The ass, though the dullest of all unlaughing animals, is reported to have once accomplished a great feat in the way of exciting laughter.  Marcus Crassus, the grandfather of the hero of that name, who fell in the Parthian War, was a person of such immovable gravity of countenance that, in the whole course of his life, he was never known to laugh but once, and hence was surnamed Agelastus.  Not all that the wittiest men of his time could say, nor aught that comedy or farce could produce on the stage, was ever known to call up more than a smile on his iron-bound countenance.  Happening one day, however, to stray into the fields, he espied an ass browsing on thistles; and in this there appears to have been something so eminently ridiculous in those days that the man who never laughed before could not help laughing at it outright.  It was but the burst of a moment; Agelastus immediately recovered himself, and never laughed again.

MEMORY
[Sidenote:  Percy Anecdotes]

A player being reproached by Rich for having forgot some of the words in “The Beggar’s Opera,” on the fifty-third night of its performance, cried out, “What! do you think one can remember a thing for ever?”

“COME IN HERE” [Sidenote:  Percy Anecdotes]

Burton, in his “Melancholy,” quoting from Poggius, the Florentine, tells us of a physician in Milan who kept a house for the reception of lunatics, and, by way of cure, used to make his patients stand for a length of time in a pit of water, some up to the knees, some to the girdle, and others as high as the chin, pro modo insaniae, according as they were more or less affected.  An inmate of this establishment, who happened, “by chance,” to be pretty well recovered, was standing at the door of the house, and, seeing a gallant cavalier ride past with a hawk on his fist, and his spaniels after him, he must needs ask what all these preparations meant.  The cavalier answered, “To kill game.”  “What may the game be worth which you kill in the course of a year?” rejoined the patient.  “About five or ten crowns.”  “And what may your horse, dogs, and hawks stand you in?” “Four hundred crowns more.”  On hearing this, the patient with great earnestness of manner, bade the cavalier instantly begone, as he valued his life and welfare; “For,” said he, “if our master come and find you here, he will put you into his pit up to the very chin.”

A POPE INNOCENT
[Sidenote:  Percy Anecdotes]

When King James I. visited Sir Thomas Pope, knt., in Oxfordshire, his lady had lately brought him a daughter, and the babe was presented to the King with a paper of verses in her hand; “Which,” quoth Fuller, “as they pleased the King, I hope they will please the reader.”

  See, this little mistress here,
  Did never sit in Peter’s chair,
  Or a triple crown did wear,
        And yet she is a Pope.

  No benefice she ever sold,
  Nor did dispense with sins for gold,
  She hardly is a se’nnight old,
        And yet she is a Pope.