THE EUROPEAN JOURNALS 



281 



deserves his name, for he is a pleasant man, and we dined 

 with his wife and himself and the keepers of the BEASTS 

 (name given by men to quadrupeds). None of the com- 

 pany were very polished, but all behaved with propriety 

 and good humor, and I liked it on many accounts. Mr. 

 Cross conversed very entertainingly. Bcntley had two 

 tickets for Drury Lane Theatre. It was " The Critic " 

 again ; immediately after, as if in spite of that good lesson, 

 " The Haunted Inn " was performed, and the two gentle- 

 men called Matthews and Litton so annoyed me with their 

 low wit that I often thought that, could Shakespeare or 

 Garrick be raised from their peaceful places of rest, tears of 

 sorrow would have run down their cheeks to see how 

 abused their darling theatre was this night. Bentley was 

 more fortunate than I, he went to sleep. At my rooms I 

 found a little circular piece of ivory with my name, fol- 

 lowed by " and friends," and a letter stating it was a per- 

 petual ticket of admission to the Zoological Gardens. This 

 was sent at the request of Mr. Brookes. 



February 2. Bentley and I went to the Gardens of the 

 Zoological Society, which are at the opposite end of Re- 

 gent's Park from rny lodgings. The Gardens are quite 

 in a state of infancy ; I have seen more curiosities in a 

 swamp in America in one morning than is collected here 

 since eighteen months ; all, however, is well planned, clean, 

 and what specimens they have are fine and in good con- 

 dition. As we were leaving I heard my name called, and 

 turning saw Mr. Vigors with a companion to whom he in- 

 troduced me ; it was the famous Captain Sabine,^ a tall, thin 

 man, who at once asked me if among the Eagles they had, 

 any were the young of the White-headed Eagle, or as he 

 called the bird, the Falco lencoccphalus. Strange that such 

 great men should ask a woodsman questions like that, 



^ Captain (Sir) Edward Sabine accompanied Parry's expedition to the 

 Arctic regions,— a mathematician, traveller, and Fellow of the Royal Society, 

 1819. Born in Dublin, 1788, died in Richmond, 1883. 



r \. 



