KILLING THE DEVIL.
A young girl from the country, on a visit to Mr. H——, a Quaker, was prevailed on to accompany him to the meeting. It happened to be a silent one, none of the brethren being moved by the spirit to utter a syllable. When Mr. H. left the meeting-house with his young friend, he asked her, “How dost thou like the meeting?” To which she pettishly replied, “Like it? why, I can see no sense in it; to go and sit for whole hours together without speaking a word,—it is enough to kill the Devil.” “Yes, my dear,” rejoined the Quaker, “that is just what we want.”
THE GREATEST BORE IN LONDON.
When Sir William Curtis returned from his voyage to Italy and Spain, he called to pay his respects to Mr. Canning, at Gloucester Lodge. Among other questions, Sir William said, “But, pray, Mr. Canning, what do you say to the tunnel under the Thames?” “Say,” replied the secretary, “why, I say it will be the greatest bore London ever had, and that is saying a great deal.”
RADCLIFFE OF DERWENTWATER.
It has often been observed, that a habitual sayer of good things will have his joke under whatever circumstances he may be placed. Radcliffe, brother of the unfortunate Earl of Derwentwater, and who was himself executed in 1746, for his concern in the insurrection of 1715, was brought to the bar to receive sentence of death, in company with an old man of Falstaffian dimensions. The judge asking the usual question of this other prisoner, “Plead your belly, plead your belly,” said the grandson of Charles II, with a sly look at that part of his companion’s person.
SHERIDAN UPON REGULARITY, WITH NOTES BY THE EARL OF GUILDFORD.
Just about the time that Mr. Sheridan took his house in Saville Row, he happened to meet Lord Guildford in the street, to whom he mentioned his change of residence, and also announced a change in his habits. “Now, my dear Lord, everything is carried on in my house with the greatest regularity; everything, in short, goes like clockwork.” “Ah!” replied Lord Guildford, “tick, tick, tick, I suppose.”
ANTI-CLIMAX.
Mr. H——, the Professor of Chemistry in the University of Dublin, who was more remarkable for the clearness of the intellect than the purity of his eloquence, adverted in one of his lectures to the celebrated Dr. Boyle, of whose talents he spoke with the highest veneration: he thus concluded his eulogy:—“He was a great man, a very great man; he was the father of chemistry, gentlemen, and brother of the Earl of Cork.”