kingly crown on show boards, carriages, transparencies,
theatres, and the new, matchless, hydropyric, or fiery
and watery fairy palace of Vauxhall. It met us
in every material, from the gilt confitures
of Bartholomew fair, to the gold plateau of the “table
laid for sixty,” at St. James’s. All
the dilettanti were immersed in the great national
question of its shape and features. Mr. Barrow,
in a journey of exploration, which extended to three
miles beyond the Cape, believed that he saw it, but
strongly doubted its existence. M. Vaillant never
saw it, nor believed that any one ever did, but was
as sure of its existence as if it had slept in his
bosom, and been unto him as a daughter. Mr. Russel
had one, which he milked twice a day, and drove in
a curricle to visit the Queen of Madagascar.
Doctor Lyall is writing a quarto from Madagascar,
to deny the statement in toto; admitting, however,
that there is a rumour of the being of some nondescript
of the kind in the mountains, somewhat between the
size of the elephant and the Shetland pony; but that
he and we think the subject-matter will turn out asinine.
But now a Mr. Ruppell, after a long sojourn in the
north-east of Africa, comes at once to cheer and dishearten
us by the discovery, that in Kordofan, if any one
knows where that is, the unicorn exists; stated to
be of the size of a small horse, of the slender make
of the gazelle, and furnished with a long, straight,
slender horn in the male, which was wanting in the
female. According to the statements made by various
persons, it inhabits the deserts to the south of Kordofan,
is uncommonly fleet, and comes only occasionally to
the Koldagi Heive mountains on the borders of Kordofan.
This, it must be acknowledged, is a sad falling off
from the rival of the lion, that we have honoured
so long in the arms of England. But we sincerely
hope, that by the next arrival, it will not degenerate
into a cow, or worse, a goat. But he tells us,
that to our knowledge of the giraffe he has added
considerably. He obtained in Nubia and Kordofan
five specimens, two of which were males and three
females. He regards the horns as constituting
the principal generic character, they being formed
by distinct bones, united to the frontal and parietal
bones by a very obvious suture, and having throughout
the same structure with the other bones. In both
sexes one of these abnormal bones is situated on each
branch of the coronal suture, and the male possesses
an additional one placed more anteriorly, and occupying
the middle of the frontal suture. The anomalous
position of this appendage furnishes a complete refutation
of the theory of Camper with regard to the unicorn,
that such an occurrence was contrary to nature, and
proves at least the possibility of the existence of
such an animal. Professor Camper is an ass, of
course; but when are we to expect any thing better
from the illustrissimi of the land of sour-krout?
Give a Doctor Magnificus his due allowance of the