Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CUMBERLAND ANECDOTES. ILLUSTRATIONS OF CHARACTER AND MANNER. " Lo, here I bring you a bouquet of flowers, of which nothing is my own except the string which has bound them together."—Montaigne. An attempt at classification is made in the following collection of anecdotes, but without any very definite arrangement being observed, though, perhaps, sufficient to aid in referring to any particular section of the following collection. There is no little difficulty in assorting the mass, and in placing each in its proper department. The shades mingle and confuse each other till selection is almost impossible, and a miscellaneous division is adopted as a receptacle for the rejected of the better ascertained classes. None are put forth as perfect, and taste and judgment differ so much that what one may approve as witty another may stamp as of some other quality. W. D. ILLUSTRATIONS OF CHARACTER AND MANNER. EY, EY, EY. It is no uncommon thing for people brought up in the country, where the interchange of ideas is of less frequency than in towns, for some people to be tickled with a word or phrase, and to use it in playfulness until it becomes an adopted child, and is grafted upon nearly every sentence or reply, till the conversation of such persons cannot proceed without it. An instance of this kind occurred with the late Isaac Cartmell, of Smaithwaite, who was a Keswick butcher, doing a good business, and was well respected. He was a quick talker, and had a habit of commencing a reply with, " Ey, ey, ey," on almost every occasion. A bet was made with a London traveller, that Isaac would assent to whatever the stranger said to him. Next day being market day, and Isaac at his stand, the commercial accosted him with, " Mr. Cartmell, they tell me you give short weight....