MEMOIR OP GESNER. 47 



scales, and having the face of a man ; the monk and 

 bishop fish, strongly resembling the parties from 

 whom they derive their names, but with the visage 

 somewhat distorted, and the figure slightly pisci- 

 form; a marine Pan or Satyr; several monstrous 

 cetaceous animals, with snouts like a hog, and al- 

 most capable of swallowing a moderate sized ship ; 

 the monoceros or unicorn; two wild men of the 

 woods ; the hydra with seven heads like those of a 

 human being, &c. None of these monsters origi- 

 nated with Gesner; they are in every instance 

 adopted from other authors, who produce a kind of 

 hearsay evidence to justify their descriptions. In a 

 general work like Gesner's, their entire exclusion 

 would have been scarcely warrantable ; he does all 

 that can be expected of him ; intimates his suspi- 

 cion of their authenticity, and cites the authority on 

 which they rest. "With regard to the seven-headed 

 dragon, the most absurd of the whole, he distinctly 

 states that it is to be regarded as equally fabulous 

 with Castor and Pollux, or any other fancies of the 

 heathen mythology ; and with this belief it would 

 have been better to have excluded it ; but he wished 

 to gratify his readers by the representation of a spe- 

 cimen said to have been brought from Turkey to 

 Venice, and which appears to have been so skilfully 

 manufactured as to deceive for a time even the most 

 incredulous. As to many of the sea-monsters, par- 

 ticularly the huge cetacea and snakes, we are not 

 yet in a condition to say that they do not exist ; on 

 the contrary, there is every reason, arising from 



