[Editor's Easy Chair.]
AN OLD GENTLEMAN'S LETTER.
THE STORY OF "THE BRIDE OF LANDECK."
The small town of Landeck, in the Vorarlberg, is surrounded by mountains, which take exceedingly picturesque forms from their peculiar geological structure. I can not stop in my tale to enter into any details regarding the geology of the country; but I remember once talking to Buckland about it, when I met him with Professor Sedgwick at the English Cambridge, some two or three-and-twenty years ago. Poor Buckland has, I hear, since fallen into indifferent health; but at the period I speak of he was full of life and energy, and one of the most entertaining men I ever met. Our acquaintance was of no long duration; for I was hurrying through that part of the world with great rapidity, and had hardly time to accomplish all that I proposed. I saw a great deal of him, however, and heard a great deal of him then, and once afterward; and there was a certain sort of enthusiastic simplicity about him, not uncommon in men of science, which made him the subject of many good stories, whether true or false I will not pretend to say. His fondness for every thing connected with the subject of Natural history amounted to a complete passion; and he was not at all scrupulous, they said, as to whom it was exercised upon. I heard a laughable anecdote illustrative of this propensity. There had been, shortly before, a great meeting at Oxford of scientific men, and of those fashionable hangers-on upon the skirts of science, who feeling themselves but so many units in the mass of the beau monde, seek to gain a little extrinsic brilliancy from stars and comets, strata, atoms, and machinery. Buckland asked a good number of the most distinguished of all classes to dine with him on one of the days of this scientific fair. During the morning he delivered a lecture in his lecture-room before all his friends upon Comparative Anatomy—showed the relation between existing and extinct species of animals—exhibited several very perfect specimens of fossil saurians—dissected a very fine alligator sent to him from the Mississippi—washed his hands—walked his friends about Oxford, and went home to dinner. His house and all his establishment were in good style and taste. His guests congregated; the dinner table looked splendid, with glass, china, and plate, and the meal commenced with excellent soup.
"How do you like that soup?" asked the Doctor, after having finished his own plate, addressing a famous gourmand of the day.
"Very good, indeed," answered the other; "Turtle, is it not? I only ask because I did not find any green fat."
The Doctor shook his head.
"I think it has somewhat of a musky taste," said another; "not unpleasant, but peculiar."
"All alligators have," replied Buckland. "The Cayman peculiarly so. The fellow whom I dissected this morning, and whom you have just been eating—"
There was a general rout of the whole guests. Every one turned pale. Half-a-dozen started up from table. Two or three ran out of the room and vomited; and only those who had stout stomachs remained to the close of an excellent entertainment.