MATRIMONY.
Bishop Andrews, the favourite preacher of King James the First, in his sermon on matrimony, says that ten woman are driven to the altar for one that is led to it.
THE MISER.
An old miser, who had a footman that had a good appetite, and ate fast, but was slow when sent on a message, used to wish that his servant would eat with his feet and walk with his teeth.
A WINDOW IN THE BELLY.
“I wish,” said Rigby to Charles Fox, “that you would stand out of my light, or that you had a window in that great belly of yours.” “What,” said Charles, “that you might lay an additional tax upon it, I suppose.”
INGENIOUS REASON.
The Welsh formerly drank their ale, mead, or metheglin out of earthen vessels, glazed and painted within and without, with dainty devices. A farmer in the principality, who had a curious quart mug, with an angel painted at the bottom on the inside, found that a neighbour who very frequently visited him, and with the customary hospitality, had the first draught, always gave so hearty a swig as to leave little for the rest of the party. This our farmer three or four times remonstrated against as unfair; but was always answered,—“Hur does so love to look at that pretty angel, that hur always drinks till hur con see its face.” The farmer, on this, set aside his angel cup, and, at the the next Shrewsbury fair, bought one with a figure of the devil painted at bottom. This being produced, foaming with ale, to his guest, he made but one draught, and handed it to the next man quite empty. Being asked his reason, as he could not now wish to look at the angel, he replied,—“No, but hur cannot bear to leave that ugly devil a drop.”
A DIRTY WITNESS.
A German gentleman, in the course of a strict cross-examination on a trial during the Oxford Circuit, was asked to state the exact age of the defendant. “Dirty” (thirty), was the reply. “And pray, sir, are you his senior, and how many years?” “Why, sir, I am dirty-two.”