242 
MOBY DICK; OR 
wall, depicting the incarnation of Vishnu in the form of leviathan, 
learnedly known as the Matse Avatar. But though this sculpture is 
half man and half whale, so as only to give the tail of the latter, yet 
that small section of him is all wrong. It looks more like the tapering 
tail of an anaconda, than the broad palm of the true whale’s majestic 
flukes. 
But go to the old Galleries, and look now at a great Christian painter’s 
portrait of this fish; for he succeeds no better than the antediluvian 
• Hindoo. It is Guido’s picture of Perseus rescuing Andromeda from 
the sea-monster or whale. Where did Guido get the model of such a 
strange creature as that? fSTor does Hogarth, in painting that same 
scene in his own “Perseus Descending,” make out one whit better. 
The huge corpulence of that Hogarthian monster uiidulatefe on the 
surface, scarcely drawing one inch of water. It has a sort of howdah 
on its back, and its distended tusked mouth into which the billows 
are rolling, might be taken for the Traitors’ Gate leading from the 
Thames by water into the Tower. Then, there are the Prodromus 
whales of old Scotch Sibbald, and Jonah’s whale, as depicted in the 
prints of old Bibles and the cuts of old primers. What shall be said 
of these? As for the bookbinder’s whale winding like a vinestalk 
round the stalk of a descending anchor — as stamped and gilded on the 
backs and title-pages of many books both old and new — that is a very 
picturesque but purely fabulous creature, imitated, I take it, from the 
like figures on antique vases. Though universally denominated a 
dolphin, I nevertheless call this bookbinder’s fish an attempt at a whale ; 
because it was so intended when the device was first introduced. It was 
introduced by an old Italian publisher somewhere about the 15th cen- 
tury, during the Kevival of Learning ; and in those days, and even down 
to a comparatively late period, dolphins were popularly supposed to 
be a species of the Leviathan. 
In the vignettes and other embellishments of some ancient books 
you will at times meet with very curious touches at the whale, where 
all manner of spouts, jete d’eau, hot springs and cold, Saratoga and 
Baden-Baden, come bubbling up from his. unexhausted brain. In 
the title-page of the original edition of the Advancement of Learning 
you will find some curious whales. 
