With a majestic motion he moved his pathetic tail, and forth they came in grand procession, the "Happy Family" being headed by old Mother Hubbard's dog and Dick Whittington's cat, in neighborly proximity.
From a hurried inspection I was enabled to gather the following items: The Trojan horse was suffering from indigestion; Coleridge's "mastiff bitch" has just become the happy mother of thirteen lovely cherubs, and is "as well as can be expected;" "the rat that eat the malt that lay in the house that Jack built" says the Maine Law would have spared him that early indiscretion; Balaam's ass had his jaw tied up with the toothache; Rozinante was in good racing condition; St. George's dragon looks much more amiable than I should have supposed; Bucephalus and Old Whitey had been fighting a pitched battle, and are on short allowance of oats for insubordination; the Fee Jee mermaid said she had got tired of her Caudal appendage, and desired me to ask Barnum, if her tail must be continued.
Jonah's whale, some time since, swallowed the Nassau-st. four-cent man, but gave him up, like a second Jonah, and he is now on his old "stamping-ground" again. In the distance, I perceived John Gilpin's horse, and the bull that was unceremoniously displaced from a well known architectural elevation, and was informed that Nebuchadnezzar, who had not yet lost his fondness for greens, sometimes shares their pasture with them.
The Black Swan, the Swan of Avon, and the patriotic geese whose intellectual cackling saved Imperial Rome, were enjoying themselves in catching tadpoles in a duck-pond.
Walter Scott's dog Maida, Beth Gelert, Launce's dog, old dog Tray, and the other "Tray, Blanche, and Sweet-heart," were discussing canine politics over a beef-bone.
The Sea Serpent appeared, but was so dimly visible that I could only judge him to be about the average length.
Edgar A. Poe's Raven and Barnaby Rudge's Grip had just been detected stealing corn from a quail trap, and hiding it in an empty powder-horn.
Many other birds of note were pointed out, and their situation and prospects explained by the obliging Pluto.
And, even as one of our most learned, wise and illustrious rulers, and his brother Rapperites, have demonstrated that the spirits of the departed are busied in employments similar to their earthly ones, so did my reliable Pluto state similar facts concerning the honorable company of beasts, birds, and reptiles. His discourse ran much as follows: