LETTER XX. 



137 



greed and gluttony. Milton supposes Satan to have entered 

 its form before assuming that of a serpent. 



" Thence up he flew, and on the tree of life, 

 The middle tree, and highest there that grew, 

 Sat like a cormorant." 



Indeed, the sepulchral gloom of its dark, dank abode, its sombre 

 plumage, melancholy aspect, its silence, but rarely broken, and 

 then only by a sad foreboding croak, might all join to inspire a 



sort of prejudice against the poor bird, independently of his rather 

 dirty habits. And truly his cave does not smell savoury ; and even 

 from the rock out in the open sea, where groups of these grave- 

 looking citizens of the deep sit and rest themselves on their return 

 from the fishery business, when approached to leeward, a breeze 

 is borne down upon us very unlike what is wafted off the balmy 

 Spice Islands, but rather such as we might expect from a city of 

 Esquimaux when holding high wassail in brimming beakers 

 tapped from a stranded whale. 



