Puns upon field sports, such as racing being a matter of _course_--horses _starting_ without being shy--a good shot being fond of his _but_ and his _barrel_--or saying that a man fishing deserves a _rod_ for taking such a _line_; if he is sitting under a _bridge_ calling him an _arch_ fellow--or supposing him a nobleman because he takes his place among the _piers_--or that he will _catch_ nothing but cold, and no fish by _hook_ or by crook. All these are prohibited.
To talk of yellow pickles at dinner, and say the way to _Turn 'em Green_ is through Hammersmith--all allusions to eating men, for _Eton_ men, or _Staines_ on the table-cloth--or _Egg-ham_, are all exploded--as are all stuff about _Maids_ and _Thornbacks_, and _Plaice_--or saying to a lady who asks you to help her to the wing of a chicken, that it is a mere matter of _a pinion_--all quibbles about dressing _hare_ and cutting it--all stuff about a merry fellow being given to _wine_--or upon helping yourself to say you have a _platonic_ affection for roast beef--or when fried fish runs short, singing to the mistress of the house, with Tom Moore,--
"Your sole, though a very sweet sole, love, Will ne'er be sufficient for me,"
At the play-house never talk of being a _Pittite_ because you happen not to be in the boxes--never observe what a _Kean_ eye one actor has, or that another can never grow old because he must always be _Young_--never talk of the uncertainty of _Mundane_ affairs in a farce, or observe how _Terrybly_ well a man plays Mr. Simpson--banish from your mind the possibility of saying the Covent Garden manager has put his best _Foot_ forward, or that you should like to go to _Chester_ for a day or two--or that you would give the world to be tied to a _Tree_--or that Mr. _Make ready_ is a presentable actor--all such stuff is interdicted.
In speaking of Parliament, forget Broom and Birch, Wood and Cole, Scarlett and White, Lamb and the Leakes, the Hares and the Herons, the Cootes and the Cruins--such jumbles will lead into great difficulties, and invariably end, without infinite caution, in an observation, that the conduct of that House is always regulated by the best possible _Manners_.
There are some temptations very difficult to avoid--for instance, last Saturday we saw gazetted, as a bankrupt, "Sir John Lade, Cornhill, watchmaker!" Now this, we confess, was a provocation hard of resistance--when one sees a _lad_ of sixty-four _set up_ only to _break down_, and perceives that whatever he may do with _watches_, he could not make a _case_ before the Insolvent Debtors' Court; and moreover, since his taking to watchmaking arose from his having, in the _spring_ of life, gone upon _tick_, and that the circumstance may be considered as a _striking_ instance of a _bad wind-up_--we admit that in the hands of a young beginner such a thing is quite irresistible, but such temptations should be avoided as much as possible.