s and
no hearts_.

* * * * *

_A young prince had just been born and they were firing royal salutes to
celebrate the occasion. A bystander exclaimed, "How they do powder these
babies!_"

* * * * *

_In a pompous speech of self-defence the orator wound up by declaring
himself the guardian of his own honour. "What a sinecure!" murmured his
opponent._

"_How do you like babies, Mr. Lamb?" cried the gushing mother._

"_Boi-boi-boiled," answered the stammering old bachelor._

* * * * *

_Foote used to say that the Irish take us in and the Scots turn us out._

* * * * *

_A stout duellist once said to his diminutive antagonist, "It is a
perfectly unequal contest. It is almost impossible to hit any one of
your size, or to miss any one of mine."_

"_I agree," said his opponent. "And I will chalk my size on your body.
We will not count the shots that go out of the ring_."

* * * * *

"_Ah," said Curran, noticing an Irish friend walking along
absent-mindedly with his tongue out, "he is evidently trying to catch
the English accent_."

* * * * *

_Sydney Smith was asked his opinion of Newton's portrait of Tom Moore.
"Couldn't you," he asked the painter, "put more hostility to the
Established Church into the face?_"

* * * * *

_An intemperate duke asked Foote how he should go to a masquerade. "Go
sober," said Foote._

* * * * *

"_I'm afraid the salad is gritty," apologised the host.

"Gritty!" mumbled the guest, "it's a gravel path with a few weeds in
it_."

* * * * *

"_I never read a book before reviewing it" said Sydney Smith to a
friend. "It is so apt to prejudice one_."

* * * * *

_Bentley, the publisher, said to Jerrold, "I thought of calling my
magazine_ The Wits' Miscellany, _but I have decided on_ Bentley's
Miscellany."

"_My dear fellow," said Jerrold, "why go to the other extreme?_"

* * * * *

"_What a magnificent-looking man!" said Goldsmith of a stranger; "he
ought to be a Lord Chancellor."

He was, in fact, a rich baker.

"Not Chancellor," whispered a friend; "only Master of the Rolls_."

* * * * *

_Colerid