Swift disliked nothing so much as being troubled with applications from authors to correct their works.  A poor poet having written a very indifferent tragedy, got himself introduced to the dean in order to have his opinion of it; and in about a fortnight after, called at the deanery.  Swift returned the play, carefully folded up, telling him he had read it, and taken some pains with it, and he believed the author would not find above half the number of faults that it had when it came into his hands.  The poor author, after a thousand acknowledgments, retired in company with the gentleman who had introduced him, and was so impatient to see the corrections, that he stopped under the first gateway they came to, when to his utter astonishment and confusion, he saw that the dean had taken the pains to blot out every second line throughout the whole play, so carefully as to render them quite illegible.

Lady Carteret, wife of the Lord Lieutenant, said to Swift one day, “The air of Ireland is excellent and healthy.”  “For God’s sake, madam,” said Swift, falling down before her, “don’t say so in England, for if you do they will tax it.”

Dr Savage, who died in 1747, travelled in his younger days, with the Earl of Salisbury, to whom he was indebted for a considerable living in Hertfordshire.  One day at the levee, the King (George I.) asked him how long he had resided at Rome with Lord Salisbury.  Upon his answering him how long,—­“Why,” said the king, “you staid there long enough; how is it you did not convert the pope?”—­“Because, sir,” replied the doctor, “I had nothing better to offer him.”

Sheridan.—­This distinguished wit, upon being asked by a young member of parliament how he first succeeded in establishing his fame as an orator, replied, “Why, sir, it was easily effected.  After I had been in St. Stephen’s Chapel a few days, I found that four-fifths of the house were composed of country squires, and great fools; my first effort, therefore, was by a lively sally, or an ironical remark, to make them laugh; that laugh effaced from their stupid pates the recollection of what had been urged in opposition to my view of the subject, and then I whipped in an argument, and had all the way clear before me.”

Sheridan.—­The father of the celebrated Sheridan was one day descanting on the pedigree of his family, regretting that they were no longer styled O’Sheridan, as they were formerly.  “Indeed, father,” replied Sheridan, then a boy, “we have more right to the O than any one else; for we owe everybody.”

Sheridan inquiring of his son what side of politics he should espouse on his inauguration to St. Stephen’s chapel; the son replied, that he intended to vote for those who offered best, and that in consequence he should wear on his forehead a label, “To let;” to which the facetious critic rejoined, “I suppose, Tom, you mean to add, unfurnished.”