W. R. V. ANA
"A fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy."punning
Some one observed, "Matches are made in Heaven." "Yes," answered he, "and they are very often dipped in the other place."
Two men contending at a tavern upon the point of who wrote that beautiful song on Ingratitude, "Blow, blow, thou wintry wind!" one said Ben Jonson; the other said Shakspeare. R.V. to adjust their differences, observed, "They must have written it between them, for each was a-verse to ingratitude."
A fat gentleman who was at a loss for the name of the nobleman who was shut up in a tower and starved to death, applied to the punster "You-go-lean-O! " was the reply.
"A tailor is the ninth part of a man," observed a would-be-wit, in the presence of a knight of the sheers: "But," answered R.V. "a fool's no part at all."
"He that will pun will pick a pocket," observed an old cynic. "You speak from experience ," was the stopper to this vinegar cruet .
Rhodes, the punning landlord of the Coal Hole tavern, took the Bell Inn at Hammersmith: R.V. hoped that as he had so long answered the bell , the Bell would now answer him.
One asked him what works he had in the press. "Why, the History of the Bank, with notes ; the Art of Cookery, with plates ; and the Science of Single Stick, with wood cuts ."
A person told him that Louis dix-huit, when he entered London, put up at Grillon's hotel. "I am surprised at that," said he; "his father took his chop at Hatchett's ."
A barber recommended him his aromatic essence for the improvement of his hair. "No, no; don't waste your fragrance on the desert hair ."
A friend remarked of a gentleman with very large curly whiskers, that he said nothing. "Poor fellow; don't you see he's lock-jawed ?"
"How well you put on your cravat," said a crony: "that tie 's something new." "Yes; it's a novel-tie ."
He pacified a quarrelsome fellow one evening by observing, "I should not like to go up in a balloon with you, for fear of our falling out ."
Seeing a porter bring in an edition of a new work of his from the press to his bookseller, "Dear me!" he exclaimed, "what a weight is off my mind ."
"What a swell you are in your new frock coat," said a quiz to him one day. "Don't you like it? I do: indeed I'm quite wrapped up in it ."
The same person meeting him one day in the city, observing he had on a new waistcoat, asked if it was a city cut . "No," answered he, "it's a west-cut ."
Dining at the Wrekin tavern, he asked for a wine glass: the waiter, in bringing it, inadvertently let it fall "Zounds! I did not ask you for a tumbler !"
Sitting in company with one of those people who find fault with every thing, good, bad, or indifferent, he could not refrain from quizzing the old fellow. "True, true; we have nothing new or good now-a-days: Waterloo bridge is a catchpenny , Herschell's telescope all my eye , the steam engine a bottle of smoke , and the safety-coach a complete take in ."
Bearcroft the classic observed to him, that learning was pabulum animi , food of the
mind. "Yes," replied he, "and that's the reason, I suppose, the collegians wear trencher caps."
On George the Fourth landing at Calais in 1820, the wind was so boisterous as to blow off his foraging cap, greatly inconveniencing him: a brave officer, Captain Jones of the Brunswicks, who stood near, presented His Majesty with his own, which the King graciously accepted, and wore until he got to his carriage. This drew from him the following impromptu:
On Sir Robert Wilson's motion for investigating the affair that deprived him of his rank as General being lost, he lamented it as very hard that they should refuse him "even a major-ity ."
Being proposed a member of the Phœnix Club, he asked when they met: "Every Saturday evening during the winter." "Then," said he, "I shall never make a Phœnix, for I can't rise from the fire ."
NORBURYANA;
It is one of the evils attending eminence in any art, that many loose performances will be attributed to genius, for the sake of notoriety, which would cause a blush upon the cheek of the talented individual under whose cognomen they are surreptitiously launched forth into public life. Every new pun, made by the Emeralders, whether invented in the Four Courts of Dublin, or at the midnight orgies held in the broad and narrow Courts of London, at the Fives Court or the Tennis Court , the King's Court , or the Courts of law and equity, are all heaped upon the great original , Lord Norbury; who has, in consequence, as many sins of this sort to bear with, as any criminal that ever appeared before his legal tribunal. In selecting from an accredited stock, the compiler of this little book has endeavoured to affix to the Noble Punster , only, the legitimate offspring of his own creation; or at least such, if any one has stolen in, as may not disgrace his witty family.