THE ENGLISH HIPPOPOTAMUS, AT THE ZOOLOGICAL GARDENS, to the FRENCH DITTO, AT THE "JARDIN DES PLANTES." "MON CHER HIP.,--I have been reading the account of your glorious reception at Paris. Don't you allow your simple head to be turned by the homage you have been receiving. Look at me, and profit by the ridiculous lesson. "But a short time ago I was as great a favourite as you now are. I was run after worse than a Nepaulese Ambassador--though what little lustre there was about me was all my own--not a single diamond shone in my ears! and my nose (at present so snubbed) was unconscious of the smallest precious stone! No valuable Cachemire was coiled round my head, that, in a moment of admiration, I could unroll and lay at the feet of my fair worshippers. What little merit I possessed consisted in my native ugliness; and though I flatter myself I am as ugly now as I was then, still no one runs after me now. "As it was with me so it will be with you. My word for it, your nose will be similarly put out of joint by M. DUPIN, or some other monstrosity. I was the rage, the fashionable lion of the day. Thousands of ladies tore their dresses, and fought with their parasols, to get a passing peep at me. They called me 'dear,' 'duck,' 'pet,' and other fond terms of female endearment; and much they care about me at present! Casts were made of me in sponge-cake, and adorned the pastrycooks' windows. You saw my portrait in the frontispiece of every polka. No periodical was complete without my biography, whilst my bulky proportions were multiplied in a thousand different shapes, either in snuff-boxes, ink-stands, salt-cellars, butter-boats, or else figured on ladies' brooches. And where, I ask, am I now? I hide myself in the mud of my bath, with shame and indignation, when I think of the base ingratitude of the public. "I cannot believe you are any uglier than I was. I will not pay you so egregious a compliment. I will say you possess the same bountiful share of recommendations. In that case I beseech you, _mon cher_ animal, not to allow your brain to be affected by the popular incense that at present is being burnt under your admired nostrils. It is ever the fickle taste of Fashion to forget to-morrow the idols it is worshipping to-day. Believe me, and I speak as one who is both a hippopotamus and a brother, you will be as little run after, as little cared about this time next year, as I now am. At present you are _un charmant hippopotame_, the _fêted_ curiosity of the moment; wait another twelvemonth, and they will say of you, as they do of me, that you are nothing better than a great pig, or, worse still, they will call you probably, in their insulting vernacular, '_un gros cochon_'. Ponder, be wise, and don't grow too conceited. "Such is the affectionate advice of "_Mon cher Hip_, your old _camarade du Nil_, "THE HIPPOPOTAMUS (_of the Zoological Gardens_).