Why the magistracy of Bologna should have conferred the high honour of a
statue on Taliacotius it is difficult to understand,--unless the loss of
the nose was of more frequent occurrence than in those days, from the
barbarity of warfare and civil punishment; for an old law of the Lombards
assigned the loss of the nose as a punishment for theft; and the captives
in war were equally spoiled for snuff-takers.

That this was no uncommon dilemma with Italian gentlemen in the fifteenth
century, appears by the style in which a Neapolitan poet writes to the
_noseless_ Orpianus:--"If," says he, "you would have your nose restored,
come to me--truly the thing is wonderful. Be assured that, if you come, you
may go home again with as much nose as you please."

It does not, however, appear that the nasal operation made any impression
on our ancient English surgeons. Wiseman does not even mention it, though
slitting the nose, and cutting off the ears, was a common mode of punishing
political delinquents in his time; and it is said that Prynne, whose ears
were cut off, had new ones made, "_à la_ Taliacotius." The fact is, that
the operation was misunderstood, and disbelieved, as we know by the jocose
manner in which it is alluded to by Butler. It has, however, been
successfully revived, and performed, by Mr. Carpue.

Connected with the varieties of the organ of scent, is the well-known story
of that extraordinary lusus, the _Pig-faced Lady_.--_Brande's Journal_.

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THE ANECDOTE GALLERY.