found it was all gone, on which, addressing the archdeacon, he begged that in the future catalogue of transitory things, he would not forget to insert a pudding.

Once, being to preach before the clergy at the visitation, he had three sermons in his pocket. Some wags got possession of them, mixed the leaves, and sewed them all up as one. Mr Harvest began his sermon, but soon lost the thread of his discourse, and grew confused. Still he continued reading till he had preached out first all the church-wardens, and next the clergy, who thought he was taken mad.

One evening Lady Onslow took Harvest to the theatre, to see Garrick play some favourite character. In order that he might have an uninterrupted sight, she procured front seats in the boxes. Harvest knowing he was to sleep in town, brought his night-cap in his pocket. It was of striped woollen, and had been worn, since it was last washed, at least half a year. In pulling out his handkerchief, the cap came with it and fell into the pit; the person on whom it fell tossed it from him, the next did the same, and the cap was for some time tossed to and fro all over the pit. At last Harvest, afraid of losing his property, got up, and after hemming two or three times to clear his pipes, began the following oration :—“ Gentlemen, when you have sufficiently amused yourself with that cap, please to restore it to me who am the owner;" at the same time bowing to the pit, and placing his right hand on his breast. The mob, struck with his manner, handed up the cap on the end of a walking stick, like the head of a traitor on the point of a lance.

A BUCK-PARSON.

CERTAIN reprobate buck-parson going to read prayers at a remote village in the west of England, found great difficulty in putting on the surplice, which was an old"D―n this old surplice," said he to the clerk,

fasioned one.

FATHER ANDRÉ, THE JOCULAR PREACHER. 87

"I think the d-1 is in it!" The astonished clerk waited till the parson had got it on, and then sarcastically answered, "I thinks as how he is, zir!"

"SUUM CUIQUE."

R JOHN EGERTON, on coming to the see of Durham, employed one Due as his agent, to find out the true values of the estates held by lease under him; and in consequence of Due's reports, greatly raised both the fines and reserved rents of his tenants. On this account the following toast was frequently drunk in and about Durham: “ May the Lord take the bishop, and the d-l have his Due!"

FATHER ANDRÉ, THE JOCULAR PREACHER.

JONCERNING this jocular preacher, Ménage relates an anecdote which, with several others, proves that the little monk had no fear of great men. He was preaching on Twelfth-day, at Nancy, where an oppressed and impoverished people had filled his ears with complaints of the rapacity of the Marshal de la Ferté, who was governor of that province. The marshal, with his staff, was present at the sermon, and Father André determined to hit him hard with a bit of church Latin. He made his discourse turn on the thanksgivings and offerings men ought to make to God, the source of all their prosperity. "Afferte filios arietum, afferte aurum et argentum, afferte omnia quæcunque habebis;" and he took care so to accentuate the verb "afferte,” as to make it sound like à Ferté (the name of the marshal), and to make the sense of his phrase: "Unto Ferté, the young of your rams; unto Ferté, your gold and silver; unto Ferté, all that you possess." He repeated this "afferte," or "d Ferté," so often, that some of the marshal's

suite called his lordship's attention to so odd an affectation. The great man, who had been dreaming about other things, is said to have blushed when he was made to understand the monk's meaning.

Another curious story told of little Andrew is, that one day when he was preaching at Paris against the vices of gallantry and intrigue, he threatened to name a lady present as being one of the guilty; that he, however, corrected himself, saying in Christian charity he would only throw his skull-cap in the direction where the lady sat; and that, as soon as he took his cap in his hand, every woman present bobbed down her head, for fear it should come to her. But this anecdote does not rest on good authority, and a story of precisely the same nature, and much older, is told of an Italian monk, who was preaching on the same vices at Venice.

FAST PREACHING.

R FARMER, in preaching, was so loud and hurried in his enunciation, and so violent in his setting off, as to make nervous people start. As a proof of his hurried manner in the pulpit, he used to relate that, having been to preach at Huntingdon, on his return, riding over the bridge, he heard a man say to his companion, “Ay, there he goes; if he rides as fast as he preaches, he will soon be at Cambridge."

REV. ROWLAND HILL'S PUN.

HIS reverend gentleman, when at college, had a conversation with some of his companions on the powers of the letter h, when it was contended that it was no letter, but a mere aspiration. Rowland took the opposite side of the question, and insisted on its being, to all intents and purposes,

a letter, and concluded by observing if it was not so, it was a very serious thing for him, as it would occasion his being ill all the days of his life.

A SCOTCH CALL.

BOUT the year 1750, Mr Sim was minister at Glass, in Banffshire, and had as a parishioner Mr Gordon, of Auchmull, who had entertained a long and inveterate grudge against the honest parson. Mr Sim got or procured a call to the neighbouring parish of Mootlich, and, as is usual, preached a farewell sermon, which Mr Gordon did not honour with his attendance. A third person extolling the discourse to the skies, Mr Gordon replied by asking the text, and being told Acts xx. 22, "And I go bound in the spirit to Jerusalem, not knowing the things that shall befall me.” “Ah, d—1 curse him," said the irate laird; “weel kens he that the stipend of Mootlich is fifty pun' better than the stipend of Glass."

D

A DRY JOKE.

JR MAINE, an eccentric character, who was ejected by Cromwell from ecclesiastical livings which he held from Charles I., preserved, in making his will, the whimsicalities of his life. He had an old servant to whom he bequeathed an ancient family trunk, telling him that he would find something there "which would make him drink after his death." The servant, full of expectation that his master, under this familiar expression, had left him a fair competency, as soon as decency allowed, flew to the trunk, when, to his great mortification, he found that the expected legacy consisted in nothing more than a red herring!

HEDGE PRIESTS.

T is curious to observe, that in every state of society, some sort of ghostly consolation is provided for the members of the community, though assembled for purposes diametrically opposite to religion. A gang of beggars have their patrico, and the banditti of the Apennines have among them persons acting as monks and priests, by whom they are confessed, and who perform mass before them. Unquestionably, such reverend persons, in such a society, must accommodate their manners and their morals to the community in which they live; and if they can occasionally obtain a degree of reverence for their supposed spiritual gifts, are on most occasions loaded with unmerciful ridicule, as possessing a character inconsistent with all around them. Hence the fighting parson in the old play of Sir John Oldcastle, and the famous friar of Robin Hood's band. Nor were such characters ideal. There exists a monition of the Bishop of Durham against irregular churchmen of this class, "who associated themselves with Border robbers, and desecrated the holiest offices of the priestly function, by celebrating them for the benefit of thieves, robbers, and murderers, amongst ruins and in caverns of the earth, without regard to canonical form, and with torn and dirty attire, and maimed rites, altogether improper for the occasion."

THEOLOGICAL WIT.

HE Rev. Thomas Toller, an eminent dissenting minister, joint preacher with the celebrated Dr James Fordyce,

at Monkwell Street, resided for many years in the Lower Street, Islington. One day when he got into the stage to come to London, he met with two ladies of his acquaintance, and a loquacious young Irishman, who was very obtrusive with his small attempts at wit. The coach soon stopped to take up