1 1 4 The Poets and Nature. 



honours by their force of character. For instance, the 

 salmon, so lordly in its nature as to worthily justify the name 

 of that proud King of Elis who defied Olympus. But he 

 was hurled to the shades by a judiciously directed thunder- 

 bolt, and thus abundantly expiated his arrogant obliquities. 

 So too the shark, that awful Attila of the sea ; and the 

 pike also, the " dispeopler of the lake," that by its ferocity 

 of countenance and manners usurps the autocracy of the 

 reedy pond. Other fish again have compassed dignity by 

 the passive virtues of their flesh. Did not Domitian order 

 a special session of the Senate to discuss the cooking of a 

 turbot, and " nihil ad rhombum " all Lombard Street to a 

 China orange pass into a proverb ? What man in Rome 

 would not have been a lamprey to be petted by the beautiful 

 wife of Drusus? and what a pitch of dignity they attained 

 to in the households of epicures, those mullet, and muraena, 

 and carp. But by far the greatest number have achieved 

 distinction by legendary exploits, or by accidents of honour. 

 Thus the dolphin and the tortoise, or the haddock and the 

 John Dory. It was a crab that retrieved the crucifix of St. 

 Xavier from the sea 



" Nor let Xavier's great wonders pass concealed, 

 How storms were by the Almighty wafer quelled, 

 How zealous crab the sacred image bore, 

 And swam a Catholic to the distant shore" 



and to a codfish that Scandinavia owed its recovered crown. 

 Was it not a fish that guided the Vedic ark to its resting-place, 

 the hill-peak Naubandha? 



" In the whole world of creation, 



None were seen but these seven sages, Manu and the Fish. 

 Years on years, and still unwearied, drew this Fish the bark along, 

 Till at length it came where reared Himavan its loftiest peak ; 

 There at length they came, and smiling, thus the Fish addressed the Sage : 

 ' Bind now thy stately vessel to the peak Himavan ! ' 

 At the Fish's mandate, quickly to the peak of Himavan 

 Bound the Sage his bark ; and even to this day that loftiest peak 

 Bears the name Naubandha," 



