There is another little circumstance which we would take the liberty of
mentioning. It is, that she is much too scrupulous, much too delicate in
naming individuals, _unless they happen to be dead_. When she mentions a
civil thing said to her by a prince, a duke, or a marquess, we never get
at the _person_. It is always the Prince of A----, or the Duke of B----,
or the Marquess of C----, or Count D----, or Lady E----, or the
Marchioness of F----, or the Countess of G----, or Lord H----, or Sir
George I----, and so on through the alphabet. Now we say again, that
_we_ have no doubt all these are the initials of real persons, and that
her ladyship is as familiar with the blood royal and the aristocracy of
Europe, as "maids of fifteen are with puppy-dogs;" but the world, my
dear Lady Morgan--an ill-natured, sour, cynical, and suspicious world,
envious of your glory, will be apt to call it nil fudge, blarney, or
_blatherum-skite_, as they say in your country; especially when it is
observed that you _always_ give the names of the illustrious _dead_,
with whom you have been upon equally familiar terms of intimacy, at
_full length_; as if you knew that dead people tell _no_ tales; and that
therefore you might tell _any_ tales you like about dead people. We put
it to your own good sense, my dear Lady Morgan, as the Duke of X----
would call you, whether this remarkable difference in mentioning living
characters, and those who are no longer living, does not look equivocal?
For you know, my dear Lady Morgan, that Prince R---- and Princess W----,
by standing for any body, mean nobody.--_Blackwood's Magazine_.

* * * * *


CURE FOR SUPERSTITION.

We find the following curious anecdote translated from a German work, in