[Six and seven make the proverbially unlucky number _thirteen_, and we
are inclined to believe that the allusion in this popular phrase is to
this combination.]
* * * * *
_Swobbers._--There is a known story of a clergyman who was recommended
for a preferment by some great men at court to an archbishop. His Grace
said, "He had heard that the clergyman used to play at whist and
_swobbers_; that as to playing now and then a sober game at whist for
pastime, it might be pardoned; but he could not digest those wicked
swobbers;" and it was with some pains that my Lord Somers could
undeceive him. So says Swift, in his _Essay on the Fates of Clergymen_;
and a note in Sir W. Scott's edition (1824, vol. viii. p 231.) informs
us that the primate was "Tenison, who, by all contemporary accounts, was
a very dull man." At the risk of being thought as dull as the
archbishop, I venture to ask for an explanation of the joke.