Jack Ass, mounted by a Cupid, prodding the sides of the animal with an arrow, and the following motto, Tels sont mes sujets—"Such are my subjects."
Gluttony.—A few days since, a flint-digger, on the new Brighton road, undertook, for a trifling wager, to devour four pounds of beef and a sixpenny loaf, and wash all down with two quarts of beer, within half an hour; and this task he actually completed in ten minutes and three seconds, little more than a third of the time allowed!
During the inquiry into the conduct of the commander in chief, Mr. Wilberforce said, that the courtly rebuke of the duke of York, by the chancellor of the exchequer, reminded him of an anecdote of the reign of Charles the second. When that monarch had been guilty of some gross breach of decorum and decency with a loose woman, which attracted the notice of the clergy, it was resolved to reprove him for his incontinence and public transgression. The body of the clergy came to the bottom of the audience room; one of them, of the name of Douglass, persuaded the others to let him go up singly to his majesty, in order that he might rebuke him with greater asperity. He accordingly walked up to the king, but instead of the expected admonition, gravely, and in a low tone of voice, advised his majesty, when he did such a bad thing again, to be sure and close the shutters!
As the public frequently enjoys a laugh at the expense of an Irish jury, it is but fair to allow a little retaliation in the case of a Yorkshire jury, who at the last assizes brought in a verdict of manslaughter, although the person so slaughtered was alive; and when recommended to reconsider their verdict, they mended it by pronouncing the prisoner not guilty.
The influence of Bacon and Cabbage.
During the administration of Cardinal Richlieu, a set of strolling players at Paris had such success in low farce, that the other companies became jealous, and wished to have them suppressed. They complained to the cardinal. He, fond of every thing dramatic, sent for them to perform before him in the Palais Royal; and the piece they selected shows that the Cardinal could sometimes be amused with one of the coarsest descriptions of life and manners.
Gros Guillaume, or Fat Will, was a principal droll in the exhibition before the Cardinal. Fat Will is represented as thick as he was long, and often by means of a dress with hoops stretched across, formed himself into the figure of a hogshead. In this farce, he was supposed to be the wife of Turlupin, who, jealous of Garguilla, is going to cut off her head; infuriated with this idea, he seizes her by the hair, with a drawn sabre in his hand, while she, upon her knees, conjures him by every thing that is tender to abate his anger.