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NOTES OF THE MONTH. 



HE WHO RUNS MAY READ. Strange things, indeed, may he peruse 

 who runs or walks through the streets of London. We were trotting 

 along Fleet-street a few mornings ago, when the following notification 

 in a shop window caused us to slacken our pace: "Artificial eyes 

 of superior vivacity and clearness of expression." 



We closed one of our natural eyes, in order that we might re-read 

 with more clearness this recommendation of the fictitious or factitious 

 orb. 



"Superior" superior to what? to the common natural, or to 

 other ingeniously manufactured eyes? To the former, doubtless. 

 Upon the retina of these artificial eyes no objects are inverted; no 

 it is "glass, this side upwards." Imagine the " superior vivacity" of 

 an ogle, or the clearness of an expressive glance ! They are at once 

 eyes and spectacles the material of the one and all the merit of the 

 other. 



We found ourselves on the afternoon of the same day in Oxford- 

 street. Here our old-fashioned eyes enabled us to read in a tea 

 dealer's window this commendably candid advertisement : " A bad 

 article is dear at any price Try our six shilling green." 



There Was a raciness in this which we could by no means resist ; 

 a kind of Pekoe flavour. Too ingenuous man ! or was it intended 

 as a philanthropic warning ? And yet you urge us to " try your six 

 shilling green." How came so strange a notion to enter into your 

 canister % 



A SHORT-SIGHTED POLITICIAN. We find the following mournful 

 announcement in the last number of the "Quarterly Review." "We 

 confess, with equal sincerity and sorrow, that we do not see our way 

 through the difficulties that press almost in our opinion equally 

 upon the governments of France and England. All is doubt, dis- 

 order, and dismay. We are in a moral earthquake, and what portions 

 of the social edifice may survive the shock, or what shelter the un- 

 happy survivors may find among the ruins, no mortal eye can fore- 

 see." 



Under these circumstances, what is to be done ? If the reviewer 

 cannot see his way through the difficulties that beset us, and if, as he 

 alleges, no mortal eye can foresee the consequences of this moral 

 earthquake, we would advise him to possess himself of two artificial 

 eyes, which will perhaps enable him to catch a glimpse of the spirit 

 of the age, with <f superior vivacity and clearness of expression." 



During the present total eclipse of the Quarterly, however, we 

 think the reviewer should, in justice to his subscribers, cry out, in 

 the words of the estimable tea-dealer, " A bad article is dear at any 

 price- Try pur six shilling green." 



