PLATE LVII. 



perfectly human, and deviating much less from the symmetry of a 

 well-proportioned European than a negro. Since this representation 



Strange that the hills and briny seas should share 



A lover, in a kind consenting pair.'' Jones Halieut, Book iv. 



OBSERVATIONS IN CONCLUSION UPON THIS PRESUMED 



MERMAID." 



A few remarks further and we shall conclude. The history of this very 

 absurd deformity is, that it was found on board a native vessel in the archi- 

 pelago of the Malaccas; and that a Dutch vessel carried it to Batavia, where 

 it was purchased at a very considerable price. This price is stated to be 

 5,000 dollars, and it is added further that 10,000 dollars had been since 

 offered for this presumed inestimable article, and had been refused. 

 We are besides told, that " uncultivated as the minds were of those from 

 whose hands the creature was obtained, its resemblance to the human form 

 created an instinctive awe, the pagans beholding with astonishment its 

 amalgamation of forms.'' All this may be, and we have no doubt its fabri- 

 cator beheld with no less pleasure than the pagans did surprise, the labours 

 of his hands as the great work of transformation was proceeding when, 

 like another Bacchus, as the fabler Ovid relates of the mariners changed 

 to fishes, he transformed a being of the forest into a finny monster of the 

 sea ; 



Primusque Medon nigrescere pinnis 

 Corpore depresso, et spinas curvamene flecti 

 Incipit. Ovid Metam. 



From all that has been advanced by us upon the subject, this conclusion 

 must be obvious, that we deem the " Mermaid " a very gross deception, 

 and rest so entirely and distinctly satisfied in this persuasion that we do 

 not regard it as a matter of opinion but of certainty. That imposition was 

 manifestly the object of its Asiatic inventor remains unquestionable ; there 

 are, however, circumstances connected with its history, which seem at 

 least to render it probable that it was originally intended as an imposition 

 on Asiatic credulity rather than European discrimination, although this has 

 been, and to a very great extent, the result eventually. We are told that 

 the pagans into whose hands this object fell, are worshippers of the Mermaid; 

 this observation, if we mistake not, will tend to elucidate the mystery and 

 object the fabricator had in view : there is no such worship among the pagans 

 of our days as that of the Mermaid ; two thousand years have passed away 



