is depicted in full majesty of might, just risen beneath
the boat from the profundities of the ocean, and bearing high in the air
upon his back the terrific wreck of the stoven planks. The prow of
the boat is partially unbroken, and is drawn just balancing upon
the monster's spine; and standing in that prow, for that one single
incomputable flash of time, you behold an oarsman, half shrouded by the
incensed boiling spout of the whale, and in the act of leaping, as if
from a precipice. The action of the whole thing is wonderfully good and
true. The half-emptied line-tub floats on the whitened sea; the wooden
poles of the spilled harpoons obliquely bob in it; the heads of the
swimming crew are scattered about the whale in contrasting expressions
of affright; while in the black stormy distance the ship is bearing down
upon the scene. Serious fault might be found with the anatomical details
of this whale, but let that pass; since, for the life of me, I could not
draw so good a one.

In the second engraving, the boat is in the act of drawing alongside
the barnacled flank of a large running Right Whale, that rolls his black
weedy bulk in the sea like some mossy rock-slide from the Patagonian
cliffs. His jets are erect, full, and black like soot; so that from so
abounding a smoke in the chimney, you would think there must be a brave
supper cooking in the great bowels below. Sea fowls are pecking at the
small crabs, shell-fish, and other sea candies and maccaroni, which the
Right Whale sometimes carries on his pestilent back. And all the while
the thick-lipped leviathan is rushing through the deep, leaving tons of
tumultuous white curds in his wake, and causing the slight boat to rock
in the swells like a skiff caught nigh the paddle-wheels of an ocean
steamer. Thus, the foreground is all raging commotion; but behind, in
admirable artistic contrast, is the glassy level of a sea becalmed, the
drooping unstarched sails of the powerless ship, and the inert mass of
a dead whale, a conquered fortress, with the flag of capture lazily
hanging from the whale-pole inserted into his spout-hole.

Who Garnery the painter is, or was, I know not. But my life for it he
was either practically conversant with his subject, or else marvellously
tutored by some experienced whaleman. The French are the lads for
painting action. Go and gaze upon all the paintings of Europe, and
where will you find such a gallery of living and breathing commotion
on