James Hannay (writer)

James Hannay FRSE (17 February 1827 – 9 January 1873), was a Scottish novelist, journalist and diplomat.

• Pompous the boast, and yet a truth it speaks:
  A Modern Athens—fit for modern Greeks.
  • "Modern Athens" (i.e. Edinburgh), in Temple Bar, vol. 21 (November 1867), p. 465

Edinburgh: William P. Nimmo

• Blogg sneers at ancient birth;—yes, Blogg, we see,
  Your ears are longer than your pedigree.
  • "Blogg on Family", p. 192
  • "On a certain Radical", in English Epigrams (1878), p. 162:

    Blogg rails against high birth. Yes, Blogg—you see
    Your ears are longer than your pedigree.

• Through regions by wild men and cannibals haunted,
     Old Dame Ida Pfeiffer goes lone and undaunted;
  But, bless you, the risk's not so great as it's reckon'd,
     She's too plain for the first, and too tough for the second.
  • "Dame Ida Pfeiffer", p. 213

• Tomkins will clear the land, they say,
     From every foul abuse:
  So chimneys in the olden day,
     Were cleansed by a goose.
  • "A Radical Reformer", p. 213
  • "On a Radical Reformer", in English Epigrams (1878), p. 170:

    Tomkins will clear the land, they say,
       From every foul abuse;
    So chimneys in the olden time
       Were cleansèd by a goose.

• William Davenport Adams (ed.) English Epigrams (London: George Routledge and Sons, Ltd., [1878]), pp. 142, 162, 170, 236