26 



AUTHORS. 



musky taste," said another; "not 

 unpleasant, but peculiar." 



'' All alligators have," replied 

 Buckland; "the cayman peculiarly 

 so. The fellow whom I dissected 

 this morning, and whom you have 

 just been eating " 



There was a general rout of the 

 whole guests. Every one turned 

 pale. Half a dozen started up from 

 the table. Two or three of them 

 ran out of the room and vomited ; 

 and only those who had stout sto- 

 machs remained to the closs of an 

 excellent entertainment. 



" See what imagination is," said 

 Buckland. " If I told them it was 

 turtle, or terrapin, or bird's-nest 

 soup salt water amphibia or fresh, 

 or the gluten of a fish from the maw 

 of a sea-bird, they would have pro- 

 nounced it excellent, and their di- 

 gestion been none the worse. Such 

 is prejudice." 



" But was it really an alligator ? " 

 asked a lady. 



" As good a calf's head as ever 

 wore a coronet," answered Buck- 

 land. 



SHERIDAN. 



Shaw, having lent Sheridan near 

 ^500, used to dun him very con- 

 siderably for it ; and one day, when 

 he had been rating S. about the 

 debt, and insisting that he must be 

 paid, the latter, having played off 

 some of his plausible wheedling 

 upon him, ended by saying that he 

 was very much in want of .25 to 

 pay the expenses of a journey he was 

 about to take, and he knew Shaw 

 would be good-natured enough to 

 lend it to him. " 'Pon my word," 

 says Shaw, " this is too bad ; after 

 keeping me out of my money in so 

 shameful a manner, you now have 

 the face to ask me for more ; but 

 it won't do ; I must be paid my 

 jnoney, and it is most disgraceful," 

 &c., &c. "My dear fellow," says 

 Sheridan, " hear reason ; the sum 

 you ask me for is a very consider- 



able one ; whereas I only ask you 

 for five-and-twenty pounds." 



CAUSE AND EFFECT. 



Charles Lamb tells a story of a 

 rencontre with a fellow-traveller, 

 which illustrates his peculiar hu- 

 mour. "We travelled," says he, 

 "with one of those troublesome fel- 

 low-passengers in a stage coach that 

 is called a well-informed man. For 

 twenty miles we discoursed about 

 the properties of steam, probabilities 

 of carriage by ditto, till all my 

 science, and more than all, was ex- 

 hausted, and I was thinking of 

 escaping my torment by getting up 

 on the outside, when getting into 

 Bishop's Stortford, my gentleman, 

 spying some farming land, put an 

 unlucky question to me ' What sort 

 of a crop of turnips I thought we 

 should have this year.' Emma's 

 eyes turned to me, to know what 

 in the world I could have to say ; 

 and she burst out into a violent fit 

 of laughter, maugre her pale, serious 

 cheeks, when, with the greatest 

 gravity, I replied, that 'it depended, 

 I believed, upon boiled legs of mut- 

 ton.'" . 



DON QUIXOTE. 



We are here presented with an 

 instance of that species of partial 

 madness, which occours not unfre- 

 quently in real life. A worthy man, 

 in other respects of a sound judg- 

 ment, has his head so turned by 

 reading books of chivalry, that he 

 sees nothing in nature but castles 

 and palaces, giants and enchanters. 

 Into these he transforms everything 

 he meets with ; and the author has 

 very happily chosen the meanest 

 objects of common life for the sub- 

 ject of this metamorphosis. The- 

 striking contrasts which are thus 

 produced, the monstrous mistakes 

 and ludicrous distresses of the hero, 

 are painted in so lively a manner 

 as to render this the most laughable 

 performance perhaps that the wit 

 of man ever produced. (Murray's 

 Morality of Fiction.) 



