tion in the Gunpowder Plot, the
tongue pronounced several words after the head was severed from the body.
After the execution of CHARLOTTE CORDAY, also, it is alleged that the
executioner held up her lovely head by its beautiful hair, and slapped the
pale cheeks, which instantly reddened, and gave to the features such an
expression of unequivocal indignation, that the spectators, struck by the
change of color, with loud murmurs cried out for vengeance on barbarity so
cowardly and atrocious. 'It could not be said,' writes Dr. SUE, a
physician of the first eminence and authority in Paris, 'that the redness
was caused by the blow, since no blow can ever recall any thing like color
to the cheeks of a corpse; beside, this blow was given on one cheek, and
the other equally reddened.' Singular facts. Do they not militate against
certain theories of 'nervous sensation' recently promulgated in our
philosophical circles? . . . DOESN'T it sicken you, reader, to hear a
young lady use that common but horrid commercial metaphor, '_first-rate?_'
'How did you like CASTELLAN, last evening, Miss HUGGINS?' '_Oh,
first-rate!_' 'When a girl makes use of this expression,' writes an
eastern friend, 'I mutter inly,' 'Your pa' sells figs and salt-fish, I
know he does.' And it is all very well and proper, if he _does_; but for
the miserable compound itself, pray kill it dead in your Magazine! Hit it
hard! By the by, talking of odd phrases, hear this. A young Italian friend
of mine, fresh from Sicily as his own oranges, a well-educated, talented
person, who has labored hard to get familiar with English letters, and has
read our authors, from CHAUCER downward, dilated thus on the poets: 'PO-PE
is very mosh like HORACE; I like him very mosh; but I tink BIR-RON was
very sorry poet.' 'What!' quoth I, 'BYRON a sorry poet! I thought he was a
favorite with Italians?' 'Oh, yes; I adore him very mosh; I almost do
admire him; but he was very _sorry_ poet.' 'How so? BYRON a sorry bard?'
'Oh, yes, very sorry; don't you think so? _molto triste_--very
mel-_an_-choly; don't you find him so? I always feel very sorry when I
read him. I think he's far more sorry than PETRARCA; don't you?' This will
remind the reader of the very strong term used by a Frenchman, who on
being asked at a soiree what was the cause of his evident sadness,
replied: 'I av just hear my fader he die: _I_ am ver' mosh _dissatisfied!_'
. . . WE shall _probably_ find a place for the paper entitle