_Astronomical Toasts_.--Lord Chesterfield dined one day with the French
and Spanish ambassadors. After dinner, toasts were proposed. The Spanish
ambassador proposed the King of Spain under the title of the Sun. The
French ambassador gave his king as the Moon. Lord C. then arose, "Your
excellencies," said he, "have taken the two greatest luminaries, and the
Stars are too small for a comparison with my royal master. I therefore
beg to give your excellencies, Joshua."
_Talleyrand._--(The following _bon mot_ is worthy of extract from the
_Literary Gazette_, and smacks of the raciest days of the noble
utterer.) M. Talleyrand was enjoying his rubber, when the conversation
turned on the recent union of an elderly lady of respectable rank.
"However could Madame de S------ make such a match? a person of her
birth to marry a valet-de-chambre!" "Ah," replied Talleyrand, "it was
late in the game; at nine we don't reckon honours."
_Remarkable Circumstance._--William Coghan, who was at Oxford in the
year 1575, when the sweating sickness raged at that place, and who has
given a brief account of its ravages, says, "It began on the sixth day
of July, from which day to the twelfth day of August next ensuing, there
died five hundred and ten persons, all men and no women."