_Fouché's Memoirs._--At Vol. iv., p. 455., on the subject of the Duc d'Enghien's murder, Fouché's _Memoirs_ are quoted in proof that the saying, "C'était pire qu'un crime, c'était une faute," was claimed as his own by that famous police minister. Indeed, I have little doubt of the fact, which, however, can derive no confirmation or authority from the quoted work; for this nominal autobiography has been pronounced, on a regular trial before the French tribunals, an utter cheat and imposition; though referred to by Mr. Alison, in his _History of Europe_, volume the fifth, p. 482. (original edition), as genuine, as well as by Lord Brougham in the third volume of his _Statesmen_; yet with less decided assertion than by the Scotch historian. Fouché's family at once denounced the fabrication, and obtained heavy damages from the printer; who equally succeeded against the writer, Alphons de Beaumont, and was awarded large damages for the imposition. (See _Gentleman's Magazine_ for November, 1842.) It is at present perfectly understood that the sharp and apt antithesis, however immoral, was Fouché's. Talleyrand's reputation for ready wit fixed on him the paternity of numerous _bons mots_, which have proved to be of alien birth. Voltaire, Piron, Mirabeau, in France; and Chesterfield, Selwyn, Wilkes, &c. in England; with Curran in Ireland, and many others, have similarly obtained credit for pointed expressions not of their utterance, as to the rich are generally given by rumour more than they possess. "On ne prête qu'aux riches," is an apposite proverb, long since indeed stated by the sententious Euripides: "Ὁρῶσσι δὲ οἱ διδόντες εἰς τὰ χρήματα" (_In Fragmentis_). Cicero tells us, in his letter to Volumnius (_Epistol. Famil._ lib. vii. ep. 32.), that the sayings of others had been thus similarly fathered on him: "Ais omnia omnium dicta in me conferri;" and complains, half-humorously and half-seriously, that his supremacy of wit was not sufficiently protected from usurpers or intruders: "Quod parum diligenter possessio _salinarum mearum_, ate procuratore, defenditur," &c. J. R. (Cork.) _The Pelican as a Symbol of our Saviour_ (Vol. v., pp. 59. 165.).--Shakspeare, in _Hamlet_, alludes to the popular notion respecting this bird: "To his good friends thus wide I'll ope my arms, And like the _kind, life-rendering pelican_, Repast them with my blood." The best representation I have ever seen of the pelican feeding her young occurs in the works of a Roman printer, in the early part of the eighteenth century, Rocco Bernabo, who has taken for his device a pelican feeding her five young ones, a crown of thorns encircling them. The pelican has a long bag or pouch, reaching the entire length of the bill to the neck. In feeding its young, the bird squeezes the food deposited in the bag into their mouths, by strongly compressing it upon its breast with the bill. (See Calmet and Shaw.) Hence the popular idea. MARICONDA.