Then turning to us, "Well, sir, at last, as we could not help the Consul, he was obliged to have recourse to this Frenchman again, who admitted that the bulk of the animal was in the wrong place, and _une idée trop large_, and removed some of it accordingly. With respect to the hind-quarters, he cleverly got rid of this difficulty, by inserting three-quarters of the noble beast into a den, formed in a recess of the drawing-room, and hung with a profusion of green paper, representing bushes falling across its mouth, while beyond them protruded the head and open jaws of the lord of the forest, as reconnoitring the ground previous to a sally upon the guests; and there, doubtless, he is still exhibiting.".... Well did Cadet herself avoid the errors she thus ridiculed. We possess one of her animated groups, of which the subject is an eagle killing a snake, and the execution is so true to nature, and so beautifully disposed for effect as to render improvement impossible: from some such original did the Locrian and Girgenti mints copy one of their finest reverses, and Virgil and Ariosto their lively descriptions. Our bird, which lay, a month before, an unsightly mass of blood-stained feathers, broken-winged, on the ground, when he came into our possession, _stuffed_, looked not only alive but in action. The talon which supported the body seemed to grasp the perch beneath it so tightly, as to convey a very lively impression both of his prehensile powers and of his weight; round the other, (embracing it as in a vice,) writhed the body of a large snake; the eagle's neck was erect, his head slightly bent, his wonderfully expressive eye glancing downwards, his hooked beak opening and disclosing the tongue slightly raised; the scant feathers round the olfactory fissures up; the snake hissing, his head elevated, and darting upwards, to anticipate the lacerating blow: "_Hic_ sinuosa volumina versat, Arrectisque horret squammis, et sibilat ore, Arduus insurgens; _illa_ haud minus urget adunco, Luctantem rostro." The delusion as to the substance and weight of the bird was perfect. At first we doubted being able to lift him without considerable effort. On making the attempt, however, we find him light as a Nola jar. A glorious bird is the eagle, well worthy the attention and regard bestowed on him in ancient times by prophet, priest, and poet; but had they been silent, we should have learned the veneration in which he was popularly held by the frequent recurrence of his image--whether incised on Egyptian obelisk, chiselled by Grecian hands on ornamented casque, guarding the tombs of heroes, grasping the thunderbolts of colossal Joves, perched on Latin, standards, carrying off young Ganymedes to wait, _invitâ Junone_, on the gods above[5]--or bearing aloft, on consecrated coin, some most religious and gracious _Augusta_ to Glory and to Olympus!