Lessing was remarkable for a frequent absence of mind. Having missed money at different times, without being able to discover who took it, he determined to put the honesty of his servant to a trial, and left a handful of gold on the table. "Of course you counted it?" said one of his friends. "Count it!" said Leasing, rather embarrassed; "no, I forgot that."
At a public sale, there was a book which Lessing was very desirous of possessing. He gave three of his friends at different times a commission to buy it at any price. They accordingly bid against each other till they had got as far as ninety crowns, there having been no other bidder after it had reached ten crowns. Happily one of them thought it best to speak to the others; when it appeared they had all been bidding for Lessing, whose forgetfulness in this instance cost him eighty crowns.
Edinburgh.—In a debate upon some projected improvement of the streets of Edinburgh, the Dean of Faculty wittily said that the forwardness of the clergy, and the backwardness of the medical faculty, had spoiled the finest street in Europe, alluding to the projection of the colonnade of St. Andrew's church and the recession of the Medical Hall in George's-street.
Maclaurin.—This celebrated Professor of Mathematics in Edinburgh College, and the able expounder of Newton's Principia, always dislocated his jaw, and was unable to shut his mouth, when he yawned. At the same time his instinct of imitation was so strong, that he could not resist yawning when he witnessed that act in others. His pupils were not slow in discovering, and taking advantage of this physical weakness. When tired of his lecture, they either began to yawn, or open their mouths in imitation of that act, and the prelection was interrupted. The Professor stood before them with his mouth wide open, and could not proceed till he rang for his servant to come and shut it. In the meantime the mischievous disciples of Euclid had effected their escape.
William III. and St. Evremond.—William was so little of a man of letters, that on the celebrated French writer, St. Evremond, being presented to him at St. James's, his majesty had nothing more àpropos to say than this, "You are, I believe, sir, a major-general in your master's service."
Music and Politics.—Dr. Wise, the musician, being requested to subscribe his name to a petition against an expected prorogation of Parliament in the reign of Charles II., wittily answered, "No, gentlemen, it is not my business to meddle with state affairs; but I'll set a tune to it, if you like."
Sion College.—Upon the recovery of George III. in 1789, the librarian and others connected with Sion College were at a loss what device or motto to select for the illumination of the building; when the following happy choice was made by a worthy divine, from the book of Psalms; "Sion heard of it and was glad."
Dean Swift having preached an assize sermon in Ireland, was invited to dine with the judges; and having in his sermon considered the use and abuse of the law, he pressed somewhat hard upon those counsellors, who plead causes, which they knew in their consciences to be wrong. When dinner was over, and the glass began to go round, a young barrister retorted upon the dean; and after several altercations, the counsellor asked him, "If the devil was to die, whether a parson might not be found, who, for money, would preach his funeral?" "Yes," said Swift, "I would gladly be the man, and I would then give the devil his due, as I have this day done his children."
Swift disliked nothing so much as being troubled with applications from authors to correct their works. A poor poet having written a very indifferent tragedy, got himself introduced to the dean in order to have his opinion of it; and in about a fortnight after, called at the deanery. Swift returned the play, carefully folded up, telling him he had read it, and taken some pains with it, and he believed the author would not find above half the number of faults that it had when it came into his hands. The poor author, after a thousand acknowledgments, retired in company with the gentleman who had introduced him, and was so impatient to see the corrections, that he stopped under the first gateway they came to, when to his utter astonishment and confusion, he saw that the dean had taken the pains to blot out every second line throughout the whole play, so carefully as to render them quite illegible.
Lady Carteret, wife of the Lord Lieutenant, said to Swift one day, "The air of Ireland is excellent and healthy." "For God's sake, madam," said Swift, falling down before her, "don't say so in England, for if you do they will tax it."