The world's wit and humor: an encyclopedia of the classic wit and humor of all ages and nations, Volume 6

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Lionel Strachey
Review of reviews Company, 1906 - Wit and humor

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Page 222 - Who gave the ball, or paid the visit last ; One speaks the glory of the British queen, And one describes a charming Indian screen ; A third interprets motions, looks, and eyes ; At every word a reputation dies.
Page 139 - In thy felonious heart though venom lies, It does but touch thy Irish pen, and dies. Thy genius calls thee not to purchase fame In keen iambics, but mild anagram. Leave writing plays, and choose for thy command Some peaceful province in acrostic land. There thou may'st wings display and altars raise, And torture one poor word ten thousand ways. Or, if thou wouldst thy different talents suit, Set thy own songs, and sing them to thy lute.
Page 227 - Fate urged the shears, and cut the sylph in twain (But airy substance soon unites again), The meeting points the sacred hair dissever From the fair head, for ever, and for ever! Then flashed the living lightning from her eyes, And screams of horror rend the affrighted skies.
Page 217 - And decks the goddess with the glittering spoil. This casket India's glowing gems unlocks, And all Arabia breathes from yonder box.
Page 53 - Reading maketh a full man; conference a ready man; and writing an exact man. And therefore, if a man write little, he had need have a great memory; if he confer little, he had need have a present wit: and if he read little, he had need have much cunning, to seem to know that he doth not. Histories make men wise; poets witty; the mathematics subtile; natural philosophy deep; moral grave; logic and rhetoric able to contend.
Page 106 - Twas Presbyterian true blue, For he was of that stubborn crew Of Errant Saints, whom all men grant To be the true Church Militant...
Page 225 - And see through all things with his half-shut eyes) Sent up in vapours to the baron's brain New stratagems, the radiant lock to gain.
Page 235 - Nor fear'd the chief th' unequal fight to try, Who sought no more than on his foe to die. But this bold lord with manly strength...
Page 244 - As Sir Roger is landlord to the whole congregation, he keeps them in very good order, and will suffer nobody to sleep in it besides himself ; for if by chance he has been surprised into a short nap at sermon, upon recovering out of it he stands up and looks about him, and if he sees any body else nodding, either wakes them himself or sends his servants to them.
Page 229 - Dreadful, as hermit's dreams in haunted shades, Or bright, as visions of expiring maids. Now glaring fiends, and snakes on rolling spires...

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