MUSEUMS. 533 



Some years ago, curiosity led me to stray into a very spacious 

 museum. As I passed through a kind of antechamber, I observed 

 a huge mass of outstretched skin, which once had evidently been an 

 elephant. I turned round to gaze at the " monstrum horrendum in- 

 forme," when a person came up, and asked me what I thought of 

 their elephant. " If," said I, " you will give me two cow-skins, with 

 that of a calf in addition to them, I will engage to make you a better 

 elephant." This unlucky and off-hand proposal was within an ace 

 of getting me into trouble. The sages of the establishment took 

 cognisance of it at one of their meetings ; and somebody proposed 

 that a written reprimand should be sent to me. However, a prudent 

 voice in the assembly caused their wrath to subside ; and smiles 

 played once more over their hitherto benign countenances. 



I have occasionally noticed the defective manner in which birds 

 are stuffed for museums. At present I will confine myself solely to 

 quadrupeds ; and, in my remarks on the very inferior way in which 

 they are preserved, I beg to declare that I make no allusions what- 

 ever to any one museum in particular. 



It may be said, with great truth, that, from Rome to Russia, and 

 from Orkney to Africa, there is not to be found in any cabinet of 

 natural history one single quadruped which has been stuffed, or pre- 

 pared, or mounted (as the French term it), upon scientific principles 

 Hence, every specimen throughout the whole of them must be wrong 

 at every point. 



Horace, in giving instructions to poets, tells them how he would 

 have different personages represented. Let Medea, says he, be 

 savage and unconquerable ; let Ino be in tears ; let Ixion be perfi- 

 dious ; let lo be vagrant ; and let Orestes be in sorrow : 



" Sit Medea ferox invictaque, flebilis Ino, 

 Perfidus Ixion, lo vaga, tristis Orestes." 



Now, should I call upon any one of those who have given to the 

 public a mode of preserving specimens for museums, to step forward 

 and show me how to restore majesty to the face of a lion's skin, 

 ferocity to the tiger's countenance, innocence to that of the lamb, 

 or sulkiness to that of the bull, he would not know which way to set 

 to work : he would have no resources at hand to help him in the 



