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No record to which I have had access tells of a Jewish king of Taza, though there was a Hebrew in high favour there in the time of Rasheed II. The details of the story told me are, as the American scribe said, probably attributable to Mr. Benjamin Trovato. When the attractions of Kaisariyah palled, the markets beyond the walls never failed to revive interest in the city's life.
Douglas Jerrold, in his well-known "Punch's Letters to his Son," gives an anecdote of which we can only say, si non è vero, è ben trovato. It at all events illustrates the frightful morality that exists with regard to borrowing Umbrellas. "Hopkins once lent Simpson, his next-door neighbour, an Umbrella.
But this I believe to be a lie; or, rather, it is a myth, ben trovato, involving a tremendous blowing-up with which he sunk Burr, asking him how he liked to be "without a country." But it is clear from Burr's life, that nothing of the sort could have happened; and I mention this only as an illustration of the stories which get a-going where there is the least mystery at bottom.
Of course, she's the Head of the Church, just the same as the Pope is the Head of his Church, and the Sultan the Head of his Church." But this may only be a creation of that irresponsible romancist, Ben Trovato; and it is better to take Lord Halifax's account of the transaction: "I remember certain remonstrances being made to me in regard to disobedience to the law and suchlike, and my saying at once that I thought it quite unreasonable that the Prince should be compromised by anyone in his household taking a line of which he himself did not approve; and that I honestly thought I had much better resign my place.
But this I believe to be a lie; or, rather, it is a myth, ben trovato, involving a tremendous blowing-up with which he sunk Burr, asking him how he liked to be "without a country." But it is clear from Burr's life, that nothing of the sort could have happened; and I mention this only as an illustration of the stories which get a-going where there is the least mystery at bottom.
But the jest is by no means a ben trovato; the member of gibbets being inversely as the perfection of social institutions; and if any one object, that England, while it is the best-governed country in Europe its envy and admiration is also a hanging community par excellence, I must beg to remind him of the intense interest which an English public feels in the victims of capital punishment, in the Thurtells and the Fauntleroys; as also of the universal conviction prevailing in England, that the gallows is a short and sure cut to everlasting happiness.
According to the story, which, I may observe, is one of the ben trovato order, when steam was got up in the vessel for trial purposes it had to steam round and about Yokohama Harbour, to the great danger of the foreign warships and merchant steamers there, until the steam was in due course exhausted and the machinery automatically stopped through the lack of any motive power to drive it, as the Japanese engineer in charge did not know how to shut off steam.
"The other evening I had a very pleasant private audience with the Holy Father. Among other matters I showed him The Young Catholic which pleased him very much. He was struck with the size of the jackass in the picture of Ober-Ammergau, and asked if they grew so large in that country. I replied: 'Holy Father, asses nowadays grow large everywhere. He laughed heartily and said, 'Bene trovato."
Carmichael himself, in a mood of gay irresponsibility, had once sketched a meeting of this reverend court, in which the names were skilfully adapted, after the ancient fashion, to represent character, and the incidents, if not vero, were certainly ben trovato, and had the article ready for transmission to Ferrier's Journal.
Dryden was never poor, and there is at Oxford a portrait of him painted in 1664, which represents him in a superb periwig and laced band. This was "before he had paid his court with success to the great." But the story is at least ben trovato, and morally true enough to serve as an illustration. Who the "old gentleman" was has never been discovered.
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