, that I cannot pass it by without a tribute to its memory.
How often have I paused in its dark galleries in awe before the
tremendous skeleton of the Mammoth--how small did that of a great
elephant seem beside it--and recalled the Indian legend of it recorded by
Franklin. And the stuffed monkeys--one shaving another--what exquisite
humour, which never palled upon us! No; _that_ was the museum for us,
and the time will come when there will be such collections made expressly
for the young.

"Stuffed monkey" was a common by-word, by the way, for a conceited
fellow. Therefore the _Louisville Journal_, speaking of a rival sheet,
said: "Reader, if you will go into the Louisville Museum, you will see
two stuffed monkeys reading the _Courier_. And if you will then go into
the office of the _Louisville Courier_, you may see two living stuffed
monkeys editing the same." The beautiful sallies of this kind which
appeared in these two newspapers for years would make a lively volume.

Never shall I forget one evening alone in that Museum. I had come with
Jacob Pierce's school, and strayed off alone into some far-away and
fascinating nook, forgetful of friends and time. All the rest had
departed homewards, and I sought to find them. The dark evening shades
were casting sombre tones in the galleries--I was a very little boy of
seven or eight--and the stuffed lions and bears and wolves seemed looming
or glooming into mysterious life; the varnished sharks and hideous shiny
crocodiles had a light of awful intelligence in their eyes; the gigantic
anaconda had long awaited me; the grim hyaena marked me for his own; even
deer and doves seemed uncanny and goblined. At this long interval of
sixty years, I can recall the details of that walk, and every object
which impressively half-appalled me, and how what had been a museum had
become a chamber of horrors, yet not without a wild and awful charm. Of
course I lost my way in the shades, and was beginning to speculate on
having to pass a night among the monsters, and how much there would be
left for my friends to mourn over in the morning, when--Eureka!
Thalatta!--I beheld the gate of entrance and exit, and made my latter as
joyously as ever did the souls who were played out of Inferno by the old
reprobate of the Roman tale.

Since that adventure I never mentioned it to a living soul till now, and
yet there is not an event of my life so vividly impressed on my memory.

My father too