Some years ago a candidate for a Welsh burgh told his constituents, that if they would elect him he should take care they should have any kind of weather they liked best. This was a tempting offer, and they could not resist choosing a man, who, to use their own language, “was more of a Cot Almighty than Sir Watkin himself.” Soon after the election, one of his constituents waited upon him, and requested some rain. “Well, my good friend, and what do you want with rain? won’t it spoil your hay?” “Why, it will be very serviceable to the wheat, and as to my hay, I have just got it in.” “But has your neighbour got his in? I should suppose rain would do him some mischief.” “Why, ay,” replied the votary, “rain would do him harm indeed.” “Ay, now you see how it is, my dear friend! I have promised to get you any kind of weather you like; but if I give you rain, I must disoblige him: so your best way will be, I think, to meet together all of you, and agree on the weather that will be best for you all,—and you may depend upon having it.”
PROFESSIONAL BLINDNESS.
Sir Joshua Reynolds studied originally under Hudson, an English portrait painter, who bestowed very liberally on his customers fair tie wigs, blue velvet coats, and white satin waistcoats. He afterwards went to Italy, where he studied three years. On his return, he hired a large house in Newport Street, and the first specimen he gave of his abilities was a boy’s head in a turban, richly painted in the style of Rembrandt, which so attracted Hudson’s attention, that he called every day to see it in its progress, and perceiving, at last, no trace of his own manner left, he exclaimed, “Really, Reynolds, you don’t paint so well as when you left England.”
COUNSELLOR DUNNING.
Counsellor Dunning was cross-examining an old woman, who was an evidence in a case of assault, respecting the identity of the defendant. “Was he a tall man?” says he. “Not very tall; much about the size of your honour.” “Was he well-looked?” “Not very; much like your honour.” “Did he squint?” “A little; but not so much as your honour.”
GEORGE I.
King George I. was remarkably fond of seeing the play of Henry VIII., which had something in it that peculiarly hit the taste of that monarch. One night being very attentive to that part of the play where the King commands Wolsely to write circular letters of indemnity into every part of the country, where the payment of certain taxes had been disputed, and remarking the manner in which the minister artfully communicated these commands to his secretary Cromwell, whispering thus:—
“Let there be letters writ to every shire
Of the king’s grace and pardon: the grieved Commons