“He visited this country also with a view of catching horse-whales, which had bones of very great value for their teeth, of which he brought some to the king.... The best whales were catched in his own country, of which some were forty-eight, some fifty yards long. He said that he was one of six who had killed sixty in two days.” —_Other or Other’s verbal narrative taken down from his mouth by King Alfred, A.D._ 890.
“And whereas all the other things, whether beast or vessel, that enter into the dreadful gulf of this monster’s (whale’s) mouth, are immediately lost and swallowed up, the sea-gudgeon retires into it in great security, and there sleeps.” —MONTAIGNE. —_Apology for Raimond Sebond_.
“Let us fly, let us fly! Old Nick take me if it is not Leviathan described by the noble prophet Moses in the life of patient Job.” —_Rabelais_.
“This whale’s liver was two cartloads.” —_Stowe’s Annals_.
“The great Leviathan that maketh the seas to seethe like boiling pan.” —_Lord Bacon’s Version of the Psalms_.
“Touching that monstrous bulk of the whale or ork we have received nothing certain. They grow exceeding fat, insomuch that an incredible quantity of oil will be extracted out of one whale.” —_Ibid_. “_History of Life and Death_.”
“The sovereignest thing on earth is parmacetti for an inward bruise.” —_King Henry_.
“Very like a whale.” —_Hamlet_.
“Which to secure, no skill of leach’s art Mote him availle, but to returne againe To his wound’s worker, that with lowly dart, Dinting his breast, had bred his restless paine, Like as the wounded whale to shore flies thro’ the maine.” —_The Fairie Queen_.
“Immense as whales, the motion of whose vast bodies can in a peaceful calm trouble the ocean till it boil.” —_Sir William Davenant. Preface to Gondibert_.
“What spermacetti is, men might justly doubt, since the learned Hosmannus in his work of thirty years, saith plainly, _Nescio quid sit_.” —_Sir T. Browne. Of Sperma Ceti and the Sperma Ceti Whale. Vide his V. E._
“Like Spencer’s Talus with his modern flail He threatens ruin with his ponderous tail. ... Their fixed jav’lins in his side he wears, And on his back a grove of pikes appears.” —_Waller’s Battle of the Summer Islands_.
“By art is created that great Leviathan, called a Commonwealth or State—(in Latin, Civitas) which is but an artificial man.” —_Opening sentence of Hobbes’s Leviathan_.
“Silly Mansoul swallowed it without chewing, as if it had been a sprat in the mouth of a whale.” —_Pilgrim’s Progress_.
“That sea beast Leviathan, which God of all his works Created hugest that swim the ocean stream.” —_Paradise Lost_.
—“There Leviathan, Hugest of living creatures, in the deep Stretched like a promontory sleeps or swims, And seems a moving land; and at his gills Draws in, and at his breath spouts out a sea.” —_Ibid_.
“The mighty whales which swim in a sea of water, and have a sea of oil swimming in them.” —_Fuller’s Profane and Holy State_.
“So close behind some promontory lie The huge Leviathan to attend their prey, And give no chance, but swallow in the fry, Which through their gaping jaws mistake the way.” —_Dryden’s Annus Mirabilis_.
“While the whale is floating at the stern of the ship, they cut off his head, and tow it with a boat as near the shore as it will come; but it will be aground in twelve or thirteen feet water.” —_Thomas Edge’s Ten Voyages to Spitzbergen, in Purchas_.
“In their way they saw many whales sporting in the ocean, and in wantonness fuzzing up the water through their pipes and vents, which nature has placed on their shoulders.” —_Sir T. Herbert’s Voyages into Asia and Africa. Harris Coll_.
“Here they saw such huge troops of whales, that they were forced to proceed with a great deal of caution for fear they should run their ship upon them.” —_Schouten’s Sixth Circumnavigation_.
“We set sail from the Elbe, wind N.E. in the ship called The Jonas-in-the-Whale.... Some say the whale can’t open his mouth, but that is a fable.... They frequently climb up the masts to see whether they can see a whale, for the first discoverer has a ducat for his pains.... I was told of a whale taken near Shetland, that had above a barrel of herrings in his belly.... One of our harpooneers told me that he caught once a whale in Spitzbergen that was white all over.” —_A Voyage to Greenland, A.D._ 1671. _Harris Coll_.
“Several whales have come in upon this coast (Fife) Anno 1652, one eighty feet in length of the whale-bone kind came in, which (as I was informed), besides a vast quantity of oil, did afford 500 weight of baleen. The jaws of it stand for a gate in the garden of Pitferren.” —_Sibbald’s Fife and Kinross_.
“Myself have agreed to try whether I can master and kill this Sperma-ceti whale, for I could never hear of any of that sort that was killed by any man, such is his fierceness and swiftness.” —_Richard Strafford’s Letter from the Bermudas. Phil. Trans. A.D._ 1668.
“Whales in the sea God’s voice obey.” —_N. E. Primer_.
“We saw also abundance of large whales, there being more in those southern seas, as I may say, by a hundred to one; than we have to the northward of us.” —_Captain Cowley’s Voyage round the Globe, A.D._ 1729.
“... and the breath of the whale is frequently attended with such an insupportable smell, as to bring on a disorder of the brain.” —_Ulloa’s South America_.
“To fifty chosen sylphs of special note, We trust the important charge, the petticoat. Oft have we known that seven-fold fence to fail, Tho’ stuffed with hoops and armed with ribs of whale.” —_Rape of the Lock_.
“If we compare land animals in respect to magnitude, with those that take up their abode in the deep, we shall find they will appear contemptible in the comparison. The whale is doubtless the largest animal in creation.” —_Goldsmith, Nat. Hist_.
“If you should write a fable for little fishes, you would make them speak like great whales.” —_Goldsmith to Johnson_.
“In the afternoon we saw what was supposed to be a rock, but it was found to be a dead whale, which some Asiatics had killed, and were then towing ashore. They seemed to endeavor to conceal themselves behind the whale, in order to avoid being seen by us.” —_Cook’s Voyages_.
“The larger whales, they seldom venture to attack. They stand in so great dread of some of them, that when out at sea they are afraid to mention even their names, and carry dung, lime-stone, juniper-wood, and some other articles of the same nature in their boats, in order to terrify and prevent their too near approach.” —_Uno Von Troil’s Letters on Banks’s and Solander’s Voyage to Iceland in_ 1772.
“The Spermacetti Whale found by the Nantuckois, is an active, fierce animal, and requires vast address and boldness in the fishermen.” —_Thomas Jefferson’s Whale Memorial to the French minister in_ 1778.
“And pray, sir, what in the world is equal to it?” —_Edmund Burke’s reference in Parliament to the Nantucket Whale-Fishery_.
“Spain—a great whale stranded on the shores of Europe.” —_Edmund Burke_. (_somewhere_.)
“A tenth branch of the king’s ordinary revenue, said to be grounded on the consideration of his guarding and protecting the seas from pirates and robbers, is the right to _royal_ fish, which are whale and sturgeon. And these, when either thrown ashore or caught near the coast, are the property of the king.” —_Blackstone_.
“Soon to the sport of death the crews repair: Rodmond unerring o’er his head suspends The barbed steel, and every turn attends.” —_Falconer’s Shipwreck_.
“Bright shone the roofs, the domes, the spires, And rockets blew self driven, To hang their momentary fire Around the vault of heaven.
“So fire with water to compare, The ocean serves on high, Up-spouted by a whale in air, To express unwieldy joy.” —_Cowper, on the Queen’s Visit to London_.
“Ten or fifteen gallons of blood are thrown out of the heart at a stroke, with immense velocity.” —_John Hunter’s account of the dissection of a whale_. (_A small sized one_.)
“The aorta of a whale is larger in the bore than the main pipe of the water-works at London Bridge, and the water roaring in its passage through that pipe is inferior in impetus and velocity to the blood gushing from the whale’s heart.” —_Paley’s Theology_.