canvas, as in that triumphal hall at Versailles; where the beholder
fights his way, pell-mell, through the consecutive great battles of
France; where every sword seems a flash of the Northern Lights, and the
successive armed kings and Emperors dash by, like a charge of crowned
centaurs? Not wholly unworthy of a place in that gallery, are these sea
battle-pieces of Garnery.

The natural aptitude of the French for seizing the picturesqueness of
things seems to be peculiarly evinced in what paintings and engravings
they have of their whaling scenes. With not one tenth of England's
experience in the fishery, and not the thousandth part of that of the
Americans, they have nevertheless furnished both nations with the only
finished sketches at all capable of conveying the real spirit of
the whale hunt. For the most part, the English and American whale
draughtsmen seem entirely content with presenting the mechanical outline
of things, such as the vacant profile of the whale; which, so far as
picturesqueness of effect is concerned, is about tantamount to sketching
the profile of a pyramid. Even Scoresby, the justly renowned Right
whaleman, after giving us a stiff full length of the Greenland whale,
and three or four delicate miniatures of narwhales and porpoises, treats
us to a series of classical engravings of boat hooks, chopping knives,
and grapnels; and with the microscopic diligence of a Leuwenhoeck
submits to the inspection of a shivering world ninety-six fac-similes of
magnified Arctic snow crystals. I mean no disparagement to the excellent
voyager (I honour him for a veteran), but in so important a matter it
was certainly an oversight not to have procured for every crystal a
sworn affidavit taken before a Greenland Justice of the Peace.

In addition to those fine engravings from Garnery, there are two other
French engravings worthy of note, by some one who subscribes himself
"H. Durand." One of them, though not precisely adapted to our present
purpose, nevertheless deserves mention on other accounts. It is a quiet
noon-scene among the isles of the Pacific; a French whaler anchored,
inshore, in a calm, and lazily taking water on board; the loosened sails
of the ship, and the long leaves of the palms in the background, both
drooping together in the breezeless air. The effect is very fine, when
considered with reference to its presenting the hardy fishermen under
one of their few aspects of oriental repose. The other engra