56 
Butler—Phases of Witticism. 
An English lady wondered that her dresses, though all bought 
in Paris, were not in good taste. A wit’s reason was, that 
they had been selected by the lady herself. 
The Dutch delight in the hexameter 
Tellurem fecere DU , sua litora Belgae. 
“God made the world, Dutch made Holland.” 
An Englishman said, “I believe it. Holland looks as if a 
Dutchman had made it. ” 
“Holland that scarce deserves the name of land 
As but the offscouring of British sand.” 
In a similar vein frogs have been called Dutch nightingales. 
Spain is antiquated, and some wit said that if Adam were to 
rise again he would find all things remaining there as at the 
first. “How glad he would be, ” said a Spaniard, “for Spain is 
Paradise.” We ask, “Has Spain good government?” The 
answer is, “No, indeed! If it had, not an angel would be left in 
heaven. All would be down in Spain. ” 
A national weakness of Gascons has made the word gasconade 
cosmopolitan. In allusion to this grandiloquence it is told that 
when one of these self-sufficients encountered an earthquake he 
fancied the earth was trembling through fear of him. He 
sought, however, to calm its terror. The Spanish epigram is: 
A Gascon strutting forth in stubborn pride, 
Saw earthquakes rend the land from side to side; 
“Quake not, O earth!” he cried, “in fear of me, 
For from my hand no harm shall come to thee.” 
“Jews,” said Voltaire, “are bad enough though denied the 
use of pork. What if they had been allowed to eat pork so that 
all the evil in the hog had been added to the evil in the Hebrew!” 
When it was asked in a Sabbath school. “Why did Aaron 
make a' golden calf? ” a chorus of voices answered, “Because 
the Jews would not give him gold enough to make a bull. It 
was just like them. ” 
A man was commiserating a Jewish friend on his political 
disabilities. But the Jew’s words were: “I may yet become 
your God. Half Christendom to-day worships the Jew Jesus, 
and the other half the Jewess Mary. ” 
As to the Irish, they are born so witty, and are such a cause 
