Curate's egg

[5] The expression is pre-dated by an anecdote in the 1875 Our Bishops and Deans by the Reverend F. Arnold, referenced in an issue of The Academy: A Weekly Review of Literature, Science, and Art: "Without pledging our credence, we could afford a grin to the story of the 'young Levite' who at a bishop's breakfast-table, was so 'umble as to decline the replacement of a bad egg by a good one with a 'No thank you, my Lord, it's good enough for me'.

The curate, desperate not to offend his host and superior, replies, "Oh, yes, my Lord, really – er – some parts of it are very good.

"[6] In November that year, the magazine Punch (which had a much wider circulation than Judy) published a similar cartoon by staff illustrator George du Maurier.

Titled True Humility, it also pictures a timid-looking curate eating breakfast with his bishop, though in this case with others at the table and servants shown in the background.

[6] For the final issue of Punch, published in 1992, an artist, Tony Hannan, redrew the du Maurier cartoon, with the curate simply saying, "This f***ing egg's bad!