Queen Elizabeth was naturally dilatory enough in suits, and the Lord Treasurer Burleigh, being a wise man, and willing therein to feed her humour, would say to her, “Madam, you do well to let visitors stay; for, you know, bis dat qui cito dat: if you grant them speedily, they will come again the sooner.”
WISE PRECAUTION.
Captain Robert Bacon, revelling at Sir William Paston’s, had his sack served him in a curious Venice glass, very much under the size he used to trade in. So, after a long contemplation of his measure, “Sir William,” said he, “If you value this glass, as I believe you do, tie a good long string to it, to draw it up again; for I am sure I shall swallow it some time or other.”
YOUNG PRIVY-COUNSELLORS.
In the time of James the First, when privy-counsellors multiplied very fast, and were sometimes admitted at a very green age, some one remarked one day that the table would be soon too little to hold them. “Why,” said another, “some must just do like other children, then, and sit on the joint stools without.”
WINKING AT NEGLECT.
As a regiment of soldiers were marching through a country town, the captain (a strict disciplinarian) observed that one of the drums did not beat, and ordered a lieutenant to inquire the reason. The fellow, on being interrogated, whispered to the lieutenant, “I have two ducks and a turkey in my drum, and the turkey is for his honour:” which, being whispered to the captain, “D—n the fellow,” cried the captain, “why did he not say he was lame? I don’t want men to do their duty when they’re not able.”
TRAVELLING POST.
A traveller speaking of the many countries and cities he had seen, one of the company asked him if he had ever been in Cosmography? He, taking it for the name of a city, said, “We saw it at a distance; but, as we went post, we could not visit it.”