When told that the Emperor of Morocco had made him a present of two lions and thirty ostriches, he laughed and said, "He knew nothing more proper to send by way of return than a flock of geese."[1]
Of Harrow Church, standing on a hill and visible for many miles round, he is said to have remarked, "that it was the only visible church he knew;"[2] and when taken to see a fellow climb up the outside of a church to its very pinnacle and there stand on his head, he offered him, on coming down, a patent to prevent any one doing it but himself.[3]
"Pray," he said at the theatre, while observing the grim looks of the murderers in Macbeth, "pray what is the reason that we never see a rogue in a play, but, odds fish! they always clap him on a black perriwig, when it is well known one of the greatest rogues in England always wears a fair one?" The allusion was, it is asserted, to Oates, but, as I rather suspect, to Shaftesbury. The saying, however, was told by Betterton to Cibber.[4]
He was troubled with intercessions for people who were obnoxious to him, and once when Lord Keeper Guilford was soliciting his favour on behalf
