NOTES OF THE MONTH. 373 



been more cautious lest he should commit himself. How or when the 

 solitaire was put into confinement, nobody can tell, because nobody 

 knows. Possibly, and here we speak with sober seriousness, the poor 

 creature may have been shut up in its little stony cell before the time of 

 Adam. In that case, with what strange personages of the biped 

 creation has it been contemporary ! What important events have 

 taken place in its day ! Empires have risen and fallen, and the 

 world has been, in one sense, turned upside down, while it has all 

 the while been cooped up in its little rocky quarters. And yet it has 

 known nothing of the changes which have occurred. But a truce 

 to moralization ; for, if the temptation presented in this case to in- 

 dulge in it were not resisted in the onset, there is no saying when 

 or where it would end. " The creature," says the writer, *' thus in- 

 stantaneously restored to light and life, hopped vigorously away." 

 How does he know that it was restored to life ? That would imply it 

 had been dead, which he has no ground for assuming. We see no 

 right he has to assume that it was even asleep during its lengthened 

 imprisonment. That " it hopped vigorously away" was not to be 

 wondered at, after undergoing so protracted a confinement. We 

 are sorry " it escaped beyond recovery into the long grass and weeds 

 of the neighbouring hedge,'' because we should like to have learned 

 something of its future history. However we cannot blame it for 

 escaping, when we are informed " it was hotly pursued by a do«r 

 which was standing near." Had we been " standing near," we 

 would have " hotly pursued " the dog, and in the event of overtaking 

 him would have given him a sound beating ; for what rio-ht, we 

 should like to know, had he, or any other " Bow-wow," hotly to pur- 

 sue this poor toad on its liberation after a confinement possibly of 

 five or six thousand years ? It might at least have had breathino- 

 time allowed it before it was subjected to any such molestation. The 

 man, who had been confined forty-eight years in the Bastile, had no 

 sooner been liberated than he wished to be again taken back to his 

 dungeon : this unfortunate creature must have participated in the 

 wish when it had no sooner been restored to the light than it was 

 " hotly pursued by a dog." 



Veut Important. — The Times, a few days ago, had a paragraph 

 of some length, in which a very pompous account is given of the 

 circumstance of Nina Lassave, the mistress of the late Fieschi, 

 having abruptly quitted the Cafe in which she had been "exhibit- 

 ing,'' in consequence of one of the spectators having thrown a cup 

 of coffee in her face. It is added, that no one knows what has become 

 of her. This is doubtless prodigiously important intelligence to 

 the public. The movements of Napoleon were not more carefully 

 watched, or scrupulous recorded in the public journals, than are 

 those of Nina Lassave. 



The Ravel Family. — Either this "family" must be ubiquitous, 

 or it must consist of so many members as to be capable of being 

 subdivided into several families. One of the Bath papers, of Satur- 



M. M.— No. 4. 2 D 



