GAGGING. 105 



leisure with the pistol which he holds in his left 

 hand." 



* With every submission to Mr. Layard, I take the above to be a 

 fable. If the lion quietly walked up to a man on his hind legs, as 

 the bear is at times said to do, it might be possible to gag him, bufc 

 when we recollect that the lion is accustomed to bound on his prey, 

 that is, with a force almost sufficient to upset the Monument, tho 

 thing seems to mo all but impracticable. Besides, is a man's 

 life to depend on a pistol, and that in his left hand ? Why, twenty 

 to thirty balls, and those tolerably well placed, arc often insufficient, 

 as has been already shown, or will be shown in these pages, to 

 kill the beast. Layard, to my notions, had much better stick to his 

 excavations rather than attempt to stick such fictions into tho 

 public. ED. 



