* * * * *

This chapter is one of varied material, and I now pass abruptly from
fresh emerald leaflets to the waxy crystals stewed out of the fat of a
monster's head. There has seldom been a controversy so entertaining as
that between Dr. Bode (the talented director of the Art Gallery of
Berlin) and his opponents, in regard to the age of the wax-bust which
he purchased not long ago for L8,000 in Bond Street in the belief that
it was the work of Leonardo da Vinci. Science has had its share in the
examination of the bust. The last scientific contribution to the
matter was the discovery by an analytical chemist, Dr. Pinkus, that
the waxy mixture of which the bust is composed consists in definite
proportion of spermaceti. Now since spermaceti was not used before the
year 1700, the bust cannot (say Dr. Bode's opponents) have been made
by Leonardo da Vinci, who died in the early part of the sixteenth
century. "Nonsense!" reply Dr. Bode's supporters, "Shakespeare makes
Hotspur speak of 'parmaceti,' and it was well known to the doctors of
Salerno in 1100 A.D., and probably used by the ancients."

Nevertheless, the opponents of Dr. Bode are right. I am sorry, because
Dr. Bode is, in regard to "works of art," a most able expert, and I
think it is better that experts should always be right. Spermaceti was
known, probably from classical times onwards, as a rare and precious
unguent, "resolutive and mollifying," as M. Pomel, "chief druggist to
the late French King Louis XIV," says in his treatise on drugs,
translated into English in 1737. It was applied as a liniment for
hardness of the skin and breasts, and was also taken internally.
Shakespeare's reference to it is "parmaceti for an inward bruise." The
fact is it was known and used in small quantity before 1700 A.D. in
connection with medicine and the toilet, but was not consumed by the
thousand tons a year, as it was after the hunting of the sperm whale
or cachalot (_Physeter mecrocephalus_) had been set a-going by the
brave fishermen of Nantucket and the Northern Atlantic coast of
America in 1690. In 1730 or thereabouts the English and the Dutch also
sent out ships to take part in this perilous industry, which is now
again, in its dwindled condition, exclusively American. It is the
pursuit of by far the biggest and fiercest animal which man has doomed
to extinction. Those who enjoy such stories of adventure should read
Mr. Bullen's personal narrative, "