...not apprehended as readily as he ever afterwards found it to be ; but it was one of his sayings, that it required a surgical operation to get a joke well into a Scotch understanding. He had already chosen hia side in politics, as we gather from his being attracted to Horner by a warning...

...Ramsay endeavors to defend his countrymen from the sarcastic fling of Sidney Smith, that " it requires a surgical operation to get a joke well into a Scotch understanding." We still think, though there are of course brilliant exceptions among the literary celebrities of Scotland,...

...laugh by his descriptions of things which struck his English eye. " It requires," he used to say, " a surgical operation to get a joke well into a Scotch understanding. Their only idea of wit, or rather that inferior variety of this electric talent which prevails occasionally...

...here and there, of unrelieved prosiness, As to wit, no one asked for it. Sydney Smith used to say that it required a surgical operation to get a joke well into a Scotch understanding. But in England humor is native and of high account. We do not think a man the less in earnest for his...

...powers of conversation at once inspired is the best refutation of his own witty exaggeration, that " it required a surgical operation to get a joke well into a Scotch understanding." It was not till towards the close of Sydney Smith's five years' residence in Edinburgh that he proposed...

...ridicule the foibles and peculiarities of the Scottish people. " ' It requires,' Sydney used to say, ' a surgical operation to get a joke well into a Scotch understanding. Their only idea of wit, or * Preface, vol. ii, p. 12. rather that inferior variety of this electric...

...Scotch people also he retained a most favourable impression, though he assures us that it requires a surgical operation to get a joke well into a Scotch understanding, and has various amusing hits at Scotch Philoso/>Aee, as where he presents to a friend a brace of grouse,...

...laugh by his descriptions of things which struck his English eye. " It requires," he used to say, " a surgical operation to get a joke well into a Scotch understanding. Their only idea of wit, or rather that inferior variety of this electric talent which prevails occasionally...

...laugh by his descriptions of things which struck his English eye. "It requires," he used to say, " a surgical operation to get a joke well into a Scotch understanding. Their only idea of wit, or rather that inferior variety of this electric talent which prevails occasionally...

...ridicule the foibles and peculiarities of the Scottish people. " ' It requires,' Sydney used to say, ' a surgical operation to get a joke well into a Scotch understanding. Their only idea of wit, or * Preface, voL ii. p. 12. rather that inferior variety of this electric...