The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1838-09-25 00:00:00

THE JESTS OF HIEROCLES.

As no English tradition has been given of the " Jests of
Ilierocles," since one that appeared in the Gentleman's Ma-
gazine more than half a century ago, I shall think no apology
❑ecessary for presenting the public with a new one in the
present paper.—Persons said that most of the modern jests
might be found iu the ancients. To say this was to say too
much ; but the reader will doubtless recognise, among those
of Hierocles, on the pedants, some that he has before seen
related of Irishmen. A pedant, indeed, or secluded man of
reading, was to the Greeks and Romans, as a subject of jest,
what an Irishman is to the English, whatever absurdities they
wished to publish they published as committed by pedants.
Hierocles was a Platonic philosoper, who flourished at Alex-
andria about A.D. 483, and wrote a commentary on the Golden
verses of Pythagorus, fragments. The present translation of
his Facetia, or Jests, is given from the edition of Schier.
I.—A pedant, attempting to swim, and being almost
drowned, swore that he would never enter the water again till
he should have learned to swim.

2.—A pedant offered a horse for sale. A purchaser coming
up and looking at his teeth, asked whether he had cast once
or twice. "Twice," replied the pedant, " for he cast both me
and my father."

3.—A pedant, meeting another pedant,• said, "I saw you in
a dream lately, and spoke to you." "Did you ?" replied the
other, "then I must beg pardon for not answering you."
• 4.—A pedant, visiting a sick man, inquired how he was:
but the patient was not able to answer him. Upon this the
pedant got into a rage, and said, " I wish that I myself may
be sick, and unable to answer you when you come to see me."
s.—Another mau had a horse to sell, and a man came up
to inspect his teeth. " Why do you look at his teeth ?" said
he; "see bow he eats and walks."

6.-A pedant meeting a physician, said "Pardon me, and
do not blame me for not having been sick."
7.—A pedant, wishing to catch a mouse which was continu-
ally gnawing his books, sat down eating meat opposite its
[hole.] The text is here either corrupt or imperfect, Schier's
Latin is carnem niandens e regtone ejus consedit.
B.—A pedant, wishing to teach his horse to eat little, di-
minished his. quantity of food gradually every day. The horso
at length dying of hunger, "I have suffered agreat loss," said
the pedant; " for just as 1 had brought him ►o live upon
nothing, he died."
9.—A pedant, having an house to sell, carried about with
him a stone as a sample of it.
10.—A pedant desiring to know if he looked well when he
was asleep, attempted to look into a glass with his eyes shut.
11.—A pedant, having bought a hobse, stood looking out of
a window of it, and asked the passers by whether the house be-
came him.

12.—A pedant having dreamed that he had trodden on a
spike, and hurt his font, bound it up. Another, having learned
the reason, advised him not to sleep without his shoes.
13.—A pedant, meeting a physician, hid himself behind the
wall. Somebody inquiring the reason, he replied that it was
long since he was sick. And that he seas ashamed to look the
physician in the face..
14.—A person said to a pedant—" Your field has been car-
ried away by a flood ;" " and what shall 1 say to the flood?"
replied he.
15.—A pedant, having a cask of wine, sealed it up. But
his slave, boring a hole iu the bottom, drew off the greater
part of it. The pedant, finding the wine diminished, and the
seal unbroken, expressed his surprise how the liquor could
have been taken away " Perhaps," said his friend, "it may
have been drawn out of the bottom." You fool,". said he,
"how can that be, when it is the top part that is missing."
16.—A pedant, seeing some sparrows on a tree, went up
softly to the stein of it, and shook it; spreading out his gar-
ment at the same time to catch the sparrows as they fell.
17.—A pedant meeting another pedant, said, " I thought
you were dead." " But you see me," said the other, " still
alive." " And yet thd man who told me," said he, "was
much more worthy of credit than you."
18.—A pedant, walking out in his field, inquired whether
the water which he saw in a well there was good He was
told that it was very good, and had been drunk by his fore-
fathers. " What long necks they must have had,' said he,
"to he able to drink water at such a depth!"
19.—A pedant, being told that a crow would live two hun-
dred years, bought a young one to make the experiment.
20.—A pedant being in danger of shipwreck, and seeing
his fellow-passengers clinging to different things for safety,
followed their example by grasping the anchor.
21.—One of two brothers died. A pedant, meeting the
survivor, said, "V/as it you that died, or your brother ?"
'22.—A pedant, being at sea in a storm, called for writing
materials to make his will ; and seeing his slaves afraid of
shipwreck, said, " Do not be concerned, for I make you all
free."

23.—A pedant desiring to be ferried over a river, came up
to the side of the boat on horseback, saying that he was in
too great a hurry to go on foot.
21.—A pedantic student. being in want of money, sold his
books, and writing to his father, said, "Rejoice with me, for
at last my books support me."
25.—a pedant, whose child was dead, seeing a number of
persons collected to the funeral, said, "lam ashamed to carry
such a little boy through so great a crowd."
26 —The son of a pedant, being about to go to the wars,
vowed that he would bring home the head of one of the
enemy. " I should be content," replied the father, " that
you should come home without a head, if .T. might welcome
you safe and sound."
27.—The Friend of a pedant, who happened to be staying
in Greece, wrote to him, requesting him to procure him cer-
tain books. The pedant, having neglected the commission,
said to his friend, the next time be met hiM, "That letter,
which you sent to me about the books, I did not receive."-
28.—A pedant, a bald man, and a barber, travelling-toge-
ther, agreed for their Mutual safety to watch during the
night each four hours. The barber's torn was the first, who
shaved the pedant as he lay asleep, and, at the expiration of
the time, waked him. The pedant, putting-his hand to his
head to scratch it, cried out, " You rascal of a barber, you
have waked the bald man instead of me."

• These are all the jests of Hierocles on the pedants, or at
least all that have been printed. • It has been said by Sarra-
viirs, in a letter to Salruasius, that there were others in the
possession of Isaac Vossius, which have not yet been pub-
lished; and he produced one on two cowards, of which, as it
has not vet been translated into English, I shall, though it
is scarcely worth the trouble, give a translation here:—A,
coward owed another coward a penny : " It is tied in my
purse," said he, "which hangs at my girdle; loose the string
and take it." "It is enough," said the other, " go, lam
satisfied." His timidity was so great, that he was afraid to
take the penny from the other's .purse when he was told to
take it, though he knew the other to be a coward as well as
himself.

A SMALL MISTAKE—"I say, neighbour Snobbs. if you
don't keep your hens out of my garden, I will shoot them."
" Very well, Doolittle, shoot away; only, if you kill any of
my bens, throw them over into my yard." Crack went the
old fowling-piece, morning after morning, and the large fat
hens were pitched into neighbour Snobb's yard like rain.
After a fortnight or more, Doolittle discovered that Snobbs
never had any hens, and that he had been shooting his own,
they having broken out of his hen-coop.—N. 0. Pwayttne.

MODEL OF WA TEELoo.—Lieutenant Siborn, Assistant
Military Secretary in Ireland, having obtained leave of ab-
sence, has arrived in London with his already celebrated
model of the battle of Waterloo. The model has been many
years in preparation. The survey of the ground has been
made under ;Erection of government—every kind of authen-
tic information has been collected—the number and position
of the troops correctly obtained—and the whole field has
been modelled in a most masterly and correct manner. The
combatants on either side are shown, not by mere lines de-
noting troops, but by separate figures, exhibiting the troops
in their various positions and actions, and clad in their dif-
ferent costumes. The model represents the field of Waterloo
and the surrounding country, extending about two miles and
a quarter in either direction. It is reduced to a surface of
about 420 square feet, and contains upwards of 190,000
figures.—Naval and Military Gazette.

COALS FOR ATLANTIC STEAMERS.—AIIOther feature of
some moment connected with the steam communication of
this country and the United States, especially as regards the
Great Western steam-vessel, is the circun-o4ance that the
coals for the voyages of that ship were supplied film the
mines in Nova Scotia belonging to the General Mining .Assa-
elation. The last voyage of the Great Western was per-
-formed -with :weLfrcu.n.„..tha. zniur, at %ye areas
slued that they have answered beyond expectation, not only,
it is said, on account of their superior quality, but in an eco-
nomical point of view, for independently of the price being
below the English coal, the quantity consumed, we are in-
formed, is also considerably less. The facility of calling at
the mines, and thereby saving the import duty on the coal
in America, will probably become a new source of profit
hereafter, and will, no doubt, greatly contribute to establish
the competition necessary to keep up a regular line of steam-
vessels throughout the year between England and the United
States, which is so much desired by all parties connected by
business or otherwise with America. However this may be,
the very fact that the coals of Nova Scotia have been suc-
cessfUlly used by the Great Western steam-vessel is a matter
of much importance; and as the coals of the General Mining
Association are procured in the utmost abundance, there is
little doubt that the employment of them will tend to reduce
the price of coals in this country. As nothing contributes
so much to the well-being of the poor as cheapness of fuel,
it is of great importance that the coals of Nova Scotia should
have answered the expectation formed of them, more espe-
cially as they are procured with facility, and exist in abun-
dance.—Morning Chronicle.

Of the labourers of England, between three and four
millions are devoted to occupations, not agricultural. Of
agricultural labourers, there may be a million and a half.
If the corn laws were repealed two-thirds, at least, of these
agricultural labourers would cease to find employment in tha
cultivation of the soil. They would be driven to seek em-
ployment in our manufacturing towns.;—and it might require
an arithmetical calculus of some nicety, to determine the full
effect of such a social change, in the way of depreciating the
value of manufacturing labour. The effect would, at all
events be—to prevent the labourers in towns from "receiving
a larger supply of food, in return fur their labour, than they do
at present." The fair presumption, indeed, is, that the new
competition for employment between the manufacturing. la-
bourers, and nearly a million of disbanded agriculturists,
would leave to the working man a much smaller share of the
cheap food which the free-traders demand, than is now left
to him of that dearer food, which, under the present system,
widens the market for labour, by keeping the soil of England
in a state of cultivation.

The Leeds Mercury, not content with the assumption that
a repeal of the corn laws would, " in the first instance," in-
crease the quantity of food allotted to the labourer, proceeds,
in the same spirit, and with the utmost simplicity, to ask,—
" But why should wages afterwards be lowered? if the
profits of the masters should increase, as they would by an ex-
tended trade, there would be no necessity for lowering wages."
Will the profound econornig, 'who penned this passage,
have the goodness to explain how trade is to extend, and how
profits are to be increased, if, as he so stoutly maintains,
wages are not to sink under a system of free trade in corn ?
Our foreign trade (the free-traders tell us) is cramped and
crippled by the high price of labour in this country—and the
cause of that high price of labour is declared by the same
parties (when the declaration is convenient) to be the dear-
ness of home-grown food. If this statement of the econo-
mists be correct—then it follows, that no extension of trade
(in their sense of the term) can take place until the price of
food be reduced, and the price of labour be proportionally
lowered. But it' the wages of labour are to be reduced under
the cheap-bread system, what becomes of all the previous
reasoning of all our provincial anti-corn-law logician ?
The cant of the following passage partakes of the ludi-
crous :--

" There are always two parties to the reduction of wages:
the workmen are one of those parties, and we scarcely need
say that they would not submit to a reduction unless they
found it necessary."
We can scarcely subscribe to the implicit truth of the
statement, " that there are always two parties to the reduc-
tion of wages"-'—unless we could, in the first instance, be
assured that " the workmen" would be willing parties to that
mighty change in the distribution of labour, to which a re-
peal of the corn laws must give rise. Now, we incline to
believe that " the workmen" in the country would never be
found consenting parties to any change that should sever
them from the soil, and condemn them to factory slavery;—
and we incline, at the same time, to think that " the work-
men" in towns would scarcely consent to any exchange that
should have the effect of increasing, to an extent scarcely
calculable, that competition under which they now suffer so
many pains and privations. Until, however, we have proof
that the labouring classes of England have power to prevent,
on the one hand, the enactment of soch legislative measures
as the new poor law—or power, on the• other hand, to pre-
vent the removal of those protections for native industry.
which the corn laws supply, we must demur fo tbëiiiilrjess
of the proposition—that " there ate always two parties to the
seduction of wages."

EXTRAORDINARY HUNGER.—A gentleman, who bad eaten
nothing for two-and-thirty days, happening to descry a
dinner table laid out for a party of huntsmen, actually walked
into a leg of mutton, and has not been heard of since !

WORTHY OF BEING REcounF.D.—The Cincinnatian sake
that the ladies of the south have repudiated the practice of
wearing Bowie knives, and declare that no lady can be ad-
mitted into good society, who has about her these unneces-
sary appendages:

FORTCNATE ESCAPE.—On Monday, the daughter of the
sexton of Llangollen church foolishly locked up her compa-
nion, Ellen Davies, a child of twelve years of age, in the bel-
fry. Alarmed at the situation, the child forced herself through
a kind of window, and holding by the iron rail, screamed for
some time for help, but being exhausted she left go her hold,
and fell from the steeple; fortunately her clothes caught on
a projecting spout, which broke her fall, and, although she
fell on a tomb-stone, she is not dangerously hurt.—Welshman.

Love AND Ma nalaGa.—A. case was recently tried in
Rutland, Vermont, in which a Miss Munson recovered 1425
dollars of a Mr. Hastings, for a breach of marriage contract.
The curiosity of the thing is, that the Vermont judge charged
the jury "that no explicit promise was necessary to bind the
parties to a marriage contract, but that long continued atten-
tions or intimacy with a female was as good evidence of in-
tended matrimony as a special contract." The principle of
the case undoubtedly is, that if Hastings did not promise, he
ought to have done it, and so the law holds him responsible
for the non-performance of his duty. We have no idea of
young fellows dangling about a woman for a year or two,
without being able to screw their courage to the striking point,
and then going off, leaving their
,sweethearts half-courted;
we hate this everlasting nibble, and never a bite ; this beating
the bu-sh and never starting the game ;. this standing to the
rack without touching the corn; it is one of the crying sins
of the age. There is not one girl in twenty can tell whether,
ske is courted or not. No wonder that when Betty Simper's
cousin asked her if Billy Doubtful was courting her, she an-
swered, "I don't know 'xactly—ee's sorter courtin, and
sorter not courtin." We have no doubt that this Hastings
is one of these "sorter not" fellows, and most heartily do we
rejoice that the judge has brought him up standing with a
1,42,5 dls. verdict. The judge says, "that long continued
attentions," or " intimacy," is just as good as a regular
promise. -; NOw, we do not know what would pass for "inti-
macy" according to the laws of Vermont; but suppose
"attentions" to consist in visiting a girl twice a-week, and
estimating the time wasted by Miss Munson at each time to
be -worth a dollar, which is dog cheap, Mr. Hastings has
been making a tool of himself 14 years and some odd weeks.
This decision maxes a new era in the law of love, and we
make no t will tend to the promotion of matrimony and
sound morn itv.— Utida'Deraperat.

THE TINIE EMPLOYED IN SHAVING, AND THE USE THAT
MIGHT BE MADE OF IT.—The poet Campbell is said to have
calculated that a man who shaves himself every day, and
lives to the age of three score and ten, expends during his
life as much time in the act of shaving, as would have suf-
ficed for learning seven languages. I will test Mr. Camp-
bell's assertion. And, as the Lord President of the New
Monthly Magazine has not favoured the world with the cal-
culations upon which his assertion, if his it be, is founded, I
will investigate it step by step, with which intent I have this
morning, Saturday, May the fifteenth, 1830, minuted myself
during the act of shaving. The time employed was, within
a second or two snore or less, nine minutes. I neither hur-
ried the operation nor lingered about it. Every thing went
on, was done in my ordinary orderly way, steadily, and
without waste of time. Nine minutes. therefore, will be
about the average time required for shaving, by a Zebetlean—
one who shaves himself. A professional operator makes
quicker work; but. he cannot be always exactly to the time,
and at the year's end as much may have been lost in waiting
for the barber, as is gained by his celerity of hand. Assuming
then the moderate average of nine.initiutes, nine minutes per
day amounts to an hour and three minutes per week; an
hour and three minutes per week are fifty-four hours thirty-
six minutes per year. We will suppose that our shaver be-
gins to operate every day when he has completed his twen-
tieth year ; many, if not most men, -begin earlier; they will
do so if they are ambitious of obtaining whiskers; they must
do so if their b
ae
iraner dttshbeaantr eli
fiftybr
time
lae cykheeaor
wrs
icl al
of r
have
io:t%i.yet
y,
cosorhna(sivuf
inangesdtt root:lb. go
cgoromwptthiied;rhaetried
thousand, seven hundred, and thirty hours in the act of
shaving himself. Now let us see whether a man could in
that time acquire a competent knowledge of seven languages.
I do not, of course, mean such a knowledge as Professor
Porson and Dr. Elmf-lev had attained of Greek, or as is pos-
sessed by Bishop Nomtield and Bishop Monk.—but a pass-
able knowledge of living languages, such as would enable a
man to read them with facility and pleasure, if not critically,
and to travel without needing either an intrepeter—or the
use of French in the countries where they are spoken.
Dividing, therefore, two thousand seven hundred and thirty,
being the number of hours which might be appropriated to
learning languages, by seven, the number of languages to be
learnt, we have three hundred and ninety hours for each
language; three hundred and ninety lessons of an hour
long—wherein it• is evident that any person of common ca-
pacity might, with common diligence, learn to read, speak,
and write—sufficiently well for all ordinary purposes, any
European language. The assertion, therefore, though it
might seem extravagant at first, is true as far as it goes, and
is only inaccurate because it is far short of the truth. For
_take notice that I_ strop the razor this morning, but
only passed it, after the operation, ten r twelve times over
the palm of the hand, according to.my every day practice.
One minute more, at least, would have been required for
stropping. There are many men whose beards render it
necessary for them to apply to the strop every day, and for a
longer time,—and who are obliged to try first one razor and
then another. But let us allow only a minute for this—one
minute a day amounts to six hours five minutes in the year,
and, in fifty years, to three hundred and four hours ten mi-
nutes—time enough for an eighth language. Observe, also,
that some languages are so easy, and others so nearly relate
to each other, that very much less than half the number of
hours allowed in this computation would suffice for learning
them. It is strictly true that in the time specified, a man of
good capacity might add seven more languages to the seven
for which that computation was formed; and that a person
who has any remarkable aptitude for such studies might in
that time acquire every language in which there are books
to be procured. See, reader, what the valise of tithe is; when
put out at simple interest. But there is no simple-interest in
knowledge. Whatever funds you have in that bank go on
increasing by interest upon interest,-,-till the bank
The Doctor Vol. V. ' •

Sesostris,Yates, from Calcutta for London, was spoken 10th June
about three days sail from Mauritius, where she would put in,
being leaky
Arab, Ferrier, from Manilla. 'off Portsmouth
Frances, Tucker, hence at Waterford, with maintop and maintop
gallant mast, &e. carried away, and making water, having been
run foul of by a ship off Holyhead
Freeland, -, hence for Constantinople, at Waterford, leaky
Snowdon, -, hence for Africa, was spoken in lat. 44, long.
13

Rebel, Spriggs, hence and Syra, at Salonica, and sailed 28th Aug.
for Smyrna

St. George, Leedom, hence at St. Petersburg
Isabella, Dearness, hence at Riga
Salvatorium, Grease, hence at Danzic
Clio, Denys, hence at Antwerp
Louisa, -, from Brahestadt for Liverpool, at Pentland Frith
Malta, -, from Hainbro' for Liverpool, at Pentland Frith
15th Sept.
Rhind, Evans, hence for London, off Newhaven, lost topmast
and mainboom