"The Indian Sea breedeth the most and the biggest fishes that are: among
which the Whales and Whirlpooles
called Balaene, take up as much in length as
four acres or arpens of land."
HOLLAND'S PLINY.
"Scarcely had we proceeded two days on the sea, when about sunrise a great
many Whales and other
monsters of the sea, appeared. Among the former, one was
of a most monstrous size. * * This came
towards us, open-mouthed, raising the
waves on all sides, and beating the sea before him into a foam."
TOOKE'S
LUCIAN. "THE TRUE HISTORY."
"He visited this country also with a view of catching horse-whales, which had
bones of very great value
for their teeth, of which he brought some to the king.
* * * The best whales were catched in his own country,
of which some were
forty-eight, some fifty yards long. He said that he was one of six who had
killed sixty
in two days."
OTHER OR OCTHER'S VERBAL NARRATIVE TAKEN DOWN
FROM HIS MOUTH BY KING
ALFRED, A.D. 890.
"And whereas all the other things, whether beast or vessel, that enter into
the dreadful gulf of this monster's
(whale's) mouth, are immediately lost and
swallowed up, the sea-gudgeon retires into it in great security,
and there sleeps."
MONTAIGNE.APOLOGY FOR RAIMOND SEBOND.
"Let us fly, let us fly! Old Nick take me if is not Leviathan described by
the noble prophet Moses in the
life of patient Job."
RABELAIS.
"This whale's liver was two cartloads."
STOWE'S ANNALS.
"The great Leviathan that maketh the seas to seethe like boiling pan."
LORD BACON'S VERSION OF
THE PSALMS.
"Touching that monstrous bulk of the whale or ork we have received nothing
certain. They grow exceeding
fat, insomuch that an incredible quantity of oil
will be extracted out of one whale."
IBID. "HISTORY OF
LIFE AND DEATH."
"The sovereignest thing on earth is parmacetti for an inward bruise."
KING HENRY.
"Very like a whale."
HAMLET.
Mote him availle, but to returne againe
To his wound's worker, that with lowly dart,
Dinting his breast, had bred his restless paine,
Like as the wounded whale to shore flies thro' the maine."
THE FAERIE QUEEN.
"Immense as whales, the motion of whose vast bodies can in a peaceful calm
trouble the ocean til it
boil."
SIR WILLIAM DAVENANT. PREFACE TO GONDIBERT.
"What spermacetti is, men might justly doubt, since the learned Hosmannus in
his work of thirty years,
saith plainly, Nescio quid sit."
SIR T. BROWNE. OF SPERMA CETI AND THE SPERMA CETI WHALE.
VIDE HIS V. E.
He threatens ruin with his ponderous tail.
* * * *
Their fixed jav'lins in his side he wears,
And on his back a grove of pikes appears."
WALLER'S BATTLE OF THE SUMMER ISLANDS.
"By art is created that great Leviathan, called a Commonwealth or State- (in
Latin, Civitas) which is but
an artificial man."
OPENING SENTENCE OF HOBBES'S LEVIATHAN.
"Silly Mansoul swallowed it without chewing, as if it had been a sprat in
the mouth of a whale."
PILGRIM'S
PROGRESS.
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