f the Anglican school of theology, he exclaimed,
with a fervour which was all his own, "May I live the life of a Taylor,
and die the death of a Bull!" The late Lord Coleridge, eulogizing
Oxford, said in his most dulcet tone, "I speak not of this college or of
that, but of the University as a whole; and, gentlemen, what a _whole_
Oxford is!"

The admirable Mr. Brooke, when he purposed to contest the Borough of
Middlemarch, found Will Ladislaw extremely useful, because he
"remembered what the right quotations are--_Omne tulit punctum_, and
that sort of thing." And certainly an apt quotation is one of the most
effective decorations of a public speech; but the dangers of
inappositeness are correspondingly formidable. I have always heard that
the most infelicitous quotation on record was made by the fourth Lord
Fitzwilliam at a county meeting held at York to raise a fund for the
repair of the Minster after the fire which so nearly destroyed it in
1829. Previous speakers had, naturally, appealed to the pious
munificence of Churchmen. Lord Fitzwilliam, as the leading Whig of the
county, thought that it would be an excellent move to enlist the
sympathies of the rich Nonconformists, and that he was the man to do it.
So he perorated somewhat after the following fashion:--"And, if the
liberality of Yorkshire Churchmen proves insufficient to restore the
chief glory of our native county, then, with all confidence, I turn to
our excellent Dissenting brethren, and I exclaim, with the Latin poet,

'Flectere si nequeo superos Acheronta movebo.'"

Mr. Anstey Guthrie has some pleasant instances of texts misapplied. He
was staying once in a Scotch country-house where, over his bed, hung an
illuminated scroll with the inscription, "Occupy till I come," which, as
Mr. Guthrie justly observes, is an unusually extended invitation, even
for Scottish notions of hospitality. According to the same authority,
the leading citizen of a seaside town erected some iron benches on the
sea front, and, with the view of at once commemorating his own
munificence and giving a profitable turn to the thoughts of the sitters,
inscribed on the backs--

THESE SEATS
WERE PRESENTED TO THIS TOWN OF SHINGLETON
BY
JOSEPH BUGGINS, ESQ.,
J.P. FOR THE BOROUGH.
"THE SEA IS HIS, AND HE MADE IT."

Nothing is more deeply rooted in the mind of the average man than that
certain well-known aphorisms of piety a