The mode was this: Laying hold of the sheep's horns with his left hand, he seized its tail with the right; and the animal, endeavouring to escape, rushed forwards, and guided by the shepherd, plunged franticly into the river. The young gallant asked the shepherd's permission to wash one of the sheep for him, and dismounting from his horse, boldly seized upon the ram, which he proceeded to escort down the slope of the river's bank, as he had seen done before by the shepherd. The ram made furious exertions to free itself, and when it came to the edge of the water, made a furious plunge, but the young man, unluckily, could not quit his hold: his glove was entangled in the volutes of the ram's horn, and he was carried, together with the animal, into the middle of the stream, to the great amusement of the spectators. LXXVIII: SOMERSETSHIRE DIALECT. The Somersetshire dialect is very broad: a friend once told to me the following: 'A gentleman riding on horseback, on his way to Yatton in that county, met a clodhopper, and asked of him the way to that place. The countryman, being rather deaf, only caught the words indistinctly, and thought he was asked, by way of joke, something about eating (which in Somersetshire is pronounced yetting); he therefore replied, with some asperity and in the loud tones peculiar to deaf people, Put un in thee mouth and boite (bite) un. LXXIX. BISHOP KEN. If Bishop Ken had ever kenn'd, LXXX. CLOTHES IN HEAVEN. A little boy asked if they were to be clothed in heaven? his Mamma said, 'No, you will be naked.' 'Why, Mamma,' said the young reasoner, 'how very funny it will be to see the black servant, and the red-faced, big-bellied Mrs Martin, (the cook,) walking naked in heaven, arm in arm ?' LXXXI. GOING TO HEAVEN. Two children of Mr Basil Montagu were talking in bed, and the following conversation was overheard. A. 'If you are a good boy, you will go to heaven there,' (pointing to a part of the heaven which was then overcast with a dark cloud.) B. 'Well, I am sure, then, I shall not be good any more, if I am to go to such a dark place. But how am I to go?' A. 'Oh, you will have wings given to you.' B. 'But how is Mr Bill to go?' (who lived in an opposite house, and weighed twentyfour stone.) A. Why, he will go up by Jacob's ladder!' LXXXII. PATRINGTON SPIRE. E. H. BARKER, when he was a little boy, was looking out of a window at his native village of Hollym, from which window the very pointed spire of Patrington-Church was visible, and observed, 'What a nice toothpick the spire would make!' LXXXIII. The Starry Heavens. A little boy, looking at the starry heavens, said, 'If those bright brass nails, Papa, were to come out, with what a thump God Almighty would come down!' Dr Parr thought that the boy must possess a vigorous imagination to be capable of such an idea. Anaximenes held that the stars, fiery substances, are fixed in the heavens as nails in a crystalline plane, (see Barker's edition of Lempriere.) LXXXIV. The Mayor and Corporation. A little girl, called Albinia, the niece of Mrs A. J. Valpy, when she was seven years old, saw at the door a mare waiting for its owner, a very large man who had called on Mr Valpy; she said playfully that the Corporation ought not to keep the Mayor waiting! LXXXV. Curran and the wig. An Irish barrister entered the court with his wig very much awry; unapprised of the circumstance, he was jeered at by all whom he met; at length he addressed CURRAN by asking him 'if he saw anything ridiculous in his wig?' 'Nothing,' he replied, but the head.' LXXXVI. Good for trade. The well-known Sandy Wood, surgeon, in Edinburgh, was walking through the streets of that city during the time of an illumination, when he observed a young rascal, not above twelve years of age, breaking every window he could reach, with as much industry as if he had been doing the most com 'mendable good in the world. Enraged at this mischievous disposition, Sandy seized him by the collar, and asked him what he meant by thus destroying the honest people's windows. "Why, it's all for the good of trade," replied the young urchin, "I am a glazier." glazier." "All for the good of trade, is it?" said Sandy, raising his cane, and breaking the boy's head; "there then, that's for the good of my trade, - I'm a surgeon." LXXXVII. VERSES UPON SIR GEORGE MACKENZIE. Pingere vis qua fronte Cato, titubante Senatu, Dirigere attoniti linguam animumque Fori; ENGLISHED by MR WALLER. Would you paint Cato with what awfull look Or artful Horace, how he touch'd his strings, , painter, for there's none But he, that doth express all these in one. Copied from a Ms. by the RIGHT HON. EDW. SOUTHWELL. LXXXVIII. Memory. Q. Who is the most renowned for memory, that we have heard or read of? "A. In former days SENECA, who writes of himself that he was able to recite 2,000 words, after they were once read to him. And of late we find DR FULLER to be therein most exquisite; who is reported that he would walk any street in LONDON, and, by the strength of his memory, tell how many and what signs there were hanging in that street from the one end to the other, according as they were in order: as also, if 500 strange names were read to him, he would repeat them distinctly, according as they had been read unto him." The New help to Discourse, or Wit and Mirth Intermixed with more Serious matters, by W. W. GENT, LOND. 1721. 12mo, p. 25. LXXXIX. A violent temper. Bishop Hurd and Mr Potter, fellow Emmanuelians, in early life started together as brother Curates. Once they were dining together, when information was brought to their host, the Squire of the Parish, that a Mr Rymer was in bed with the cook asleep. The host observed that Mr Rymer was a man of the most violent temper, and appealed to the Parsons for advice in this distressing emergency. Bishop Hurd: You say that Mr Rymer is a violent man?' 'Yes.' 'And that he is fast asleep?' 'Yes.' 'Why, then let him sleep on.' r XC. Taking a wife. Hurd recommended Dr Fotheringham to take a wife. 'Why do you recommend this advice to me, when you have not a wife |