The Feaſt of Wit

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A Scotchman giving evidence at the bar of the houſe of lords in the affair of Captain Porteus, and telling of the variety of ſhots which were fired upon that unhappy occaſion; he was aſked by the Duke of Newcaſtle, what kind of ſhot it was? “Why,” ſays the man in his broad dialect, “ſuch as they ſhoot fools with and the like.”—“What kind of fools?” ſays the duke, ſmiling at the word. “Why, my lord, dukes, and ſuch kind of fools.”

Mr. Watkins, the laſt examiner of the buried town of Pompeii, appears to have gone a ſtep beyond his predeceſsors in The Wonderful. The following is a part of his deſcription: “you may ſuppoſe the houſes of Pompeii are in high preſervation, when I tell you that we ſaw, on the ſill of a window, ſtains of ſome ſuch liquor as coffee or chocolate, made by the bottoms of cups.”

It was obſerved of the Duke of M—— that he frequently ſent his fiſh to market. “I always took him,” ſaid Tom Wharton, “to be a very ſell-fiſh man.”

A town-crier at Nortwich, in Cheſhire, one of the fair ſex, who has held the office near twenty years, a few days ſince proclaimed as follows: “This is to give notice that there’s two pigs loſt, and whoſoever brings ’um to me, ſhall be rewarded for their trouble; ſo God ſave the King and the lord of our manor—t’one’s a black one, and t’other a red one.”

The Sporting Magazine, April–September 1793