OLD FRIENDS IN A NEW DRESS.

Evening Star, Issue 3594, 29 August 1874, Page 3

OLD FRIENDS IN A NEW DRESS.

To the Editor. Sir,—You had a very good story in a recent issue of your paper about a Colonial Judge who was very sea-sick on his voyage out, but not so much so as to “ throw up his appointment.” There is, however, a better version of the story, which is this j Lord Plunkett was much annoyed when Sir John Campbell, afterwards l.ord Campbell, was appointed Lord ' hancellor of Ireland, as he himself had hopes of being continued in 'Office. Lord Plunkett’s friends used to bring him stories of Lord Campbell, which they thought might comfort the disappointed ex-Cbaucellor, and among others they brought him.an account of Sir John Campbell'S excessive suffering from sea sickness during the passage from Holyhead to Dublin. ' “Ah !” said Lord Plunkett “ I am afraid he was not sick enough 1 to throw up the seal.’” Lord Plunkett’s ready wit makes it probable that he was the originator of the saying. At the same time, the joke is one which so readily suggests itself that it may be much older. The tendency of certain obvious jokes to be reproduced as original, must have occurred to many of your readers. Irishmen are in the habit of quoting O’ConneH’s saying that he would “ drive a coach and six through such au Act of Parliament ” —naming any one that happened to be under discussion. This expression, however, was current before O Connell was born, and was first attributed te Stephen Rice, Irish Chief Baron, who told James IT, that he would drive a coach and six through the Act of Uniformity. Some of the best sayings attributed to Talleyrand may be traced back long before Talleyrand’s time. For instance, that “language was given to man to conceal his thoughts ” —I myself happened to hit upon the same thought in one of Massillon’s sermons. When the Princess Louise was betrothed to the Marquis of Lome, I heard her called “the maiden all for Lome.” A month afterwards we received the London papers (1 think ‘Punch’) with the same joke, and I myself heard Theodore Hook say the same thing of another lady supposed to be engaged to another Marquis of Lome some forty odd years ago. We are all so familiar with “ The maiden all forlorn, Who milked the cow with the crumpled horn,” that I have no doubt hundreds of people made the same joke on the recent occasion. , I Could rake up many more instances of lokes and bon mots repeated by, or attriluted to different individuals, spreading over columns ; but it would make my Dote too long and tedious.—l am, Ac.,