The Ohio Democrat. (Logan, O. [Ohio]) 1886-1906, 1890-03-15
FAMOUS REPARTEES.
Great Men Whose wit Formed Part of
Their Greatness.

Great Men whose Wit Formed Part oi
Their Greatness.
A friend of Socrates once bade him
give his nature full play and be himself.
"0h! yes" replied the sage, "and, when
ever show my face out of doors, have
all the urchins of Athens at my heels,
shouting, 'Yonder goes the biggest
blackguard in Greece unhungP"
Apelles. the greatest of Greek paint
ers, used to hide himself behind his
pictures to hear what folks would say
of them in his absence. And, far from
despising the criticism of Outsiders" b"
he rather invited it; indeed, cordially
welcomed 1T so long as he felt sure that
they knew what they were talking
about. Thus, on one occasion, he gladly
accepted the structures of shoemaker,
who found fault with the painting of a
sandal in one of his pictures. But when
the man of leather began to criticise the
leg, Apelles promptly shut him up by
saying, "Cobbler, stick to the shoe!'
1t is an open secret that the poet Pope
possessed but smattering of Greek.
Hence, when he undertook to translate
the "Iliad, he often found it useful to
consult the friends whom he was won't
to meet at his favorite haunt, Buttons
cotfee-house. On one of these occasions,
however, a certain passage proved more
than match for all the assembled pun
dts. While they were vainly cudgel-
ing their brains, young guardsman,
who happened to be present, ventured
to suggest that note of Interrogation,
judiciously supplied, would remove the
difficulty. Now every school-boy knows
that in Greek the note OF Interrogation
is represented by semicolon. But
Pope. eager to show his knowledge Of
that tongue, and at the same time to
take the shine out of the young officer
who had presumed to teach him his
trade, rasbly assumed him to be ignor-
ant of that elementary rule of punctua-
tion. So, thinking he had the guards
man fairly on the hip, the poet-who,
besides being fearfully deformed, stood
barely four feet six in his stockings
sneeringly inquired, "Pray, sir, are you
scholar enough to inform the company
what Greek note of interrogation is?"
eyes, SIR" said the son of Mars, with
frightful glance at Pope's puny and
misshapen figure; 81 am perfectly we'll
aware that it's crooked little thing
which sometimes asks most impertinent
questions"
In one of Dryden's unequal dramas, in
which SENSE and nonsense seem contend
ing for the mastery and tits hard to say
which wins, a ranting lover is made to
exclaim, my wound is great because it
is so small" Immediately on hearing
this bit of fustian, the witty duke of
Buckingham capped it with the strictly
logical and rhyming conclusion: "Then
'twould be greater were 1T none at alln"
A nobleman, notorious for his un-
punctuality, having kept George w.
waiting for him for upwards of three
quarters of an hour, came bustling into
the royal presence, exclaiming, with SIM
pering smile, "Ah, sire, better late than
neverl" "Nay," replied the king, II
think the words of that proverb should
be transposed, "better never than latel'
At a hotly contested election for the
borough of Cambridge, one of the mob
flung rotten egg, which found-and
made its mark-in the face of Thomas
Darlington Macauley, then an UNDER
graduate. 81 humbly beg your pardon,
sir" pleaded the offender. Didn't mean
to hit you! Aimed at someone else!"
$50 be it, calmly replied the future
historian. "only, the next time you
throw / shall be better pleased by your
aiming at me and hitting someone else!"
whats going on?" asked an intoler-
able bore, button-holing Theodore Hook
as he met him in the street. Quoth the
celebrated wit shaking himself free, 81
ami and on he went.-Boys Own Paper.