Of Dr. Haig-Brown it is reported that, when Head Master of Charterhouse, he was toasted by the Mayor of Godalming as a man who knew how to combine the fortiter in re with the suav[=i]ter in modo.  In replying to the toast he said, “I am really overwhelmed not only by the quality, but by the quantity of his Worship’s eulogium.”

It has been a matter of frequent remark that, considering what an immense proportion of parliamentary time has been engrossed during the last seventeen years by Irish speeches, we have heard so little Irish humour, whether conscious or unconscious—­whether jokes or “bulls.”  An admirably vigorous simile was used by the late Mr. O’Sullivan, when he complained that the whisky supplied at the bar was like “a torchlight procession marching down your throat;” but of Irish bulls in Parliament I have only heard one—­proceeding, if my memory serves me, from Mr. T. Healy:  “As long as the voice of Irish suffering is dumb, the ear of English compassion is deaf to it.”  One I read in the columns of the Irish Times:  “The key of the Irish difficulty is to be found in the empty pocket of the landlord.”  An excellent confusion of metaphors was uttered by one of the members for the Principality in the debate on the Welsh Church Bill, in indignant protest against the allegation that the majority of Welshmen now belonged to the Established Church.  He said, “It is a lie, sir; and it is high time that we nailed this lie to the mast.”  But a confusion of metaphors is not a bull.

Among tellers of Irish stories, Lord Morris is supreme; one of his best depicts two Irish officials of the good old times discussing, in all the confidence of their after-dinner claret, the principles on which they bestowed their patronage Said the first, “Well, I don’t mind admitting that, caeteris paribus, I prefer my own relations.”  “My dear boy,” replied his boon companion, “caeteris paribus be d——­d.”  The cleverest thing that I have lately heard was from a young lady, who is an Irishwoman, and I hope that its excellence will excuse the personality.  It must be premised that Lord Erne is a gentleman who abounds in anecdote, and that Lady Erne is an extremely handsome woman.  Their irreverent compatriot has nicknamed them

“The storied Erne and animated bust.”

Frances Countess Waldegrave, who had previously been married three times, took as her fourth husband an Irishman, Mr. Chichester Fortescue, who was shortly afterwards made Chief Secretary.  The first night that Lady Waldegrave and Mr. Fortescue appeared at the theatre in Dublin, a wag in the gallery called out, “Which of the four do you like best, my lady?” Instantaneously from the Chief Secretary’s box came the adroit reply:  “Why, the Irishman, of course ’”