D.

THE following lines were addressed to a gentleman notoriously addicted
to the vice which has been euphemistically described as "the
postponement of the truth for the purposes of the moment":--

Whoe'er would learn a fact from you,
Must take you by contraries;
What you deny, _perhaps_ is true;
But nothing that you _swear_ is.

MDLXXXIII.--A REASON FOR POLYGAMY.

AN Irishman was once brought up before a magistrate, charged with
marrying six wives. The magistrate asked him how he could be so hardened
a villain? "Please your worship," says Paddy, "I was just trying to _get
a good one_."

MDLXXXIV.--BYRON LIBELLOUS.

THE conversation at Holland House turning on first love, Thomas Moore
compared it to a potato, "because it shoots from the eyes."--"Or
rather," exclaimed Lord Byron, "because it becomes less by _pairing_."

MDLXXXV.--A TERRIBLE POSSIBILITY.

AN acquaintance remarked to Dr. Robert South, the celebrated preacher at
the court of Charles the Second, "Ah! doctor, you are such a wit!" The
doctor replied, "Don't make game of people's infirmities: _you_, sir,
might have been born a wit!"

MDLXXXVI.--ATTIRED TO TIRE.

SIR JOSEPH JEKYLL wrote the following impromptu, on observing a certain
sergeant, well known for his prosiness, bustling into the Court of
King's Bench, where he was engaged in a case:--

Behold the sergeant full of fire,
Long shall his hearers rue it;
His purple garments _came from Tyre_,
His arguments _go to it_.

MDLXXXVII.--A SMALL JOKE.

MR. DALE, who it would appear was a short stout man, had a person in his
employment named Matthew, who was permitted that familiarity with his
master which was so characteristic of the former generation. One winter
day, Mr. Dale came into the counting-house, and complained that he had
fallen on the ice. Matthew, who saw that his master was not much hurt,
grinned a sarcastic smile. "I fell all my length," said Mr. Dale. "_Nae
great length_, sir," said Matthew. "Indeed, Matthew, ye need not laugh,"
said Mr. Dale, "I have hurt the sma' of my back."--"I wunner whaur
_that_ is," said Matthew.

MDLXXXVIII.--A VAIN THREAT.

"MR. BROWN, I owe you a grudge, remember that!"--"I shall not be
frightened then, for I never knew you to _pay_ anything that you owe."

MDLXXXIX.--POOR LAW.

"PRAY, my lord," asked a fashionable lady of Lord Kenyon, "wh