FROM THE RAVEN IN THE HAPPY
FAMILY.

I SUPPOSE you thought I was dead? No
such thing. Don't flatter yourselves that I
haven't got my eye upon you. I am wide
awake, and you give me plenty to look at.

I have begun my great work about you.
I have been collecting materials from the
Horse, to begin with. You are glad to hear it,
ain't you? Very likely. Oh, he gives you a
nice character! He makes you out a charming
set of fellows.

He informs me, by the bye, that he is a
distant relation of the pony that was taken
up in a balloon a few weeks ago; and that the
pony's account of your going to see him at
Vauxhall Gardens, is an amazing thing. The
pony says, that when he looked round on the
assembled crowd, come to see the realisation
of the wood-cut in the bill, he found it
impossible to discover which was the real Mister
Green—there were so many Mister Greens—
and they were all so very green!

But, that's the way with you. You know
it is. Don't tell me! You 'd go to see
anything that other people went to see. And
don't flatter yourselves that I am referring
to "the vulgar curiosity," as you choose to call
it, when you mean some curiosity in which
you don't participate yourselves. The polite
curiosity in this country, is as vulgar as any
curiosity in the world.

Of course you'll tell me, no it isn't, but I
say yes it is. What have you got to say for
yourselves about the Nepaulese Princes, I
should like to know? Why, there has been
more crowding, and pressing, and pushing, and
jostling, and struggling, and striving, in
genteel houses this last season, on account of those
Nepaulese Princes, than would take place in
vulgar Cremorne Gardens and Greenwich
Park, at Easter time and Whitsuntide! And
what for? Do you know anything about 'em?
Have you any idea why they came here? Can
you put your finger on their country in the
map? Have you ever asked yourselves a
dozen common questions about its climate,
natural history, government, productions,
customs, religion, manners? Not you! Here are
a couple of swarthy Princes very much out of
their element, walking about in wide muslin
trousers, and sprinkled all over with gems
(like the clock-work figure on the old round
platform in the street, grown up), and they're
fashionable outlandish monsters, and it's a
new excitement for you to get a stare at 'em.
As to asking 'em to dinner, and seeing 'em sit
at table without eating in your company
(unclean animals as you are!), you fall into
raptures at that. Quite delicious, isn't it ?
Ugh, you dunder-headed boobies!

I wonder what there is, new and strange,
that you wouldn't lionise, as you call it. Can
you suggest anything? It's not a
hippopotamus, I suppose. I hear from my brother-
in-law in the Zoological Gardens, that you are
always pelting away into the Regent's Park,
by thousands, to see the hippopotamus. Oh,
you 're very fond of hippopotami, ain't you?
You study one attentively, when you do see
one, don't you? You come away, so much
wiser than you went, reflecting so profoundly
on the wonders of creation—eh?

Bah! You follow one another like wild
geese, but you are not so good to eat!

These, however, are not the observations of
my friend the Horse. He takes you, in another
point of view. Would you like to read his
contribution to my Natural History of you?
No? You shall then.

He is a Cab-horse now. He wasn't always,
but he is now, and his usual stand is close to
our Proprietor's usual stand. That's the way
we have come into communication, we "dumb
animals." Ha, ha! Dumb, too! Oh, the
conceit of you men, because you can bother the
community out of their five wits, by making
speeches!

Well. I mentioned to this Horse that I
should be glad to have his opinions and
experiences of you. Here they are:

"At the request of my honourable friend
the Raven, I proceed to offer a few remarks
in reference to the animal called Man. I have
had varied experience of this strange creature
for fifteen years, and am now driven by a
Man, in the hackney cabriolet, number twelve
thousand four hundred and fifty-two.

"The sense Man entertains of his own
inferiority to the nobler animals—and I am
now more particularly referring to the Horse
—has impressed me forcibly, in the course of
my career. If a Man knows a Horse well, he is
prouder of it than of any knowledge of himself,