Page:Joe Miller's new jest book.pdf/11

 JOE MILLER.

Scottish churches, the precentor (Anglice clerk) always gives out the line during the singing of the psalm. For instance, in the hundredth psalm, the officiating Amen, would read with nasal twang, -All people that on earth do dwell. When the congregation had sung this line, he would proceed with-Sing to the Lord with cheerful voice, and so on till the psalm concluded. A few years ago a sudden cloud darkened the interior of a certain parish church just as the precentor--a very old man---rose for the purpose of discharging this part of his duty. He looked up towards the parson, and exclaimed, My eyes are dim, I cannot see. The congregation,(as much in the dark as himself) instinctively sung the words. I cannot see at all, said the clerk. We cannot see at all, responded the bearers. I really think the folks are mad, exclaimed the leader. Echo as before! The devil burn you all, roared the clerk, and threw down the book with becoming indignation. We have been led to understand that the congregation did not join in the last line.

A loquacious lady, ill of a disease of forty years' standing, applied to Mr. A. for advice, and had begun to describe its progress from the first, when Mr. A. interrupted her, saying, as he wanted to go into the next street to see a patient, he begged the lady to inform him how long it would take her to tell her story. The answer was twenty minutes : he asked her to proceed, and loped she would endeavour to finish by the time he returned.

A country justice of the peace, when upwards of seventy years of age, married a girl about nineteen, and being well aware that he was likely to be rallied on the subject, he resolved to be prepared. Accordingly, when any of his intimate friends called upon him, after the first salutations were passed, he was sure to begin the conversation, by saying, he believed he could tell them news. Why, said he, I have married my tailor's daughter. If he was asked why he did so ? the old gentleman replied, Why, the father suited me so well for forty years past, that I thought the daughter might suit me for forty years to come.

Sarah Duchess of Marlborough was accustomed to make an annual feast, to which she invited all her relations. At one of these family meetings she drank all their healths, adding, What a glorious sight it is to see such a number of branches flourishing from the root! but observing Jack Spencer laugh, insisted on knowing what occasioned his mirth, and promised to forgive him be it what it would. Why, then, madam, said he, I was thinking how much more all the branches would flourish if the root were under ground.