The Sun.
London, England, 1856-07-17 00:00:00

companion anecdote illustrative of Talleyrand's
nameless whiMsicality being introduced in an
eatlier page of these amusing memoirs. The anec-.
dote, related by Dedel, of the Duchesse de Gram-
mont (sister of the Due de Choiseul) coming to
dinner, and on her passing through the ante-room
where Talleyrand was standing, he looked up and
exclaimed significantly, "Ah 1" In the course of
the dinner, the lady having asked him across the
table why he had uttered the exclamation of oh !
on her entrance, Talleyrand, with a grave, self-vin-
dicatory look, answered "Madame, je n'ai pas dit
oh ! j'ai dit ah ! " To which adds Moore—" Co-
mical, very, without one's being able to define why
it is so." . Bon mots, grave and gay, are recorded
by Moore of others beside Talleyrand. Mention,
for example, is made of the late heroic Sir Charles
Napier writing very beautifully and touchingly to
a lady, upon the eve of his great victory at Meanee,
—" If I survive I shall soon be with those I love ;
if I fall, I shall be with those I have loved !" Turn-
ing at a glance from the sublime (as this may be
called without much exaggeration) to the ridiculous
—what a provocative of mirth there is, in that allu-
sion'to Scroope Davies calling some person who
had a habit of puffing out his cheeks when he spoke,
and was not remarkable for veracity—" The .2Eo-
hian Lyre." Or, better still, that anecdote related
by Kenny about Charles Lamb being once bored
by a lady praising to him "such a charming man !"
&c., ending witli" I know him, bless him 1" On
which Lamb exclaimed—" Welt, I don't, but d—n
him at a hazard ! " A gentleman resembling this
unfortunate lady, in one respect at least, is alluded
to elsewhere by Moore as the victim of one of Lord
Pluukett's punning sarcasms. " Mentioned," ho
writes, " Plunkett's joke on some one saying
Well, you see —'s predictions have come true.
Indeed,' said Plunkett, ' I always knew he
was a bore, but I didn't know he was an augur."
Sundry old friends we fancy we recognise here and
there with new faces. Take that comical definition
blurted out by Dr. Carrie (hot both by name and
by nature) when teazed by a frivolous Blue to tell
her the precise meaning of the word idea (about
which she said she had been reading in some meta-
physical work, but could not understand it).
" Idea, madam," at last angrily exclaims Dr.
Currie, "Idea, madam, is the feminine of Idiot,
and means a female fool." The very counterpart
in its way of Douglas Jerrold's witty definition
somewhere of Dogmatism,—" Dogmatism ? liog-
matism ? Why, it's, of course, Puppyism arrived
at full maturity I" Agaiu—Mercer's mention of a
punster who , had so much the character of newer
opening his mouth without a pun, so that one day
upon his merely asking some one at dinner fur a
little spinach, the person stared, looked puzzled,
and said, Je vous, demands pcvdon, M onsieur, mais
pour cette fois, de fie comprends pas I—is only an-
other version of that about Theodore Hook being in-
vited out under the like circumstances as a wit to
be lionised, and after remaining dumb during the
first course (amidst general expectation) asking his
neighbour at last to pass the salt, whereupon
everybody in company burst out a-laughing, and
said "it was too bad !" Two capital mots are
mentioned by Moore in his Diary as having been
uttered by Madame de. Coigny. One in which she
remarked about a woman who had red hair and all
its attendant consequences (some one having ob-
served in addition to this that she was very virtu-
ous)-oai, elie est comme Samson, elle a toutes ses
forces dans ses cheveux! The other, in which Madame
de Coigny said in reference to her own bad voice,
Je n'ati gu 'une voix centre snoi—c'est le mienne !
Quite as epigrammatic iu its way is the reply said
'to have been made by the Prince Ligny, who had
been trying unsuccessfully to make a piece of water
in. his grounds, and who told him there had been a
man drowned in- it °Wait U2l, flatteur ! Con-
spicuous
among the facetire preserved fur us by ,
Moore in his Diary aro the subjoined. The epitaph
on the man who was very fond of oysters, and who
died from a surfeit of them :

" Tom

Lies in these cloisters ;
If at the last trump
He should not jump,
Cry Oysters !'"
The notion of Jekyll at Merchant Tailors' Hall, on
being asked by one of that body to translate th.)
motto, " Concordict res parvce crescunt," saying it
meant, " Nine tailors make a man !" The incident
of the Englishman giving a carte of a restaurateur
(which he happened to have in his pocket) instead
of his pusport, and the gend'arme maliciously
reading it and looking at him—" fete de veaw ;
pied de cochon ; pa suffit, Monsieur, c'est vous !"
Enough, however. We have justified to the full,
we cannot but think, the title given by us to these
" Memoirs of Thomas Moore" as a really delight.
ful Repertory of Anecdotes. As such alone we
might commend them heartily to the lovers of light
literature as an unfailing source of entertainment.
We can eulogise them with reason howbeit, for
qualities much more commendable, for qualities of
larger and more enduring worth ; namely,. as con-
stituting for their author very brilliant and charac-
teristic memorials of his exquisite sensibility and
sparkling intelligence, of the humour of hii wit, if
not of the Celtic Music of his poetry, or the Orien-
tal splendour of his imagination. And so, doss
•we here our notice of ,these agreeable and. volumi-
nous Memoirs of Moore, with a Hail and Farewell!