Gleanings From the Harvest-Fields of Literature, Science and Art; A Melange of Excerpta, Curious, Humorous, and Instructive - Softcover

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1860. Excerpt: ... MIDAS AND MODERN STATESMEN. Midas, they Bay, possessed the art, of old, Of turning whatsoe'er he touched to gold. This, modern statesmen can reverse with case: Touch them with golfl, they'll turn to what you please. Impromptus. One day, as Dr. Young was walking in his garden at WTelwyn in company with two ladies, (one of whom he afterwards married,) the servant came to acquaint him that a gentleman wished to speak with him. "Tell him," said the doctor, "I am too happily engaged to change my situation." The ladies insisted that he should go, as his visitor was a man of rank, his patron, and his friend. But, as persuasion had no effect, one took him by the right arm, the other by the left, and led him to the garden-gate; when, finding resistance in vain, he bowed, laid his hand upon his heart, and, in that expressive manner for which ho was so remarkable, spoke the following lines:--Thus Adam looked when from the garden driven, And thus disputed orders sent from heaven. Like him I go, but yet to go I'm lonth; Like him I go, for angels drove us both. Hard was his fate, but mine still more unkind: His Eve went with him, but mine stays behind. Ben Jonson having been invited to dine at the Falcon Tavern, where ho was already deeply in debt, the landlord promised to wipe out the score if he would tell him what God, and the devil, and the world, and the landlord himself, would be best pleased with. To which the ready poet promptly replied:--God is best pleased when men forsako their sin; The devil is best pleaded when they persist therein; Tho world's best pleased when thou dost sell good wino; And you're best pleased when I do pay for mine. Burns, going into church one Sunday and finding it difficult to procure a scat, was kindly invited by a young lady into her...