s, and middies of men-of-war; some written
in solemn earnest, some quizzically, but all declaring his lordship, the
bearer, to be a pretty good washerman, but the sort of person not to be
trusted far out of sight, as he would certainly walk off with your
clothes-bag if he could safely do so."--_Autobiography, Second Series_.

* * * * *

_Bed of Leaves_.--In some countries the leaves of the beech tree are
collected in autumn, before they have been injured by the frost, and are
used instead of feathers for beds; and mattresses formed of them are said
to be preferable to those either of straw or chaff.

* * * * *

_Pure Style_.--Cardinal Bembo was so rigorous with regard to purity of
style, that he is said to have had forty different partitions, through
which his writings, as he polished them by degrees, successively passed;
nor did he publish them till they had sustained these forty examinations.
How would the cardinal have acted with the editorship of a daily newspaper.

* * * * *

_To lie at the Pool of Bethesda_ is used proverbially in Germany, in
speaking of the theological candidates who are waiting for a benefice.

* * * * *

_Court Pun_.--The witty Marquess de Bievre was asked by Louis XV. for a
pun. "Give me a subject, sire,'" said B. "Make it on myself," said Louis.
"Sire, the king is not a subject," was the pleasant reply.

* * * * *

_History_.--The first page of Thucydides is, in my opinion, the
commencement of real history. All preceding narrations are so intermixed
with fable, that philosophers ought to abandon them in a great measure, to
the embellishment of the poet and orator.--_Hume_.

* * * * *

_Old Squibs_.--Richard Bentley and Charles Boyle (Earl of Orrery,) had a
warm dispute relative to the genuineness of the Greek Epistles of Phalaris,
an edition of which was published by the latter. Bentley was victorious,
though he was kept in hot water with the critics and wits of the age. Dr.
Garth assailed him thus:

So diamonds owe a lustre to their foil,
And to a _Bentley_ 'tis we owe a _Boyle_.

Conyers Middleton was a sad thorn in Bentley's side, from the latter
having called the former, when a young student in the university,
_fiddling_ Conyers, because he played on the violin. A punning caricature
rep