a reflection upon the poet's political inconstancy, that called forth a quid pro quo from one of Southey's admirers, who thought a man had as much right to change his opinions as to alter his style:
Put his first work and last work together,
And learn from the groans of all men,
That if he has not altered his feather,
He's certainly altered his pen.
Seeing that men of all sorts delight in girding at the professors of law and physic, it is strange that instead of making common cause together, lawyers and doctors rather cherish a mutual antipathy, which finds vent in an amusing interchange of asperities. Cross-examining Dr Warren, a New York counsel declared that a doctor ought to be able to give an opinion of a disease without making mistakes.
'They make fewer mistakes than the lawyers,' responded the physician.
'That's not so,' said the counsellor; 'but doctors' mistakes are buried six feet under ground; a lawyer's are not.'
'No,' replied Warren; 'but they are sometimes hung as many feet above ground.' The advantage was with the doctor.
It was on the other side when, disputing as to the comparative merits of their professions, Sir Henry Holland said to Bobus Smith, ex-advocate-general: 'You must admit that your profession does not make angels of men?' and the lawyer replied: 'There you have the best of it; yours certainly gives them the best chance.'
Said a pompous man of money to Professor Agassiz: 'I once took some interest in natural science; but I became a banker, and I am what I am!' 'Ah!' replied Agassiz, 'my father procured a place for me in a bank; but I begged for one more year of study, then for a second, then for a third. That fixed my fate, sir. If it had not been for that little firmness of mine, I should now have been myself nothing but a banker.'
The money-dealer must have felt as small as the American judge who, finding his enforced bed-fellow by no means overwhelmed by the company of a person of his dignity, observed: 'Pat, you would have remained a long time in the old country before you could say you had slept with a judge.' 'True for you,' said Pat; 'and yer Honour would have been a long time in the ould counthry, I'm thinking, before ye'd been a judge!'
Joseph Hume, the economical reformer, having occasion to visit Brussels when Sir Robert Adair was our representative there, mindful of the minister's repute as a host, lost no time in leaving his name at the legation. Remembering Hume's constant attempts to cut down official salaries, Sir Robert was inclined to ignore the hint; but taking second thought, invited the troublesome economist to dine with him. Hume put his legs under the ambassador's mahogany in the expectation of tasting the choicest viands and the most exquisite wines, but had to content himself with poor soup and poorer sherry, roast mutton and light Bordeaux, a chicken and a salad; supplemented with Adair's apologetical observation when the banquet was over: 'You see, sir, what these confounded Radicals have brought us to with their reductions. By-and-by, I daresay we shall come to prison diet, with pudding perhaps on Sundays.'