313 



TAELE-TALK AND VARIETIES. 



rang with tlieir calamities, and 

 their complaints that men should 

 wear their own hair instead of 

 perukes ; and at last it struck 

 them that some legislative enact- 

 ment ought to be procured in order 

 to oblige gentlefolks to wear wigs, 

 for the benefit of the suffering wig- 

 trade. Accordingly they drew up 

 a petition for relief, which, on the 

 llth of February, 1765, they car- 

 ried to St. James's to present to his 

 Majesty George the Third. As 

 they went processionally through 

 the town, it was observed that 

 most of these wig-makers, who 

 wanted to force other people to 

 wear them, wore no wigs them- 

 selves ; and this striking the Lon- 

 don mob as something monstrously 

 unfair and inconsistent, they seized 

 the petitioners, and cut olf all their 

 hair par force. 



Horace Walpole, who alludes 

 to this ludicrous petition, says, 

 " Should one wonder if carpenters 

 were to remonstrate, that since the 

 peace their trade decays, and that 

 there is no demand for wooden 

 legs?" (Letters to the Earl of 

 Hertford.) 



PARLIAMENTARY REPARTEE. 



Atterbury, the celebrated Bishop 

 of Rochester, happened to say in 

 the House of Lords, while speak- 

 ing on a certain bill then under 

 discussion, that " he had prophe- 

 sied last winter this bill would be 

 attempted in the present session; 

 and he was sorry to find he had 

 proved a true prophet." My Lord 

 Couiugsby, who spoke after the 

 bishop, and always spoke in a pas- 

 sion, desired the House to remark, 

 that one of the right reverend had 

 et himself forth as a prophet ; 

 but, for his part, he did not know 

 v.'hat prophet to liken him to, un- 

 less to that furious prophet Ba- 

 laam, who was reproved by his 

 own ass." 



Attevbury in reply, with great 



wit and calmness, exposed this 

 rude attack, concluding thus: 

 " Since the noble lord has dis- 

 covered in our manners such a 

 similitude. I am well content to be 

 compared to the prophet Balaam ; 

 but, my lords, I am at a loss how 

 to make out the other part of the 

 parallel; I am sure that I have 

 been reproved by nobody but his 

 lordship." (Political and Literary 

 Anecdotes of his own Times, by 

 Doctor William King, Principal 

 of St. Mary, Oxon.) 



TRANSLATABLE TUNS. 



Addison has given an excellent 

 test by which we may know whe- 

 ther a piece of real wit has been 

 achieved, or merely a pun perpe- 

 trated. "We are to endeavour to 

 translate the doubtful production 

 into another language : and if it 

 passes through this ordeal un- 

 harmed, it is true wit ; if not, it is 

 a pun. Like most tests, however, 

 this fails occasionally; for there 

 are some few puns that, in spite ot 

 the prohibitory law, can smuggle 

 themselves into the regions of true 

 wit just as foreigners, who have 

 perfectly learned the language of a 

 country, can enter as natives, and 

 set alien acts at defiance. 



We will give two or three ex- 

 amples of these slippery fellows, 

 who, to use a modern phrase, have 

 succeeded in driving a coach-and- 

 six through Addisou's Act. 



The lectures of a Greek philoso- 

 pher were attended by a young 

 girl of exquisite beauty. One day, 

 a grain of sand happened to get 

 into her eye, and, being uuable to 

 extricate it herself, she requested 

 his assistance. As he was ob- 

 served to perform this little opera- 

 tion with a zeal which, perhaps, a 

 less sparkling eye might not have 

 commanded, somebody called out 

 to him, MJJ rr,y xo^r.v otx(p0i*y$, i.e., 

 Do not spoil the pupil. 



Cicero said of a man who had 



