church; but seeing only an old man of seventy, with a woman about the same age, and his clerk, he asked the latter, in a pet, where the bride and bridegroom were, and what these old people wanted. The old man replying that they came there to be married, the doctor looked sternly at him, and exclaimed, "Married!" "Yes, married!" said the old man, tartly; "better marry than do worse." "Go; get you gone, you silly old fools!" said the doctor; "get home, and do your worst." And then hobbled out of church, in a great passion with his clerk for calling him out of bed on such a ridiculous errand. PARR'S PUNNING. F all the species of wit, punning was one which Dr Parr disliked, and in which he very rarely indulged, and yet some instances of his gift in that direction are on record. Reaching a book from a high shelf in his library, two other books came tumbling down, of which one, a critical work of Lambert Bos, fell upon the other, which was a volume of Hume. "See," said he, "what has happened-procumbit humi bos.” On another occasion sitting in his room, suffering from the effects of a slight cold, when too strong a current was let in upon him, he exclaimed, "Stop, stop, that is too much; I am at present only par levibus ventis." At another time, a gentleman having asked him to subscribe to Dr Busby's translation of Lucretius, he declined to do so, saying it would cost too much money; it would indeed be "Lucretius Carus.' D 66 ASHE PLANTS R HOADLEY ASHE, nephew of Dr Hoadley, who wrote the Suspicious Husband," had nineteen daughters, all living. According to his own words, Mrs A., himself, and the nineteen female Ashe plants, sat down one-and THE REV. SAMUEL WESLEY, 97 twenty to dinner every day. "Sir," said the doctor once to Dibdin, “I am smothered with petticoats." This reverend divine took a bland pleasure in punning on his own name; but a waiter at an inn once made a pun upon him, which the doctor would have given a pension to have made himself. Dr Ashe had been caught in a heavy shower, and entering an inn where he was well known, requested the waiter to assist him in taking off his topcoat. "Sir," objected the man, "I durst not do it; it would be as much as my life is worth: for you know it is felony to strip an ash.” * P ORTHODOX DIVINITY. ARKER, Bishop of Oxford, being asked by an acquaintance what was the best body of divinity, answered, "That which can help a man to keep a coach and six horses." THE REV. SAMUEL WESLEY. R SAMUEL WESLEY, rector of the parish of Hep Mworth, in Yorkshire, had a clerk, who believed the rector, his master, to be the greatest man in the parish, if not in the county, and himself to be the next to him in worth and importance. He had the advantage and privilege of wearing out Mr Wesley's cast-off clothes and wigs, for the latter of which his head was far too small. The rector finding him particularly vain of one of those canonical substitutes for hair which he had lately received, formed the design to mortify him in the presence of that congregation, before which John By statute 6 Geo. II., c. 37, it was felony without benefit of clergy, to damage or destroy an ash tree. As late as 1824, one James Baker was sent to the treadmill for non-payment of £20 penalty, and 1 costs, for cutting the bough of an ash tree. See Morning Herald, June 29, 1824. G wished to appear in every respect what he thought himself. One morning before church time Mr Wesley said, “John, I shall preach on a particular subject to-day, and shall choose my own psalm, of which I shall give out the first line, and you shall proceed as usual." John was pleased, and the service went on as it was wont to do till they came to the singing, when Mr Wesley gave out the following line :— "Like to an owl in ivy bush." This was sung; and the following line John, peeping out of the large canonical wig in which his head was half lost, gave out with an audible voice and appropriate connecting twang, "That rueful thing am I." . The whole congregation, struck with John's appearance, saw and felt the similitude, and was ready to burst out into laughter. The rector was pleased, for John's self-conceit was mortified. This was the same gentleman who, when King William III. returned to London, after one of his expeditions, gave out in Hepworth Church, “ Let us sing to the praise and glory of God, a hymn of my own composing : 66 "King William has come home, come home. King William home is come; Therefore let us together sing The hymn that's called te D'um." EPISCOPAL PUNNING. IR WILLIAM DAWS, Archbishop of York, was very fond of a pun. His clergy dining with him for the first time after he had lost his lady, he told them he feared they might not find things in so good order as they used to be in the time of poor Mary; and, fooking extremely sorrowful, added with a deep sigh: "She was indeed Mare Pacificum!” A waggish curate, who pretty well knew what she had been, called out, "Ay, my lord, but only after she had become Mare Mortuum first." Sir William appreciated the pun by giving him a living of £200 per annum, within two months afterwards. M SAM DEACON'S UGLY CARRIAGE. R SAMUEL DEACON, a most respectable Baptist minister, who resided at Barton, in Leicestershire, was not peculiarly happy in his cast of countenance or general appearance. Conscious of the silly ridicule his unprepossessing exterior occasionally excited, he made the following good-humoured, quaint epigram on himself: "The carcass that you look at so, Is not Sam Deacon, you must know, A COOL HAND. HE following anecdote is perfectly indicative of that dry humour, the owner of which is generally described as "a cool hand." When Mr Gurney, afterwards rector of Edgefield, in Norfolk, held a fellowship of Bennett's, the master had a desire to get possession of the fellows' garden for himself. The rest of the fellows resigned their keys, but Gurney resisted both his threats and entreaties, and refused to part with his key. "The other fellows," said the master, "have delivered up their keys." "Then, master," said Gurney, "pray keep them, and you and I will keep all the other fellows out." 66 Sir," said the master, "am not I your master?" "Granted," said Gurney, "but am I not your fellow?" LOSING A SHOE AND A DINNER. S the Rev. Ozias Linley, Sheridan's brother-in-law, and one of the most absent of men, was one morning setting out on horseback for his curacy, a few miles from Norwich, his horse threw off one of his shoes. A lady, who observed the accident, thought it might impede Mr Linley's journey, and seeing that he himself was unconscious of it, politely informed him that one of his horse's shoes had just come off. "Thank you, madam,” replied Linley; “will you then have the goodness to put it on for me." Linley one day received a card to dine with the Bishop of Norwich. Careless into what hole or corner he threw his invitations, he soon lost sight of the card, and forgot it altogether. A year revolved, when, on wiping the dust from some papers he had stuck on the glass over the chimney, the bishop's invitation for a certain day in the month (he did not think of the year one instant) stared him full in the face, and, taking it for granted that it was a recent one, he dressed himself on the appointed day, and proceeded to the palace. But his diocesan was not in Norwich, a circumstance of which, though a matter of some notoriety to the clergy of the diocese, he was quite unconsċious ; and he returned dinnerless home. RISING FROM THE RANKS. HE parents of Dr John Prideaux, who afterwards rose to be Bishop of Worcester, were in such poor circumstances, that they were with difficulty able to keep him at school till he had learned to read and write; and he obtained the rest of his education by walking on foot to Oxford, and getting employed in the first instance as assistant in the kitchen |