"AN AMERICAN LADY. "
[To nu Emma or rue "fireorsron."1
Set,—The allusion to the delicate little warning not to tread on thin ice which is quoted in the extremely interesting article under the above title in your last Saturday's issue, set one wondeiing who was the originator of that warning; and one turned to that !incomparable sleuth-hound Edouard Fournier. Sure enough, is his beguiling little hook, L'esprit des Autres, he gives us Ilia version of its history. Tired of hearing the words attributed to Voltaire, Fournier explores the Paris quote, and is rewarded one ' day by finding the following lines beneath an illustration by iLarmessin called "Les Patineure ":—
"Sur un mince cristal Phiver conduit tears pas, Le precipice est sous la glace.
Tolle est do vas plaisire la Legere surface
Glisses, mortels, n'appuyes pas!"
They are signed by the name of Roy, an obscure eighteetall- century poet, M. Fournier tells us, whom, unlike most of us perhaps, he knows all about.—I am, Sir, dle., II. M. L. A.
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