Barbour County index. [volume] (Medicine Lodge, Kan.) 1880-current, 1890-03-26
FAMOUS REPARTEEs.

Great Men Whose wit Formed Part OF
=. Their Greatness.
friend of Socrates once bade him
give his nature full play and be himself.
''Oh! yes" replied the sage. "and, when
ever show my face out of doors, have
all the urchins of Athens 1t my heels,
shouting, .Yonder goes the biggest
blackguard in Greece unhungr"
Apelles. the greatest of Greek paint
ers, used to hide himself behind his
pictures to hear what folks would say
ofthem in his absence. And, far from
despising the criticism of outsiders y
he rather invited it; indeed, cordially
welcomed it SO long as he felt sure that
they knew what they were talking
about. Thus, on one occasion, he gladly
accepted the structures of a 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 ''Tliad," he often found it useful to
consult the friends whom he was wont
to meet at his favorite haunt, Buttons
coffee-houSe. On one of these occasions,
however, certain passage proved more
than a 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 a note of Interrogation,
judiciously supplied, would remove the
difficulty. Now every school-boy knows
that in Greek the note of Interrogation
is represented by a 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, rashly 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?'
''yes, sir,'' said the son of Mars, with a
| frightful glance at Pope's puny and
aware that it's a 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 it's hard to say
which wins, ranting lover is made tc
exclaim, my wound is great because il
is SO small" Immediately on hearing
this bit of fustian, the witty duke Of
Buckingham capped it with the strictly
logical and rhyming conclusion: "Ther
'twould be greater were 1t none at allp'
A nobleman, notorious for his un
| waiting for him for upwards of three
quarters of an hour, came bustling inte
the royal presence, exclaiming, with sim
| pering smile, "Ah, sire, better late thar
never!'' NAY" replied the king, 50
| think the words of that proverb should
be transposed, "better never than lats!'
| At hotly contested election for the
borough of Cambridge, one of the mol
flung a rotten egg, which found-ant
made its mark-in the face of Thomas
Babington Macauley, then an under
| graduate. 81 humbly beg your pardon
sir, I" pleaded the offender. Didn't meal
| to hit you! Aimed at someone else!'
$50 be it, calmly replied the futur,
historian. "Only, the next time yol
throw / shall be better pleased by you
aiming at me and hitting someone else!'
What's going on?" asked an intoler
able bore, button-holing Theodore Hool
as he met him In the street. Quoth thu
celebrated wit shaking himself free, ..
am!' and on he went--Boys Own Paper