The Kenosha telegraph. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1860-1888, 1872-08-29
ORIGIN OF SMART SAYINGS.

The following are some thoughts sug-
ges.ed by heAring chat he celebrated line
of Dryden, written when school-bov.
was the production of Daniel Webster.
Webster was q great man, but this was
the first timeI have heard him claimed as
a Get.
How is it that in the present age, while
we are so eager to contend that our fathers
knew hardly anything when our fedglino
poets contend that Goldsmith Gray, POne.
Dryden and even Milton, were nothing to
Drag of, that we are so ready to ascribe
all the smart and beautiful things thew
have said, to our own age and nation? Some
time ago an article appeared in Western
paper, Ct forget It's nancy which kas been
going the rounds of the press" purport-
ing to be the sayings OF eminent Ameri-
cans" 1t is quite likely that some Of
these were original, bat most of them are
certainly "reyamped" Through careless
meas or forgetfullness have lost the pa
per, and remember very few of the "say-
lngs. 1t Ii tsuely laughable TO SEQ that
well known couplet in "Hudibras:"
mo rogue e'er felt the halter draw,
With good opinion of the law. :"
attributed 20 Jonathan Trumb1ll. 1t is
quite likely Trumbull may have quoted
it some time, and some ignoramus thought
it was original.
Maria Edgeworth, in her essays on Irish
bulls, shows NEST conclusively that ''poor
Pat" cannot justly lay claim to man" of
the humorous phrases and scraps of wit
that are attributed to him f; many of them
being Of Eastern origin, IS far back as
the days Of Harouu al Raschid During
the Mexican war, every little shabby
"seven-by mine" paper in the United
States, and some that were not shabby,
attributed the (supposed) words of Leoni-
das, "come thyself and take them" to Gen.
Taylor. | have often seen and heard the
celebrated toast Sf Lord Chesterfield,
when the French and Spanish ambassa-
adors were his guests attributed to DR..
franklin. This seems as prspOsterous as
the claim of Wehster's friends that he was
a pset. DR.. Franklin professed to be a
cold water man, and I believe be was,
though some of the anthem pcrance men
claim to have discovered that he loved
the social glass. But to return to CheS-
II,
the French minister gave the health of
"his master" under the title of the sun ;
the Spaniard, that of his "most Catholic
majesty, under the title of the moon.
Chesterfield, for a moment feigned to be
embarrassed, and then said: your ex-
cellencies have placed me in a dilemma
you have taken from me the great lumin-
aries of heaven, and none of the stars
brilliant though they be, are tit to be
pared to the glory of my iIlustrious
master shall, therefore, propose his
health under the title of Joshua, at whose
command the sun and the moon stood
till" Whether Chesterfield originated
this | can't say, but he died in 1878, hav-
ing retired from public life nearly twenty
years previous. The above 10 taken from
an old work, published long before either
Or. Franklin or General Washington (the
Doctors Joshua) had achieved nstoriety.
Even In late number of Harper's
Magazine there is quotation from Hal
leck, pretaced something like this, "On
fthis occasion HalecH sung:
"There's barrel of porter in Tammany hall
And the Bucktails arc swigglng all the
night long.
| | have no idea thaC Halleck ever pre-
tended it was anything more than paro-
dy on Moore's "Bendemere's stream"
But the writer IS evidently willing for
his readers to think it is quite original
The story of Dryden and the Miracle
of Cana in Galilee," saw in an old edition
of his life, when | was boy Ho was
said to be not only dull, but lazy, when
at school, and when his class had been
directed to write theme on that subject
ne was very near being severely punished
tor his lazinesS--he had written only one
line. The master ut first refused to look
at it, but having some curiosity to see
what the dull, lazy boy had written, call
ed him back, and pronounced that the
single line he had written was worth more
than all the productions of ne rest 1t the
class. The single line ran thus:
"The conscious water saw its God and
blushed"
Cor. Pra5r5e FNrn1eY