Anecdotes and Facetice.*

A LATE member for Trinity College, Dublin, found himself seated one day at a large dinner, given by one of the senior fellows of that university, near a young man to whom he had not been introduced. They, however, soon entered into conversation; and the M. P. was quite delighted by the colloquial powers and great information of his neighbour. He took an early opportunity of asking his host the name of the young gentleman. "I thought you knew him," was the reply. "It is

the new Fellow." (It is to be remarked, that the Fellows of Trinity College, Dublin, vote for members of Parliament, and are generally very influential in elections.) "Ah!" said the member, "is that the case? I really felt an attraction for him." "I do no doubt it," replied Dr. Kyle; "it must be an elective attraction."

AT the Irish bar, Ninian Mahaffy, Esq. is as much above the middle size, as Mr. Collis is below it. (Mr. Mahaffy, in Curran's life time, was Deputy to Sir Jonah Barrington, Judge of the Admiralty in Ireland, and whenever he presided there, Curran used to say, that Court was very fitly called, the high Court of Admiralty.) When Lord Redesdale was Lord Chancellor in Ireland, Messrs. Mahaffy and Collis happened to be retained in the same case a short time after his Lordship's elevation, and before he was acquainted personally with the Irish bar. Mr. Collis was opening the motion, when Lord R. observed; “Mr. Collis, when a barrister addresses the court, he must stand.” "I am standing on the bench, my Lord," said Collis. "I beg a thousand pardons,” replied his Lordship, somewhat confused; "sit down, Mr. Mahaffy." "I am sitting, my Lord," was the reply to the confounded Chancellor.

On this occasion, the following epigram, (attributed, as every pun in Ireland, good or bad is, to Lord Norbury, but really the

* From the Literary Gazette for 1820, 1821, and 1822.-M.

production of a barrister then eminent, but now retired from the

bar) was composed.

Mahaffy and Collis, ill paired in a case,

Representatives true of the rattling size ace;

To the heights of the law, though I hope you will rise
You will never be judges, I'm sure of assize.

THE motto of the city of Cork arms is, "Statio benefida carinis," altered from the malefida of Virgil; and most deservedly, with regard to the harbour of Cork. The city arms are of course commonly adopted for signs to houses of entertainment. But the ingenuity of a sign-painter has, by a happy blunder, made the motto quite appropriate for an eating-house, over which his graphic pencil has displayed the arms. He has exhibited it, "Statio benefida carnis," (omitting the central i,) which may be translated, "An excellent place for meat."

THE following anecdote of General Ross, the incendiary of Washington, has never we believed appeared in print. He was educated in Trinity College, Dublin, during the Provostship of Hutchinson, who was pretty generally disliked in College, and accused of keeping it in a perpetual ferment of electioneering and other intrigues. In carrying on these, he frequently made use of the assistance of his son's tutor, Adair, (afterwards Dr. Adair, master of a highly respectable classical school in Fermoy, who has been some years dead) and he of course shared the unpopularity of his employer. Ross and he had a particular quarrel, and the future general revenged himself on his antagonist, by caricaturing him (for which art he had a peculiar talent) in the act of bestowing a salutation on a very unseemly part of the provost's person, with the motto of "tenacem præpositi virum." He pasted it on the College gate, and it nearly procured him the honours of an expulsion.

PUNS on names are so easy to make, and so hard to be comprehended, except on the spot where they are vented, that it is seldom worth while to write them. Perhaps this may pass. A member of parliament who was paying his addresses to a lady

of the name of Weekes, had gone up to town to attend his parliamentary duty, and returned in a very short time. On its being remarked that he had not delayed long in the metropolis, it was replied, that he had business to attend to at home, from which he could not be long absent. True," said a person, “Mr. can be absent for days, but it is quite impossible he should be so for Weeks."

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MISS EDGEWORTH has written a most witty essay on Irish Bulls, in which she is very eager to defend our honest neighbours across the channel from the imputation of bull-making. She herself however appears to have fallen into the practice, which is very contagious, in the following passage of her life of her fatherwe know not whether in jest or earnest. She tells us (Edgeworth's Memoirs, vol. 2, p. 355), "The last letter poor Johnson ever wrote, or I should rather say, dictated, was to my father; it was in his nephew's handwriting, and gives the following account of his death." Dr. Johnson, it was said, believed in ghosts; but we think it still harder to believe that his namesake wrote or even dictated a letter, containing an account of his own death.

ANOTHER.The translator of Madam de Laroche Jacquelin's Memoirs, has caused that noble lady to make a very fair bull, without, we presume, any co-operation on her part. The memoirs are dedicated to the children, and the translator makes her use the following sentence, in addressing them: "I feel a mournful pleasure in recounting to you the life and death of your parents and friends." This admirable blunder, which makes a mother tell her children of the death of their parents, must arise from ignorance of the meaning of the French word parens -relations.

AMONG the apologies received by the Lord Chancellor from Peers praying to be excused attendance on the Queen's trial, the Morning Chronicle seriously states one urging a very sufficient reason, namely, "The Bishop of Cloyne, dead!" Thus

we see that the fact of posthumous correspondence does not rest only on Miss Edgeworth's authority.

FRUIT AND TIMBER.-In the Commercial Dictionary for Ireland, Scotland, &c. lately published (which by the way is a most ridiculously incorrect work) under the head Dungarvon, is the following paragraph. "It [Dungarvon] was formerly noted for its export of fruit and timber to Dublin; but the trade has lately declined, and in its place has sprung up a considerable export of corn, butter, and provision, to the ports of the English Channel," p. 191. Fruit and timber! Somebody must have been laughing at the unfortunate compiler, for the export of Dungarvon, designated by this splendid title, was literally no more than potatoes and brooms. The joke is quite proverbial in the South of Ireland; and it seems hardly possible even far a bogman to have been humbugged by it.

AN IRISH TRIBUTE TO GENERAL VALLENCEY.-The General was regarded by some of the Milesians of Ireland with enthusiastic affection, for his exertions in the cause of the ancient literature and history of that country. Many odd proofs were given of this feeling. Among the rest, the veteran used to tell with the utmost good humour, that a Kerry gentleman waited on him in Killarney with a knife of antique fashion, which he presented him with these words: "General, this knife has been in my family one hundred and fifty years, during which time it had only three blades and two handles; and though it is a family relic, it is perfectly at your service, for the zale you have shown in the cause of ould Ireland. I got the last blade in yesterday, and the last handle a month ago, that I might give you this rale antiquity as perfect as possible."

BARON SMITH'S RIDDLE.-Some men of the greatest talents have taken delight in composing or endeavouring to unravel riddles. Dean Swift is a case in point. Sir William Smith, the learned Irish Baron of the Exchequer, at one time spent two days and nights in considering the answer to this conundrum : Why is an egg underdone, like an egg overdone? He would

not suffer any one to give him the answer, which he at last discovered. It is a tolerable pun énough. Because they are both hardly done.

IRISH BANKS.-There has been sad havock among the southern banks of Ireland within these few months, and of course their failures have furnished very constant topics of conversation, with respect to their presumed solvency. A dispute arose about the comparative merits of the banks of Cork and Clonmell, in one of these conversations. I own," said one of the company, "I prefer Clonmell to Cork. In the former, the banks are always on the Sure side, and in the latter, as constantly on the Lee side." The Suir and Lee are the rivers on which these towns stand.

A HEBREW PUN, FOR THE BENEFIT OF HEBRAISTS ONLY. A Jew not long since failed for a considerable sum, and a meeting of his creditors was of course called. On examining his accounts one of these gentlemen expressed his apprehensions that the bankrupt would be very defective. "Indeed," said a brother Israelite, "I am sorry to agree with you; he will be a defective in Pe nun" (pay none).

PUN PROSODIAL.-The facetious Jeremy Keller, one of the oldest and most respectable members of the Irish bar, was once rallied, by a brother barrister, for not prefixing an O to his name. O'Keller, Jeremiah O'Keller! " 'Why," said he, "the very sound would give you a claim to undoubted antiquity of family." "Nay," replied Mr. Keller, "I agree with old Alvany, O datur ambiguis."

A BULL FROM ENGLAND.-In the eighteenth number of the Imperial Magazine, published in the town of Liverpool, we have the following passage in a paper on 'Ancient Manners and Customs of the English.' "The nuns of St. Mary Kingston, in Wilts, were often seen coming forth into the Nymph Hay, with their rocks and wheels to spin, sometimes to the number of seventy;