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 MDCCCXCni
 
 IV 
 
 52./ rr'.^'^Y 
 
 sc 
 
 UMYEnCli i O^ CALIFORM 
 SANTA BARBARA 
 
 " Wit makes its cnvn welcome, and le-z<eh all dis- 
 iitictions." — Emerson. 
 
 ^'■Blockheads, luith reason, ivicked ivits abhor." — 
 
 " The rays of wit gild tuheresoe er they strike.'' — 
 Stillingworth. 
 
 " Often it consisteth in one knows not zuhat, and 
 spritigeth ttp one can hardly tell how" — Barrow. 
 
 " Not invain hath he lived, -uhose beneficent mirth 
 Hath lightened the fro7vns and the furrows of 
 earth.'' — 
 
 " While we're quaffing. 
 Let's have laughing — 
 Who the devil cares for more i " — 
 
 • I\Ian cotdd direct his ivay by plain reason, and 
 support life by tasteless food ; but God has given him 
 wit and flavo7ir, laughter and perfume, to enliven 
 the days of mans pilgrimage, and to charm his 
 pained steps over the burning marl."—S\OiiEV 
 Smith.
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 SYDNEY SMITH. 
 
 " T^HEN Philip of Macedon was king," says 
 Dr Doran, ' ' there was a club of wits in 
 Athens which met once a week — not in a tavern, 
 but in the temple of Hercules. They had such 
 a favourable opinion of their own powers, that 
 they chronicled all their own jokes ; and kings 
 sent to borrow the book — The Book of the Sixty." 
 In after years, any Athenian telling a "good 
 story " was in danger of hearing that it was 
 " one of the Sixty," even as, to-day, in similar 
 circumstances, we are ready to cry "Joe Miller" 
 or, less politely, "chestnuts." And so it is that 
 when a good story, a witty retort, a bon-mot is 
 to be repeated, it is put down to the reigning 
 wit. How many stories, for example, are 
 credited indiscriminately to Sydney Smith, 
 Sheridan, Douglas Jerrold, Theodore Hook, 
 Samuel Foote, and others. Absolute certainty
 
 8 Introduction. 
 
 as to the paternity of an oft-repeated joke is 
 frequently out of the question. What I have 
 done in these volumes is, by gathering the mots 
 from contemporary lives, diaries, memoirs, 
 autobiographies et hoc genus omne, to get as 
 near as may be to correctness. 
 
 The sayings of Sydney Smith — a wit, like the 
 Sixty, of the temple, not of the tavern — as will 
 be seen in the following pages, are of various 
 kinds, from the lightning flashes of wit, to 
 wild, rollicking, uproarious humour. As Tom 
 Moore said of him in his Diary : "He never 
 minds what nonsense he talks, which is one 
 of the great reasons of his saying so much 
 that is comical." Another entry in the same 
 Diary reads: "Sydney at dinner and after 
 in full force ; sometimes high comedy, some- 
 times farce ; both perfect in their way. Sydney 
 most rampantly facetious." Often the 7?tot that 
 flashed out in conversation was afterwards em- 
 ployed in his writings : as Moncton Milnes (Lord 
 Houghton) put it: "Smith always exercises 
 his jokes in society before he runs them upon 
 paper. " Lord Lansdowne excellently described 
 Sydney Smith as " a mixture of Punch and 
 Cato." Landor addressed him as " Humour's 
 pink primate, Sydney Smith." In ihe A'octes, 
 too, he is described as "a rare genius of the gro- 
 tesque, with his quips and cranks a formidable 
 enemy to pomposity and pretension. No man 
 can wear a big wig comfortably in his presence. "
 
 Introduction. 9 
 
 Indeed what Smith's contemporaries have 
 written of his wit would fill as large a volume 
 as the examples of his wit that have come down 
 to us. In the hope that some idea of the man 
 himself as he spoke them, may be more present 
 in reading his mots, a few of these thumb-nail 
 notes on Sydney Smith as a wit are here tran- 
 scribed : — Sydney Smith's conversation was the 
 conversation of a man mad with spirits. — His 
 intellect was like an electric coil, you touched it 
 and it flashed out in sparkling coruscations at 
 the touch. — Possessing as much wit as a man 
 without a grain of his sense, he had as much sense 
 as a man without a spark of his wit. — Macaulay 
 said of him that it seemed to be his greatest 
 luxury to keep his wife and daughters laughing 
 for two or three hours every day. — The lips of 
 Sydney Smith dropping sparkling diamonds of 
 wit every now and then, attention to which was 
 demanded by the spea.ker's own boisterous 
 laugh. — Crabb Robinson wrote of Smith in his 
 Diary that his "faun-like face was a sort of 
 promise of good things when he did but open 
 his lips." — Lord Dudley said to Sydney Smith : 
 ' ' You have been laughing at me for the last seven 
 years, and yet in all that time you never said 
 a single thing to me I wished unsaid." — His 
 talk is a torrent of wit, fun, nonsense, pointed 
 remark, just observation, and happy illustra- 
 tions. — No stain of impurity ever sullied his 
 blade. — ' ' Sydney ," said one of his college chums.
 
 10 Introduction. 
 
 "your sense, wit, and clumsiness always give me 
 the idea of an Athenian carter." — His casual 
 bon-mots wreathed the town with smiles. — A wise 
 man in the brilliant guise of a wit. — His 
 inevitable and irresistible flood of fun rolled 
 over one like a cataract, never ceasing, never 
 slackening, never varying its pace for an instant. 
 The following is an outline of his life: — 1771. 
 Sydney Smith was born on June 3rd at Wood- 
 ford, Essex ; his father was Robert Smith ; his 
 mother, Maria Olier, daughter of a French 
 emigrant. —1782. Scholar of Winchester Col- 
 lege. — 1789. New College, O.xford ; fellowship 
 two years later. — 1794. Left College and 
 entered the Church. Curate of Nether Avon, 
 Wilts. — 1798. Went to Edinburgh as tutor. — 
 1800. Married Catherine Pybus. — 1802. Started 
 the Edinburgh Review in conjunction with 
 Brougham, Jeffrey, Francis Horner and others. 
 — 1803. Left Edinburgh for London. Preacher 
 at the Foundling Hospital ; lectured on Moral 
 Philosophy at the Royal Institution. — 1807. 
 Rector of Foston-le-Clay, Yorkshire, "Village 
 parson and doctor." Peter Plymleys Letters. 
 — 1828. Canon of Bristol. — 1829. Rector of 
 Combe Florey. — 1831. Canon Residentiary of 
 St Paul's. — 1845. February 22nd, died. 
 
 W. J.
 
 Introrluction. 
 
 RICHARD BR INS LEY SHERIDAN. 
 
 "A TRUE-TRAINED wit lays his plan like a 
 general — foresees the circumstances of the con- 
 versation — surveys the ground and contingencies 
 — and detaches a question to draw you into the 
 palpable ambuscade of his ready-made joke." 
 So wrote Sheridan, and his practice showed him, 
 according to his own definition, to be a " true- 
 trained wit," for often the bon-mot was carefully 
 elaborated and then the conversation as carefully 
 guided to a fitting point at which the wit might 
 be brought forth with apparent spontaneity. 
 This idea of wit is very different from the 
 general one which is wittily defined by Sydney 
 Smith when he called wit ' ' in midwife's phrase, 
 a quick conception and an easy delivery. " Each 
 of these wits defined wit as it was exemplified 
 in his own practice ; with Smith as with 
 Douglas Jerrold, the joke flashed to the tip of 
 the tongue and must out " though the heavens 
 should crack and the dearest friend take it 
 amiss." With Sheridan it was far otherwise, 
 and one of his biographers has shown the world 
 how carefully he elaborated the thought which 
 was ultimately perfected as used in the House 
 of Commons, when Sheridan said that the 
 previous speaker was indebted to his imagina- 
 tion for his facts and his memory for his wit.
 
 12 Introduction. 
 
 Many of Sheridan's recorded sayings are, how- 
 ever, obviously retorts on the spur of the 
 moment; and the testimony of several of his 
 contemporaries is that his wit was at times so 
 incessant that it could but be spontaneous. — 
 Mrs Le Fanu, his sister, said that the same 
 playful fancy, the same sterling and innoxious 
 wit, that was shown afterwards in his writ- 
 ings, cheered and delighted the family circle. — 
 " Sheridan's humour, or rather wit," said Lord 
 Byron, " was always saturnine, and sometimes 
 savage. He never laughed, at least that I saw, 
 and I watched him. In society I have met him 
 frequently; he was superb." — His wit was an 
 incessant flame. — He sometimes displayed a 
 kind of serious and elegant playfulness, not 
 apparently rising to wit, but unobservedly 
 saturated with it, which was unspeakably 
 pleasing. — His wit is the wit of common sense. 
 — Grace of manner, charm of voice, fluency 
 of language, and, above all, a brilliancy of 
 sarcasm, a wit and a humour ; and again a 
 felicity of statement that made him the delight 
 of every audience, and that excited the admira- 
 tion of his very opponents themselves. — The 
 wit displayed by Sheridan in Parliament was 
 perhaps, from the suavity of his temper, much 
 less sharp than brilliant. — The story of his 
 life told in outline is as follows : — 1751. Richard 
 Brinsley Butler Sheridan was born on October 
 30th in Dublin ; his father, Thomas Sheridan,
 
 Introduction. 13 
 
 an actor manager ; his mother, Frances 
 Chamberlaine, an accomplished authoress. — 
 1762. At school at Harrow, where he remained 
 for five or six years. — 1773. Married Miss 
 Linley, a noted beauty and singer. — 1775. The 
 Rivals ; St Patrick's Day, or the Scheming 
 Lieutefiatit, and the Duenna produced. — 1776. 
 Sheridan purchased a share in Drury Lane 
 Theatre. — 1777. A Trip to Scarborough, and 
 The School for Scandal. — 1779. The Critic. — 
 1780. Entered Parliament as member for Staf- 
 ford. — 1782. Under-Secretary of State in the 
 Rockingham Administration. — 1783. Secretary 
 to the Treasury in the Coalition Ministry. — 
 1787. One of the accusers in the Impeachment 
 of Warren Hastings. — 1788. Made his great 
 speech in the impeachment. Production of 
 Pizarro. — 1809. Drury Lane Theatre burnt. — 
 18 16. July 7, died. 
 
 W. J.
 
 SYDNEY SMITH.
 
 B O N - M O T S 
 
 SYDNEY SMITH. 
 
 A WORTHY baronet who dabbled in politics 
 came to Sydney Smith one day very much 
 irritated. 
 
 "What is the matter?" was the immediate 
 question, ' 'are any of our institutions in danger? " 
 
 " No, but I have just been with Brougham, 
 whom I sought out for the purpose of making 
 an important communication, but, upon my 
 word, he treated me as if I were a fool." 
 
 "Never mind, my dear fellow," said Smith, 
 in his most sympathetic tones, "never mind, 
 never mind, he thought you knew it ! "
 
 i8 Bon-Mots. 
 
 'X'HE whole of my life (said Smith to a friend), 
 has been passed like a razor — in hot water 
 or a scrape. 
 
 "r\ESCRIBING a dinner at which he had 
 been present, Sydney Smith said : ' ' Puns 
 are frequently provocative. One day, after 
 dinner with a Nabob, he was giving us 
 Madeira — 
 
 " ' Lo7ido7i — East hidia —picked — particular, ' 
 
 then a second thought struck him, and he 
 remembered that he had a few flasks of Con- 
 stantia in the house, and he produced one. 
 He gave us just a glass apiece. We became 
 clamorous for another, but the old qui-hi was 
 firm in his refusal. 
 
 " 'Well, well,' said I, 'since we can't 
 double the Cape, we must e'en go back to 
 Madeira. ' 
 
 " We all laughed, our host most of all, and 
 he, too, luckily had his joke, ' Be of Good 
 Hope, you shall double it,' at which we all 
 laughed still more immoderately, and drank the 
 second flask." 
 
 — ^WVv"— 
 
 TT is admirable of you to send game to the 
 clergy ; t/iat is what I call real piety ; it 
 reminds one of the primitive Christians.
 
 Sydney Smith. 19 
 
 nrW'O well-known men were being discussed. 
 Said Smith : ' ' There is the same differ- 
 ence between their tongues as between the hour 
 and the minute hand ; one goes twelve times 
 as fast, and the other signifies twelve times as 
 much." 
 
 B 
 
 LANXO WHITE used to relate that he 
 once complained to Sydney Smith of long 
 ., , and weary nights of utter sleep- 
 ' ».''%A\'j, lessness, owing to bad health. 
 " I can furnish you," replied 
 Smith, '•' with an infallible sopori- 
 fic. I have published two vol- 
 umes of Sermons. I will send 
 them to you ; they will last a long 
 time. You are to take them 
 into bed w ith you, and begin 
 at the beginning. Before you 
 have read three pages you will be fast ; but take 
 care that you put the candle in a safe place, or 
 you will sleep so sound, you will be burned to 
 death." 
 
 "TALKING of Milner's History of Chris- 
 tianiiy, Sydney Smith said, "It's a mis- 
 take altogether in our friend — no man has a 
 right to wTite on such subjects, unless he is 
 prepared to go the whole lainb,"
 
 20 Eon-Mots. 
 
 /^N seeing a lady sitting at the dinner-table 
 between two Bishops, Smith enquired, 
 "Her name is Susanna, I assume?" 
 
 — WVV*^- 
 
 OOME one having said of Macaulay, " He 
 will let nobody talk but himself," Smith at 
 once answered, ' ' Why, who would if he could 
 help it ? " 
 
 A T one of Rogers's breakfast-parties Sydney 
 Smith is reported to have said, " I wish I 
 could write poetry like you, Rogers, I would 
 write an Inferno, and I would put Macaulay 
 among a lot of disputants — and gag him ! " 
 
 — aAJX/V' — 
 
 A YOUNG clergyman tremblingly asked 
 
 the Canon how he liked his preaching. 
 
 " Well, if you must know," came the answer, 
 
 " I like you better in the bottle than in the 
 
 wood." 
 
 /"VF Horner, one of his early colleagues on the 
 Edinburgh Revieio, Sydney Smith said 
 that he had the Ten Commandments written 
 on his face, and looked so virtuous that he 
 might commit any crime with impunity.
 
 Sydney Smith. 21 
 
 ■y ES, X. was merry, not wise. You know a 
 
 man of small understanding is merry 
 
 where he can, not where he should. Lightning 
 
 must, I should think, be the wit of the heavens. 
 
 A LEARNED bore was dwelling at inordinate 
 length upon the great size of a fly's eye 
 compared with its bulk, when Sydney Smith 
 flatly contradicted him, quoting triumphantly, 
 these words from the Death of Cock Robin, 
 
 "I, said the fly, with my little eye, 
 I saw him die." 
 
 " T WILL explain it to you," said \V. D. 
 
 " Oh, pray don't, my dear fellow," 
 said Sydney, laughing, "I did understand a 
 little about the Scotch Kirk before you under- 
 took to explain it to me yesterday ; but now my 
 mind is like a London fog on the subject." 
 
 — ww^ 
 
 ■M"0, I don't like dogs ; I always expect them 
 to go mad, A lady asked me once for a 
 motto for her dog Spot. I proposed, "Out, 
 damned Spot," but she did not think it senti- 
 mental enough.
 
 22 Bon-Mots. 
 
 •pAKING up the cartoon of the Beautiful 
 Gate, Sydney Smith began reading the 
 fine speech of St Peter to the beggar, "Silver 
 and gold have I none." 
 
 "Ah! that was in the time of the paper 
 currency," said he. 
 
 C YDNEY SMITH said that he had got rid of 
 *" the two great bores of society, invitation 
 and introduction, and that he literally went 
 to routs without either. 
 
 — A/\y\/Vv — 
 
 'X'ALKING with Southey over their mutual 
 friends, Sydney Smith referred to Charles 
 Lamb's intemperate habits. " He draws so 
 much beer that no wonder he buffoons people 
 — he must have a hiitt to put it in." 
 
 —'A!\[V'r— 
 
 " "pOGERS told us," says Crabb Robinson 
 in his Diary, "that Sydney Smith said 
 to his eldest brother, a grave and prosperous 
 gentleman : ' Brother, you and I are exceptions 
 to the laws of nature. You have risen by your 
 gravity, and I have sunk by my levity.' " * 
 
 * Dyce says that Rogers ascribed this mot to 
 Home Tooke.
 
 Sydney Smith. 23 
 
 ■DISHOP WILBERFORCE describes a most 
 interesting three days spent at Eton at 
 Sehvyn's farewell sermon. "I preached once, 
 and he once. He is just 
 setting out, and my 
 friend WTiitehead with 
 him as chaplain. Syd- 
 ney Smith says it will 
 make quite a revolution 
 in the dinners of New ^^^B^^TA'^' '-) 
 Zealand : tite d' Eveque 
 will be the most re- 
 cherche dish, and your 
 man will add that there 
 is cold clergytnan on the side-table." 
 
 It was on the same occasion that Sydney 
 Smith also said to Selwyn, " And as for myself, 
 my Lord, all I can say is, that when your new 
 parishioners do eat you. I sincerely hope you 
 may disagree with them." 
 
 A YOUNG man of fashion who was trying 
 to uphold the reputation of a well-known 
 nobleman — accused of cheating at play — 
 thought to clinch his argument by exclaiming, 
 "Well, I don't care what they say, I have just 
 left a card upon him." 
 
 "Did you 7nark it then?" enquired Sydney 
 Smith, "otherwise he will not take it as an 
 honour."
 
 24 Bon- Mots. 
 
 /^ALLING upon a fellow writer in the 
 Edinburgh Review, Sydney Smith found 
 him actually reading a book for the purpose of 
 reviewing it. Having expressed his astonish- 
 ment in the strongest terms, his friend inquired 
 how he managed when performing the critical 
 office. 
 
 ' ' Oh, I never read a book before reviewing 
 it: it prejudices a man so," was Smith's 
 explanation. 
 
 TV/TY friend Tait sent his boy over to spend 
 the day with my boy ; they set him on 
 my boy's pony, and the pony ran away with 
 him, "Oh, ho," cried I, "that is what our 
 lively neighbours call tete-montee." 
 
 /"^AMPBELL, the poet, tells how Sydney 
 Smith once said to him that if Hallam 
 were in the midst of a full assembly of scientific 
 men, and if Euclid were to enter the room 
 with his Elements under his arm and were to 
 say, "Gentlemen, I suppose no one present 
 doubts the truth of the Forty-fifth Proposition 
 of my first Book of Elements" — Mr Hallam 
 would immediately say, "Yes, / have my 
 doubts."
 
 A 
 
 Sydney Smith. 25 
 
 SCANDALISED fop pointed out, with a 
 grimace of disgust, a straw on the carpet 
 of a drawing-room filled with people of fashion, 
 thereby implying that some unworthy plebeian 
 had driven to the door in a hackney coach. 
 "God bless my soul," said Sydney Smith, " do 
 you care about that ? Why, I was at a literary 
 soiree the other night where the carpet was like 
 a stubble field." 
 
 CYDXEY SMITH was talking over the sub- 
 ject of American Slavery with his friend 
 Mr Everett, when Everett observed in a tone 
 of tender self-pity, that we in England did not 
 really understand the matter, and could not feel 
 at our distance how impossible it was to asso- 
 ciate with the negroes, they smelt so abominably. 
 " Ah ! " retorted Smith, without a moment's 
 hesitation, "'At si non alium late jactasset 
 odorem civis erat ' ('laurus erat,' in Virgil). 
 That, sir, may be a reason for not inviting 
 him to a crowded evening party, but it is no 
 reason for refusing them their freedom." 
 
 /RESERVING Lord Brougham's one-horse 
 carriage, Smith remarked to a friend, 
 alluding to the B surmounted by a coronet on 
 the panel, "There goes a carriage with a B 
 outside and a ivasp within."
 
 26 Bon -Mots. 
 
 TV/TRS LONGMAN being about to entertain 
 at dinner the two noted entomologists, 
 Kirby and Spence, Sydney Smith suggested a 
 menu which should include " tlea- pates, earth 
 worms on toast, caterpillars crawling in cream 
 and removing themselves," &c. 
 
 — WVVv^ 
 
 T 
 
 OM MOORE asked Smith to accompany 
 him to Newton's studio to see his (Moore's) 
 portrait. Smith paused for a moment in front 
 
 of the picture, then, turning to the painter, said, 
 " Couldn't you contrive to throw into his face 
 somewhat of a stronger expression of hostility 
 to the Church Establishnrent ? " 
 
 C YDNEY SMITH, walking with the Bishop 
 of Exeter, saw written up over a shop, 
 " Tongues cured here." 
 
 ' ' Shall we go in, my lord ? "
 
 Sydney Smith. 27 
 
 CIR RODERICK MURCHISON, according 
 to Sydney Smith, would be found giving 
 ' ' not swarries, but quarries ; all the ladies 
 having ivory-handled hammers and six little 
 bottles for each to try the stones." 
 
 lyTACAULAY had told Sydney Smith that 
 meeting him was some compensation for 
 missing Ramohun Roy. Sydney broke forth : 
 " Compensation ! Do you mean to insult me ? 
 A beneficed clerg\'man, an ortho- 
 dox clerg}Tnan, a nobleman's 
 chaplain, to be no more than 
 compensation for a Brahmin ; 
 and a heretic Brahmin, too, a 
 fellow who has lost his own reli- 
 gion and can't find another ; a 
 vile heterodox dog, who, as I am credibly in- 
 formed eats beef-steaks in private ! A man who 
 has lost his caste ! who ought to have melted 
 lead poured down his nostrils, if the good old 
 Vedas were in force as they ought to be." 
 
 C\^ Mrs Austin explaining that she was no 
 relation to Miss Austen, Sydney Smith 
 said to her, ' ' You are quite wrong ; I always 
 let it be inferred that I am the son of Adam 
 Smith."
 
 28 Bon-:Mots. 
 
 'M'OTHING amuses me more than to observe 
 the utter want of perception of a joke in 
 some minds. Mrs Jackson called one day and 
 spoke of the oppressive heat. 
 
 " Heat, ma'am ! " I said, " it was so dreadful 
 here that I found there was nothing left for it 
 but to take off my flesh and sit in my bones." 
 
 " Take off your flesh and sit in your bones, 
 sir ! Oh, Mr Smith ! how could you do that?" 
 she exclaimed, with the utmost gravity. 
 
 " Nothing more easy, ma'am ; come and see 
 ne.xt time." But she ordered her carriage and 
 evidently thought it a very unorthodox pro- 
 ceeding. 
 
 'X'ALKING once of charades and such like 
 literary minutiae. Smith said that charades 
 if made at all should be made without benefit 
 of clergy ; the offender should instantly be 
 hurried off to execution, and be cut off in the 
 middle of his dulness, without being allowed to 
 explain to his executioner why his first is like 
 his second or what is the resemblance between 
 his fourth and his ninth. 
 
 TT is a grand thing for a man to find out his 
 own line and keep to it — you get so much 
 further and so much faster on your own rail.
 
 Sydney Smith. 29 
 
 "PXPLAINING the scantiness of Scotch 
 scholarship, Sydney Smith said, "Greek 
 was a witch, and, as such, could not cross run- 
 ning water, nor ever get beyond the Tweed." 
 
 V\7'-"^R ^^'^s being discussed when Sydney 
 Smith said that in some causes he would 
 allow fighting to be a luxury, adding that the 
 business of prudent, sensible men was to guard 
 against luxury. * 
 
 — 'A/VV'/^- 
 
 C YDXEY SMITH said that he must believe 
 in apostolical succession, there being no 
 other way of accounting for the descent of the 
 (then) Bishop of Exeter from Judas Iscariot. 
 
 -^AfVVv— 
 
 "D EFERRING to the fact of men so often 
 colliding with one another over different 
 questions. Smith exclaimed, "How few men 
 are on the right rail ! " 
 
 — M/V/— 
 
 nPHERE is not the least use in preaching to 
 anyone, sinless yoic chance to catch them 
 ill. 
 
 * He happily used the same idea in a characteristic 
 letter to Lady Grey.
 
 30 
 
 Bon-Mots. 
 
 'yO some one who had said that Whewell's 
 forte was science, — "Yes, and his foible 
 
 IS omni-science. 
 
 -mAAa^ 
 
 TWINING at a friend's, Sydney Smithhappened 
 
 to meet Mr B., whom he always met with 
 
 pleasure, as he was a man of sense, simplicity, 
 
 and learning, but with such a total absence 
 
 of humour in himself and of per- 
 
 . caption of it in others as 
 
 l^i^^'TZl^^ made him an amusing object 
 
 ¥'4'^5rfe^°!r°'~" ,of speculation to the wit. 
 
 The conversation at 
 the table took a liberal 
 turn. Sydney Smith in 
 the full career of his 
 spirits happened to say 
 that though he was not 
 generally considered an 
 illiberal man, yet he must 
 confess he had a little weakness, one secret 
 wish — he would like to roast a Quaker. 
 
 "Good Heavens, Mr Smith!" said Mr B. 
 full of horror, " roast a Quaker ? " 
 
 " Yes, sir!' 
 a Quaker. 
 
 " But do 
 torture?" 
 
 "Yes, sir,' 
 
 (with the greatest gravity) " roast 
 
 you 
 
 consider, Mr Smith, the 
 
 replied Sydney, "I have con- 
 
 sidered everything. It may be wrong, as you
 
 Sydney Smith. 31 
 
 say ; the Quaker would undoubtedly suffer 
 acutely, but everyone has his tastes, — mine 
 would be to roast a Quaker. One would 
 satisfy me, only one. It is one of those 
 peculiarities I have striven against in vain, 
 and I hope you will pardon my weakness." 
 
 Mr B.'s honest simplicity could stand this 
 no longer, and he seemed hardly able to sit at 
 table with him. The whole company were in 
 roars of laughter at the scene ; but neither 
 this, nor the mirth and mischief sparkling in 
 Sydney's eyes, enlightened him in the least, 
 for a joke was a thing of which he had no 
 conception. 
 
 At last Smith, seeing that he was giving real 
 pain, said, "Come, come, Mr B. , since you 
 think I am so very illiberal, I must be WTong, 
 and will give up my roasted Quaker, rather 
 than your esteem ; let us drink wine together." 
 
 Peace was made, but it is doubtful whether 
 time or explanation ever made B. comprehend 
 that it was a joke. 
 
 — vvw^ 
 
 CIR ANTHONY PANTZZI (librarian of the 
 British Museum) was talking to Sydney 
 Smith at a grand reception when the venerable 
 Thomas Grenville entered. " Ah ! " exclaimed 
 Smith to his companion, " here comes the man 
 froni whom we all ought to learn how to grow 
 old."
 
 32 Bon-Mots. 
 
 ' ' HTHE great use of the raised centre revolving 
 on around table," said Sydney Smith, 
 ' ' would be to put Macaulay ( ' the talk-mill ' ) 
 on it, and so distribute his talk fairly to the 
 company." 
 
 — -aAA/v^ 
 
 lyrELBOURNE used to begin by damning 
 the subject of conversation. I used to 
 say, " Well, well, suppose it damned, and pro- 
 ceed with the discussion ! " 
 
 — -A/VW— 
 
 T N conversation once, after listening to some 
 one's anecdotage, Sydney Smith remarked 
 with all solemnity that a certain ancient people 
 ate their old members who became troublesome, 
 and told long stories. 
 
 -^aAAa'^ 
 
 QMITH was very comical about a remedy of 
 Lady Holland's for the book-worms in the 
 library at Holland House, having the books 
 washed with some mercurial preparation. He 
 said it was Sir Humphry Davy's opinion that 
 the air would become charged with the mercury, 
 and that the whole family would be salivated, 
 adding, "I shall see Allen someday, with his 
 tongue hanging out, speechless, and shall take 
 the opportunity to stick a few principles into 
 him."
 
 Sydney Smith. 
 
 33 
 
 HTHE same passion which peoples the parson- 
 age with chubby children, animates the 
 Arminian, and burns in the breast of the 
 Baptist. 
 
 jV/TRS B. has not very clear ideas about the 
 
 tides. I remember at a large party, her 
 
 insisting that it was always high-tide at London 
 
 Bridge at twelve o'clock. She referred to me. 
 
 " Now, Mr Smith, is it not so?" 
 
 I answered, " It used not to be so, I believe, 
 formerly, but perhaps the Lord Mayor and 
 Aldermen have altered it lately." 
 
 CIR Henry Holland was so smooth mannered 
 that Sydney Smith once said of him that 
 he was all mucilage, he was so very bland. "
 
 34 Bon-Mots. 
 
 C YDNEY SMITH talked once of his house 
 being full of cousins, adding that they 
 were all first cousins, and he wished them — 
 once removed. 
 
 — v\/\/Vv— 
 
 /^N Matthews saying on some occasion of 
 Tom Hill, "Will nobody stop that 
 fellow's mouth ? " "Not 77ie," said Smith, "I 
 know the way to Highgate but not to muzzle 
 Hill" (Muswell Hill). 
 
 — A/\/\/Vv. — 
 
 COME people were assembled to look at a 
 turtle that had been sent to the house of a 
 friend, when a child of the party stooped down 
 and began eagerly stroking its shell. 
 
 "Why are you doing that?" said Sydney 
 Smith. 
 
 " Oh, to please the turtle." 
 
 "Why, child, you might as well stroke the 
 dome of St Paul's to please the Dean and 
 Chapter." 
 
 — WVW— 
 
 TOURING one of the famous breakfasts at 
 
 Samuel Rogers', the talk was of stories of 
 
 dram-drinkers catching fire : Smith pursued the 
 
 idea in everypossible shape. The inconvenience
 
 Sydney Smith. 35 
 
 of a man coming too near the candle when he 
 was speaking, "Sir, your observation has 
 caught fire!" He then went on to imagine a 
 parson breaking into a blaze in the pulpit ; the 
 engines called to put him out — no water to be 
 had, the man at the waterworks being an 
 Unitarian or an Atheist. 
 
 "XXTHILST at Combe Florey, as Smith was 
 writing one day in his favourite bay 
 window, a pompous little gentleman in rusty 
 black was ushered in. 
 
 ' ' May I ask what procures me the honour of 
 this visit?" enquired Smith. 
 
 " Oh," said the little man, " I am compound- 
 ing a history of the distinguished families of 
 Somersetshire, and have called to obtain the 
 Smith arms." 
 
 "I regret, sir," responded Smith, " not to be 
 able to contribute to so valuable a work ; but 
 the Smiths never had any arms, and have 
 invariably sealed their letters with their thumbs. " 
 
 — 'AA/w- 
 
 T 
 
 O one who expressed a very strong opinion, 
 and justified it on the ground that he was 
 only a plain man, Sydney Smith retorted that 
 he was not aware that the gentleman's personal 
 appearance had anything to do with the 
 question.
 
 36 Bon-Mots. 
 
 V^THEN Lord Jeffrey was having a cast of 
 his face taken, Sydney Smith, who was 
 present, on seeing the face of his friend com- 
 pletely covered with the plaster, leaped up, 
 exclaiming mock heroically, "There's immor- 
 tality! but God keep me from such a mode 
 of obtaining it." 
 
 — A/\/\/v. — 
 
 A BEE came in through the open window at 
 a dinner party, when, turning to a lady 
 
 who sat next to him, a conceited young officer 
 exclaimed in peevish, affected tones, 
 ' ' If there is one thing I hate more 
 than another, it is the buzzing of 
 a bee at dinner time." 
 
 Sydney Smith immediately re- 
 marked in an undertone to his fair 
 
 neighbour, " I suppose, madam, if a hornet 
 
 came in, the captain would sell out !" 
 
 OOMEONE mentioned a young Scotchman 
 who was about to marry an Irish widow- 
 double his age, and of very large (considerable) 
 proportions. "Going to marry her!" Smith 
 exclaimed, bursting out laughing. "Impos- 
 sible ; you mean a part of her. He could not 
 marry all of her himself. It would not be a 
 case of bigamy, but of trigamy. The neigh- 
 bourhood or the magistrate should interfere.
 
 Sydney Smith. 37 
 
 There is enough of her to furnish wives for the 
 whole parish. One man marry her ! it is 
 monstrous ! you might people a colony with 
 her, or, perhaps, take your morning's walk 
 round her, always providing that there were 
 frequent resting-places, and you were in rude 
 health, I once was rash enough to walk round 
 her before breakfast, but only got half-way and 
 gave it up exhausted. Or you might read the 
 Riot Act, and disperse her ; in short you might 
 do anything but marry her." 
 
 " Oh," said a young lady present, recovering 
 from the general laugh, " did you make that all 
 up yourself?"' 
 
 "Yes, Lucy, all myself, child, all my own 
 thunder. Do you think when I am about to 
 make a joke, I send for my neighbours or 
 consult the clerk and churchwardens upon it?" 
 
 — 'AA/v^- 
 
 " "T^HE miseries of human life," said Sydney 
 Smith, on one occasion, "were things 
 only to be successfully encountered on a basis 
 of beef and wine." 
 
 •— AAA-/- 
 
 A DEVONSHIRE elector (some time in the 
 thirties) expressed surprise at Lord John 
 Russell's small stature. Sydney Smith explained 
 it by saying it was because Lord John "was 
 wasted in the country's service."
 
 38 Bon-Mots. 
 
 AN American said to Sydney Smith, "You 
 are so funny ! Do you know, you remind 
 me of our great joker, Dr Chamberlayne. " 
 
 "I am much honoured," Smith replied; 
 ' ' but I was not aware that you had such a 
 functionary in the United States." 
 
 CIR EDWIN LANDSEER somewhat 
 patronisingly offered to let Sydney Smith 
 sit to him for his portrait. 
 
 "Is thy servant a dog," retorted Sydney 
 Smith, " that he should do this thing?"* 
 
 ^aWw— 
 
 T DO not mean to be disrespectful, but the 
 attempt of the Lords to stop the progress 
 of reform reminds me very forcibly of the great 
 storm of Sidmouth, and of the conduct of the 
 excellent Mrs Partington on that occasion. 
 In the winter of 1824 there set in a great flood 
 upon that town — the tide rose to an incredible 
 height — the waves rushed in upon the houses — 
 and everything was threatened with destruction. 
 In the midst of this sublime and horrible storm, 
 Dame Partington, who lived upon the beach, 
 * This viot has always been ascribed to Sydney 
 Smith ; it was so when first current in the thirties, 
 though Lord Houghton in his Monograp/is states 
 that Lockhart really said it.
 
 Sydney Smith. 39 
 
 was seen at the door of her house with mops 
 and pattens, trundhng her mop, squeezing out 
 the sea-water, and vigorously pushing away the 
 Atlantic Ocean. The Atlantic was roused. 
 Mrs Partington's spirit was up, but I need not 
 tell you that the contest was unequal. The 
 Atlantic Ocean beat Mrs Partington. She was 
 excellent at a slop or a puddle, but she should 
 not have meddled with a tempest. Gentlemen, 
 be at your ease — be quiet and steady. You 
 will beat Mrs Partington. 
 
 /^F a preacher noted for his dull sermons, 
 Sydney Smith said that he evidently 
 thought that sin was to be taken from men as 
 Eve was from Adam — by casting them into a 
 deep sleep. 
 
 'T'O illustrate the wasting of the moments that 
 make up the year, Sydney Smith remarked 
 to a young lady, " Do you ever reflect how you 
 pass your life? If you live to seventy-two, which 
 I hope you may, your life is passed in the 
 following manner : — An hour a day is three years, 
 this makes twenty-seven years sleeping ; nine 
 years dressing ; nine years at table ; six years 
 playing with children ; nine years walking, 
 drawing, and visiting ; six years shopping, and 
 three years quarrelling."
 
 40 Bon-Mots. 
 
 CYDNEY Smith said that he found the 
 influence of the aristocracy "oppressive," 
 but added, "However, I never failed, I think, to 
 speak my mind before any of them ; I hardened 
 myself early, " 
 
 --A/W^— 
 
 CYDNEY SMITH had, it is well known, 
 a preference for London sights and 
 
 sounds to all that the country could offer ; the 
 tastes of Young, the actor, 
 were somewhat similar, 
 __ and when the two met 
 
 lilt J^i r-\ ym ^^ Holland House, and 
 Young had been mono- 
 polising the conversation 
 for some time, Smith 
 turned to him, saying 
 with much fun, " Do 
 
 you know, Mr Young, I had much rather be 
 
 listening to you than to the lowing of oxen or 
 
 the bleating of sheep," 
 
 A LADY of title closely questioned Sydney 
 Smith as to his forbears, — who was his 
 grandfather ? 
 
 Smith gravely informed her that "he dis- 
 appeared about the time of the Assizes, and — 
 we asked no questions."
 
 Sydney Smith. 41 
 
 AN attempt to warm St Paul's Cathedral 
 Sydney Smith described as useless, saying 
 that one might as well attempt to warm the 
 county of Middlesex, 
 
 gYDNEY SMITH was annoyed one evening 
 
 by the familiarity of a young gentleman, 
 
 who, though a new acquaintance, was encour- 
 
 aged by Smith's reputation as a "joker" to 
 address him by his surname alone. After 
 awhile the free and easy young man happened 
 to mention that he was going that evening, for 
 the first time, to the Archbishop of Canterbury's 
 palace, and Smith pathetically remarked — 
 
 " Let me give you a little bit of advice ; pray, 
 don't clap the Archbishop on the back, and call 
 him Howley."
 
 42 Bon-Mots. 
 
 A SKED one day at the Kinglakes if he were 
 in favour of increasing the number of the 
 bishops, Smith answered in his vein of humour- 
 ous exaggeration, "Yes, I am for increasing 
 the number of the bishops — those islets in the 
 Bristol Channel, the Flat Holm and the Steep 
 Holm, each should have a bishop." 
 
 — /AAA'^-- 
 
 TV/TACAULAY says that he advised Sydney 
 Smith once to stay in London over the 
 meeting of Parliament, and see something of 
 his friends who would be crowding to London. 
 "My flock!" said Smith, "my dear sir, 
 remember my flock ! ' The hungry sheep look 
 up and are not fed.' " 
 
 — 'AAA'— - 
 
 T ORD Dudley was one of the most absent- 
 minded men I think I ever met in society. 
 One day he met me in the street and invited me 
 to meet myself. " Dine with me to-day ; dine 
 with me, and I will get Sydney Smith to meet 
 you." I admitted the temptation he held out 
 to me, but said I was engaged to meet him 
 elsewhere. 
 
 —rJ\f\l\h — 
 
 T N Sydney's Smith's last illness, a friend 
 visiting him said that he feared he was 
 very ill, "Yes," was the reply, "not enough 
 of me left to make a curate."
 
 Sydney Smith. 43 
 
 Y^HAT a' beautiful thought — a sunbeam 
 passes through pollution unpolluted. 
 
 — A/\/VV« — 
 
 TVTEVER give way to melancholy ; resist it 
 steadily, for the habit will encroach. I 
 once gave a lady two and twenty recipes against 
 melancholy ; one was a bright fire ; another to 
 remember all the pleasant things said to and 
 of her ; another to keep a box of sugar-plums 
 on the chimney-piece, and a kettle simmering 
 on the hob. I thought this mere trifling at the 
 moment, but have in after life discovered how 
 true it is that these little pleasures often banish 
 melancholy better than higher or more exalted 
 objects ; that no means ought to be thought too 
 trifling which can oppose it either in ourselves 
 or others. 
 
 T IFE is a difficult thing in the country, I 
 assure you ; and it requires a good deal 
 of forethought to steer the ship when you live 
 twelve miles from a lemon. By-the-bye, that 
 reminds me of one of our greatest domestic 
 triumphs. Some years ago my friend C — , the 
 arch-epicure of the Northern Circuit, was dining 
 with me. On sitting down to dinner, he turned 
 round to the servant and desired him to look 
 in his greatcoat pocket, and he would find a
 
 44 Bon-Mots. 
 
 lemon; "for," he said, "I thought it hkely 
 you might have duck and green peas for dinner, 
 and therefore thought it 
 /* dJ^C^-^ prudent at this distance 
 
 ^ .^aS&^^.y-O^ from a town to provide a 
 lemon." 
 
 I turned round and 
 exclaimed indignantly, — 
 "Bunch, bring in the lemon 
 bag," and Bunch appeared 
 with a bag containing a 
 dozen lemons. He re- 
 spected us wonderfully after that. Oh ! 
 reported that he goes to bed with con- 
 centrated lozenges of wild-duck, so as to have 
 the taste constantly in his mouth when he 
 awakes in the night. 
 
 — A/\/\/W— 
 
 "VT^ES, I have the greatest possible respect 
 for him ; but from his feeble voice, he 
 always reminds me of a liberal blue-bottle fly. 
 He gets his head down and his hand on your 
 button, and pours into you an uninterrupted 
 stream of whiggism in a low buzz. I have 
 known him intimately, and conversed con- 
 stantly with him for the last thirty years, and 
 give him credit for the most enlightened mind, 
 and a genuine love of public virtue ; but I can 
 safely say that during that period, I have never 
 heard one single syllable he has uttered.
 
 Sydney Smith. 45 
 
 COMEONE having mentioned a certain 
 marriage as about to take place, Smith 
 said that it would be like the union of an acid 
 and an alkali ; the result must be a tertium 
 quid, or neutral salt. 
 
 jyjOXCTON MILNES had been talking to 
 an Alderman, when the latter turned 
 away. Smith said to Milnes, ' ' You were speak- 
 ing to the Lord Mayor elect. I myself felt in 
 his presence like the Roman whom Pyrrhus 
 tried to frighten with an elephant and who — 
 remained calm." 
 
 — W\A/v^ 
 
 O 
 
 THER rules vary : this is the only one 
 you will find without exception — that, in 
 this world, the salary or reward is always in the 
 inverse ratio of the duties performed. 
 
 QOMEOXE spoke of the financial embarrass- 
 ment of University College at that time. 
 " Yes, it is so great that I understand they have 
 already seized on the air-pump, the exhausted 
 receiver, and galvanic batteries ; and that bailiffs 
 have been seen chasing the Professor of Modern 
 History around the quadrangle."
 
 46 Bon-Mots. 
 
 T N talking of the Irish Church and pronounc- 
 ing it a nuisance, Sydney Smith said, "I 
 have always compared it to setting up butcher's 
 shops in Hindostan, where they don't eat meat. 
 'We don't want this,' they say. 'Aye, aye, 
 true enough, but you must support our shop.' " 
 
 ^ — 
 
 /^H ! don't read those twelve volumes till 
 they are made into a consomme of two. 
 Lord Dudley did still better, he waited till they 
 blew over. 
 
 -^A/VV-r— 
 
 A JOKE goes a long way in the country. I 
 have known one last pretty well for seven 
 years. I remember making a joke, after a 
 meeting of the clergy in Yorkshire, where there 
 was a Reverend Mr Buckle who never spoke, 
 when I gave his health saying that he was a 
 buckle without a tongue. Most persons within 
 hearing laughed, but my next neighbour sat 
 unmoved and sunk in thought. At last, a 
 quarter of an hour after we had all done, he 
 suddenly nudged me, exclaiming — 
 
 " I see now what you meant, Mr Smith ; 
 you meant a joke." 
 
 "Yes, sir," I said, "I believe I did," upon 
 which he began laughing so heartily that I 
 thought he would choke and was obliged to 
 pat him on the back.
 
 Sydney Smith. 47 
 
 ■M"EVER neglect your fireplace : I have paid 
 great attention to mine, and could burn 
 you all out in a moment. Much of the cheer- 
 fulness of life depends upon it. Who could be 
 miserable with that fire ? What makes a fire 
 so pleasant is, I think, that it is a live thing in 
 a dead room. 
 
 C YDXEY SMITH was sitting at breakfast one 
 morning in the library at Combe Florey, 
 when a poor woman came begging him to 
 christen a new-born 
 infant \\-ithout loss 
 of time, as she 
 thought it was dy- 
 ing. He instantly 
 quitted the break- 
 fast table for this purpose, 
 and went off to her cottage. 
 On his return, his family en- 
 quired in what state he had 
 left the poor babe. " Wliy," said he, "I just 
 gave it a dose of castor-oil, and then I christened 
 it ; so now the poor child is ready for either 
 world." 
 
 — W\/Vv^ 
 
 'yO take Macaulay out of literature and 
 society, and put him in the House of 
 Commons, is like taking the chief physician out 
 of London during a pestilence.
 
 48 Bon-Mots. 
 
 tT ARROGATE seemed to me to be the 
 
 most heaven-forgotten country under the 
 
 sun. When I saw it there were only nine 
 
 mangy fir-trees there — and even they all leant 
 
 away from it. 
 
 'VT'ES, he has spent all his life in letting down 
 empty buckets into empty wells, and he 
 is frittering away his age in trying to draw them 
 up again. 
 
 TT is a great proof of shyness to crumble 
 your bread at dinner. I do it when I sit 
 by the Bishop of London, and with both hands 
 when I sit by the Archbishop. 
 
 'VKTHEN so showy a woman as Mrs S. 
 appears anywhere, though there is no 
 garrison within twelve miles, the horizon is im- 
 mediately clouded with majors. 
 
 — M/vw- 
 
 OOMEONE naming a friend as not very 
 orthodox, Smith said that if you accuse a 
 man of being a Socinian it is all over with him ; 
 for the country gentlemen all think it has some- 
 thing to do with poaching.
 
 Sydney Smith. 49 
 
 "DOGERS having praised the gentleness of 
 Smith's horse, " Yes," said Smith, " it is 
 a cross of the rocking horse." 
 
 A/TARRIAGE resembles a pair of shears, so 
 joined that they cannot be separated ; 
 often moving in opposite directions, yet always 
 punishing anyone who comes between them. 
 
 -^A/\/V^- 
 
 O 
 
 NE evening at Sydney Smith's house, a few 
 friends had come in to tea, amongst others 
 Lord Jeffrey and Doctor Holland. Some one 
 spoke of Talleyrand. 
 
 ' ' Oh," said Sydney, ' ' Lady Holland laboured 
 incessantly to convince me that Talleyrand was 
 agreeable, and was very angry because his 
 arrival was usually a signal for my departure ; 
 but, in the first place, he never spoke at all till 
 he had not only devoured, but digested his 
 dinner, and as this was a slow process with 
 him, it did not occur till everybody else was 
 asleep, or ought to have been so ; and when he 
 did speak he was so inarticulate I could never 
 understand a word he said." 
 
 "It was otherwise with me," said Doctor 
 Holland, "I never found much difficulty in 
 "oUowing him." 
 
 D
 
 50 Bon-Mots. 
 
 ' ' Did not you ? why it was an abuse of terms 
 to call it talking at all ; for he had no teeth, 
 and, I believe no roof to his mouth — no u\-ula 
 — no larynx — no trachea — no epiglottis — no 
 anything. It was not talking, it was gargling ; 
 and that by-the-bye, now I think of it, must be 
 the very reason why Holland understood him 
 so much better than I did." 
 
 —A/\/\j\r^ — 
 
 A LADY visitor was walking with Sydney 
 
 Smith round the grounds at Combe Florey, 
 
 when they came across a fine Newfoundland 
 
 dog. ' ' Oh, Mr Smith, why do you 
 
 chain him up?" asked the visitor. 
 
 ' ' Because he has a passion for 
 
 breakfasting on parish boys." 
 
 "Does he really eat boys, Mr 
 
 Smith?" 
 
 "Yes, he devours them, buttons and all." 
 
 The look of hori-or on his young friend's face, 
 
 said Sydney afterwards, nearly made him die 
 
 of laughing. 
 
 T LIKE pictures, without knowing anything 
 about them ; but I hate coxcombry in the 
 fine arts, as well as in anything else. I got into 
 dreadful disgrace with Sir George Beaumont 
 once, who, standing before a picture at Bowood, 
 exclaimed, turning to me —
 
 Sydney Smith. 
 
 5' 
 
 " Immense breadth of light and shade ! " 
 I innocently said, "Yes, about an inch and 
 
 a half." He gave me a look that ought to have 
 
 killed me. 
 
 ^ ON VERSING in the evening with a small 
 circle round Miss Berry's* tea-table Sydney 
 Smith observed the entrance of a no less 
 remarkable person both for 
 talents and for years, dressed 
 in a beautiful crimson velvet 
 gown. He started up to meet 
 his fine old friend, exclaim- 
 ing, "Exactly the colour of 
 my preaching cushion," and 
 leading her forward to the 
 light he pretended to be lost 
 in admiration, saying, "I 
 really can hardly keep my 
 hands off you ; I shall be preaching on you I 
 fear," and thus he continued in the same play- 
 ful strain to the infinite amusement of his old 
 friend and the little circle assembled round her. 
 
 — A/VVVv— 
 
 pALMERSTON'S manner of speaking is 
 like a man washing his hands ; — the 
 Scotch members don't know what he is doing. 
 * Miss Berry had been a friend of Doctor Johnson's.
 
 52 Bon-Mots. 
 
 J^ANIEL WEBSTER struck me as being 
 much like a steam-engine in trousers. 
 
 — -aAAa/^ 
 
 /^N one occasion Sydney Smith startled his 
 company with a conundrum, " Why is a 
 horse in good condition hke a greyhound in 
 bad? — Because they neither turn a hare." 
 
 — mAAa/^ 
 
 " T WISH," said Smith once, after hstening 
 for some time to his conversational rival, 
 ' ' that Macaulay would see the difference 
 between colloquy and soliloquy." 
 
 jV/TACCULLOCH having stated that burials 
 were no test of the number of deaths, 
 "What," said Sydney, "do you mean that 
 people keep private burying-grounds, like 
 skittle-grounds?" 
 
 — A/WW— 
 
 "D OGERS having asked Sydney Smith what 
 attitude he recommended him to be 
 taken in, was told, " There is a very expressive 
 one we of the clergy use in first getting up into 
 the pulpit, which might suit you very well " 
 (covering his face with his hands).
 
 Sydney Smith. 53 
 
 A FRIEND commenced saying, " I think I 
 may assert without fear of contradiction — " 
 " Stop, sir," said Smith, " are you acquainted 
 uith Mr Hallam ? " 
 
 S 
 
 — ■A/\/\/v— 
 
 YDXEY SMITH, at a dinner party, said to 
 his next neighbour, "Now, I know not 
 a soul here present, except you and our host ; 
 so, if I by chance insult or dishonour any of 
 their brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, or cousins, 
 I take you to witness it is unintentional." 
 
 — WWv"— 
 
 'T'HERE are many people who run about 
 after happiness like an absent-minded 
 man hunting for his hat, which all the while 
 is on his head. 
 
 — -^A/VW— 
 
 A FINE ideal statue of Satan by Mr Lough 
 failed to find a purchaser, so Sydney 
 Smith suggested that it should be presented to 
 the Reform Club, because ' ' the devil was the 
 first Reformer, and came to grief in Heaven for 
 the too great zeal, indiscretion, and un- 
 timeliness with which he agitated the Reform 
 question ! "
 
 54 Bon-Mots, 
 
 C YDNEY SMITH would often illustrate the 
 weaknesses or foibles of his friends in a 
 telling manner. He said once that Rogers had 
 been in a very bad humour at a dinner party, 
 for Luttrell had been helped to bread sauce 
 before him. 
 
 O 
 
 H ! the observances of the Church concern- 
 ing feasts and fasts are tolerably well kept, 
 upon the whole, since the rich keep the feasts 
 and the poor the fasts. 
 
 —j'AAM' — 
 
 /^N one occasion a man on the Foston 
 Rectory farm blundered to such an extent 
 that Sydney Smith quite lost his temper, and 
 called him a fool. 
 
 " God never made a fool," growled the trans- 
 gressor. 
 
 " That is quite true, sir," was the immediate 
 retort, " but man was not long in making a fool 
 of himself." 
 
 — vV\/Vv— 
 
 /BROKER, according to Sydney Smith, would 
 
 be found at a future moment disputing 
 
 with the recording angel as to the date of his
 
 Sydney Smith. 55 
 
 \/yiLLIAM CHAMBERS, in conversation 
 
 with Sydney Smith, claimed for the 
 
 Scotch that they had after all a considerable 
 
 fund of humour. "Oh, by all means — you 
 
 are an immensely funny people, but you need 
 a little operating upon to let the fun out. I 
 know no instrument so effectual for the pur- 
 pose as the corkscreio !" 
 
 "VXT'HAT a talker that Frenchman Buchon 
 is ! — Macaulay is a Trappist compared 
 to him. 
 
 — ^AA/V'— 
 
 /^H ! don't mind the caprices of fashionable 
 women, — they are as g^oss as poodles fed 
 on milk and muffins.
 
 56 Bon-Mots. 
 
 ■\^HEN I was going to Brougham Hall, two 
 raw Scotch girls got into the coach in 
 the dark, near Carlisle. "It is very disagree- 
 able getting into a coach in the dark," exclaimed 
 one, after arranging her bandboxes ; "one can- 
 not see one's company." 
 
 " Very true, ma'am; and you have a great 
 loss in not seeing me, for I am a remarkably 
 handsome man." 
 
 " No, sir ! are you really ? " said both. 
 
 " Yes, and in the flower of my youth." 
 
 " What a pity," said they. 
 
 We soon passed near a lamp-post : they both 
 darted forward to get a look at me. 
 
 " La, sir, you seem very stout." 
 
 "Oh no, not at all, ma'am; it's only my 
 greatcoat." 
 
 " Where are you going, sir?" 
 
 "To Brougham Hall." 
 
 ' ' Why, you must be a very remarkable man 
 to be going to Brougham Hall." 
 
 " I am a very remarkable man, ma'am." 
 
 At Penrith they got out after having talked 
 incessantly, and tried every possible means to 
 discover who I was, exclaiming as they went 
 off laughing, "Well, it's very provoking we 
 can't see you; but we'll find out who you 
 are at the ball. Lord Brougham always 
 comes to the ball at Penrith, and we shall 
 certainly be there, and shall soon discover your 
 name."
 
 Sydney Smith. 57 
 
 C YDNEY SMITH had proposed that Govern- 
 ment should pay the Irish CathoHc priests. 
 
 " They would not take it," said Doctor Doyle. 
 
 " Do you mean to say that if every priest in 
 Ireland received to-morrow morning a govern- 
 ment letter with a hundred pounds, first quarter 
 of their year's income, that they would refuse 
 it." 
 
 "Ah, Mr Smith," said Doctor Doyle, " you've 
 such a way of putting things." 
 
 — A/\/V\^ — 
 
 V^E find Sydney Smith uttering a wish to 
 capture a Pennsylvanian, apportion his 
 raiment, and give his coat to the widow, his 
 waistcoat to the fatherless, and his breeches to 
 the poor and them that had none to help them. 
 For the witty Canon was a Pennsylvanian bond- 
 holder, and the State had repudiated. 
 
 — ■^AJ\/V- — 
 
 'T'HERE I am, sir, the priest of the Flowery 
 Valley,* in a delightful parsonage, about 
 which I care a good deal, and a delightful 
 country about which I do not care a straw. 
 
 T THINK breakfast so pleasant because no 
 one is conceited before one o'clock. 
 * Combe Florey.
 
 58 Bon-Mots. 
 
 "QESCRIBING a visit to Mahomet's Baths at 
 Brighton, where he had been shampooed, 
 Sydney Smith said that they squeezed enough 
 out of him to make a lean curate. 
 
 — vwW— 
 
 /^NE day Rogers took Tom Moore and 
 
 Sydney Smith home in his carriage from 
 
 a breakfast ; and insisted on showing them, by 
 
 the way, Dryden's house in some 
 
 obscure street. It was very wet ; 
 
 the house looked very much like 
 
 other old houses ; and having thin 
 
 shoes on, they both remonstrated, 
 
 but in vain. Rogers got out and 
 
 stood expecting them. 
 
 "Oh! you see why Rogers don't 
 mind getting out," said Smith to 
 Moore, laughing and leaning out of 
 the carriage, "he has got goloshes on; but, 
 Rogers, lend us each a golosh and we will then 
 stand on one leg and admire as long as you 
 please." 
 
 — Af\J\/V^ — 
 
 VX7"HY don't the thieves dress with aprons — 
 so convenient for storing any stolen 
 goods ? You would see the Archbishop of York 
 taken off at every race-course, and not a prize- 
 fight without an archdeacon in the paws of the 
 police.
 
 Sydney Smith. 59 
 
 A YOUNG lady said, " Oh, Mr Smith, I can- 
 not bring this flower to perfection." 
 " Then let me lead," said he gallantly, taking 
 her hand, "perfection to the flower." 
 
 —^A/\/\j',r— 
 
 ■pENEVOLENCE is a natural instinct of 
 the human mind. — When A sees B in 
 grievous distress, his conscience always urges 
 him to entreat C to help him. 
 
 — w\/\/Vv— 
 
 'T^HE conversation at one of Roger's breakfasts 
 turned upon the American treatment of 
 unpopular persons. "My dear Rogers," said 
 Smith, " if we were both in America, we should 
 be tarred and feathered ; and, lovely as we are 
 by nature, I should be an ostrich, and you an 
 emu." 
 
 /^N an old lady friend being mentioned, 
 Smith said that she was perfection, and 
 always reminded him of an aged angel. 
 
 — A/\/\/Vv — 
 
 VXTHEN I praised the author of the New 
 Poor Law the other day, three gentle- 
 men at table took it to themselves and blushed 
 up to the eyes.
 
 6o Bon-Mots. 
 
 TN Sydney Smith's last illness, we are told that 
 the nurse who attended him confessed to 
 having given him a bottle of ink instead of a 
 bottle of physic. He quietly asked her to bring 
 him all the blotting-paper there was in the 
 house. 
 
 COMEONE having said that it was foolish in 
 General Fitzpatrick to insist upon going 
 up alone in the balloon, when it was found that 
 there was not force enough to carry up two, 
 Sydney Smith replied that it was not foolish in 
 General Fitzpatrick, for there is always some- 
 thing sublime in sacrificing to great principles 
 — his profession was courage. 
 
 — ^aaa^^— 
 
 'T'RUE, it is most painful, not to meet the 
 kindness and affection you feel you have 
 deserved ; but it is a mistake to complain of it 
 — you cannot extort friendship with a cocked 
 pistol. 
 
 — A/^yvw- 
 
 A FRIEND meeting Sydney Smith enquired 
 after Rogers. 
 " He is not very well." 
 "Why, what is the matter ? " 
 "Oh, don't you know, he has produced a
 
 Sydney Smith. 6l 
 
 couplet? When our friend is delivered of a 
 couplet, with infinite labour and pains, he takes 
 to his bed, has straw laid down, the knocker 
 tied up, and expects his friends to call and 
 make enquiries, and the answer at the door 
 invariably is ' Mr Rogers and his little couplet 
 are as well as can be expected.' When he 
 produces an Alexandrine he keeps his bed a 
 day longer." 
 
 CYDNEY SMITH furnished his house once 
 with a set of daubs, and invented names 
 of great masters for them, — 
 "a beautiful landscape by .^^'. J~ — zzn.' 
 Nicholas de Falda, a pupil 
 of Valdeggio, the only paint- 
 ing by that eminent artist! " 
 He consulted two R.A.s 
 as to his purchases, and 
 when he had set them con- 
 sidering what opportunities 
 were likely to occur, added, 
 by way of after-thought, ' ' Oh, I ought to have 
 told you, though, that my outside price for a 
 picture is thirty-five shillings ! " 
 
 — /v\/w^ 
 
 T AM not fond of expecting catastrophes, 
 but there are cracks in the world.
 
 62 Bon-Mots. 
 
 T ORD JOHN RUSSELL said that Sydney 
 Smith told him that at one time he had 
 an intention of writing a book of maxims, but 
 never got beyond the first, which was this : 
 Generally towards the age of forty, women 
 got tired of being virtuous, and men of being 
 honest. 
 
 —'A/\/\/v— 
 
 TLTAVING seen in the newspapers that Sir 
 .^neas Mackintosh was come to town, 
 Smith drew such a ludicrous caricature of Sir 
 /Eneas and Lady Dido, for the amusement of 
 their namesake, that Sir James Mackintosh 
 rolled on the floor in fits of laughter, and 
 Sydney Smith, striding across him, exclaimed, 
 '' Ruat Jusiitia !'' 
 
 —M/\/V- — 
 
 " T CALLED on John Taylor," says Crabb 
 Robinson in his Diary. "He is the 
 eldest of the Norwich family. One of our best 
 men in all respects. It was of this family that 
 Sydney Smith said, they reversed the ordinary 
 saying, that it takes nine tailors to make a 
 man." 
 
 /^NE evening when Sydney Smith and Tom 
 
 Moore were returning from a dinner-party 
 
 at the Longmans', the road being rather
 
 Sydney Smith. 63 
 
 awkward, the coachman was desired to wait at 
 the bottom. " It would never do," said Smith 
 to Moore, "when your Memoirs come to be 
 written, to have it said ' He went out to dinner 
 at the house of his respectable publishers, 
 Longmans & Co. , and being overturned on his 
 way back was crushed to death by a large 
 clergyman.' " 
 
 CAMUEL ROGERS used sometimes at his 
 dinner parties to have candles placed high 
 up all round the dining room 
 to show off the pictures. On 
 his asking Sydney Smith what 
 he thought of the plan. Smith 
 said that he didn't like it at 
 all, — above there was a blaze 
 of light, and below nothing but darkness and 
 gnashing of teeth. 
 
 — 'AA/V^^ 
 
 CYDNEY SMITH characterised a good, 
 unworldly, yet witty young curate, as a 
 "happy union of Dean Swift and Parson 
 Adams." 
 
 — ^AAA'— 
 
 TXTHAT I have said ought to be done, 
 generally has been done ; not, of course, 
 because I have said it, but because it was no 
 longer possible to avoid doing it.
 
 64 Bon-Mots. 
 
 T^UELS were under discussion, and Sydney 
 Smith caused much amusement by 
 suggesting that the weapons should be suited 
 to the professions of the combatants. ' ' Imagine, 
 for instance two doctors engaged in a duel with 
 oil of croton on the tips of their fingers." 
 
 /^NE evening when Sydney Smith was taking 
 tea with Mrs Austin, the servant entered 
 the crowded room with a tea-kettle in his hand, 
 and it seemed doubtful how he could make his 
 way among the numerous groups ; but on the 
 first approach of the steaming kettle, the crowd 
 receded on all sides. Smith among the rest, 
 though carefully watching the progress of the 
 lad to the table. — " I declare," he said, turning 
 to Mrs Austin, "a man who wishes to make 
 his way in life, could do nothing better than go 
 through the world with a boiling tea-kettle in 
 his hand." 
 
 T HAVE divided mankind into classes. There 
 is the Noodle, — very numerous, but well- 
 known. The Affliction-woman, — a valuable 
 member of society, generally an ancient spinster, 
 or distant relation of the family, in small 
 circumstances ; the moment she hears of any
 
 Sydney Smith. 65 
 
 accident or distress in the family, she sets off, 
 packs up her Httle bag, and is immediately 
 established there, to comfort, flatter, fetch and 
 carry. The Up-takers, — a class of people who 
 only see through their fingers' ends, and go 
 through a room taking up and touching every- 
 thing, however visible and however tender. 
 The Cleavers, — who begin at the dish before 
 them, and go on picking or tasting till it is 
 cleared, however large the company, small the 
 supply, and rare the contents. The Sheep- 
 walkers, — those who never deviate from the 
 beaten track, who think as their fathers have 
 thought since the Flood, who start from a new 
 idea as they would from guilt. The Lemon- 
 squeezers of society, — people who act on you as 
 a wet blanket, who see a cloud in the sunshine, 
 the nails of the coffin in the ribbons of the bride, 
 predictors of e\"il, extinguishers of hope ; who, 
 where there are two sides, see only the worst, — 
 people whose very look curdles the milk, and 
 sets yovu- teeth on edge. The Let-well-aloners , 
 — cousins-germane to the Xoodle, yet a variety ; 
 people who have begun to think and to act, but 
 are timid, and afraid to tr\- their wings, and 
 tremble at the sound of their o^\•n footsteps as 
 they advance, and think it safer to stand still. 
 Then the Washerwomen, — very numerous, who 
 exclaim, " Well ! as sure as ever I put on my 
 best bonnet, it is certain to rain," &;c. There 
 are many more, but I forget them. 
 
 E
 
 66 Bon-Mots. 
 
 JOINING one day at Mrs Kinglake's (the 
 mother of the historian), Sydney Smith 
 was asked if he would behave as a neighbour- 
 ing clergyman had done, and refuse to bury a 
 Dissenter. 
 
 " On the contrary," he replied, " I should be 
 only too glad to bury them all." 
 
 TLJAVING been asked to give an account of 
 the books he had been reading, Sydney 
 Smith said, "I cannot tell you a thing about 
 them — neither can I catalogue the legs of 
 mutton that I have eaten, and which have 
 made me the man I am." 
 
 — A/\/\/V- — 
 
 r^F Macaulay, Sydney Smith once said, "Oh 
 yes, we doik talk a great deal ; but I 
 don't believe Macaulay ever did hear my voice. 
 Sometimes when I have told a good story, I 
 have thought to myself: — Poor Macaulay! he 
 will be very sorry some day to have missed 
 hearing that." 
 
 —A/\/\/V' — 
 
 "X^HEN his physican advised him to " take a 
 walk upon an empty stomach," Smith 
 quietly asked, ' ' Whose ? "
 
 Sydney Smith. 
 
 67 
 
 HTHE charm of London is that you are never 
 glad or sorry for ten minutes together ; 
 in the country you are the one and the other for 
 weeks. 
 
 AH ! what female heart can withstand a red- 
 coat? I think this should be a part of 
 female education ; it is much neglected. As 
 you have the rocking-horse 
 to accustom them to ride, 
 I would have military dolls 
 in the nursery, to harden 
 their hearts against officers 
 and red-coats. I found 
 myself in company with 
 some officers at the 
 country house of a 
 friend once ; and as '<-v^_^ ' 
 the repast advanced "t, 
 the colonel became J^ ' 
 very eloquent, and 
 communicated to us 
 a military definition 
 of vice and virtue. ' ' Vice, " he : 
 ' ' was a d — d cocked-tailed fellow ; 
 and \'irtue (striking the table with his fist 
 to enforce the description), was a fellow 
 fenced about for the good of the service." 
 We all burst into such an uncontrollable 
 paroxysm of laughter, that I began to fear the
 
 68 Bon-Mots. 
 
 honest colonel might think it for the good of the 
 service to shoot us through the head ; so, for 
 the good of the Church, hastened to agree with 
 him, and we parted very good friends. 
 
 —Af\/\/V'— 
 
 ^ ALLING one day to inquire after the health 
 of Dr Blake of Taunton, a Radical and a 
 Unitarian, Smith was greeted with the state- 
 ment, ' ' I am far from well. Though I sit 
 close by a good fire I cannot keep myself 
 warm." 
 
 " I can cure you, doctor," said his visitor, as 
 he prepared to go ; " cover yourself with the 
 Thirty-Nine Articles, and you will soon have a 
 delicious glow all over you." 
 
 —A/\/\/\^ — 
 
 CIMPLICITY is a great object in a great 
 book ; it is not wanted in a short one. 
 
 ^aAA/Vv- 
 
 /^N Sydney Smith once saying, in company, 
 that he was formerly very shy, some one 
 asked, "Were you indeed, Mr Smith? How 
 did you cure yourself? " 
 
 ' ' Why, it was not very long before I made 
 two very useful discoveries : first, that all man- 
 kind were not solely employed in observing me
 
 Sydney Smith. 69 
 
 (a belief that all young people have) ; and next, 
 that shamming was of no use ; that the world 
 was very clear-sighted, and soon estimated a 
 man at his just value. This cured me ; and I 
 determined to be natural, and let the world find 
 me out." 
 
 T^HE system of tithes ! It is an atrocious 
 way of paying the clergy. The custom 
 of tithe in kind will seem incredible to our 
 ■jxjsterity ; no one will believe in the rami- 
 ferous priest officiating in the com field. 
 
 "VrOU will generally see in human life, the 
 round men and the angular men planted 
 
 in the wTong hole ; but the Bishop of , 
 
 being a round man, has fallen into a triangular 
 hole, and is far better off than many triangular 
 men who have fallen into round holes. 
 
 O 
 
 F a certain writer Smith said that he made 
 all the country smell like Piccadilly. 
 
 ONCE saw a dressed statue of Venus in a 
 serious house — the J^entis Millinaria.
 
 70 Bon-Mots 
 
 O 
 
 F course if I ever do go to a fancy dress 
 ball I should go as a Dissenter. 
 
 — A/\/\/\r^ — 
 
 J ALWAYS tell Lady P. that she has pre- 
 served the two impossible concomitants of 
 a London life — a good complexion and a good 
 heart. Most London dinners evaporate in 
 whispers to one's next door neighbour. I make 
 it a rule never to speak a word to mine, but 
 fire across the table ; though I broke it once 
 when I heard a lady who sat next me, in a low, 
 
 sweet voice, say "No gra\y." I had never 
 seen her before, but I turned suddenly round 
 and said, "Madam, I have been looking for 
 a person who disliked gra\-y all my life ; let us 
 swear eternal friendship." She looked aston- 
 ished, but took the oath, and what is better, 
 kept it. You laugh — but what more usual 
 foundation for friendship, let me ask, than 
 similarity of taste ?
 
 Sydney Smith. 71 
 
 CPEAKINGofa Revolutionist, Sydney Smith 
 said that no man could effect great bene- 
 fits for his country without some sacrifice of the 
 minor virtues. 
 
 -^AAAT'T— 
 
 /^N being overtalked by Macaulay, Sydney 
 Smith avenged himself with the pleasantry 
 that Macaulay not only overflowed with learn- 
 ing, but stood in the slops. 
 
 TN a discussion upon the ever-green Irish 
 question, Sydney Smith said that the object 
 of all government was roast meat, potatoes, 
 claret, a stout constable, an honest justice, a 
 clean highway, a free chapel ; that it was 
 rubbish to be bawling in the streets about the 
 Emerald Isle, and the Isle of the ocean. The 
 bold anthem of Erin go bragh ! A far better 
 one would be Erin go bread and cheese ; Erin 
 go cabins that keep out the rain ; Erin go 
 pantaloons imthout holes in them, Sec. 
 
 -^nAA/V-'— 
 
 JEFFREY having been appointed Dean of 
 the Faculty of Advocates, Sydney Smith 
 startled a lady from beyond the Tweed with 
 the alarming announcement that in England 
 our Deans have no faculties.
 
 72 Bon-Mots. 
 
 "WES, he came once to see us in Yorkshire ; 
 and he was so small and so active, that he 
 looked exactly like a little spirit running about 
 in a kind of undress without a body. 
 
 r 
 
 — a/V\Aa— 
 
 N a wet summer," said Sydney Smith, " I 
 had been using the anti-liquid prayer, so 
 Allen put up a barometer in the vestry, and 
 remained there during the rest of the service to 
 watch the effects ; but, I am sorry to say, did 
 not find them very satisfactory." 
 
 —A/\/\/V^— 
 
 'T'HIS is the only sensible Spring I ever re- 
 member — a perfect March of intellect. 
 
 -wWVv— 
 
 C MITH objected to the superiority of a city 
 feast, saying to a friend, " I cannot wholly 
 value a dinner by the test you do.'' 
 
 'yO his friends Mrs Tighe and Mrs Cuffe, on 
 their calling upon him, Smith paid a pretty 
 compliment, "Ah! there you are: a C7iff Xh^i 
 everyone would wear, the tie that none would 
 loose."
 
 Sydney Smith. 
 
 73 
 
 TF you masthead a sailor for not doing his 
 duty, why should you not weathercock a 
 parishioner for refusing to pay tithes ? 
 
 -WW'- 
 
 T^OM MOORE was enlarging upon a pet 
 theory of his that women could bear pain 
 better than men be- 
 cause of their having 
 less physical sensibili- 
 ty. This was unani- 
 mously exclaimed 
 against. He offered to 
 put it to the test by 
 bringing in a hot tea-pot, 
 which he would answer 
 for the ladies of the party 
 being able to hold for a 
 much longer time than 
 the men. Sydney Smith 
 at once began comically 
 enlarging upon Moore's 
 
 cruelty to the female part of the creation, and 
 the practice he must have had in such experi- 
 ments. " He has been all his life," said Smith, 
 " trying the sex with hot tea-pots; the burning 
 ploughshare was nothing to it. I think I hear 
 his terrific tone in a fete-d-tefe — ' Bring a tea- 
 pot ! ' "
 
 74 Bon-Mots. 
 
 A FEW yards in London dissolve or cement 
 friendship. 
 
 -^A/Vvv— 
 
 CYDNEY SMITH had not much sympathy 
 with the increase of colonial bishops — or 
 "colonial mitrophilism " as he termed it — 
 saying that soon there would not be a rock in 
 the sea on which a cormorant can perch, but 
 they would put a bishop beside it. 
 
 A FRIEND complaining of the interminable 
 length of speeches in the House of 
 Commons, Sydney Smith said, "Don't talk to 
 me of not being able to cough a speaker down 
 — just try the whooping cough ! " 
 
 " TV/TACAULAY is improved! Macaulay 
 improves ! " exclaimed Sydney Smith 
 of his great rival talker, ' ' I have observed in 
 him of late — brilliant flashes of silence ! " 
 
 —Al\/\/\r'— 
 
 TF you are every day thinking whether you 
 have done anything for the Flmvers of His- 
 tory, of course you will be unhappy.
 
 Sydney Smith. 75 
 
 AT one of Rogers' "breakfasts" at which 
 Hallam was present, Jeffrey arrived late, 
 " Ah ! " exclaimed Sydney Smith, greeting him, 
 " we know you have been detained trying the 
 case of Hallam v. E\-erybody." 
 
 T CANNOT cure myself of punctuality. 
 
 — wwv^- 
 
 ■JVyrRS MARCET having complained of sleep- 
 lessness, Sydney Smith said, " I can 
 furnish you with a perfect soporific. I have 
 published two volumes of sermons, take them 
 to bed with you. I recommended them once 
 to Blanco WTiite, and, before the third page, 
 he was fast." 
 
 — 'AAA'— 
 
 AT a meeting in which Sydney Smith spoke 
 eloquently in favour of Catholic Emancipa- 
 tion in 1825, a poor clergyman whispered to 
 him that he was quite of his way of thinking, 
 — but had nine children. 
 
 "I begged he would remain a Protestant," 
 added Smith, in telling the story. 
 
 npHERE is no limit to Macaulay's knowledge, 
 on small subjects as well as great — he is 
 like a book in breeches.
 
 76 Bon-Mots. 
 
 TOURING a dinner at Spencer House, the 
 conversation, turning upon dogs, brought 
 out a curious revelation. 
 
 "Oh!" said Sydney Smith, "one of the 
 greatest difficulties I have had with my parish- 
 ioners has been on the subject of dogs." 
 
 " How so?" enquired Lord Spencer. 
 
 "Whv, when I first went down into Yorkshire, 
 
 there had not been a resident clergyman in my 
 parish for a hundred and fifty years. Each 
 farmer kept a huge mastiff dog, ranging at 
 large, and ready to make his morning meal on 
 clergy or laity as best suited his particular 
 taste ; I never could approach a cottage in 
 pursuit of my calling, but I rushed into 
 the jaws of one of these shaggy monsters. I 
 scolded, preached, and prayed without avail;
 
 Sydney Smith. 77 
 
 so I determind to try what fears for their pockets 
 might do. Forthwith appeared in the county 
 papers a minute account of a trial of a farmer 
 at the Northampton Sessions for keeping dogs 
 unconfined ; where said farmer was not only 
 fined five pounds, and reprimanded by the 
 magistrates, but sentenced to three months' 
 imprisonment. The effect was wonderful, and 
 the reign of Cerberus ceased in the land." 
 
 "That accounts," said Lord Spencer, "for 
 what has puzzled me and Althorp for many 
 years. We never failed to attend the Sessions 
 at Northampton, and we could never find out 
 how we had missed this remarkable dog case." 
 
 C;YDNEY smith asked a friend how 
 herrings should be dressed — or should 
 they be eaten naked f 
 
 —j'Ajyv^ 
 
 OOMEONE asked if a certain bishop was 
 not about to marry. " Perhaps he may,' 
 said Sydney, "Yet how can a bishop marry? 
 How can he flirt? The most he can say 
 is — ' I will see you in the vestry after service.' 
 
 — v^vvV" — 
 
 'T'HE Puseyite priest with his little volume of 
 nonsense.
 
 78 Bon-Mots. 
 
 TLJAVE you heard of Niebuhr's discoveries? 
 All Roman history reversed. Tarquin 
 turning out an excellent family man, and 
 Lucretia a very doubtful character whom 
 Lady Davy would not have visited. 
 
 — ^AAA^'— 
 
 A/TEN of small incomes, be it known, have 
 often very acute feelings ; and a curate 
 trod on feels a pang as great as when a bishop 
 is refuted. 
 
 C YDNEY SMITH, when preaching in Edin- 
 burgh, seeing how almost exclusively 
 congregations were made up of ladies, took 
 for his text the verse from the Psalms, " Oh, 
 that men would therefore praise the Lord ! " 
 with facetious emphasis laid upon the word 
 men. 
 
 --A/\/\/V- — 
 
 T WILL do human nature the justice to say 
 that we are all prone to make ot/ier people 
 do their duty. 
 
 lyr R P said : " I always WTite best with 
 
 an amanuensis." 
 " Oh ! but are you quite sure that he puts 
 down what you dictate, my dear P ?
 
 Sydney Smith. 79 
 
 AT a dinner where H. Reeve was expected, 
 the host said, "We are so sorry poor 
 Reeve is laid up with the gout." 
 
 "Reeve with the gout?" echoed Smith, "I 
 should have thought rheumatism was good 
 enough for him." 
 
 -^«;\/\/V\^ 
 
 /^N one occasion, a gentleman in the coach 
 with me, with whom I had been convers- 
 ing for some time, suddenly looked out of the 
 window as we approached 
 York, and said — 
 
 " There is a very clever 
 man, they say, but a 
 damned odd fellow, lives 
 near here — Sydney Smith, 
 I believe." 
 
 " He may be a very odd ^ 
 fellow," said I, taking off 
 my hat to him and laugh- 
 ing, "and I dare say he is; 
 but odd as he is, he is here, 
 very much at your service." 
 Poor man ! I thought he would 
 have sunk into his boots, and vanished through 
 the bed of the carriage, he was so distressed ; but 
 I thought I had better tell him at once, or he 
 might proceed to say I had murdered my grand- 
 mother, which I must have resented, you know.
 
 8o Bon-Mots. 
 
 ■n\EAN C ? Oh ! his only adequate pun- 
 ishment would be to be preached to death 
 by wild curates. 
 
 —A/\/\J\A — 
 
 TWrEETING a friend who had grown much 
 stouter, Smith greeted him with, "Why, 
 I didn't half see you when we met last year." 
 
 — 'A/VV^— 
 
 TIJAS W. increased his library? Yes, it has 
 overflowed all the lower rooms, and has 
 crawled up the staircase, and covers the walls 
 like an erysipelas. 
 
 S 
 
 AID Smith of some one : — He has no com- 
 mand over his understanding ; it is always 
 getting between his legs and tripping him up. 
 
 --^A/Vvv— 
 
 T ANDSEER said that with Sydney Smith's 
 love of humour it must be a great act of 
 self-denial to abstain from going to the theatres. 
 To this Smith replied that the managers were 
 very polite ; they sent him free admissions 
 which he could not use, and he in return sent 
 them free admissions to St Paul's, which they 
 did not use.
 
 Sydney Smith. 8i 
 
 " (^N my remarking," says Moore, " how well 
 and good-humouredly our host had mixed 
 us all up together, Smith said, ' That 's the great 
 use of a good conversational cook, who says to 
 his company, "I'll make a good pudding of 
 you " ; it 's no matter what you came into the 
 bowl, you must come out a pudding. " Dear 
 me," says one of the ingredients, " wasn't I just 
 now an egg ? " but he feels the batter sticking to 
 him,' " &c., &c. 
 
 C YDXEY SMITH once told a visitor to his 
 Yorkshire parsonage that the hams at his 
 table were the only genuine hams- -other people's 
 were mere Shems and Japhets. 
 
 -'AAA'^ 
 
 r\yi Mrs Grote, gorgeous with a rose-coloured 
 turban, entering a drawing-room. Smith 
 said suddenly to his companion, " Now I know 
 the meaning of the word grotesque." 
 
 -^AA/w- 
 
 T\7'HEN Sydney Smith lost a few hundreds 
 by the Pennsylvania Bonds, a publisher 
 called on him offering to retrieve his fortunes, 
 if he would get up a three-volume novel. 
 
 "Well, sir," said Smith, after some seeminsr
 
 82 Bon-Mots. 
 
 consideration, "if I do so, I can't travel out of 
 my own line, ne siitor ultra crcpidam. I must 
 have an archdeacon for my hero, to fall in love 
 with the pew-opener, with the clerk for a con- 
 fidant — tyrannical interference of the church- 
 wardens—clandestine correspondence concealed 
 under the hassocks — appeal to the parishioners, 
 &c." 
 
 "All that, sir," said the publisher, " I would 
 not presume to interfere with ; I would leave it 
 entirely to your own inventive genius." 
 
 "Well, sir, I am not prepared to come to 
 terms at present, but if ever I do undertake such 
 a work, you shall certainly have the refusal." 
 
 -aA/V^ 
 
 E' 
 
 ■NUMERATING and acting the different 
 sorts of hand-shaking to be met with in 
 society, Smith said there were : the digitory, or 
 one finger, exemplified in 
 Lord Brougham, who puts 
 forth his forefinger, and says 
 with his strong northern ac- 
 cent, ' ' How arrre you? " The 
 sepulchral or mortetnain which was 
 Mackintosh's manner, laying his 
 open hand flat and coldly against 
 yours. The high official, the Archbishop of 
 York's, who carries your hand aloft on a level 
 with his forehead. The rural or vigorous shake, 
 &c., &c.
 
 Sydney Smith. 83 
 
 "T^ESCRIBIXG Xhc ilinifig process by which 
 people in London extract all they can from 
 new literary lions, Smith was irresistibly comic : 
 Here 's a new man of genius arrived ; put on 
 the stew-pan, fry away; we'll soon get it all 
 out of him. 
 
 'T'HE liberality of churchmen generally, is like 
 the quantity of matter in a cone — both get 
 less and less as they move higher and higher. 
 
 COMEOXE at a dinner party sitting next to 
 Sydney Smith was talking of the value of 
 some landed property, and saying it was worth 
 five pounds a foot per annum. "Ah!" said 
 Smith, "the price of a London footman six foot 
 high — thirty guineas a year." 
 
 "n\ISCUSSIXG a recent geological work, 
 Sydney Smith asked his listeners to imagine 
 an excavation at some distant date on the site 
 of St Paul's, a lecture by the Owen of a future 
 age .on the thigh-bone of a minor Canon, or 
 the tooth of a Dean, — the form, qualities, the 
 knowledge, tastes, propensities, he would 
 discover from them.
 
 84 Bon -Mots. 
 
 TXTE naturally lose illusions as we get older, 
 like teeth, but there is no one to fit a new- 
 set into our understandings. I have, alas ! only 
 one illusion left, and that is the Archbishop of 
 Canterbury. 
 
 T ADY HOLLAND was of a somewhat 
 imperious nature, even with the great men 
 who foregathered at Holland House, and her 
 manner justified Smith's retort, when she said 
 to him, "Sydney, ring the bell." 
 
 "Oh yes!" he answered, "and shall I 
 sweep the room?" 
 
 C OMEONE speaking of the utility of a certain 
 measure, and quoting a friend's opinion in 
 support of it, Sydney Smith broke in saying — 
 
 ' ' Yes, he is of the utilitarian school. That 
 man is so hard you might drive a broad-wheeled 
 wagon over him, and it would produce no 
 impression ; if you were to bore holes in him 
 with a gimlet, I am convinced sawdust would 
 come out of him. That school treat mankind 
 as if they were mere machines ; the feelings or 
 affections never enter into their calculations. 
 If everything is to be sacrificed to utility,, why 
 do you bury your grandmother at all ? Why 
 don't you cut her into small pieces at once, and 
 make portable soup of her ? "
 
 Sydney Smith. 
 
 85 
 
 'pHE Hon. Mrs Norton was fanning Sydney 
 Smith when he suddenly asked, " Is East- 
 lake here? What a picture he would make! 
 Beauty fanning Piety — happy Piety ! " 
 
 OMITH once laughingly described his friends 
 
 in the next world. Of Cornewall Lewis 
 
 he said, "If he ever does go to Hades, his 
 
 punishment will be to sit book-less for ever, 
 
 treaty-less, pamphlet-less, grammar-less ; in 
 vain will he implore the Bishop of London, 
 sitting aloft, to send him one little treatise on 
 the Greek article, or one smallest dissertation 
 on the verbs in fxL." 
 
 —^j\/\/Yf— 
 
 r^OL'T is the only enemy which I don't wish 
 to have at my feet.
 
 86 Bon-Mots. 
 
 C YDNEY SMITH spoke of a certain kind 
 of charity as "the integumental charity 
 that covers so many sins." 
 
 AT a large dinner at Holland House, Sydney 
 Smith met a French sava7it, who took it 
 upon himself to annoy the best disposed of the 
 company by a variety of freethinking specula- 
 tions. 
 
 "Very good soup this!" slyly struck in 
 Smith. 
 
 " Oui, monsieur, cest excellenteJ" 
 "Pray, sir," was the retort, which for that 
 time and place was worth a library of argument, 
 ' ' do you believe in a cook ? " 
 
 — ^^/VVv— 
 
 r^OMING suddenly upon the great Jeffrey of 
 Ediyiburgh fame riding upon the children's 
 
 donkey, Smith hailed him thus — 
 Witty as Horatius Flaccus, 
 As great a Jacobin as Gracchus, 
 Short, though not as fat as Bacchus, 
 Riding on a little Jackass. 
 
 T^HERE is a New Zealand attorney just ar- 
 rived in London, with 6s. 8d. tattooed all 
 over his face.
 
 Sydney Smith. 87 
 
 CYDNEY SMITH, sitting by a brother clergy- 
 man at dinner, observed afterwards that 
 his dull neighbour had a twelve-parson power of 
 conversation. 
 
 'X'HE Archbishop of York, an accomplished 
 rider, said to Sydney, who could not ride 
 at all, " I hear, Mr Smith, you do not approve 
 of much riding for the clergy." 
 
 "Why, my lord," replied he, "perhaps there 
 is not much objection, provided they do not 
 ride too well, and stick out their toes pro- 
 fessionally." 
 
 /^NE day the conversation turned upon an 
 obstinate man who was full of prejudices. 
 Sydney Smith, who knew his character and 
 opinions, expressed despair, saying, "You might 
 as well attempt to poultice the humps off a 
 camel's back." 
 
 — A/\/\/V- — 
 
 JEFFREY, Sydney Smith, and other friends 
 paid a visit to Deville, the phrenologist, 
 incog. 
 
 " This gentleman's case," said Deville, feeling 
 Smith's bumps, "is clear enough. His faculties
 
 88 Bon-Mots. 
 
 are those of a naturalist, and I see that he 
 gratifies them. This gentleman is always 
 happy among his collection of birds and 
 fishes." 
 
 "Sir," said Sydney Smith, turning round 
 upon him solemnly with open eyes, "I don't 
 know a fish from a bird," 
 
 — A/\/\/\a — 
 
 lyTRS MARCET was on a visit at Foston, 
 and on showing her round. Smith said, 
 ' ' I am a great doctor ; would you like to hear 
 some of my medicines?" 
 " Oh yes, Mr Sydney." 
 ' ' Well, then there is the Gentle- 
 jog, a pleasure to take it ; the 
 Bulldog, for more serious cases ; 
 Peter's Puke ; Heart's Delight, 
 the comfort of all the old women 
 in the village ; Rub-a-dub, a capi- 
 tal embrocation ; Dead - stop, 
 settles the matter at once ; Up- 
 with-it-then, needs no explana- 
 tion." 
 The visitor was then taken downstairs, and 
 entered a room filled entirely on one side with 
 medicines, and on the other with every descrip- 
 tion of groceries, and household or agricultural 
 necessaries ; in the centre, a large chest forming
 
 Sydney Smith. 89 
 
 a table, and divided into compartments for 
 soap, candles, salt, and sugar. 
 
 " Here you see," said Smith, spreading out 
 his hands and laughing, "every human want 
 before you, — 
 
 " Man wants but little here below, 
 As beef, veal, mutton, pork, Iamb, venison show I " 
 
 C YDNEY SMITH described his arriving late 
 at a dinner, and how everyone was en- 
 gaged, ' ' and there was Hallam with his mouth 
 full of cabbage and contradiction." 
 
 "XXTHEN informed that his daughter's 
 marriage had been announced in the 
 London papers, under Fashionable Ititelligence, 
 Sydney Smith exclaimed with a merry twinkle 
 in his eye, " How absurd ! — Why, we pay our 
 bills ! " 
 
 — A/Wv^ — 
 
 T^WO young ladies entering a drawing-room, 
 
 someone remarked to Sydney Smith what 
 
 a pretty contrast their different styles of beauty
 
 90 Bon-Mots. 
 
 made. " Yes," responded he, " Miss L. 
 reminds me of a youthful Minerva ; and her 
 friend, as a doctor's daughter must, you know, 
 be the Venus de Medicis." 
 
 —A/\/\JV^— 
 
 AT a large dinner party, the death of Dugald 
 Stewart was announced. The news was 
 receiv^ed with so much levity by a lady of rank, 
 who sat by Sydney Smith, that he turned round 
 to her saying, "Madam, when we are told of 
 the death of so great a man as Mr Dugald 
 Stewart, it is usual in civilised society, to look 
 grave for at least the space of five seconds." 
 
 —J'AJVv^- 
 
 C YDNEY SMITH said in one of his writings 
 that a false quantity at the commencement 
 of the career of a young man intended for 
 public life, was rarely got over ; when a lady 
 asked him what a false quantity was, he ex- 
 plained it to be in a man the same as a /a?ix 
 pas in a woman. 
 
 —-j\r\l\tJ— 
 
 " CORRESPONDENCES," said Smith to a 
 friend who complained about having had 
 no letters during a temporary absence, "are 
 like small clothes before the invention of sus- 
 penders — it is impossible to keep them up."
 
 A 
 
 Sydney Smith. 91 
 
 X argument arose in which Sydney Smith 
 observed how many of the most eminent 
 men of the world had been diminutive in person, 
 and after naming several among the ancients, 
 he added, "Why, look there, at Jeffrey; and 
 there is my little friend D — , who has not body 
 enough to cover his mind decently with ; his 
 intellect is improperly exposed." 
 
 C YDNEY SMITH drolly described his friends 
 during an influenza epidemic, "and poor 
 Hallam was tossing and tumbling in his bed 
 when the watchman came by and called ' twelve 
 o'clock and a starlight night. ' 
 " Here was an opportunity for controversy when 
 it seemed most out of the question ! Up Hallam 
 jumped with, ' I question that, — I question 
 that ! Starlight ! I see a star, I admit ; but I 
 doubt whether that constitutes starlight.' 
 
 "Hours more of tossing and tumbling; and 
 then comes the watchman again : ' Past two 
 o'clock, and a cloudy morning.' 
 
 "'I question that, — I question that,' says 
 Hallam, and he rushes to the window and 
 throws up the sash — influenza notwithstanding. 
 ' Watchman ! do you mean to call this a cloudy 
 morning? I see a star. And I question its 
 being past two o'clock — I question it, I question 
 it.' "
 
 92 Bon-Mots. 
 
 T ESLIE, the Scotch philosopher, had called 
 upon Jeffrey, just as the latter was going 
 out riding, to ask him to explain some point 
 concerning the North Pole. Jeffrey, who was 
 in a hurry, exclaimed as he rode off, "Oh! 
 damn the North Pole ! " 
 
 This Leslie complained of to Sydney Smith, 
 who entered gravely into his feelings, and told 
 
 him in confidence, that he himself had once 
 heard Jeffrey speak disrespectfully of the 
 Equator. 
 
 /^H, dear me, yes, you find people ready 
 enough to do the Samaritan — without the 
 oil and twopence.
 
 Sydney Smith. 93 
 
 'T'HERE being a rumour that in the event of 
 certain "Church Reforms," all the church 
 dignitaries would resign, Smith drew a picture 
 of the sad state the country would be in ; having 
 to send to America to borrow a bishop : " Have 
 you such a thing as a bishop you could lend us ? 
 Shall keep him only a fortnight, and return 
 him with a new cassock," &c. 
 
 VyHEN Lord John Russell went to Exeter 
 after the defeat of the Reform Bill, the 
 people along the road were much 
 disappointed at his smallness. 
 Sydney Smith told them that he 
 was much bigger before the Bill 
 was thrown out, but he was 
 reduced by excessive anxiety about 
 the people. This we are told 
 brought tears to their eyes. 
 
 CMITH, when he became Canon of St Paul's, 
 retained his Bristol appointment, and de- 
 scribed his alternation from town to country as 
 — dining with the rich in London, and physick- 
 ing the poor in the country ; passing from the 
 sauce of Dives to the sores of Lazarus.
 
 94 Bon-Mots. 
 
 ■jV/TY idea of heaven is, eatxns;; fo?e g?-as to the 
 sound of trumpets. 
 
 ■QESCRIBING his home-life at Foston-le- 
 Clay, Sydney Smith told how, on sfaie 
 occasions his carpenter, Jack Robinson, took 
 off his apron and waited at table, and did pretty 
 well too, though he sometimes naturally made 
 a mistake, and stuck a gimlet into the bread 
 instead of a fork. 
 
 —j^AA/V^- 
 
 V\7'HILE suffering from illness, during which, 
 however, his playfulness never left him, 
 Sydney Smith said that he felt so weak that 
 he verily believed, if the knife were put into his 
 hand he should not have strength or energy 
 enough to stick it in a Dissenter. 
 
 — A/ww- 
 
 X^T'HEN there was a rumour that Rogers was 
 to be married, Sydney Smith, who never 
 tired of making fun out of the cadaverous poet, 
 suggested the two Miss Berrys as bridesmaids, 
 the sexton as best-man, and the Rev. Mr Coffin 
 (a clergyman known at that time in London) as 
 the proper person to officiate at the wedding, 
 which would of course take place in the Church 
 of St Sepulchre,
 
 Sydney Smith. 95 
 
 "QESCRIBIXG the starting of the Edinburgh 
 Review, Sydney Smith said, " I proposed 
 that we should set up a Review. This was 
 acceded to with acclamation. I was appointed 
 editor, and remained long enough in Eklinburgh 
 to edit the first number of the Review. The 
 motto I proposed for the Review was — 
 ' Tenui Musam jnediiamur avend,.' 
 ' We cultivate literature on a little oatmeal. ' 
 But this was too near the truth to be admitted ; 
 so we took our present grave motto from 
 Publius Syrus, of whom none of us had, I am 
 sure, read a single line." 
 
 "M"0\\' I mean not to drink one drop of wine 
 to-day, and I shall be mad with spirits. 
 I always am when I drink no wine. It is 
 curious the effect a thimbleful of wine has upon 
 me ; I feel as flat as A.'s jokes ; it destroys my 
 understanding. I forget the numbers of the 
 Muses, — and think them thirty-nine, of course; 
 and only get myself right again by repeating 
 the lines "Descend ye thirty-nine," and finding 
 it two feet too long. 
 
 ■p) ESCRIBING Nether Avon (near Salisbury), 
 the scene of his first curacy, Smith spoke 
 of it as a pretty feature in 2l plain face.
 
 96 
 
 Bon-Mots. 
 
 CMITH spoke of the Archdeacon of New- 
 foundland as a man who sits bobbing for 
 cod, and pocketing every tenth fish. 
 
 ■r\ANIEL O'CONNELL presented Sydney 
 Smith to his friends, saying, "Allow me 
 
 to introduce to you the ancient defender of our 
 faith." 
 
 Sydney laughingly interrupted him, saying, 
 "Of your cause, if you please; not of your 
 faith."
 
 Sydney Smith. 97 
 
 gCOTLAND is only the knuckle end of 
 England. 
 
 'pALLEYRAND was to be found so con- 
 stantly at Holland House that Sydney 
 Smith said anyone was sure of being Talley- 
 randed there. 
 
 QMITH described a dinner at his publishers' 
 (Longmans') : Rees carving plerumque 
 secat res. 
 
 'pALKIXG of the bad effects of late hours, 
 Sydney Smith remarked of some dis- 
 tinguished diner out that there would be on his 
 tomb, "He dined late — " "and died early," 
 added Luttrell. 
 
 — A/WVv — 
 
 T ORD LANSDOWNE having promised to 
 accompany Tom Moore to some Roman 
 Catholic religious establishment, Smith charged 
 Moore with a design upon Lansdowne's ortho- 
 doxy, and recommended that there should be 
 some sound Protestant tracts put up with the 
 sandwiches in the carriage. 
 G
 
 98 Bon-Mots. 
 
 'T'HERE arose a discussion on the Inferno of 
 Dante, and the tortures he had invented. 
 "He may be a great poet," said Sydney 
 Smith, " but as to inventing tortures, I consider 
 him a mere bungler, — no imagination — no 
 knowledge of the human heart. If I had taken 
 it in hand, I would show you what torture 
 really was. For instance (turning to his friend, 
 Mrs Marcet), you should be doomed to listen 
 for a thousand years to conversations between 
 Caroline and Emily, where Caroline should 
 
 always give wrong explanations in chemistry, 
 and Emily in the end be unable to distinguish 
 an acid from an alkali. 
 
 "You, Macaulay, let me consider — oh, you 
 should be dumb. False dates and facts of the 
 reign of Queen Anne should for ever be shouted 
 in your ears, all liberal and honest opinions 
 should be ridiculed in your presence ; and you
 
 Sydney Smith. 99 
 
 should not be able to say a single word during 
 that period in their defence." 
 • "And what would you condemn me to, Mr 
 Smith?" said a young mother. 
 
 ' ' Why you should for ever see those three 
 sweet little girls of yours on the point of falling 
 downstairs, and never be able to save them. 
 There — what tortures are there in Dante equal 
 to these?" 
 
 —^AfSjSjv— 
 
 "p\ON'T you know, as the French say, there 
 are three sexes — men, women, and clergy- 
 men. 
 
 —A/\J\/\r. — 
 
 T ADY CORK was once so moved by a 
 charity sermon, that she begged me to 
 lend her a guinea for her contribution. I did 
 so. She never repaid me, and spent it on 
 herself. 
 
 TJNDER the last regimen of his physician, 
 Sydney Smith exclaimed to a friend, 
 "Ah! Charles, I wish I were allowed to eat 
 even the wing of a roasted butterfly." 
 
 \\7HAT a pity it is that in England we have 
 no amusements but vice and religion.
 
 lOO Bon-Mots. 
 
 Y^ZHEN I began to thump the cushion of 
 my pulpit on first coming to Foston, 
 as is my wont when I preach, the accumulated 
 dust of a hundred and fifty years made such a 
 cloud, that for some minutes I lost sight of my 
 congregation. 
 
 —A/\/\/V^- 
 
 " Y^/E were savage," said Smith, recalling the 
 early days of the Edijiburgh Review. 
 ' ' I remember how Brougham and I sat trying 
 one night how we could exasperate our cruelty 
 to the utmost. We had got hold of a poor 
 nervous little vegetarian, who had put out a 
 poor silly little book, and when we had done 
 our review of it, we sat trying to find one more 
 chink, one more crevice, through which we 
 might drop in one more drop of verjuice to eat 
 into his bones." 
 
 ■pJOLDING forth to a laughing circle on the 
 subject of tithes and the Tripartite 
 division, Sydney Smith said, " I am sorry to tell 
 you that the great historian, Hallam, has 
 declared himself in favour of the Tripartite, 
 and contends that it was so, in the age of King 
 Fiddlefred ; but we of the Church," he con- 
 tinued, slapping his breast mock-heroically, 
 " say, ' a fig for King Fiddlefred ; we will keep 
 our tithes to ourselves.' " 
 
 I
 
 Sydney Smith. loi 
 
 "p\ANTE in his Purgatorio would have as- 
 signed five hundred years of assenting to 
 Hallam, and as many to Rogers of praising 
 his fellow-creatures. 
 
 — vV\/V/ — 
 
 T^ALKING of absence of mind— the oddest 
 instance of absence of mind happened to 
 me once in forgetting my own name. I knocked 
 at a door in London ; asked, Is Mr B. at home? 
 "Yes, sir, pray what name shall I say?" 
 
 I looked into the man's face astonished : 
 "What name? what name? Ay, that is the 
 question. What is my name ? " 
 
 I believe the man thought me mad, but it is 
 literally true, that during the space 
 of two or three minutes, I had no 
 more idea of who I was than if I 
 had never existed. I did not 
 know whether I was a Dissenter 
 or a layman. I felt as dull as 
 Sternhold and Hopkins. At last, 
 to my great relief, it flashed across me that I 
 was Sydney Smith. 
 
 T HEARD of a clergyman who went jogging 
 along the road till he came to a turnpike — 
 " What is to pay?" 
 
 " Pay, sir, for what?" asked the turnpike man. 
 ' ' Why, for my horse to be sure.
 
 102 Bon- Mots. 
 
 "Your horse, sir? What horse? There is 
 no horse, sir." 
 
 "No horse? God bless me!" said he, 
 suddenly looking down between his legs, "I 
 thought I was on horseback." 
 
 S 
 
 -— A/VW— 
 
 YDNEY SMITH said he was magnanimous, 
 when talking to Tom Moore and Miss 
 Berry, in avowing that he had never before 
 heard of Lamartine. Was it another name for 
 the blacking man ! Because, if so, he 's Martin 
 here, La-Martine in France, and Martin Luther 
 in Germany. 
 
 — wwv^ — 
 
 A FRIEND having said that bread was about 
 to be made from sawdust, Sydney Smith 
 imagined that people would soon have sprigs 
 coming out of them. Young ladies dressing 
 for a ball, would say, " Mamma, I 'm beginning 
 to sprout." 
 
 — V\/\/\/v— 
 
 CUGGESTED derivations of words being 
 offered at a party. Smith gave nincompoop, 
 from 710JI compos ; cock-a-whoop, from the 
 taking the cock out of a barrel of ale, and 
 setting it on the hoop to let the ale flow merrily.
 
 Sydney Smith. 103 
 
 'T'ALKING of the mixture of character in 
 O'Connell, Sydney Smith summed up all 
 by saying, " The only way to deal with such a 
 man is to hang him up, and erect a statue to 
 him under his gallows." 
 
 CYDXEY SMITH'S advice to a writer in 
 composing was : — "As a general rule, run 
 your pen through every other word you have 
 written ; you have no idea what vigour it will 
 give your style." 
 
 ■p REACHING a charity sermon, Sydney 
 Smith frequently repeated the assertion 
 that, of all nations, the English were most 
 distinguished for generosity and the love of 
 their species. The collection was less than he 
 expected, and he said that he had evidently 
 made a great mistake, and that his expression 
 should have been that they were distinguished 
 for the love of their specie. 
 
 — f\f\/\fV' — 
 
 COME young person answering on a subject 
 in discussion, "I don't know that, Mr 
 Smith." 
 
 "Ah, what you don't know would make a 
 great book," he said, smiling.
 
 I04 Bon-Mots. 
 
 A DISCUSSION took place as to whether "it 
 was better to hear or read Macaulay. 
 Rogers said, "the former, because you need 
 not Hsten." 
 
 " Oh, I 'm for the latter," said Sydney Smith, 
 " because you can't dog's-ear and interline him 
 and put him on the shelf when he is talking." 
 
 —Ar\j\/v- — 
 
 T DELIGHT in a stage coach and four, and 
 how could I have gone by one as Bishop? 
 I might have found myself with a young lady 
 of strong Dissenting pnnciples, 
 who would have called for help 
 to disgrace the Church ; or with 
 an Atheist, who told me what 
 he had in his heart ; and when 
 I had taken refuge on the out- 
 side, I might have found an 
 Unitarian in the basket ; or if I 
 got on the box, the coachman might have told 
 me that ' ' he was once one of those rascally 
 parsons, but had now taken to a better and an 
 honester trade." 
 
 " TF you Whigs send Campbell, Lord Chan- 
 cellor to Ireland, you will drive them 
 mad," said a friend. 
 
 "And a very short stage to go, my lord," 
 replied Smith, "and no postilions to pay."
 
 Sydney Smith. 105 
 
 'T'HEY now speak of the pecuUar difficulties 
 and restrictions of the episcopal office. 
 I only read in Scripture of two inhibitions — 
 boxing and polygamy. 
 
 — A/Wv^- 
 
 COON after Lord Lyndhurst became Lord 
 Chancellor, Sydney Smith, who was on 
 intimate terms with him, was present at a 
 dinner party at his house. The conversation 
 turned to the custom in India of widows burn- 
 ing themselves in their husbands' funeral pyre. 
 For the sake of the argument, Smith began to 
 defend the practice, and asserted that no wife 
 who truly loved her husband could wish to 
 survive him. 
 
 ' ' But if Lord Lyndhurst were to die, you 
 would be sorry that Lady Lyndhurst should 
 burn herself?" was the sudden and embarrass- 
 ing question of one of the guests. 
 
 "Lady Lyndhurst," came the deliberate 
 reply "would, no doubt, as an affectionate 
 wife, consider it her duty to burn herself, but 
 it would be our duty to put her out ; and, as 
 the wife of the Lord Chancellor, Lady Lynd- 
 hurst should not be put out like an ordinary 
 widow. It should be a State affair. First, a 
 procession of the judges, then of the lawyers — " 
 
 ' ' But pray, Mr Smith, where are the clergy?" 
 
 "All gone to congratulate the new Lord 
 Chancellor," came the sly response.
 
 io6 Bon-Mots. 
 
 "DABBAGE always seems at white heat, 
 ready to scorch up some rival man of 
 science. 
 
 /^N having some things charged at the 
 Customs House, Smith enquired, " Under 
 what head?" 
 
 " Unmentioned articles," was the reply. 
 
 " I suppose, then, you would tax the Thirty- 
 nine?" 
 
 — A/WW- 
 
 " T N the country ! " exclaimed Sydney Smith. 
 "Oh, in the country I always fear that 
 creation will expire before tea-time." 
 
 'T'HE Archbishop of York having met with an 
 accident, "Yes," said Smith, "he has 
 sprained the teiido Athanasii , which in laymen 
 is the tendo A chillis." 
 
 CMITH once gave a neat definition of a 
 "card-sharper," — "One who sells 'cor- 
 rect cards,' and gets sent to jail because they 
 rove incorrect."
 
 Sydney Smith. 
 
 107 
 
 AFTER attending Lady Essex's private 
 theatricals, Sydney Smith said that he 
 watched with intense anxiety for the sUghtest 
 approach of impropriety, that he might carry 
 off the Archbishop of York as the pious ^neas 
 did his sire. 
 
 A N officer having been pubhcly reproved by 
 
 the Duke of WeUington, Sydney Smith 
 
 said, " He can't hve, vou know; his wife and 
 
 children will be always in tears, his pointers 
 will bite him, the pew opener won't give him 
 a seat, the butcher won't trust him, his horse 
 will always kick him off — prussic acid will be 
 too good for him."
 
 io8 Bon-Mots. 
 
 "M O railroad will be safe until they have made 
 a Bishop in partibus. 
 
 —f^i\[\[\h — 
 
 A MEMBER of Parliament having said that 
 if the Corn Laws were repealed, ' ' we 
 should return to the food of our ancestors," 
 some friend asked Smith, "What did he 
 mean?" 
 
 " Thistles, to be sure," was the reply. 
 
 —j\i\f\j\^ — 
 
 CYDNEY SMITH having offered to call 
 somewhere, was told, "Do, we shall be 
 on our knees to you, if you come." 
 
 " I 'm glad to hear it," he replied, " I like to 
 see you in that attitude, as it brings me in 
 several hundreds a year." 
 
 —j\i\l\[\h — 
 
 "VTEVER gamble at the game of life ; be con- 
 tent to play for sixpences ; marriage is too 
 high a stake for a wise man to risk. 
 
 — vww- 
 
 C AID Smith to Mrs Grote, ' ' Go where you 
 will, do what you please, I have the most 
 perfect confidence in your indiscretion.'"
 
 Sydney vSmith. 109 
 
 CYDNEY SMITH once called the railway 
 whistle, "the attorney," because it is sug- 
 gestive of the shriek of a spirit in torment, " and 
 we have no right to assume that any other class 
 of men is damned." 
 
 A LADY told Smith that Macaulay had not 
 talked quite so much as usual. 
 " Why, my dear, how could he? Whenever 
 I gave him a chance, you cut in." 
 
 — 'AAA*"- — 
 
 A N acquaintance of Sydney Smith's had been 
 platitudinising about the value of travel 
 — he of course ha\'ing tra- 
 velled — and at length said, ^^ /^3^ 
 "Do you see this stick, sir? 
 This stick has been all round 
 the world." 
 
 "Indeed," said Smith, "and yet it 7s only 
 a stick." 
 
 CMITH spoke of the knowledge sailors have 
 of ships at a great distance ; took them 
 off, saying, with a telescope to the eye, ' ' Damn 
 her, she's the ' Delight,' laden with tallow ! "
 
 no Bon-Mots. 
 
 " 'T*HE entertainment of the clergy," Sydney 
 Smith described as, "that most solemn 
 and terrible duty of a Bishop." 
 
 v^OMEONE having remarked upon the 
 wonderful improvement in a friend since 
 his success. " Ah ! " exclaimed Sydney Smith, 
 " Praise is the best diet for us after all." 
 
 — aV\M — 
 
 r\F the court of Chancery, Sydney Smith said 
 that it was like a boa constrictor ; it 
 swallowed up the estates of English gentlemen 
 in haste, and digested them at leisure. 
 
 A FRIEND asked Sydney Smith what was 
 Puseyism. 
 " Puseyism, sir," replied the ^vitty Canon, 
 ' ' is inflexion and genuflexion ; posture and 
 imposture ; bowing to the east, and curtseying 
 to the west." 
 
 V\/'HY are old Tories like last year's wal- 
 nuts? Because they are troublesome 
 to Pee/.
 
 Sydney Smith. 1 1 1 
 
 V\/'HEN Sydney Smith got the prebendal 
 stall in our cathedral (a Bristolian 
 recounts the story), he was lodging in College 
 Green ; and as his fame as a convivialist was not 
 then so noised and known as subsequently, he 
 was allowed to dine at home more frequently 
 than one would suppose ; and his dinner was 
 always a beefsteak, and that beefsteak he 
 always bought himself. I was then my own 
 purveyor, and there were few days when he 
 was in residence that I did not meet him at 
 Burge's in Denmark Street (his favourite 
 butcher, and mine), overseeing and selecting 
 his own cut. After Sydney had described a 
 circle with his finger round a cer- 
 tain pin-bone, and emphatically 
 told the man of fat to ' ' cut there, 
 and cut boldly," as the Roman 
 augur said, Burge turned to me 
 and asked, " And where will you 
 be helped, sir? " 
 "I'll follow suit," said I, "the cut next to 
 Mr Smith's. I can't go wrong with such a 
 precedent." 
 
 The Canon's droll eye twinkled ; his large, 
 pouting, and somewhat luxurious lip moved with 
 that comic twitch that spoke the man, as he 
 said, "You 're a wise man, sir; this is one of 
 the cases where you can't err if you follow the 
 Church, and you'll find your obedience re- 
 warded with a good beefsteak."
 
 112 Bon-Mots. 
 
 C PEAKING of a noble lord, someone said 
 that he must have felt himself astonished 
 at becoming the father of a clever son. 
 
 " Yes," said Sydney Smith, " he must have 
 felt like a hen who has hatched a duck, and 
 sees it suddenly take to the water." 
 
 pASSING through a bye-street behind St 
 Paul's, Sydney Smith heard two women 
 abusing each other from opposite houses. 
 "They will never agree," said he, "for they 
 argue from different premises." 
 
 —A/\/\/V^— 
 
 C YDNEY SMITH said of a hospitable friend 
 of his in the Highlands, that he could 
 always tell the state of the weather by the 
 quantity of whiskey drunk in his house during 
 the day ; averring that the glass went up in the 
 hand as the mercury went down in the hall. 
 
 —M/S/V^- 
 
 A COUNTRY squire having been worsted in 
 an argument with Sydney Smith, took 
 his revenge by remarking, " If I had a son who 
 was an idiot, by Jove, I 'd make him a parson." 
 "Very probably," said Sydney Smith, "but I 
 see that your father was of a different mind. "
 
 Sydney Smith. 1 13 
 
 A T a public dinner, three gentlemen having 
 at the same moment stood up for the 
 purpose of saying grace, Sydney Smith, who 
 was present, called them " the three Graces." 
 
 T ORD JOHN RUSSELL, remarkable for 
 the smallness of his person, as Lord 
 Nugent was for the reverse, was expected at a 
 house where Sydney Smith was a guest. 
 
 "Lord John comes here to-day," said Sydney 
 Smith ; ' ' his corporeal anti-part, Lord Nugent, 
 
 is already here. Heaven send he may not 
 swalloTvO John ! There are, however, stomach 
 pumps in case of accident." 
 
 —t\i\f\jv^— 
 
 POUNTRY life is very good ; in fact, the 
 best — for cattle.
 
 114 Bon-Mots, 
 
 g PEAKING of a lady's smile, Sydney Smith 
 said it was so radiant that it would force 
 a gooseberry bush into flower, 
 
 — A/WV^ 
 
 r\F three sisters, Sydney Smith said that they 
 were all so beautiful that Paris could not 
 have decided between them, 
 
 -w\/\/v^— 
 
 AT one of the Holland House dinner 
 parties, Crockford's Club, then forming, 
 was talked of, and the noble hostess observed 
 that the female passion for diamonds was 
 surely less ruinous than the rage for play 
 among men. 
 
 "In short, you think," said Rogers, "that 
 clubs are worse than diamonds." 
 
 This excited a laugh, and when it had 
 subsided, Sydney Smith wrote the follow- 
 ing impromptu most appropriately on a 
 card — 
 
 "Thoughtless that 'all that's brightest fades,' 
 Unmindful of the Knave 0/ Spades, 
 
 The Sexton and his Subs : 
 How foolishly we play our parts ! 
 Our wives on diamonds set their hearts, 
 
 And we our hearts on clubs I "
 
 Sydney Smith. 115 
 
 Y^HEX a body of horse guards were passing, 
 Sydney Smith turned to an officer who 
 was standing by him (Lord William Russell), 
 saying, ' ' I suppose you must now feel the same 
 in looking at those that I do in looking at a 
 congregation." 
 
 ■DOBUS SMITH and Sir Henry Holland 
 were talking of the comparative merits of 
 the learned professions in affording agreeable 
 members of society. 
 
 "Your profession (the law), for instance, 
 certainly does not make angels of men," said 
 Sir Henry. 
 
 " No," quietly answered Bobus, as he glanced 
 with an innocent air at the physician, "no — 
 but yours does ! " 
 
 — ^AAA''^- 
 
 •XOM MOORE mentioned Kean's having 
 
 eked out his means of 
 living before he emerged into 
 celebrity by teaching dancing, 
 fencing, elocution, and box- 
 ing. 
 
 "^ Elocidion and boxing," 
 echoed Bobus Smith, "a word 
 and a blow."
 
 ii6 
 
 Bon-Mots. 
 
 ■\"\7ILKIE was looking over "H.B.'s" early 
 sketches, and admiring some of them 
 as works of art, when, pointing to a bit in one 
 of them, he said, "That really reminds me of 
 Titian." 
 
 " Po/itlcian ! " exclaimed Bobus.
 
 '^^-e/r/.ii'Ce^ <L^^^^^.^^^ti/c^^
 
 SHERIDAN.
 
 B O N - M O T S 
 
 OF 
 
 SHERIDAN. 
 
 V\7HILE at Harrow, we are told, Sheridan 
 was made a frequent butt for the ridicule 
 of the other boys, particularly those who were 
 born of great families, or to brighter prospects. 
 One of the most troublesome and impertinent 
 of these youths, the son of an eminent physician 
 in London, took occasion in the playground 
 to exercise his wit at the expense of Sheridan, 
 as being the son of a player. Sheridan, however, 
 quickly retorted, " 'Tis true, my father lives 
 by pleasing people, but yours lives by killing 
 them."
 
 O' 
 
 Bon-Mots. 
 
 |NE day, meeting two royal dukes walking 
 up St James's Street, Sheridan was thus 
 addressed by the younger, " I say, Sherry, we 
 have just been discussing whether you are a 
 greater fool or rogue. \\Tiat is your own opinion , 
 ray boy?" 
 
 Sheridan, having bowed and smiled at the 
 compliment, took each of them by an arm, and 
 instantly replied, " Wliy, i' faith, I believe I am 
 between both.'" 
 
 — f^\[\lv^ — 
 
 T OOKING over a number of the Quarterly 
 Reviezu one day at Brookes's, Sheridan 
 said, in reply to a gentleman who observed that 
 the editor, Gifford, had boasted of his power of 
 conferring and distributing literary reputation, 
 "Very likely, and in the present instance I 
 think he has done it so profusely as to have left 
 none for himself." 
 
 A DRURY LANE after-piece was chiefly 
 remarkable for the introduction of a 
 wonderful performing dog, and Sheridan and a 
 friend went to see the performance. As they 
 entered the green-room, Dignum (who played 
 in the piece) said to Sheridan with a woful 
 countenance — 
 
 "Sir, there is no guarding against illness : it 
 is truly lamentable to stop the run of a success- 
 ful piece like this ; but really—"
 
 Sheridan. I2I 
 
 " Really what?" cried Sheridan, interrupting- 
 him. 
 
 " I am so unwell 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." 
 
 --AA/V^ 
 
 "DURKE in early life had attended a debating 
 
 society, which used to meet at a certain 
 
 baker's. On a memorable occasion in the House 
 
 of Commons, he said, " I quit the camp," and 
 crossing over from the Opposition took his seat 
 on the Ministerial benches, whence he rose and 
 made a brillant speech against his ci-devant 
 friends. 
 Sheridan, annoyed at the defection, said, ' ' The
 
 122 InnvMots. 
 
 honouml>le gentlomixn. to quote his own ex- 
 pi-ession, has quitttxl the camp ; he will recollect 
 that he quitttnl it as a deserter, and I sincerely 
 hojx* he will never attempt to return as a spy ; 
 but I, for one, cannot syn\pathise in the 
 astonishment with which an act of ajxjstacy so 
 tlagri\nt has electritle<.l the House ; for neither 
 I, nor the honovuable jjentleman. have for* 
 siottei\ whence he obtainetl the weapons which 
 he i\ow uses a^vxinst us ; so far f»x>n\ beii\4j at 
 all astonishtxl at the honoumble gentleman's 
 tergivers;T.tion. \ consider it not only chamcter* 
 istic, but consistent, that he who in the outset 
 oS life made so extraoixlinary a blunder as to go 
 to a Ixxker's for eUxiuence, should finish such a 
 care^-r by coming to the House of C'onxmons to 
 get bread." 
 
 \ r the close of Sheridan's unsuccessful 
 
 Westminster contest, it was hojxxl that 
 
 his noble C aU\lonian oppcment (Lorvl (.'ochrane) 
 
 would ilrown the n\emory of ditterences in a 
 
 friendly lK)ttle. 
 
 "With all n\y heart." Siiid Sheridan, "and 
 will thank his loulship to make it a Scotch 
 pint." 
 
 W 
 
 HEM Sheridan was aske<l what wine he 
 like^l best, he Sitid— other people's.
 
 vSheridr 
 
 123 
 
 T N describing the cavern scene of Coleridge's 
 Remorse, as produced at Drury Lane, 
 Sheridan said it was "drip, drip, drip— nothing 
 but dripping." 
 
 'pOWARDS the close of the Westminster 
 election, when all the exertions of Sheri- 
 dan's friends had failed 
 to secure his return, he 
 bore his defeat with 
 good humour. A sailor, 
 anxious to view the pro- 
 ceedings, had climbed 
 one of the supports in 
 front of the hustings. 
 As Sheridan commenced 
 his speech, his eye fell 
 upon the tar aloft, and 
 he turned the incident to 
 ludicrous account by say- 
 ing that had he but other five hundred voters 
 as upright as the perpendicular gentleman before 
 him, they would yet place him where he was — 
 at the head of the pole ! 
 
 — "A/SAf^— 
 
 CUMBERLAND, the irritable opponent of 
 
 all merit but his own, was with his young 
 
 family at an early performance of the School for 
 
 Scandal ; they were seated in the stage-box.
 
 124 Bon-Mots. 
 
 the little children screamed with delight, but 
 the less easily pleased fretful author pinched 
 them, exclaiming, " What are you laughing at, 
 my dear little folks? you should not laugh, my 
 angels, there is nothing to laugh at ! " and 
 then, in an undertone, "Keep still, you little 
 dunces." When Sheridan was told of this, he 
 said, "it was ungrateful of Cumberland to 
 have been displeased with his children for 
 laughing at my comedy, for when I went to see 
 his tragedy I laughed from beginning to end." 
 
 T^O Lord Holland Sheridan said one day : 
 "They talk of avarice, lust, ambition, as 
 great passions. Vanity is the great command- 
 ing passion of all. It is this that produces the 
 most grand and heroic deeds, or impels to the 
 most dreadful crimes. Save me from this 
 passion, and I can defy the others. They are 
 mere urchins, but this is a giant." 
 
 CHERIDAN was once talking to a friend 
 about the Prince Regent, who took great 
 credit to himself for various public occurrences, 
 as if they had been directed by his political 
 skill, or foreseen by his political sagacity ; ' ' but," 
 said Sheridan, after expatiating on this, " what 
 his Royal Highness more particularly prides 
 himself upon, is the late excellent harvest."
 
 Sheridan. 125 
 
 AN unfortunate dramatist whose comedies, 
 when returned upon his hands, were 
 generally reduced by the managers from five 
 acts to two, or even one, complained in wrath 
 and bitterness to Sheridan, who attempted to 
 console him by saying, ' ' Why, my good fellow, 
 what I would advise you is, to present a comedy 
 of a score of acts, and the devil will be in it if 
 five be not saved. " 
 
 "\X7HEN seated at his window not long before 
 
 his death, seeing a hearse go by, Sheridan 
 
 exclaimed, "Ah, that is the carriage fl/?6'r a///" 
 
 CHAW, having lent Sheridan five hundred 
 pounds, dunned him for it. One day, 
 after rating Sheridan, he said he must have the 
 money. Sheridan, having played off some of 
 his plausible wheedling upon him, ended by 
 saying that he was very much in want of twenty- 
 five pounds to pay the expenses of a journey 
 he was about to take, and he knew Shaw would 
 be good-natured enough to lend it to him. 
 
 "Ton my word," said Shaw, "this is too 
 bad ; after keeping me out of my money in so 
 shameful a manner you now have the face to 
 ask me for more ; but it won't do — it is most 
 disgraceful, and I must have my money." 
 
 "My dear fellow," replied Sheridan, "do
 
 26 
 
 Bon-Mots. 
 
 hear reason ; the sum you ask me for is a very 
 considerable one ; whereas I only ask you for 
 five and twenty pounds ! " 
 
 —'AlMV^— 
 
 A FRIENDLY wine merchant, Challie, was 
 dining with Sheridan when a noble visitor 
 invited the wit down to his country place for 
 the shooting season. 
 Sheridan said that he 
 was sorry not to be able 
 to accept the invitation, 
 assuming, as one of his 
 reasons, that his friend 
 Challie had determined 
 on keeping him in fort 
 for the rest of the season. 
 " By-the-bye, Challie," 
 said Sheridan playfully, 
 ' ' you would make a capi- 
 tal banker ! " 
 ' ' A banker ! ' ' echoed Challie, 
 laughing heartily at the idea ; 
 ' ' a banker, Mr Sheridan ! why 
 so? a banker and a wine merchant? " 
 
 ''The exact thing, my dear friend; for 
 uniting the business of the wine merchant and 
 banker, you could manage a capital business : 
 since for those who took your draughts over- 
 night you could reciprocate by honouring their 
 drafts in the morning. ' '
 
 Sheridan. 127 
 
 /^NE day a creditor came into Sheridan's 
 room for a bill, and found him seated 
 before a tah)le on which two or three hundred 
 pounds in gold and notes were strewed. 
 
 "It's no use looking at that, my good 
 fellow," said Sheridan, "that is all bespoken 
 for debts of honour." 
 
 "Very well," replied the tradesman, tearing 
 up his security and throwing it on the fire, 
 " now mine is a debt of honour." 
 
 "So it is, and must be paid at once," said 
 Sheridan, handing him over the money. 
 
 — vvWv^ 
 
 r^AXXIXG had nicknamed Lord Sidmouth 
 the Doctor, he being the son of a 
 physician, an intimate friend of the great 
 Lord Chatham. \Mien the Scotch members 
 deserted the Addington Ministry upon a try- 
 ing vote, Sheridan said to the Premier, across 
 the table of the House, ' ' Doctor ! the Thanes 
 fly from thee ! " 
 
 —J'AAJV^- 
 
 W 
 
 'HEN Garrick retired from Drury Lane, 
 and sold his half interest in the theatre, 
 Sheridan purchased two-fifths of that half for 
 ten thousand pounds. All his friends and 
 acquaintances were curious to know how he got
 
 128 Bon-Mots. 
 
 the money ; all kinds of rumours were rife, and 
 one friend went so far as to ask the dramatist 
 point blank where the money came from. 
 
 "Your importunities have prevailed," at 
 length replied Sheridan, with a con\ailsive 
 effort, assuming an extraordinary gravity of 
 manner, and with a tremulous, subdued, half- 
 suppressed voice, expressive of greatest agita- 
 tion, "and your curiosity must be gratified, 
 but I had hoped to have kept the secret con- 
 fined within my own breast, and to have borne 
 with its consuming fires even to the grave," 
 
 " Mr Sheridan, I — I really do not wish," 
 exclaimed the other, but he was interrupted ere 
 the sentence could be concluded by the stern 
 theatrical air and gesture of Sheridan, as he 
 advanced towards him. 
 
 " Ay, sir, to the grave, where we might both 
 have mouldered and been forgotten." 
 
 "Really, and seriously, Mr Sheridan, I have 
 no desire to inquire into your secrets." 
 
 "But you have forced it from me, and 
 involved yourself in inextricable danger. Be 
 the peril, therefore, on your own head, since 
 you have obtained from me a confession which 
 no tongue should utter or ear should hear, and 
 which must necessarily involve yourself, by the 
 keeping of my secret, in my guilt." 
 
 ' ' Mr Sheridan, this is really too serious a 
 matter — I beg your pardon — I really must beg 
 your pardon, and — good morning."
 
 Sheridan. 
 
 129 
 
 "Stay, stay ; yet hold — let us see that we are 
 not observed, that no eavesdropper catch 
 the sound of our voices, or carry away the 
 startling evidence of our daring." 
 
 " What in the name of heaven, Mr Sheridan, 
 do you allude to?" 
 
 " Heaven has nothing to do with the damning 
 deed ! " 
 
 The friend, paralysed, sunk almost fainting 
 in his chair, with the smell 
 of brimstone in his nostrils, 
 and the configuration of Friar 
 Bacon floating before his 
 eyes. Sheridan approached 
 the door of the apartment 
 with slow and measured step, 
 and holding the handle, 
 turned suddenly round upon 
 his bewildered friend — 
 "Swear! swear!" he cried, 
 ' ' never to reveal my secret ! " 
 
 "Oh, I never will, positively- 
 upon my honour, never." 
 
 " I am satisfied. Well then," — pausing 
 for a moment, and assuming great anguish with 
 remorse depicted on his countenance, he con- 
 tinued, "since it must be so, I have discovered," 
 — and elevating his voice to the highest pitch, 
 he roared out, — "the philosopher's stone!" 
 saying which, he darted out of the room, 
 banging the door after him, and leaving his 
 I
 
 130 Bon-Mots. 
 
 bewildered auditor to revolve the matter in his 
 own mind, and digest it as he could. Sheridan 
 was a capital actor in his own jokes, and it was 
 a capital joke. 
 
 QHERIDAN, with his son Tom, was dining 
 one day at Peter Moore's, Tom being 
 then in a nervous debilitated state. The 
 servant, in passing quickly between the guests 
 and the fire-place struck down the plate warmer. 
 This made a strange rattle, and caused Tom 
 Sheridan to start and tremble. Peter Moore, 
 provoked at this, rebuked the servant and said, 
 ' ' I suppose you have broken all the plates ? " 
 " No, sir," said the servant, " not one." 
 " No?" exclaimed Sheridan, " then, damn it, 
 you have made all that noise for nothing. " 
 
 — ^AAA^^^ 
 
 A T one of Sheridan's Parliamentary election 
 contests, a person on horseback had pene- 
 trated the crowd near the hustings, when the 
 horse became restive, and there was a loud 
 outcry against the intrusion. While some 
 strove to appease the clamour, others urged 
 Sheridan to proceed. 
 
 " Gentlemen," replied he, " when the chorus 
 of The Horse and his Rider is finished, I shall 
 continue,"
 
 Sheridan. 1 31 
 
 /^N the subject of the hberty of the press 
 (in 1810) Sheridan was very eloquent 
 when he exclaimed of his opponents in Parlia- 
 ment : — " Give them a corrupt House of 
 Lords ; give them a venal House of Commons ; 
 give them a tyrannical Prince ; give them a 
 truckling court, — and let me have an unfettered 
 press ; I will defy them to encroach a hair's- 
 breadth upon the liberties of England." 
 
 TT is said that Sheridan never gave Monk 
 Lewis any of the profits of The Castle 
 Spectre. One day Monk Lewis being in com- 
 pany with him, said, "Sheri- 
 dan, I will make you a large 
 bet." 
 
 Sheridan, who was always 
 ready to make a wager, asked 
 eagerly, " What bet? " 
 
 ' ' All the profits of Castle 
 Spectre," said Lewis. 
 
 " I will tell you what," re- 
 torted Sheridan, " I will make you a very small 
 one— what it is worth." 
 
 'pHE HON. Mr S. having finished a tragedy, 
 
 sent .it to Sheridan for performance at 
 
 Drur Lane. The proprietor looked at it, and
 
 132 Bon-Mots. 
 
 laid it on the table. In a few days the author 
 called. 
 
 "Well now, my dear Sheridan, pray what 
 do you think of it? My friend Cumberland 
 has promised me a prologue ; and I dare say, 
 for the interest of the theatre, you will have no 
 objection to supply me with an epilogue ? " 
 
 "Trust me, my dear sir," replied Sheridan 
 drily, " it will never come to that, depend on 't. " 
 
 — wvw^ 
 
 T^HE chronic state of money difficulties in 
 which Sheridan was situated is notorious. 
 At one time, Hanson, a furnishing ironmonger, 
 was rather a heavy creditor, so was Gunter, the 
 confectioner, but for a much smaller amount. 
 Gunter had sent in his bill, demanding im- 
 mediate payment, on the morning when Hanson 
 called for settlement of his own. Gunter's bill 
 lay upon the table. Hanson was pressing, 
 Sheridan equally apologetic. 
 
 " But I must have my account settled, Mr 
 Sheridan ; promises are not payment, and I 
 cannot wait any longer." 
 
 " Well, my dear sir, if you can show me the 
 way how to settle it, I shall most cheerfully 
 comply with your wishes," was the calm reply. 
 
 " Me show you," retorted Hanson, "how am 
 I to know your resources ? " 
 
 ' ' You know Gunter ? perhaps you will have
 
 Sheridan. 133 
 
 no objection to take his bill," said Sheridan, 
 with a merriment in his eye, as the comical 
 thought struck him, while glancing at the paper 
 on the table. 
 
 "Not at all; I know Gunter to be a safe, 
 good man." 
 
 " Well then," handing the folded paper over 
 to the expectant tradesman, " there 's his bill — 
 take it, make what use of it you can, and when 
 you have done with it, I must beg of you to 
 
 iLturn it receipted," and, bowing politely, he 
 left the bewildered Hanson to the acceptance 
 Ml- rejection of the joke, as might best suit 
 lii.-5 fancy. 
 
 T X the House of Commons Pitt rallied 
 Sheridan somewhat severely on his connec- 
 tion with the theatre. ' ' No man admitted more 
 tlian he did the abilities of that right honour- 
 il)le gentkmian, the elegant sallies of his
 
 134 Bon-Mots. 
 
 thought, the gay effusions of his fancy, his 
 di-amatic turns, and his epigrammatic points ; 
 and if they were reserved for a proper stage, 
 they would no doubt receive what the right 
 honourable gentleman's abilities always did 
 receive, the plaudits of the audience ; and it 
 would be his fortune sui plausu gaudere theatri! 
 But this was not the proper scene for the 
 exhibition of these elegances, and he therefore 
 must beg leave to call the attention of the 
 House to the serious consideration of the very 
 important questions before them." 
 
 Sheridan in his reply proved himself quite 
 equal to the occasion, and thus replied to the 
 young Minister : " He need not comment upon 
 that particular sort of personality which the 
 right honourable gentleman had thought proper 
 to introduce, the propriety, the taste, the gentle- 
 manly point of it must have been obvious to the 
 House. But," said Mr Sheridan, ' ' let me assure 
 the right honourable gentleman that I do now, 
 and will at any time when he chooses to repeat 
 this sort of allusion, meet it with the most 
 sincere good humour. Nay, I will say more, 
 flattered and encouraged by the right honour- 
 able gentleman's panegyric on my talents, if I 
 ever again engage in the compositions he 
 alludes to, I may be tempted to an act of 
 presumption — to attempt an improvement on 
 one of Ben Jonson's best characters — the 
 character of the Angry Boy in the ' Alchymist.
 
 Sheridan. 135 
 
 "jDEING on a Parliamentary Committee on 
 one occasion, Sheridan happened to enter 
 the ^oom when most of the members were 
 present and seated, though business had not 
 yet commenced ; when, perceiving that there 
 was not another seat in the room, he asked with 
 great readiness : ' ' Will any gentleman vicroe 
 that I may take the chair?" 
 
 T ORD THURLOW attended the representa- 
 tion of Pizarro, but sunk into a deep 
 sleep during RoUa's celebrated address to the 
 Peruvians. 
 
 " Poor fellow," said Sheridan, on being 
 informed of the circumstance, " I suppose he 
 fancied he was on the Bench." 
 
 A PARTY of Sheridan's friends insisted on 
 seeing him to his home when he was very 
 tipsy. When they reached the street leading 
 to the square in which he lived, he required 
 them to leave him ; they did so, but after they 
 had proceeded a short distance, turned round 
 and saw him standing where they had left him, 
 and using his umbrella like a person who is 
 counting objects before him.
 
 136 Bon-Mots. 
 
 "What on earth, Sherry, are you about?" 
 they asked. 
 
 "Do you not see," said he, "that all the 
 houses in the square are going round and 
 round? Well, I am waiting till mine comes 
 by, and then I shall just step in." 
 
 — ^aaa^— 
 
 'X'HE Prince Regent having expatiated on the 
 beauty of Dr Erasmus Darwin's opinion, 
 that the reason why the bosom of a beautiful 
 woman possesses such a fascinat- 
 ing effect on man is because he 
 derived from that source the 
 first pleasurable sensations of his 
 infancy, Sheridan very happily 
 ridiculed the idea : ' ' Such children, 
 then, as are brought up by hand 
 must needs be indebted for simi- 
 lar sensations to a very different 
 
 object ; and yet, I believe, no man has ever felt 
 
 any intense emotions of amatory delight at 
 
 beholding a pap-spoon ! " 
 
 — aVW^- 
 
 'T^O a creditor who peremptorily required pay- 
 ment of the interest due on a long standing 
 debt, Sheridan jocularly observed, "My dear 
 sir, you know it is not my interest to pay the 
 principal ; nor is it my principle to pay the 
 interest."
 
 Sheridan, 137 
 
 \ CREDITOR whom Sheridan had perpet- 
 ually avoided, met him at last plump, 
 coming out of Pall Mall from St James's Palace. 
 There was no p>ossibility of avoiding him, but 
 Sheridan never lost his presence of mind. 
 
 " Oh," said he, " that 's a beautiful mare you 
 are on." 
 
 " D'ye think so ! " 
 
 ' ' Yes, indeed ! How does she trot ? " 
 
 The creditor, flattered, told him he should 
 see, and immediately put her into full trotting 
 pace. The instant he trotted off Sheridan 
 turned into Pall Mall again, and was out of 
 sight in a moment. 
 
 "\X7HEX Pitt proposed a tax on female 
 ser\ants, Sheridan declared that it could 
 be considered in no other light than as a bounty 
 to bachelors, and a penalty upon propagation. 
 
 -'A/VV-r 
 
 A 
 
 MEMBER of Parliament ha\ing actually 
 profKJsed a tax on tombstones as one 
 which could meet %\-ith no objection, SherTdan 
 replied, ' ' that the only reason why the proposed 
 tax could not be objected to was, because those 
 out of whose property it was to be paid would 
 know nothing of the matter, as they must be 
 dead before the demand could be made ; but 
 then, after all, who knows but that it may not
 
 138 Bon -Mots. 
 
 be rendered unpopular in being represented as 
 a tax upon persons who, having paid the debt 
 of nature, must prove that they have done so, 
 by having the receipt engraved upon their 
 tombs." 
 
 AN M.P., Mr Michael Angelo Taylor, had 
 acquired the name of "the Chicken," by 
 saying that he always delivered his legal opinion 
 in the House, and elsewhere, with great humility, 
 because he was young, and might, with pro- 
 priety, call himself a chicken i?i the profession of 
 the laxiK Sheridan in a humorous speech, 
 which produced repeated peals of laughter, 
 took notice of the diffidence of Mr Taylor, as 
 connected with another observation of the same 
 gentleman, " that he should then vote with the 
 Opposition because they were in the right, but 
 that in all probability he should never vote with 
 them again ; " thus presaging that for the future 
 they would be always wrong. 
 
 " If such be his augury," said Sheridan, " I 
 cannot help looking upon this chicken as a bird 
 of ill-omen, and wish that he had continued side 
 by side with the full-grown cock (alluding to 
 Bearcroft), who will, no doubt, long continue to 
 feed about the gates of the Treasury, to pick up 
 those crumbs which are there plentifully 
 scattered about to keep the chickens and 
 full-grown fowls together."
 
 Sheridc 
 
 139 
 
 "D YRON, writing to Tom Moore, said : — 
 Perhaps you heard of a late answer of 
 •Sheridan's to the watchman, who found him 
 bereft of that divine particle of air called 
 reason. He, the watchman, who found Sherry 
 
 in the street fuddled and bewildered, and 
 almost insensible, said, " Who a.re you, sir?" 
 
 No answer. 
 
 " WTiat 's your name ? " 
 
 A hiccup. 
 
 " What 's your name ? " 
 
 Answer, in a slow, deliberate, impressive 
 tone, " IVilberforce.'
 
 140 Bon-Mots. 
 
 ■]V/[RS CHOLMONDELEY asked to have an 
 acrostic on her name. "An acrostic on 
 your name," echoed Sheridan, "would be a 
 formidable task ; it must be so long that I 
 think it should be divided into cantos." 
 
 It was during the same conversation that 
 Sheridan said a lady should not write verses till 
 she is past receiving them. 
 
 K' 
 
 ELLY describes his appearance in the 
 character of an Irishman in a Drury Lane 
 Opera: — "My friend Johnstone took great pains 
 to instruct me in the brogue, but I did not feel 
 quite up to the mark ; and, after all, it seems 
 my vernacular phraseology was not the most 
 perfect ; for when the Opera was over, Sheridan 
 came into the green-room and said, ' Bravo ! 
 Kelly ; very well, indeed ; upon my honour I 
 never before heard you speak such good English 
 in all my life.' " 
 
 —J-J\[\l\r- — 
 
 QHERIDAN'S cool assurance never deserted 
 him. Late one night, when in company 
 with Challie, the wine -merchant, they were 
 stopped by footpads. Sheridan quietly ad- 
 dressed them saying, "My friend can accom- 
 modate you, and as for myself, I '11 tell you 
 what I can do, I can give you my note of hand. "
 
 Sheridan. 141 
 
 TN a speech on the existence of seditious 
 practices in England, Sheridan gave the well- 
 known and happy turn to the motto of the Sun 
 newspaper, which was at that time known to be 
 the organ of the alarmists : — There was one paper 
 in particular, said to be the property of members 
 of that House, and published and conducted 
 under their immediate direction, which had for 
 its motto a garbled part of a beautiful sentence, 
 when it might with much more propriety, have 
 assumed the whole — 
 
 ' ' Solem quis dicere falsum 
 Audeat f Ilk etiam ccecos instare tumultus 
 ScEpe monet, fraudemque et operta tianescere 
 bella." 
 
 —'AAJW— 
 
 TN the same speech Sheridan brilliantly ridi- 
 culed the people who took part in the pre- 
 vailing panic : — The alarm had been brought 
 forward in great pomp and form on Saturday 
 morning. At night all the mail coaches were 
 stopped ; the Duke of Richmond stationed 
 himself, among other curiosities, at the Tower ; 
 a great municipal officer, too, had made a 
 discovery exceedingly beneficial to the people 
 of this country. He meant the Lord Mayor of 
 London, who had found out that there was at 
 the King's Arms at Cornhill a Debating Society, 
 where principles of the most dangerous tendency 
 were propagated ; where people went to buy
 
 142 
 
 Bon-Mots. 
 
 treason at sixpence a head ; where it was re- 
 tailed to them by the ghmmering of an inch of 
 candle : and five minutes, to be measured by 
 the glass, were allowed to each traitor to 
 perform his part in overturning the State. 
 
 TZEMBLE and Sheridan were drinking to- 
 gether one evening, says Michael Kelly 
 in his Re7ninisce7ices, when Kemble complained 
 of the want of novelty at Drury 
 Lane Theatre, and said that he, 
 as manager, felt uneasy. 
 
 " My dear Kemble," said 
 Sheridan, "don't talk of griev- 
 ances now. ' ' 
 
 But Kemble still kept on, say- 
 ing, " Indeed, we must seek for 
 novelty, or the theatre will sink — novelty, and 
 novelty alone, can prop it." 
 
 " Then," replied Sheridan, with a smile, " if 
 you want novelty, act Hamlet and have music 
 played between your pauses. " 
 
 -^A/VV>^~ 
 
 /^ONGREVE'S plays are, I own, somewhat 
 licentious, but it is barbarous to mangle 
 them ; they are like horses — when you deprive 
 them of their vice, they lose their vigour.
 
 Sheridan. 143 
 
 CHER I DAN made his appearance one day 
 in a pair of new boots, which attracted 
 the notice of some friends. 
 
 "Now, guess," said he, "how I came by 
 these boots?" 
 
 Many probable guesses then took place. 
 "No," said Sheridan, "no, you 've not hit it, nor 
 ever will — I bought them, and paid for thefnf" 
 
 TN a speech on the India Bill, Mr Scott (after- 
 wards Lord Eldon) indulged in a licence 
 of Scriptural parody, and had affected to 
 discover the rudiments of the Bill in a chapter 
 of the Book of Revelations, — Babylon being the 
 East India Company, Mr Fox and his seven 
 commissioners the Beast with the seven heads, 
 and the marks on the hand and forehead, im- 
 printed by the Beast upon those around him, 
 meaning, evidently, he said, the peerages, 
 pensions, and places distributed by the 
 Minister. 
 
 In answering this strange sally of forensic 
 wit, Sheridan quoted other passages from the 
 same book, which, the reporter gravely assures 
 us, "told strongly for the Bill," and which 
 proved that Lord Fitzwilliam and his fellow- 
 commissioners, instead of being the seven heads 
 of the Beast, were seven angels, "clothed in 
 pure and white linen ! "
 
 144 
 
 Bon-Mots. 
 
 /^N the success of a wildly romantic play by 
 Monk Lewis, Sheridan was asked why 
 he had desecrated the stage by such an abortion, 
 — "Abortion, my dear friend, look to the 
 treasury," was the reply. "I have long en- 
 tertained the idea of converting Romeo and 
 Juliet into a comic opera ; despatching the 
 fiery Tybalt with the bravura ' The soldier 
 
 tired ' ; Mercutio to the lively air of ' Over 
 the hills and far away ' ; and winding up with 
 a grand scene in the graveyard, with the shades 
 of the Capulets dancjng among the tombstones 
 to the solemn dirge of ' Where are you going, 
 my pretty maid ? I am going a-milking, sir, 
 she said.' Won't it be capital? Lewis's 
 success ensures my own."
 
 Sheridan. 145 
 
 T ET me have but the periodical press on my 
 side, and there should be nothing in this 
 ■country which I would not accomplish. 
 
 "XXT'HEN someone told Sheridan that the 
 quantity of wine and spirits which he 
 drank would destroy the coat of his stomach, 
 he replied, "Well, then, my stomach must 
 just digest in its waistcoat. " 
 
 "DOGERS and Sheridan were talking about 
 actors. 
 
 ' ' Your admiration of Mrs Siddons is so 
 high," said Rogers, "that I wonder you never 
 made open love to her." 
 
 "To her!" exclaimed Sheridan, "to that 
 magnificent and appalling creature ; I should 
 as soon have thought of making love to the 
 Archbishop of Canterbury." 
 
 -W\/\/Vv— 
 
 CIR JOHN HIPPISLEY, who had been 
 envoy at an Italian court, occupied himself 
 on his return to Parliament chiefly with the 
 Catholic question. On this subject he was 
 remarkable for supporting his speeches with 
 K
 
 146 Bon- Mots. 
 
 documents of the dryest and most antiquated 
 species. 
 
 " I never hear that man speak," said a leader 
 of the Opposition, "that I don't think I hear 
 the ghost of some old Pope." 
 
 " Ay, of Pope Joan," added Sheridan. 
 
 A DRAMA was presented to Sheridan, in 
 which the characters amounted to no less 
 than fifty-six. 
 
 "What's this? the new army list?" asked 
 Sheridan. 
 
 "Nothing of the kind, sir," said the intro- 
 ducer, "it is on an Irish story, and by an 
 Irishman." 
 
 Sheridan glanced over a few leaves and saw 
 that it was altogether inadmissible. ' ' Tell my 
 countryman that as a drama there can be no 
 hope of its success, partly owing to the reduced 
 population of London ; but it might be turned 
 into a history of the Rebellion, and the list at 
 the beginning would do for the muster at the 
 levy en ?nasse." 
 
 TV/r ENTION having been made in his presence 
 of a tax upon mile-stones, Sheridan said 
 that such a tax would be unconstitutional, — as 
 they were a race that could not meet to 
 remonstrate.
 
 Sheridan. 147 
 
 TF the thought is slow to come, a glass of 
 good wine encourages it, and, when it does 
 come, a glass of good wine rewards it. 
 
 " T^HE life of a manager of a theatre," Sheri- 
 dan said, "was like the life of the 
 ordinary at Newgate, — a constant superintend- 
 ence of executions. The number of authors 
 whom he was forced to extinguish was a 
 perpetual literary massacre 
 that made St Bartholo- 
 mew's altogether shrink in 
 comparison. Play-writing, 
 singly, accounted for the 
 employment of that im- 
 mense multitude who drain 
 away obscure years be- 
 .side the inkstand, and 
 haunt the streets 
 with iron-moulded 
 visages, and study- 
 coloured clothes. It 
 singly accounted for 
 the rise of paper, 
 
 which had exhausted the rags of England and 
 Scotland, and had almost stripped off the last 
 covering of Ireland. He had counted plays 
 until calculation sank under the number ; and 
 every rejected play of them all seemed like 
 the clothes of a Spanish beggar, to turn into a 
 living, restless, merciless, indefatigable progeny."
 
 148 Bon-Mots. 
 
 T ADY ARGYLE asked Sheridan to explain 
 ' ' why our young men of birth persist in 
 dressing, looking, and talking like boxers, 
 grooms, and coachmen?" 
 
 "My dear Madam, I never had a turn for 
 family secrets," replied Sheridan; "but I 
 suspect birth to be the general cause." 
 
 -~N\l\l\jSr— 
 
 "IA7HEN Pitt's India Bill was brought up from 
 Committee, it had twenty-one new 
 clauses added, which were to be known by the 
 letters from A to \\ . Sheridan said he hoped 
 that some gentleman of ability would invent 
 three more clauses for X, Y, and Z, to complete 
 the alphabet, which would then render the 
 bill a perfect hornbook for the use of the 
 Minister, and the instruction of rising politicians, 
 
 — vvvv^- 
 
 T^URING the "O.P. Row," when Sheridan 
 was conversing with Kemble on the pro- 
 spect of a speedy end being put to the popular 
 disturbance, Kemble said, "that he had a hope 
 of its conclusion from the trial of Clifford v. 
 Brandon." 
 
 "For my part," replied Sheridan, "I see 
 nothing in your hope, but an aitch and an O. P. "
 
 Sheridan. 149 
 
 C HERIDAX'S parliamentary colleagues had 
 brought in an extremely unpopular 
 measure, on which they were defeated. He 
 then said, that he had often heard of people 
 knocking out their brains against a wall ; but 
 never before knew of anyone building a wall 
 expressly for the purpose. 
 
 A CERTAIN noble lord having no less than 
 nine nominees in the House of Commons, 
 they were nicknamed the nine - pins. Burke 
 made an able and satirical reply to a speech of 
 one of these members, a reply that was received 
 with a loud cheer. Fox entering the House at 
 the moment, enquired of Sheridan the cause 
 of it. 
 
 " Oh ! nothing of any consequence," replied 
 the wit, "only Burke knocking down one of the 
 nine-pins." 
 
 A CERTAIN Doctor was remarkable for his 
 reluctance to contribute to public insti- 
 tutions. He was at length prevailed on to 
 attend a charity sermon in Westminster. After 
 the sermon, the plate was handed round the 
 vestry. Fox and Sheridan were present. 
 
 "The Doctor has absolutely given his pound," 
 said Fox,
 
 I50 
 
 Bon-Mots. 
 
 "Then," said Sheridan, "he must think 
 that he is going to die." 
 
 "Pooh!" repUed Fox, "even Judas threw 
 away twice the money." 
 
 "Yes; but how long was it before he was 
 hanged?" retorted Sheridan. 
 
 jyjICHAEL KELLY in his amusing Remin- 
 iscences has the following good story of 
 Sheridan : — One evening after we had dined 
 
 together, I 
 was placed in 
 chant from 
 in London to 
 of hock. I 
 
 was telling him, that I 
 a dilemma by a wine-mer- 
 Hockheim, who had been 
 receive orders for the sale 
 had commissioned him 
 
 (as he offered me the wine at a cheap rate), to 
 send me six dozen. Instead of six dozen, he
 
 Sheridan. 1 51 
 
 had sent me sixteen. I was obsening that it 
 was a greater quantity than I could afford to 
 keep, and expressed a wish to sell part of it. 
 
 "My dear Kelly," said Sheridan, "I would 
 take it off your hands with all my heart, but I 
 have not the money to pay for it ; I will, how- 
 ever, give you an inscription to place over the 
 door of your saloon: write over it, 'Michael 
 Kelly, composer of wines and importer of 
 music' " 
 
 I thanked him, and said, " I \\-ill take the 
 hint, sir, and be a composer of all wines, except 
 old Sherry ; for that is so notorious for its in- 
 toxicating and pernicious qualities that I should 
 be afraid of poisoning my customers with it." 
 
 The above story has been told in many 
 ways ; but as I have written it here, is the fact. 
 He owTied I had given him a Roland for his 
 Oliver, and very often used to speak of it in 
 company. 
 
 -^Al\JS;/— 
 
 CHERIDAN'S maiden speech in the House 
 of Commons was far from being successful. 
 When it was over, he went to the reporters' 
 gallery, and asked a friend, Woodfall, how he 
 had succeeded. " I .am sorry to say I do not 
 think this is your line," said that candid friend, 
 "you had much better have stuck to your 
 former pursuits." 
 
 On hearing this, Sheridan rested his head on
 
 152 Bon-Mots. 
 
 his hands for a moment, and then vehemently 
 exclaimed, "It is in me, however, and, by God, 
 it shall come out." 
 
 —A/\/\/\r^— 
 
 ■rjRURY LANE THEATRE was destroyed 
 by fire in February 1809. Sheridan was 
 in the House of Commons when he learned 
 that the fire had broken out. He hastened to 
 the scene, and with wonderful fortitude 
 witnessed the destruction of his property. He 
 sat at the Piazza Coffee-house taking some 
 refreshment ; and on a friend remarking to 
 him how calmly he bore the ruin, Sheridan 
 merely said that surely a man might be allowed 
 to take a glass of wine at his own fireside. 
 
 —A/\J\/\r- — 
 
 r ORD DERBY once applied at Drury Lane 
 to Mr Sheridan, with much dignity, for 
 the arrears of Lady Derby's {nee Farren) salary, 
 and vowed that he would not stir from the room 
 till it was paid. 
 
 "My dear Lord," said Sheridan, "this is 
 too bad ; you have taken from us the brightest 
 jewel in the world, and you now quarrel with 
 us for a little of the dust she has left behind 
 her."
 
 Sheridan. 
 
 53 
 
 /^N the Prince entering the Thatched-house 
 Tavern and " raising his spirits tip by 
 pouring spirits dcnvn," Sheridan gave these 
 impromptu hnes — 
 
 •• The Prince came in, and said 'twas cold, 
 Then took a mighty rummer, 
 When siuallo-du after szvailow came. 
 And then he swore 'twas summer." 
 
 T ORD BELGRAVE having cHnched a 
 speech in the House of Commons with 
 a ]ong Greek quotation, Sheridan, in reply, 
 admitted the force of the quota- 
 tion so far as it went, "but," 
 said he, ' ' had the noble lord 
 proceeded a little further and 
 completed the passage, he would 
 have seen that it applied the 
 other way." 
 
 Sheridan then delivered some- 
 thing, ore rotundo, which had all 
 the ais, ois, ous, kon, and kos, that 
 give the world assurance of a 
 Greek quotation ; upon which, Lord Belgrave 
 very promptly and handsomely complimented the 
 honourable member on his readiness of recollec- 
 tion, and frankly admitted that the continuation 
 of the passage had the tendency ascribed to it 
 by Mr Sheridan, and that he had overlooked it 
 at the moment when he gave his quotation.
 
 154 Bon-Mots. 
 
 On the breaking up of the House, Fox, who 
 piqued himself on knowing some Greek, went 
 up to Sheridan and asked him, "Sheridan, 
 how came you to be so ready with that passage? 
 It certainly is as you say, but I was not aware 
 of it before you quoted it." 
 
 Sheridan had indeed successfully hoaxed the 
 House, for his "quotation" was quite im- 
 promptu and entirely innocent of Greek ! 
 
 — v\/W- — 
 
 nPHE scenery of Drury Lane was one evening 
 on fire. The audience became alarmed 
 and in an instant the confusion would have 
 been dreadful. Suett rushed upstairs to Sheri- 
 dan to tell him that the fire was extinguished, 
 and that he would go and tell the house, 
 " You fool," exclaimed Sheridan, " don't 
 mention the word ' fire ' ; run and tell them 
 that we have water enough to drown them all, 
 and make a face." 
 
 The expedient succeeded ; the house was calm 
 in an instant, and was in a tumult of laughter 
 only, at the strange grimaces of which Suett was 
 such a master. 
 
 — WVV^ 
 
 ■\X7HEN Sheridan lay upon his death-bed, 
 
 his doctor thought that as a forlorn hope 
 
 a certain operation might be performed. He 
 
 1
 
 Sheridan, 155 
 
 enquired of his patient, " Have you ever under- 
 gone an operation, Mr Sheridan?" 
 
 With a drollery which even pain and suffering 
 had not repressed, Sheridan replied, "Yes, — 
 when sitting for my portrait, or to have my 
 hair cut." 
 
 -^A/VV-r— 
 
 TOURING the trial of Warren Hastings, 
 
 Sheridan in one of his speeches used a 
 
 metaphor which one of the opposing counsel 
 
 roughly handled afterwards. Sheridan replied, 
 "It was the first time in his life he had ever 
 heard of special pleading on a metaphor, or a 
 bill of indictment against a trope. But such 
 was the turn of the learned counsel's mind, that 
 when he attempted to be humorous, no jest 
 could be found, and, when serious, no fact was 
 visible."
 
 156 Bon-Mots. 
 
 "D ICHARDSON had set his mind upon going 
 down to Bognor with Mr Sheridan on one 
 particular occasion, because it happened that 
 Lord Thurlow, with whom he was on terms of 
 intimacy was staying there. "So," said 
 Richardson, "nothing can be more dehghtful, 
 what with my favorite diversion of sailing — my 
 enjoyment of walking on the sand — the plea- 
 sure of arguing with Lord Thurlow, and tak- 
 ing my snuff by the seaside, I shall be in my 
 glory." 
 
 " Well," said Sheridan, " down he went, full 
 of anticipated joys. The first day, in stepping 
 into the boat to go sailing, he tumbled down, 
 and sprained his ankle, and was obliged to be 
 carried into his lodgings, which had no view of 
 the sea ; the following morning he sent for a 
 barber to shave him, but there being no pro- 
 fessional barber nearer than Chichester, he was 
 forced to put up with a fisherman, who volun- 
 teered to oflSciate, and cut him severely just 
 under his nose, which entirely prevented his 
 taking snuff; and the same day at breakfast, 
 eating prawns too hastily, he swallowed the 
 head of one, horns and all, which stuck in his 
 throat, and produced such pain and inflam- 
 mation, that his medical advisers would not 
 allow him to speak for three days. So thus 
 ended, in four and twenty hours, his walking 
 — his sailing — his snuff taking — and his argu- 
 ments."
 
 Sheridan. 
 
 157 
 
 A DEBATE taking place as to the putting 
 down of Sunday newspapers, Sheridan 
 obsened that there was an exception in the law 
 in favour of selling mackerel on the Lord's day, 
 and people might think stale news as bad as 
 stale mackerel ! 
 
 "\ "\'HEX Sheridan was coming up to town in 
 one of the public coaches for the purpose of 
 canvassing Westminster, at 
 the time when Paull was his 
 opponent, he fovmd himself 
 in company \\-ith two West- 
 minster electors. In the 
 course of conversation one 
 of them asked the other to 
 whom he meant to give his 
 vote. When his friend re- 
 plied, "To Paull, certainly; 
 for, though I think him 
 but a shabby sort of a 
 fellow, I would vote for 
 anyone rather than that 
 rascal Sheridan ! " 
 
 ' ' Do you know Sheri- 
 dan?" asked the stranger. 
 
 " Not I, sir," answered the gentleman, " nor 
 should I wish to know him." 
 
 The conversation dropped here ; but when
 
 158 Bon-]\rots. 
 
 the party alighted to breakfast, Sheridan called 
 the other gentleman aside, and said — 
 
 ' ' Pray who is that very agreeable friend of 
 yours? He is one of the pleasantest fellows I ever 
 met with, and should be glad to know his name. " 
 
 " His name is Mr Richard Wilson ; he is an 
 eminent lawyer, and resides in Lincoln's Inn 
 Fields." 
 
 Breakfast over, the party resumed their seats 
 in the coach ; soon after which Sheridan turned 
 the discourse to the law. "It is," he said, " a 
 fine profession. Men may rise from it to the 
 highest eminence in the State ; and it gives vast 
 scope to the display of talent : many of the most 
 virtuous and noble characters recorded in our 
 history have been lawyers ; I am sorry, however, 
 to add, that some of the greatest rascals have 
 also been lawyers ; but of all the rascals of 
 lawyers I ever heard of, the greatest is one 
 Wilson, who lives in Lincoln's Inn Fields." 
 
 " I am Mr Wilson," said the gentleman. 
 
 " And I am Mr Sheridan," was the reply. 
 
 The jest was instantly seen ; they shook 
 hands, and instead of voting against the facetious 
 orator, the lawyer exerted himself warmly in 
 promoting his election. 
 
 C HERIDAN having very successfully adapted 
 
 Kotzebue's play of The Stranger, a friend 
 
 rebuked him for not employing his great talents
 
 Sheridan. 159 
 
 to more legitimate purposes than that of adapt- 
 ing foreign sentimentality, with its tinsel em- 
 bellishments, to the English stage. 
 
 He replied in these lines of Dr Johnson's — 
 
 *' * The drama's laws the drama's patrons give, 
 
 And those who live to please must please to live.' 
 
 Kotzebue and German sausages are the order 
 of the day." 
 
 "DEING stopped one night by a footpad, who 
 demanded his purse, Sheridan, offering 
 no resistance, merely said, "My purse, well, 
 here it is : if you can find anything in it, it is 
 more than I can ; therefore, I entreat you, let 
 us go halves in the finding." 
 
 — 'A/\/\fV— 
 
 A FRIEND remonstrating with Sheridan on 
 the instability of his means of supporting 
 his costly establishment in Orchard Street, 
 he tartly replied, "My dear friend, ii is my 
 means." 
 
 A N admirer of Sheridan's was anxious that 
 he should write a tragedy, but the drama- 
 tist replied that there were quite enough of 
 coinedies of that class, and he would not add to 
 their number.
 
 i6o Bon-Mots. 
 
 TDEING upon one occasion sorely pressed by 
 a needy creditor, who said that he had a 
 heavy payment to make to-morrow, Sheridan 
 rephed to his entreaties, ' ' Well, be it to-morrow, 
 it is a favourite day of mine to which I refer 
 many of my obligations ; and when to-morrow 
 comes, I hope we shall both be prepared to 
 pass our accounts to our mutual satisfaction." 
 
 —^Al\l\t^— 
 
 s 
 
 HERIDAN, who was no sportsman, visited 
 an old sportsman in Ireland, and gave 
 afterwards an amusing account of his experience. 
 In order to avoid the imputation of being a 
 downright ignoramus, he was 
 under the necessity of taking a 
 gun, and at the dawn of day 
 setting forth in pursuit of game. 
 Unwilling to expose his want of 
 skill, he took an opposite course 
 to that of his friend, and was 
 accompanied by a gamekeeper, 
 provided with a bag to receive the birds 
 which might fall victims to his attacks, and 
 a pair of excellent pointers. The game- 
 keeper was a true Pat, and possessed all 
 those arts of blarney for which his country- 
 men are noted ; and thinking it imperative on 
 him to be particularly attentive to his master's 
 friend, he lost no opportunity of praising his
 
 Sheridan. i6i 
 
 prowess. The first covey (and the birds were 
 abundant) rose within a few yards of the states- 
 man's nose, but the noise they made was so 
 unexpected, that he waited till they were out 
 of harm's way before he fired. 
 
 Pat, who was on the look out, expressed his 
 surprise, and immediately observed, " Faith, 
 sir, I see you know what a gun is : it 's well 
 you wasn't nearer, or them chaps would be 
 sorry you ever came into the country." 
 
 Sheridan reloaded and went on, but his 
 second shot was not more successful. 
 
 " Oh," cried Pat, " what an escape ! I '11 be 
 bound you rumpled some of their feathers ! " 
 
 The gun was loaded again, and on went the 
 orator ; but the third shot was as little effective 
 as the two former. 
 
 "Hah," exclaimed Pat, although astonished 
 at so palpable a miss, " I '11 lay a thirteen you 
 don't come near us to-day again ; master was 
 too near you to be pleasant." 
 
 So he went on, shot after shot, and always 
 had something to say to console poor Sheridan, 
 who was not a little amused at his ingenuity. 
 At last, on their return home, without a bird in 
 the bag, Sheridan perceived a covey quietly 
 feeding on the other side of a hedge, and un- 
 willing to give them a chance of flight, he 
 resolved to have a slap at them on the ground. 
 He did so, but, to his mortification, they all 
 flew away untouched.
 
 l62 
 
 Bon-Mots. 
 
 Pat, whose excuses were now almost ex- 
 hausted, still had something to say, and he 
 exclaimed joyfully, looking at Sheridan very 
 significantly, " By Jasus ! you made them lave 
 that, anyway ! " and with this compliment to 
 his sportsmanlike qualities, Sheridan says he 
 closed his morning's amusement, laughing 
 heartily at his companion, and rewarding him 
 with a half-crown for his patience and en- 
 couragement. 
 
 -^V\AAa — 
 
 CHERIDAN was told by a friend that his 
 
 enemies took pleasure in speaking ill of 
 
 him, on account of his favouring an obnoxious 
 
 tax which his party were about to force through 
 the House. "Well, let them," he replied; 
 "it is but fair that they should have some 
 pleasure for their money."
 
 Sheridan. 163 
 
 ■\^HEN Miss Farren, the original Lady 
 Teazle, retired from the stage to 
 ■ become the Countess of Derby, Sheridan paid 
 her a happy compliment. He approached her 
 in the green room, surrounded by her friends 
 and admirers, and, raising her hand with some 
 emotion to his lips, breathed into her ear, — 
 ' ' God bless you : Lady Teazle is no more, and 
 the ' School /or Scandal ' has broke up for the 
 holidays.''' 
 
 -^Ai\i\rj~ 
 
 C\^ the re-opening of Drury Lane Theatre 
 after the burning, Whitbread had written 
 an address, in which like the other addresses, 
 there were many allusions to the Phoenix, 
 Sheridan remarked upon this that WTiitbread 
 made more of this bird than any of them ; 
 he entered into particulars, and described its 
 wings, back, and tail ; in short, it was a poul- 
 terer's description of a Phoenix. 
 
 TDALMER, the original Joseph Surface, whose 
 real character was quite in keeping with 
 the assumed one, had left Drury Lane Theatre 
 and started in opposition, but soon came to 
 grief, and was glad to get back. The first 
 time the returned actor met Sheridan after 
 his escapade, it was with the air of a Joseph 
 Surface. With a white pocket-handkerchief in
 
 164 Bon-Mots. 
 
 his hand, his eyes upturned, his hand upon his 
 heart, he began, "Mr Sheridan, if you could 
 but know at this moment what I feel here!" 
 
 "Stop, Jack," broke in the manager, "you 
 forget that / wrote it !'' 
 
 -^A/VW— 
 
 TN Sheridan's Westminster election contest, 
 Paull, his antagonist, who was the son 
 of a tailor, envious of the brilliant uniform and 
 more brilliant decorations of Sir S. Hood, 
 observed with some spleen, "that if he had 
 chosen he might have appeared before the 
 electors with such a coat himself." 
 
 "Yes, and you might have made it, too," 
 retorted Sheridan. 
 
 — vV\/V\^— 
 
 A LLUDING to the stoppage of cash pay- 
 ments at the Bank, in a committee of 
 which Mr Bragge was chairman, Sheridan said 
 that the conduct of the Chancellor of the 
 Exchequer reminded him of an old proverb. 
 The report of the committee was very favour- 
 able ; but still the Bank must be kept under 
 confinement: " Brag is a good dog," says the 
 Minister, "but Holdfast is a better" : and the 
 Bank must be kept under his tutelage until he 
 finds it convenient to set the directors at liberty.
 
 Sheridan. 165 
 
 T^ALKING with a friend who had said that 
 Pitt was a very extraordinary man, Sheri- 
 dan answered, " He is an extraordinary man, 
 and the more we press him, the more he 
 shines." 
 
 r^X being asked by a young Member of 
 Parliament how he first succeeded in 
 estabUshing his fame as an orator, Sheridan 
 observed : — "WTiy, sir, it was 
 easily effected. After I had 
 been in St Stephen's Chapel a 
 few days, I found that four- 
 fifths of the House were com- 
 posed of country squires and 
 great fools ; my first effort, 
 therefore, was by a lively 
 sally, or an ironical remark 
 to make them laugh ; that 
 laugh effaced the recollec- 
 tion of what had been urged in opposition to 
 my view of the subject from their stupid pates, 
 and then I whipped in an argximent, and had 
 all the way clear before me." 
 
 T ORD JOHN RUSSELL, in recounting 
 
 Sheridan's joke to Tarleton, says, "Any 
 
 one might think the wit poor (although I do 
 
 not agree with them), but the joke is clear
 
 1 66 Bon-Mots. 
 
 enough. ' I was on a horse, and now I 'm on 
 an elephant ' {i.e. ' I was high above others, 
 but now I am much higher'). 'You were on 
 an ass, and now you're on a mule,' said 
 Sheridan {i.e., 'You were stupid and now 
 you're obstinate'). For quick repartee in 
 conversation there are few things better." 
 
 —j\r\/\lv- — 
 
 QOME one was complaining of an ugly house 
 built by D'Arblay just near them at 
 Leatherhead, when Sheridan said, "Oh, you 
 know we can easily get rid of that, we can 
 pack it off out of the country under the Alien 
 Act." 
 
 -~^f\f\JV' — 
 
 TOURING the great trial of Warren Hastings, 
 Sheridan was making one of his speeches, 
 when, having observed Gibbon among the 
 audience, he took occasion to refer to the 
 "luminous author of the Decline and Fall/" 
 A friend afterwards reproached him for flat- 
 tering Gibbon. 
 
 "Why, what did I say of him?" asked 
 Sheridan. 
 
 "You called him the luminous author of the 
 Decliiie aiid Fall. 
 
 " Luminous ! oh, of course I meant volu-
 
 Sheridan. 107 
 
 /^NE of Sheridan's retorts on Pitt, "the 
 heaven-born Minister," showed singular 
 readiness of allusion and presence of mind 
 when they were least to be expected. One 
 night Sheridan entered the House drunk ; Pitt, 
 observing his condition, proposed to postpone 
 some discussion in which Sheridan was con- 
 cerned, in consideration of the peculiar state of 
 the honourable member. Sheridan upon this 
 fired ; and the instant his self-possession 
 returned, rose, and remarked that in the 
 history of that House, he believed, but one 
 instance of the disgraceful conduct insinuated 
 by the honourable member had occurred. 
 There was but one example of members having 
 entered that House in a state of temporary 
 disqualification for its duties, and that example, 
 however discreditable to the parties, could not 
 perhaps be deplored, as it had given rise to a 
 pleasant epigram. The honourable member on 
 the Treasury Bench would correct him, if he 
 misquoted the words. Two gentlemen, the one 
 blind drunk, the other seeing double, staggered 
 into the House, arm in arm, and thus com- 
 municated their parliamentary views to each 
 other — 
 
 " I can't see the Speaker, 
 Pray, Hal, do you ?" 
 
 •• Not see the Speaker, Bill ! 
 Why I see Hvo'' 
 Henry Dundas and Pitt himself were the 
 heroes of the tale.
 
 1 68 Bon-Mots. 
 
 /^N Lord Lauderdale telling Sheridan that 
 he had heard an excellent joke which he 
 would repeat, Sheridan stopped him saying, 
 "Pray don't, my dear Lauderdale; in your 
 mouth a joke is no laughing matter." 
 
 — 'A/Vv^ — 
 
 TOURING Sheridan's management, Thomas 
 
 Holcroft had produced a play which he 
 
 offered to Covent Garden, saying, that it would 
 
 make Drury nothing but a "splendid ruin." 
 Afterwards, when he offered a play to Sheridan, 
 Sheridan retorted, "Come, come, Holcroft, it 
 would be rather too bad to make me the 
 instrument of accomplishing your own predic- 
 tion."
 
 Sheridan. 169 
 
 CHERIDAN being at one time a good deal 
 plagued by an old maiden relation of his 
 always going out to walk \nth him, said one 
 day that the weather was bad and raining ; to 
 which the old lady answered, on the contrary, it 
 had cleared up. 
 
 "Yes," said Sheridan, "it has cleared up 
 enough for one, but not enough for tii<o." 
 
 J^ORD ERSKINE declared in a large party, 
 where Sheridan also was present, that "a 
 wife was only a tin canister tied to one's tail," 
 on which Sheridan presented Lady Erskine with 
 these lines — 
 
 " Lord Erskine, at women presuming to rail, 
 Calls a wife a ' tin canister tied to one's tail ! ' 
 And the fair Lady Anne, while the subject he carries 
 
 on. 
 Seems hurt at his Lordship's degrading comparison : 
 But wherefore degrading? Considered aright — 
 A canister 's polished, and useful, and bright. 
 And should dirt its original purity hide, 
 That's the fault of the puppy, to whom it is tied.'' 
 
 " 'X'HE right honourable gentleman," said 
 Sheridan, replying to Mr Dundas in 
 the House of Commons, "is indebted to his 
 memory for his jests, and to his imagination for 
 his facts."
 
 I70 Bon-Mots. 
 
 TXT" HEN perusing Vortigerii, the forged play 
 ascribed to Shakespeare, Sheridan re- 
 marked, turning to Ireland the elder (father of 
 the forger), "This is rather strange ; for though 
 you are acquainted with my opinion of Shake- 
 speare, yet be it as it may, he certainly always 
 wroX.^ poetry y 
 
 HTHE orator very happily illustrated the 
 
 style of a bill to remedy the defects of 
 
 bills already in being by comparing it to the 
 
 plan of a simple, but very ingenious moral tale, 
 
 that had often afforded him amusement in his 
 
 early days, under the title of the 
 
 House that Jack Built. First, 
 
 then, comes in a bill, imposing 
 
 a tax ; and then comes in a bill 
 
 to amend that bill for imposing 
 
 a tax ; and then comes in a bill 
 
 to explain the bill that amended 
 
 the bill for imposing a tax ; next 
 
 a bill to remedy the defects 
 
 of a bill for explaining the bill that amended 
 
 the bill for imposing a tax ; and so on ad 
 
 infinitum. 
 
 -^J\l\J\[st— 
 
 T OUNGING towards Whitehall, Sheridan 
 met George Rose coming out of St 
 Margaret's.
 
 Sheridan. 171 
 
 "Any mischief on foot, George, that you 
 have been at church ? " 
 
 " No ; I have been getting a son christened ; 
 I have called him William Pitt." 
 
 "William Pitt!" echoed Sheridan. "A 
 rose by any other name would smell as sweet." 
 
 —^A/\/\jv— 
 
 S 
 
 HERIDAN having said of one of the 
 members of the Cabinet that having three 
 places in a most gentlemanly administration, he 
 must be three times as much a gentleman as his 
 colleagues. The member referred to, then recently 
 married, very gravely assured the House that 
 his situation was not to be envied — that every 
 morning when he got up, and ever\' night when 
 he went to rest, he had a task to perform almost 
 too great for human powers. Sheridan instantly 
 retorted that he himself would be very happy to 
 relieve Dundas from the fatigues of the Home 
 Department ! 
 
 -wwVv— 
 
 pOLESDEN, Sheridan's residence, was near 
 to Leatherhead, respecting which there 
 had been much punning at his expense. When 
 he was told of this in the country, he replied 
 that on his return to town he would get out of 
 their debts. 
 
 " What will you pay them ? " asked a friend. 
 
 "Oh ! I '11 give them a strapping!"
 
 172 Bon-Mots. 
 
 TN the year 1801 Pitt had resigned his post as 
 Minister, and was succeeded by Addington ; 
 all the other Ministers retaining the positions. 
 Sheridan thus humorously ridiculed the arrange- 
 ment : — When the ex-minister quitted ofifice, 
 almost all the suborditiate ministers kept their 
 places. How was it that the whole family did 
 not move together ? Had he only one covered 
 wagon to carry friends and goods } or has he 
 
 left directions behind him that they may know 
 where to call .-* I remember a fable of Aristo- 
 phanes', which is translated from Greek into 
 decent English. I mention this for the country 
 gentlemen. It is of a man that sat so long on 
 a seat— about as long, perhaps, as the ex- 
 minister did on the Treasury Bench— that he 
 grew to it. When Hercules pulled him off, he 
 left all the sitting part of the man behind. The 
 House can make the allusion.
 
 Sheridan, 173 
 
 ^FHE son of Sheridan, Tom, who was expect- 
 ing to get into Parliament, said on one 
 occasion to his father, ' ' I think that many men 
 who are called great patriots in the House of 
 Commons are great humbugs. For my own 
 part, if I get into Parliament, I will pledge 
 myself to no party ; but write upon my forehead 
 in legible character, ' to be let.' " 
 
 "And under that, Tom," said his father, 
 " write ' unfurnished.' " 
 
 CHER ID AX was accosted one day by a 
 gentlemanly-looking elderly mafi who had 
 forgotten the name of the street to which he 
 wished to get, when the following dialogue took 
 place : — 
 
 ' ' Sir, I wish to go to a street the name of 
 which I have forgotten. It is a very uncommon 
 name — pray, sir, can you tell me of any such 
 street near? " 
 
 " Perhaps, sir, you mean John Street?" en- 
 quired Sheridan. 
 
 " No ; it is a street with an unusual name." 
 
 " It can't be Charles Street ? " 
 
 " It is not a common name," said the stranger 
 a little testily, ' ' it has the most unusual name 
 for a street." 
 
 "Surely, sir," said Sheridan, "you are not 
 looking for King Street ? "
 
 174 Bon-Mots. 
 
 ' ' I tell you, sir, it is a street with a very odd 
 name." 
 
 "Bless me, sir," said Sheridan, as though 
 struck by a happy thought, "it is not Queen 
 Street, is it? " 
 
 "Queen Street! — no, no! it is a curious 
 sort of name I tell you." 
 
 " I wish, sir, I could assist you," continued 
 Sheridan ; "let me think. It may be Oxford 
 Street?" 
 
 " Sir, for heaven's sake," exclaimed the irate 
 stranger, " think of what I told you, that it is a 
 street with anything but a common name ; 
 everybody knows Oxford Street." 
 
 ' ' Perhaps, sir, the street has no name after 
 all," ventured Sheridan, in all seriousness, as 
 though offering a likely solution. 
 
 "No name, sir! — Why, I tell you it has — 
 confound the name ! " 
 
 " Really, sir," went on Sheridan, " I am very 
 sorry that I am unable to assist you — but let 
 me suggest Piccadilly." 
 
 The stranger could no longer restrain his 
 irritation, but bounced away, exclaiming " Oh, 
 damn it, what a thick-headed fellow it is ! " 
 
 Sheridan, caUing to him, and bowing as he 
 turned, replied, "Sir, I envy you your admir- 
 able memory," and then walked on, thoroughly 
 enjoying his joke. 
 
 — W\/\Aa^ —
 
 Sheridan. 175 
 
 " CTEAL! to be sure they will," said Sheri- 
 dan of some plagiarists, "and, egad! 
 . serve your best thoughts as gipsies do stolen 
 children — disfigure them to make them pass for 
 their own." 
 
 TOURING the Westminster election contest, 
 owing to the tactics of some of Sheridan's 
 supporters, one of the voters called out that he 
 should withdraw his countenance from him. 
 
 ' ' Take it away at once — take it away at 
 once ! " cried Sheridan, " it is the most villain- 
 ous looking countenance I ever beheld." 
 
 " T^Y the silence that prevails," said Sheridan, 
 on entering a room full of guests, " I 
 conclude that Lauderdale has been making a 
 joke." 
 
 -^A/VV'T— 
 
 VyHEN the Duke of York was obliged to 
 retreat before the French, Sheridan gave 
 as a toast, "The Duke of York and his brave 
 followers." 
 
 "DECOMMEXDED to a course of sea-bath- 
 ing, Sheridan objected, saying that pickles 
 did not agree with him,
 
 176 Bon-Mots. 
 
 CPEAKING in Parliament, Sheridan com- 
 pared a tax-bill to a ship built in a dock- 
 yard, which was found to be defective every 
 voyage, and consequently was obliged to un- 
 dergo a new repair; first it was to be caulked, 
 then to be new planked, then to be new ribbed, 
 then again to be covered ; then, after all these 
 expensive alterations, the vessel was obliged to 
 be broken up and rebuilt. 
 
 TN a pantomime which Sheridan wrote for 
 Drury Lane Theatre, there was a practical 
 joke — where in pulling off a man's boot, the leg 
 was pulled off with it, which the famous Delpini 
 laid claim to as his own, and publicly complained 
 of Sheridan's having stolen it from him. Sheri- 
 dan said it was claimed as literary property, 
 being in usum Delpini. 
 
 —A/\J\/\^ — 
 
 CHERIDAN, the first time he met Tom after 
 his marriage, was seriously angry with him, 
 and told him that he had made his will and cut 
 him off with a shilling. 
 
 Tom said he was, indeed, very sorry, and 
 immediately added, "You don't happen to 
 have the shilling about you now, sir, do 
 vou?"
 
 Sheridan. 177 
 
 A LONG-WINDED member of Parliament 
 stopped in the midst of a tedious oration 
 to take a glass of water. Sheridan immediately 
 "rose to a point of order." Everybody 
 wondered what the point of order could be. 
 
 "What is it?" asked the Speaker. 
 
 " I think, sir," said Sheridan, " that it is out 
 of order for a windmill to go by water." 
 
 — WW''^ 
 
 /^NE of school-day mots attributed to Sheri- 
 dan is this : — A gentleman having a re- 
 markably long visage was one day riding by 
 
 f / 
 
 the school, when he heard young Sheridan say, 
 "That gentleman's face is longer than his life." 
 Struck by the strangeness of the remark, he 
 turned his horse's head, and requested the boy's 
 meaning. 
 
 "Sir," replied he, "I meant no offence in the 
 world, but I have read in the Bible at school, 
 that a man's life is but a span, and I am sure 
 your face is double that length." 
 
 M
 
 178 Bon-Mots. 
 
 T ORD ELLENBOROUGH (then Mr Law) 
 had once to cross-examine Sheridan, He 
 commenced thus : " Pray, Mr Sheridan, do 
 answer my questions, without point or epigram. " 
 "You say true, Mr Law," retorted the wit, 
 " your questions are without point or epigi-am." 
 
 S 
 
 —^A/\/\/\r— 
 
 AID Beau Brummel : " My brain. Sherry, is 
 
 swimming with being up all night — how 
 
 can I cure it ? I am not myself this morning. ' ' 
 
 ' ' Then what are you?" asked Sheridan. ' ' But 
 
 no matter. You have mistaken your complaint ; 
 
 there can be no swimming in ahipu^ mortmnn." 
 
 -^WW— 
 
 T^AVID HUME and Sheridan were crossing 
 the water, when, a high gale arising, the 
 philosopher seemed under great apprehension 
 lest he should go to the bottom. 
 
 " Why," said Sheridan, " that will suit your 
 genius to a tittle ; for my part, I care only for 
 skimming on the surface." 
 
 — ^/\/\/W— 
 
 TDEING told that the lost tribes of Israel had 
 been found, Sheridan said he was glad 
 to hear it, as he had nearly exhausted the other 
 ten.
 
 Sheridan. 
 
 179 
 
 n EORGE ROSE of the Treasury was talking 
 to an individual in the House of Commons. 
 Sheridan was standing close to him when a 
 friend came up, and asked, "What news, 
 to-day ?— anything afloat ? " 
 
 "Nothing, my dear fellow, nothing, except 
 the rumour of a great defalcation in the 
 Treasury — mind, sui RosaF' replied Sheridan 
 loud enough to have been heard all round. 
 
 —'At\J\t't— 
 
 CHERIDAN once succeeded admirably in 
 entrapping a noisy member who was in 
 the habit of interrupting every speaker with 
 cries of " Hear, hear ! " He 
 took an opportunity to allude 
 to a well-known political 
 character of the times, whom 
 he represented as a person 
 who wished to play the rogue, 
 but had only sense enough to 
 play the fool. 
 
 "Where," exclaimed Sheri- 
 dan, in continuation, and with 
 great emphasis, " where shall 
 we find a more foolish knave or a more knavish 
 fool than this?" 
 
 " Hear, hear ! " was instantly bellowed from 
 the accustomed bench. The wicked wit bowed, 
 thanked the gentleman for his ready reply to
 
 i8o Bon-Mots. 
 
 the question, and sat down amid con\ailsions 
 of laughter from all but their unfortunate 
 subject. 
 
 — ^A/Vw— 
 
 nrOM SHERIDAN once mentioned to his 
 father that he thought of going down a 
 coal mine. 
 
 "Go down a coal mine!" exclaimed the 
 other, astonished, " what is your reason?" 
 
 " Oh," said Tom, " I think it would be rather 
 a nice thing to say that one had been down a 
 pit." 
 
 "Well, but you can say so," said his father. 
 
 A LMOST to the very last, Sheridan preserved 
 his readiness of wit and pleasantry. A 
 solicitor who had been much favoured in wills, 
 waited on him, and after he had gone another 
 caller came in, to whom Sheridan said, " My 
 friends have been very kind in calling upon me 
 and offering their services in their respective 
 ways. Dick W. , for instance, has just been 
 here with his will-making face." 
 
 T N consequence of a continued bout of dissipa- 
 tion, Sheridan was taken ill. He sent for 
 a doctor, who prescribed rigid abstinence.
 
 Sheridan. i8i 
 
 Calling some time after, the medical man asked 
 his patient if he was attending to his advice, 
 and was answered in the affirmative. 
 
 ' ' Right," said the doctor ; ' ' 'tis the only way 
 to secure you length of days." 
 
 "I do not doubt it," said Sheridan, "for 
 
 these three last days have been the longest to 
 me in my life." 
 
 "DURKE'S melodramatic flinging of the 
 dagger on the floor of the House of 
 Commons was a complete failure, and pro- 
 duced nothing but a smothered laugh, and a 
 joke from Sheridan, — "The gentleman has 
 brought us the knife, but where is the 
 forkf
 
 1 82 Bon-Mots. 
 
 r~^NE of the Scotch Members of Parhament 
 asked Sheridan how he got rid of the 
 Irish brogue, as he wished to avoid his own 
 Scotch accent. 
 
 "My dear fellow," said Sheridan, "don't 
 attempt any such thing. The House listens to 
 you now because they don't understand you ; 
 but if you become intelligible, they will be able 
 to take your measure ! " 
 
 COON after the Irish members were admitted 
 into the House of Commons on the Union 
 in 1801, one of them, in the middle of his maiden 
 speech, thus addressed the chair : — " And now, 
 viy dear Mr Speaker." 
 
 This excited loud laughter. As soon as it had 
 somewhat subsided, Sheridan observed, "that 
 the honourable member was perfectly in order ; 
 for thanks to the Ministers, nowadays, ez'oy- 
 thiJig is dear." 
 
 A LOQUACIOUS author, after babbling 
 some time about his piece to Sheridan, 
 said, " Sir, I fear I have been intruding on your 
 attention." 
 
 "Not at all, I assure you," replied he; "I 
 was thinking oi soinething else."
 
 Sheridan. 
 
 183 
 
 CHERIDAN was down at Brighton one day, 
 when Fox (the manager) desirous of show- 
 ing him some civiHty, took him all over the 
 theatre and exhibited its beauties. 
 
 "There, Mr Sheridan," said Fox, who com- 
 bined twenty occupations without being clever 
 in any, "I built and painted all these boxes, 
 and I painted all these scenes." 
 
 "Did you?" said Sheridan, surveying them 
 rapidly, " Well, I should not, I am sure, have 
 known you were a Fox by your brush." 
 
 /^LIFFORD, a lawyer who had made some 
 strong comments uponhispoliticalconduct, 
 was once handled by Sheridan 
 with considerable irony. To 
 these comments Sheridan 
 replied: — "As to the lawyer 
 who has honoured me with 
 so much abuse, I do not know 
 how to answer him, as I am 
 no great proficient in the lan- 
 guage or manners of St Giles's. 
 But one thing I can say of 
 him, and it is in his favour. I 
 hardly expect you will believe 
 me, but I pledge you my 
 word that once, if not twice, but most as- 
 suredly once, I did meet him in the company 
 of gentlemen. "
 
 184 Bon-Mots. 
 
 A FTER witnessing the first representation of 
 a dog-piece by Reynolds, called the Cara- 
 van, Sheridan suddenly entered the green- 
 room, as it was imagined, to congratulate the 
 author. 
 
 ' ' Where is he ? where is my guardian angel ? " 
 he anxiously enquired. 
 
 " Here I am," answered Reynolds. 
 
 "Pooh!" replied Sheridan, "I don't mean 
 you, I mean the dog." 
 
 CHERIDAN was once asked by an acquaint- 
 ance, " How is it that your name has not 
 an O prefixed to it? Your family is Irish, and 
 no doubt illustrious." 
 
 "No family," answered Sheridan, "has a 
 better right to an O than our family ; for, in 
 truth, we o%ve everybody." 
 
 —'A/\Al^'~ 
 
 ' ' ■\A/'H Y do we honour ambition and despise 
 avarice, while they are both but the 
 desire of possession?" enquired a friend of 
 Sheridan. 
 
 " Because," answered he, " the one is natural, 
 the other artificial ; the one the sign of mental 
 health, the other of mental decay ; the one 
 appetite, the other disease."
 
 Sheridan. 185 
 
 ■\"y'HEN Sheridan was asked which performer 
 he hked best in a certain piece, he rephed, 
 ' ' The prompter ; for I saw less and heard more 
 of him than anyone else." 
 
 piTT having introduced his Sinking Fund 
 into the House of Commons, Sheridan 
 ridiculed it, saying that "at present 
 it was clear there was no surplus ; 
 and the only means which suggested 
 themselves to him were, a loan of a 
 million for the special pur- 
 pose — for the right honour- 
 able gentleman might say, 
 with the person in the 
 comedy, ''Ifyou won't lend 
 me the money, how can I pay you f ' 
 
 -w\/W/- 
 
 TN a large party, one evening, the conver- 
 sation turned upon young men's allowances 
 at college. Tom Sheridan lamented the ill- 
 judging parsimony of many parents in that 
 respect. 
 
 "I am sure, Tom," said his father, "you 
 need not complain ; I always allowed you eight 
 hundred a year." 
 
 "Yes, father," replied Tom, " I must confess 
 you allowed it ; but then it was never paid."
 
 i86 Bon-Mots. 
 
 T ADY CRAVEN having quarrelled with 
 Sheridan, said, that she kept up her 
 resentment as long as she was able, until he 
 made her laugh one night in a crowd coming 
 out of the Opera House. 
 
 "We were squeezed near one another by 
 chance, and he said, ' For God's sake ! Lady 
 Craven, don't tell anybody I am a thief; for you 
 know very well, if you do, everybody will be- 
 lieve it ! ' " 
 
 -^aAJW— 
 
 T 
 
 HE disputatious humour of one of his friends, 
 Richardson by name, was once turned to 
 good account by Sheridan in a very character- 
 istic manner. Having had a 
 hackney coach in employ for 
 about five or six hours and not 
 being provided with the means 
 to pay for it Sheridan happened 
 to espy Richardson in the 
 street, and at once proposed 
 to take him in the coach part of his way. 
 The offer was accepted and Sheridan lost 
 no time in starting a conversation on 
 which he knew that his companion was 
 sure to become argumentative and animated. 
 Having by well-managed contradiction brought 
 him to the proper pitch of excitement, Sheridan 
 affected to grow impatient and angry himself ; 
 at length saying that "he could not think of
 
 Sheridan. 187 
 
 -staying in the same coach with a person that 
 would use such language," he pulled the check- 
 string and desired the coachman to let him out. 
 Richardson, wholly occupied with the argument, 
 and regarding the retreat of his opponent as an 
 acknowledgment of defeat, still pressed his point, 
 and even shouted " more last words " through 
 the coach window after Sheridan, who, walking 
 quietly home, left the poor disputant responsible 
 for the heavy fare of the coach. 
 
 TN the debate on an India Control Bill, Sheri- 
 dan said,— He remembered that the India 
 Board had been compared to seven doctors and 
 eight apothecaries administering to the health 
 of one poor patient ; but their prescriptions 
 were more palatable than the dose now mixing 
 by the learned Doctor of Control (Dundas), who, 
 in the true spirit of quackery, desires "his patient 
 to take it, — that he has no occasion to confine 
 himself at home, but may safely go about his 
 business as usual. This sovereign remedy 
 would, no doubt, soon be advertised under the 
 popular name of ' ' Scots pills for all sorts of 
 Oriental ills." 
 
 A NUMEROUS party was assembled at 
 
 the mansion of a northern squire. Among 
 
 them was Sheridan and a wealthy young heir
 
 Bon-Mots.
 
 Sheridan. 189 
 
 belonging to a neighbouring county. The 
 youth prided himself on the accident of his 
 birth, and on his consequent acquisition of 
 riches. During the early part of the day the 
 stripling sneered at poverty, and spoke slight- 
 ingly of authors, actors, and other classes of 
 the community who afford occupation and 
 amusement to thousands who would be other- 
 wise devoured by e?inui, or seek excitement in 
 vicious pleasures. 
 
 Sheridan was naturally displeased at the want 
 of tact, taste, and feeling in the young pluto- 
 crat, and quietly waited an opportunity of 
 making him feel the edge of his keen rebuke. 
 At dinner there were twenty guests. Sheridan 
 sat on the left hand at the bottom of the table, 
 the youth on the right at the top, so that they 
 were at opposite angles, and the whole party 
 were so placed as to hear what passed from 
 either of them. 
 
 The youth talked much of all that concerned 
 him ; he gave accounts of the wonderful leaping 
 of his favourite hunter ; of the distance at which 
 his new double barrelled gun killed a wild 
 duck ; of the extraordinary staunchness of a 
 cross-bred setter ; of his dexterity in catching 
 a salmon with a single hair ; of his prowess in 
 London, &c. &:c. , to the number of eighteen 
 remarkable circumstances. 
 
 After the removal of the second course silence 
 ensued. Sheridan availed himself of this
 
 IQO 
 
 Bon-Mots. 
 
 moment, and thus addressed the youth— his 
 voice commanding the rest to silence — "Sir, 
 at the distance at which I sit from you, I did 
 not hear with accuracy the whole of your 
 interesting anecdotes ; permit me to ask you — 
 
 whose hunter performed those extraordinary 
 
 leaps? " 
 
 The youth promptly replied, " Aline, sir." 
 Sheridan continued, " But whose gun was it 
 
 that killed so far?" 
 
 Again the youth answered, " Mine, sir." 
 
 " Whose setter was so staunch ? " 
 
 " Mine, sir," repeated the victim, 
 
 " Who caught the salmon did you say ? " 
 
 " I did," was faintly answered. 
 
 Sheridan was inexorable, and continued, with 
 
 the utmost politeness of manner until he had 
 
 exhausted the whole eighteen items ; and then
 
 Sheridan. 191 
 
 drily said, " So you were the chief actor in every 
 anecdote, and the author of them all. Is it not 
 rather impolitic to despise your own professions ? ' ' 
 The youth left the mansion the following day 
 — cured, it is to be hoped of his illiberality, his 
 egotism, and his boastfulness. 
 
 -w\/\/v^— 
 
 /^NE day, when quite a boy, Tom Sheridan, 
 who had evidently been reading about the 
 Necessarians, suddenly asked his father, "Pray, 
 my good father, did you ever do anything in a 
 state of perfect indifference, without a motive, 
 I mean, of some kind or other? " 
 
 Sheridan, who saw what was coming, and 
 had no relish for metaphysical discussion, 
 replied, "Yes, certainly." 
 
 " Indeed?" said Tom. 
 
 " Yes, indeed." 
 
 "What, total indifference; total, entire, 
 thorough indifference?" 
 
 "Yes, total, entire, thorough indifference." 
 
 "Well, now then, my dear father, tell me 
 what it is that you can do with (mind) total, 
 entire, thorough indifference." 
 
 "Why I can listen to you, Tom," said 
 Sheridan. 
 
 — A/\/\/\a — 
 
 'X'OM was recommended by his father to take 
 a wife, when he quietly asked, "Whose 
 wife, sir?"
 
 192 Bon-Mots. 
 
 nrOM SHERIDAN was, however, emphatically 
 the son of his father. He was complaining 
 to him once that his pockets were empty, when 
 the elder Sheridan laconically replied, "Try 
 the highway." 
 
 "I have," answered Tom, "but I made a 
 bad hit. I stopped a caravan full of passengers, 
 who assured me they had not a farthing, for 
 they all belonged to Drury Lane Theatre and 
 could not get a single penny of their salary." 
 
 — M/VVv^ 
 
 /^N another and similar occasion, too, the 
 younger Sheridan proved a witty match 
 for his father. Sheridan had a cottage near 
 Hounslow Heath. Tom being 
 short of money asked his father 
 to let him have some cash. ' ' I 
 have none," was the reply. 
 
 ' ' Be the consequence what it 
 may, money I must have," said 
 Tom. 
 
 " If that is so, you will find a case of loaded 
 pistols upstairs, and a horse ready saddled in 
 the stable ; the night is dark, and you are within 
 half a mile of Hounslow Heath." 
 
 " I understand what you mean," said Tom ; 
 ' ' but I tried that last night. I unluckily stopped 
 Peake, your treasurer, who told me that you 
 had been beforehand with him, and had 
 robbed him of every sixpence in the world." 
 
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