August 16.-"Bless me! I quite forgot to call. The bill is not discharged-bring me a receipt any time to-morrow or next day." 17.-"Gone to Margate, and wo'nt be home till next month." Sept. 12.-"What! did I not pay that bill before I went out of town? Are you going farther?". "Yes."-"Very well; call as you come back, and I'll settle it."-Calls, and he is gone to dinner at Clap ham. Q. What number?-A. Seven. Q. That is Thomas Adonis's house ?-A. No; it is my son's. And here ends the payment of £9. 14s. 6d. with ters. three of the guineas light. THE LAWYER AND THE CHIMNEY-SWEEPER. A roguish old lawyer was planning new sin, When a chimney-sweep's boy, who had made a mis take. Came flop down the flue with a clattering rush, And bawl'd, as he gave his black muzzle a shake, My master's a coming to give you a brush." "If that be the case," said the cunning old elf, 'There's no moment to lose-it is high time to flee; Ere he gives me a brush, I will brush off myself, If I wait for the Devil, the Devil take me!" Q. What, have you a son?-A. Yes, and daughQ. What is your name ?-A.-William Henry I guess. Q. Is your wife alive?-A. No; she is dead, I guess. Q. Did she die slick right away?—A. No, not by any manner of means. Q. How long have you been married?- -A. Thirty years, I guess. Q. What age were you when you were married? A. I guess mighty near thirty-three. Q. If you were young again, I guess you would marry earlier?-A. No; I guess thirty-three is a mighty grand age for marrying. Q. How old is your daughter?-A. Twenty-five. Q. I guess she would like a husband?-A. No; she is mighty careless about that. Q. She is not awful, (ugly,) I guess?—A. No; I she is not. guess Q. Is she sick?-A. Yes. Q. What is her sickness?-A. Consumption. Q. Is your son a trader?-A. Yes. Q. Are his spirits kedge (brisk?)—Yes; I expect they were yesterday. And found he was a knowing guide, They hook'd her buffeting the tide. THE EPIGRAM CLUB. On the removal of the cloth, the president gave three knocks with his hammer on the table, Silence being procured, he commenced his harangue by reminding the society that nobody was required to sing: that it was gothic barbarity to call upon any Q. How did he get in business ?---A. I planted him there: I was his sponsor for a thousand dallars: I guess he paid me within time; and he is now pro-gentleman to struggle with a cold and hoarseness; gressing slick. OBSTINACY IN GRAIN. Bob had a wife, but so perverse, When Will and Tom from no small distance The current was in rapid force, The other were a fruitless job: that the organs of singing were frequently deranged, those of speaking very seldom; and therefore that the usages of this institution were highly rational, inasmuch as no man was there called upon for a song, but every one for an epigram. "Mr. Morris," said the deputy chairman, to a member on his right hand, "were you at the late masquerade ?" "I was, "answered Morris, with all the elation of a man who sees an opportunity of throwing in a good thing. "I went with Lump, the leather-seller. He wore a domino, but he wanted to go in character." "What character?" Charles the second." "Indeed! and what made him alter his determination?" "My epigram." "Oh To this night's masquerade, quoth Dick, And thus to Richard said: "Bravo!" exclaimed the president, "your health Mr. Morris, I think you are in a fair way of winning the silver medal. But we shall see. Mr. Vice, you will please to call upon Mr. Snaggs. We must take him in time, or the Hampstead stage will be too sharp for us." Snaggs started from a doze, and begged to inform the company that in his village resided a physician and a vicar, who often walked arm in arm together. "Which circumstance," said Snaggs, induced me to squib them after the follow-young man, who sat "like a lily drooping, and had ing fashion "How D. D. swaggers, M. D. rolls! I dub them both a brace of noddies: Old D. D. has the cure of souls, And M. D. has the care of bodies. Betweeen them both what treatment rare Our souls and bodies must endure, One has the cure without the care, And one the care without the cure." The applause which followed this effusion made Morris tremble for his silver medal. The president now looked at his watch it pointed to the hour of nine: he exchanged a significant glance with the vice-president, (who also officiated as secretary,) and the latter cast his eye towards a mahogany box in the window-seat, and began to fumble for his keys. "Silence, gentlemen," exclaimed the former, "and listen to a report of our committee, setting forth the objects and prospects of this institution." The secretary then drew forth a book, and proceeded to business. The report commenced by stating, that the object of the Epigram Club was to induce writers and speakers in general, by their precept and example, to compress what they might have to utter into as small a compass as possible. The report dilated upon the alarming increase of forensic and parliamentary eloquence, and then enumerated the number of epigrams which, with a view of stopping the farther increase of the mischief, the committee had caused to be distributed in England, Scotland, and Ireland, a great portion of which had been translated into the Hindostan and Catabaw languages; so that, to adopt their own phraseology, "they had the heartfelt delight of epigrammatizing the naked Gentoo and the tatooed Otaheitean." The report then stated, that, by the exertions of the committee, seventeen epic poems had been strangled in their birth. "A dry subject, Mr. Secretary," exclaimed the chairman," Mr. Daffodil, pray favour us with an epigram." This request was addressed to a slender all the air of having been recently jilted. Thus called upon, he started from the reverie in which he appeared to be plunged, and in a silver tone spoke as follows: "My thrifty spouse, her taste to please, And every thing she doats on buys. Wanted, because they may be bought." "I should not be at all surprised," said Captain Thackeray to the utterer of the jeu d'esprit, "if Mrs. Backhouse gave you that idea. You must know her she lives in Castle-street, Holborn, and spends the whole of the morning in picking up things remarkably cheap. She bought the late Irish giant's boots; she has no occasion for them at present, but they may come into play. -Last Wednesday she met with a capital bargain in Brokers'-row, Moorfields-a brass door-plate, with Mr. Henderson engraved upon it; it only cost her ninepence halfpenny. Should any thing happen to Mr. Backhouse, and she be after wards courted by any body of the name of Henderson, there is a door-plate ready." This sally proving successful, drew the attention of the club towards the utterer; and the chairman told him, that, when his turn arrived, he had no doubt of his favouring the company with an excellent epigram. "Gentleinen," said the member whose turn was next in succession," I have a weighty objection to all that has been uttered. An epigram should not be extended to eight lines; and I believe all that we have heard this evening, have been of that length. Four lines ought to be the ne plus ultra; if only two so much the better. Allow me to deliver one which was uttered by an old gentleman, whose daughter Arabella importuned him for money :— Dear Bell, to gain money, sure, silence is best, For dumb Bells are fittest to open the chest." "I am quite of your opinion," said he who followed; "and in narrating an epitaph by a disconsolate husband upon his late wife, I mean to confine myself within the same Spartan limits: Good-morrow, fool, quoth I: No, sir, quoth he, OCEANS OF PUNCH. Two bones from my body have taken a trip, I've buried my Rib, and got rid of my Hyp." "Now, captain," said the president, addressing himself to young Culpepper's mustachio'd associate. The dragoon started, and waxed rather red. "I'm very sorry-I can't at this moment- Really its very ridiculous.—Pray must it be in English?” "No, The honourable Edward Russel, who was captain sir, we are not confined to any language." "Well, general and commander in chief of the English forces then, I will give you a Latin one. My friend Cul-in the Mediterranean, during the reign of William pepper and I, on coming out of the opera the other the Third, had a mighty bowl of punch made at his night, got into dispute with a hackney-coachman. house, on the 25th of October, 1694. Upon which I collared him, and he collared me, and tore the silk facing of my cloak. Upon which, says Culpepper, who is to mend it? Upon which said I, nobody can replace the silk facing but the man who made the cape; because, according to the Latin adage, Qui capit ille facit. "Now I think I have beaten the two gentlemen who epigrammatized last. They have made a great merit of having confined themselves to two lines, and, egad! I have confined myself to one." It was made in a fountain in the garden, in the centre of four walks, all of which were arched with lemon and orange trees, and along every walk tables were placed the whole length, which were covered with cold collations, &c. In the fountain were the following ingredients: four hogsheads of brandy, eight hogsheads of water, twenty-five thousand lemons, twenty gallons of lime juice, thirteen hundred weight of fine Lisbon sugar, five pounds of grated nutmegs, The fool was anciently dressed in a party-coloured coat. three hundred toasted biscuits, and a pipe of moun- | Yet whims like these have sometimes made you laugh, tain malaga. Over the fountain was a large canopy "Tis tattling all like Isaac Bickerstaff. to keep off the rain; and there was built on purpose a Since war and places claim the bards that write, little boat, in which was a boy belonging to the fleet, Be kind, and bear a woman's treat, to-night; who rowed round the fountain, and filled the cups of Let your indulgence all her fears allay, the company, who exceeded six thousand in number. And none but women-haters damn this play. PROLOGUE TO THE BUSY BODY. Though modern prophets were exposed of late, If with such scenes an audience had been fir'd, And gamesters, when they think they are not known. THE JUDGE OUTWITTED. CENTLIVRE. The late Lord Kenyon was once listening very attentively, in the Roll's Court, to a young clerk, who was reading to him the conveyance of an estate; and, on coming to the word enough, pronounced it enow. His honour immediately interrupted him; "Hold, hold! you must stand corrected; enough is, according to the vernacular custom, pronounced enuff, and so must all other English words which terminate in ough; as, for example, tough, rough, cough, trough," &c. The clerk bowed, blushed, and went on for some time; when, coming to the word plough, he, with increased emphatical voice, and a penetrating look at his honour, called it pluff! The great lawyer stroked his chin, and, with a smile, politely said, "Young man! I sit corrected.' DANIEL versus DISHCLOUT. Daniel was groom in the same family wherein Dishclout was cookmaid, and Daniel returning home one day fuddled, he stooped down to take a sop out of the pan; Dishclout pushed him into the drippingpan, which spoiled his clothes, and he was advised to bring his action against the cookmaid; the pleadings of which were as follows: The first person who spoke was Mr. Serjeant Snuffle. He began, saying, "Since I have the honour to be pitched upon to open this cause to your lordship, I shall not impertinently presume to take up any of your lordship's time, by a round about circumlocutory manner of speaking or talking, quite foreign to the purpose, and not any ways relating to the matter in hand, I shall, I will, I design to show what damages my client has sustained hereupon, whereupon, and thereupon. Now, my lord, my client being a servant in the same family with Dishclout, and not being at board wages, imagined |