MUSEUMS. 301 



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 operation ; he 

 could not call to mind one idea which would enable 

 him to restore the protuberance which is seen over 

 the eye, or to give boldness to the front, or expression 

 to the lips, or beauty to the cheeks, or, in fine, sym- 

 metry to the whole. He could produce nothing 

 beyond a mere dried specimen, shrunk too much in 

 this part, or too bloated in that ; a mummy, a dis- 

 tortion, an hideous spectacle, a failure in every sense 

 of the word. 



But how comes it, that such clever and enter- 

 prising men, as those generally are who have the 

 appointment of working-curators to museums, should 

 never yet have discovered the true cause which has 

 occasioned all their errors and mistakes ? The an- 

 swer is brief and easy. They have not gone the 

 right way to work in their attempts to overcome 

 the difficulties which stared them in the face. They 

 seem not to have reflected sufficiently that the 

 quadruped, before they skinned it, was of beautiful 

 form, and of just proportions, and had that in its 

 outward appearance which pleased the eye of every 

 beholder ; but that no sooner had they taken the skin 

 off, than it had lost its beauty, and these fine pro- 

 portions ; and that the parts which still in some mea- 

 sure retained the appearance which they had in life 

 would, in the course of a short time, contract and 

 dry in, and put on a very shriveled and mummy- 



