THE BOOK OF THE GREAT SEA-DRAGONS. 
19 
spinous apophyses hold on upon one another until the 
vertebras, recovering themselves, proceed more orderly 
toward the natural bend of the tail; there they are irrevo¬ 
cably scattered, one of them being driven two or three 
inches out of his track; but die tail, nevertheless, pro¬ 
ceeds, one bone following the other nearly to the end, 
when the same disturbing power against which the whole 
Spine contended with so much difficulty, succeeds in 
carrying off the Rattle, which is lost for ever. 
It is impossible to laud the vertebral Column of this 
Tanin too much. It lies in ruins, one joint fallen upon 
another frequent, but the ruin is more impressive than 
the uprightest shaft. The waters of the Great Deep over¬ 
turned it lovingly, and the gravid Seas fell lightly over 
it. Just as the Sculptor leaves his finished work, we find 
these remains uncrushed, perfect, but overthrown. If the 
Architect did once build them up, they have been quietly 
undermined by that interesting Decay, which, stealing the 
more evanescent Emblems of Time, compunctiously leaves 
the radicle Beauty behind, and sometimes even a grace 
passing that which is conjured away. 
Another valuable fact belonging to this Dragon is also 
obtained. Falling down upon his back, we have the 
abdominal concavity exposed ; and the fortunate displace¬ 
ment of certain of the left ribs discloses a body which 
can only belong to the Viscera themselves: its color is 
russet black, it covers the internal paries of the right ribs, 
and gathers itself up upon them into a bag, the size of an 
infant’s hand. But the most precise words avail little to 
describe it; the moment you look there into the abdomen, 
you believe you see the stomach collapsed, and a few 
meagre contents besieging the intestinal canal; these are 
manifestly so insufficient to his sustentation, that the 
Dragon at once appears, inane, languidly sinking to the 
bottom of the Sea, and giving up the famished ghost. 
The Solemn Seas themselves hold requiem over his 
bones, and old Time, warned to the scene, agitates them 
in his turn. The Profound quivers, accordant with the 
upper waves, the dead Carcase of the Dragon moves, and 
there in the presence of Time, and before the Shivering 
waters, uplifts his hands. Slowly the waters cease vibra¬ 
tion, Time throws the Shroud of Oblivion over another of 
his sacred dragons, “ injecta monstris Terra dolet suis;” 
and the Cycles onward run. 
SECT. IV. 
Species IV. Rostro porrecto. Tab. XXIII. 
The thoughtless avidity with which Fashion pursues 
the minutest distinctions of things, the microscopic eye 
with which she pries into nature, has filled the world with 
books of description without an Idea by which they can 
only deserve to exist. We dive into the Deeps for an 
animalcule, prick out his tiny heart with the faintest 
needle, and complacently count up the pulses which fulfil 
his life of scarcely a moment’s duration. The invisible 
tentacles of a Zoophyte, the feathers of an Ephemeris, the 
ova of a herring, the farina of the most prolific plants, 
are the favorite objects of study, because they afford the 
Times exactly the childish sport which interests them 
most. 
The natural eye of a man, steadily fixed upon a given 
point, loses its sight; and Savages, as soon as they can 
count their fingers, in an extasy, proceed to count them 
over again and again. And so it is with Nations. When 
the World, having passed away, the final summation of 
Empires, and their achievements, shall be cast up by the 
Arithmetic of Jehovah, we shall learn that Peoples have 
forgotten, nay, lost themselves in the gainless Spirit to 
which we allude. It may be, it is very well to compre¬ 
hend and enjoy every thing in its measure; but the Cyclops 
none the less so understood lesser things, because, forging 
the thunderbolts of Jupiter, they comprehended a vastness 
and a grandeur which obtains them Immortality. These 
were the primitive Giants of Renown, who if they did 
err, it was like as gods, and as gods were they used too. 
The Modern Goths need not wonder that the Latins 
and Greeks boast only an Aristotle and a Pliny, while 
every dish and saucer from China, and every Shawl from 
the looms of Ispahan and India glows with minutest Iris’ 
copied from the Flora of the papilionaceous East. But 
these have Persepolis and Elephanta, and many other 
mighty Works, and much Wisdom too, upon which no 
European has ever safely ventured forth; while we, the 
Crowned Kings of Men, effect nothing worthy acceptance 
of the Generations that are to come. 
All our most original Essays tend but to a little point ; 
we have admitted a convention which smiles at every 
thing beyond a certain meridian, and pride ourselves in 
that Hermaphrodite Reason which Antiquity tolerated 
but by degrees. A disposition like this leads but to ex¬ 
tinction; the Tritchinopoly chains are much esteemed, 
but the patient Smith who forges them is a Slave. In 
fact, nothing little in Nature is worth more than an in¬ 
stant’s notice, since she has filled all her Kingdoms with 
Monuments of surpassing Grandeur, which the longest- 
lived Nations can hope to glimpse barely a half. 
Who then can endure to pore over the infinitessimal 
differences of age, of race, of color, of shape, in which 
Creatures are found. Will not posterity deem us triflers 
for the pains taken to record so many minute points, even 
while we neglect the greater Principles of Things. And 
all our more elaborate Works on Natural History, will 
they not pass unheeding by them, seeing that the persons 
they so laboriously set forth are common to the eyes and 
understandings of all men. 
We coast the Marginal Countries of the Earth indus¬ 
triously, crowding our Log with accounts of the grasses, 
the herbs, and mosses which fringe their shores; and it is 
at last come to this, that Naturalists assiduously search 
after a new thing in vain, since the contraction of our 
vision has put out of its focus all that is not adjusted to 
the circumscribed field to which it is so foolishly confined. 
Hence individuals are ever contending over the last found 
Helix, or the latest variety of a thing, so that the tulipo- 
mania of the last Century luxuriates in another but no 
less exaggerated a Species, and distracts the domains of 
Science, in which the Ancients scarcely ever heard, nor 
would they have tolerated a brawl. 
Every tree bleeds under a thousand knives inscribing 
as many names; every leaf groans expectant of a like 
fate. The Vandal treads not alone our Cathedrals, he 
not alone desecrates their Sacred Marble and Shrines 
with his savage Name; the Realms of Creation are in- 
