talked of a certain dull fellow whose wealth made him prominent at that time. "Yes," said Jerrold, drawing his finger round the edge of his wineglass, "that's the range of his intellect,—only it had never any thing half so good in it." I quote this merely as one of the average bons-mots which made the small change of his ordinary conversation. He would pun, too, in talk, which he scarcely ever did in writing. Thus he extemporized as an epitaph for his friend Charles Knight, "Good Night!"—When Mrs. Glover complained that her hair was turning gray,—from using essence of lavender (as she said),—he asked her "whether it wasn't essence of thyme?" On the occasion of starting a convivial club, (he was very fond of such clubs,) somebody proposed that it should consist of twelve members, and be called "The Zodiac,"—each member to be named after a sign. "And what shall I be?" inquired a somewhat solemn man, who feared that they were filled up. "Oh, we'll bring you in as the weight in Libra," was the instant remark of Douglas. A noisy fellow had long interrupted a company in which he was. At last the bore said of a certain tune, "It carries me away with it." "For God's sake," said Jerrold, "let somebody whistle it."—Such dicteria, as the Romans called them, bristled over his talk. And he flashed them out with an eagerness, and a quiver of his large, somewhat coarse mouth, which it was quite dramatic to see. His intense chuckle showed how hearty was his gusto for satire, and that wit was a regular habit of his mind.
I shall set down here some Jerroldiana current in London,—some heard bymyself, or otherwise well authenticated. Remember how few we have of George Selwyn's, Hanbury Williams's, Hook's, or indeed any body's, and you will not wonder that my handful is not larger.
When the well-known "Letters" of Miss Martineau and Atkinson appeared, Jerrold observed that their creed was, "There is no God, and Miss Martineau is his prophet."
"I have had such a curious dinner!" said C. "Calves' tails."—"Extremes meet," Douglas said, instantly.
He admired Carlyle; but objected that he did not give definite suggestions for the improvement of the age which he rebuked. "Here," said he, "is a man who beats a big drum under my windows, and when I come running down stairs has nowhere for me to go."
A wild Republican said profanely, that Louis Blanc was "next to Jesus Christ"—"On which side?" asked the wit.
Pretty Miss ———, the actress, being mentioned, he praised her early beauty. "She was a lovely little thing," he said, "when she was a bud, and"—(a pause)—"before she was a blowen'."—This was in a very merry vein, and the serious reader must forgive me.
He called a small, thin London littérateur of his acquaintance, "a pin without the head or the point."
When a plain, not to say ugly, gentleman intimated his intention of being godfather to somebody's child, Jerrold begged him not to give the youngster his "mug."
A dedication to him being spoken of,—"Ah!" said he, with mock gravity, "that's an awful power that ——— has in his hands!"
Carlyle and a much inferior man being coupled by some sapient review as "biographers,"—"Those two joined!" he exclaimed. "You can't plough with an ox and an ass."
"Is the legacy to be paid immediately?" inquired somebody,—apropos of a will which made some noise.—"Yes, on the coffin-nail," answered he.
Being told that a recent play had been "done to order,"—he observed, that "it would be done to a good many 'orders,' he feared."
