“Il n’a pas fait une Sottise,
En epousant Marie-Louise.”
Napoleon no sooner read the inscription, than he inquired for the burgomaster, and addressed him thus: “So, M. le Maire, they cultivate the French muses in Holland?”—“Sire,” answered the burgomaster, “I write a few verses.”—“Ah! you are the author, then,” said the emperor: “here, do you take snuff? (presenting a snuff-box surrounded with diamonds) take this, and
Quand vous y prenez une prise,
Rappelez vous de Marie-Louise.”
Catching Rabbits. Bacon says, “A company of scholars going to catch conies, carried one with them, which had not much wit, and gave in charge that if he saw any, he should be silent, for fear of scaring them; but he no sooner espied a company of rabbits than he cried aloud ‘Ecce multi cuniculi;’ which he had no sooner said, but the conies ran to their burrows; and he being checked by them for it, answered, ‘Who would have thought that the rabbits understood Latin?’”
Down to the reign of “Old Queen Bess,” the greater part of the houses in fashionable London had no chimneys. The fire was kindled against the wall, and the smoke found its way out in the best manner that it could, at the windows, or at the door; but generally “reclined in blackness” in the room.