300 MUSEUMS. 



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 cogni- 

 sance 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 al- 

 lusions whatever 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 through- 

 out the whole of them must be wrong at every point. 

 Horace, in giving instructions to poets, tells 

 them how he would have different personages repre- 

 sented. Let Medea, says he, be savage and uncon- 

 querable ; let Ino be in tears ; let Ixion be perfidious ; 

 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 



