no The Poets and Natiire. 



of some particularly grim creature such as Spenser's " griesly 

 wasserman," that 



"Makes his game 

 The flying ships ; " 



or " the horrible sea satyre " " that doth show his fearful face 

 in time of greatest storm ; " or " the greedy rosmarines with 

 visages deforme." Land monsters are all well enough. 

 Amphibious ones just pass muster. But purely aquatic 

 monsters are absurd. The poets, it is true, affect to believe 

 in the fiction that the water holds an exact counterpart of 

 the geology of the dry land 



" For seas as well as skies have sun, moon, stars ; 

 As well as air swallows, rooks, and stares ; 

 As well as earth vines, roses, rushes, melons, 

 Mushrooms, pinks, gilliflowers, and many millions 

 Of other plants, more rare, more strange than these, 

 As very fishes, living in the seas ; 

 As also rams, calves, horses, hares, and hogs, 

 Wolves, urchins, lions, elephants, and dogs, 

 Yea, men and maids, and, which I most admire, 

 The mitred Bishop and the cowled Friar, 

 Of which examples, but a few years since, 

 Was shown in Norway the Polonian prince." 



But they treat the marine Fauna of Fancy individually 

 as inferior imitations of their terrestrial equivalents. 



It was a common myth this that the sea held a duplicate 

 of every animal on the earth, and antiquity therefore was 

 familiar with many marine equivalents for their land beasts, 

 even though they could find no better resemblances for the 

 corresponding terrestrial beasts than a lobster for the " lion," 

 a crab for the "bear," a skate for the "ox," a dog-fish for 

 the "dog," and an eel for the "wolf." The names were 

 probably given at first simply to indicate a single point 

 of fancied resemblance, but eventually some imaginative 

 theorist, seeing so many correspondences recognised, hit 

 upon the idea of extending the identities throughout creation. 

 The attempt, however, was a complete failure, and the 



