SHERIDAN AND DIGNUM.
On the 5th of December, 1803, Mr. Reynolds, the prolific dramatist, produced a musical afterpiece at Drury-Lane, entitled, “The Caravan; or, the Driver and his Dog.” There was some pretty music in it, composed by Reed, and it had a very great run, and brought much money to the treasury. The chief attraction of the piece was a dog called Carlo. “One day, Mr. Sheridan having dined with me,” says Kelly in his Memoirs, “we went to see the performance of this wonderful dog; as we entered the green-room, Dignum (who played in the piece) said, ‘Sir, there is no guarding against illness; it is truly lamentable to stop the run of a successful piece like this—’ ‘Really! what?’ cried Sheridan, interrupting him. ‘I am so unwell!’ continued Dignum, ‘that I cannot go on longer than to-night.’ ‘You!’ exclaimed Sheridan, ‘my good fellow, you terrified me; I thought you were going to say that the dog was taken ill.’”
SODORIFIC AND SOPORIFIC.
A medical practitioner, who occasionally jests with his patients, being visited by one who was hypochondriac, and fancied himself ill of a fever, he gave the following prescription:—“Recipe—A washerwoman.” On being asked the reason for this curious order, he replied, “He knew nothing better for the cure of such fevers than medicine at once sud-orific and soap-orific.”
LAUGHABLE MISPRINT.
In the newspaper account of an inquest held on the body of a glutton, who died by devouring part of a goose, the verdict suffocation was misprinted stuffocation.
SHERIDAN AND LORD THURLOW.
Sheridan was dining with the black-browed Chancellor, when he produced some admirable Constantia, which had been sent him from the Cape of Good Hope. The wine tickled the palate of Sheridan, who saw the bottle emptied with uncommon regret, and set his wits to work to get another. The old chancellor was not to be so easily induced to produce his curious Cape in such profusion, and foiled all Sheridan’s attempts to get another glass. Sheridan being piqued, and seeing the inutility of persecuting the immoveable pillar of the law, turned towards a gentleman sitting farther down, and said, “Sir, pass me up that decanter, for I must return to Madeira since I cannot double the Cape.”
RIVAL SHOEMAKERS.
Two rival shoemakers, who lived directly opposite to each other, in one of the streets near the west end of London, and whose opposition was not in situation alone, but in every matter connected with business, carried on for a long time a war of advertisements and placards, till at last, one of them, to signify the purity of his style of doing business, got his doorway adorned with the classic sentence, “Mens conscia recti.” This the other conceived to be an advertisement of something in the line of business; and, as he was a lady’s shoemaker also, he got his door ornamented with the following improved reading of the apothegm,—“Men’s and Women’s conscia recti.”