George but encountered a crawling reptile of the land,
instead of doing battle with the great monster of the deep.
Any man may kill a snake, but only a Perseus, a St. George,
a Coffin, have the heart in them to march boldly up to a whale.
Let not the modern paintings of this scene mislead us;
for though the creature encountered by that valiant whaleman
of old is vaguely represented of a griffin-like shape,
and though the battle is depicted on land and the saint
on horseback, yet considering the great ignorance of those times,
when the true form of the whale was unknown to artists;
and considering that as in Perseus' case, St. George's
whale might have crawled up out of the sea on the beach;
and considering that the animal ridden by St. George might have
been only a large seal, or sea-horse; bearing all this in mind,
it will not appear altogether incompatible with the sacred
legend and the ancientest draughts of the scene, to hold this
so-called dragon no other than the great Leviathan himself.
In fact, placed before the strict and piercing truth,
this whole story will fare like that fish, flesh, and fowl
idol of the Philistines, Dagon by name; who being planted
before the ark of Israel, his horse's head and both the palms
of his hands fell off from him, and only the stump or fishy
part of him remained.
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