LECT 'RE I. 5 



Deeming some island, oft, as seamen tell. 

 With fixed anchor in his scaly rind. 

 Moors by his side under the lee, while night 

 Invests the sea, and wished morn delays." 



But none of the whale-tribe are furnished with 

 scales, or any thing analogous to them. It must 

 be acknowledged, however, that this observation 

 may appear a mere piece of hypercriticism, and 

 that Alilton by the expression of scaly rind, might 

 only mean rough or scaly, in the same sense that 

 those epithets are often applied to the bark of a 

 tree, or any other irregular surface. There can 

 be little doubt, however, that real and proper scales 

 were intended by the poet, nor is it difficult to dis- 

 cover the particular circumstance which impressed 

 Milton with this erroneous idea, viz. a figure in the 

 works of Gesner, so injudiciously expressed as to ap- 

 pear on a cursory view, as if coated with large scales, 

 scales, with a vessel near it, and an inscription above 

 it, importing that sailors often mistake a whale 

 for an island, and thus endanger themselves by 

 attempting to anchor upon it. As the general 

 learning and extensive reading of our great poet 

 are so well known, it can hardly be doubted that 

 he was conversant with the writings of Gesnerj 



