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_.”

* * * * *

Coleridge was dreaming of the time when he was a minister.  “Ah, Charles, you never heard me preach.”  “My dear fellow,” cried Lamb, “I never heard you do anything else.”

* * * * *

Sydney Smith said that the whole of his life had been spent like a razor—­in hot water or a scrape.

* * * * *

As a means of bragging of his acquaintance, a man was remarking to the company that, although he had often dined at the Duke of Devonshire’s, there had never been any fish.  “Is it not extraordinary?” he asked.  Jerrold said, “Hardly.  They ate it all upstairs.”