Whistle the one Reader, or sing the other, which you will, or if you will, do both; when you hear that in Dr. Rees's Cyclopædia it is said, “the Whale has no other claim to a place among fishes, than from its fish-like appearance and its living in the water.” The Whale has its place among them whatever the Cyclopædists may think of its claim, and will never have it any where else; and so very like a fish it is,—so strongly in the odour of fishiness, which is a good odour if it be not too strong,—that if the Greenlanders had been converted by the Jesuits instead of the Moravians, the strictest disciplinarian of that order would without doubt have allowed his converts to eat Whale upon fish days. But whether Whale be fish or flesh, or if makers of system should be pleased to make it fowl, (for as it is like a Quadruped except that it has no feet, and cannot live upon land, so it may be like a bird, except that it has neither legs, wings, nor feathers, and cannot live in the air,) wherever naturalists may arrange it, its local habitation is among fishes, and fish in common language it always will be called. This whole question matters not to our present purpose. Our Philosopher had regard to its place in the scale of existence, a scale which he graduated not according to size, (tho' that also must sometimes be taken into the account,) nor by intellect which is yet of greater consideration, but according to those affections or moral feelings, which, little acquainted as we are with the nature of the lower creatures, are in many instances too evident to be called in question. Now in this respect no other creature in the water, ranks so high as the Whale. The affection of the parent for its young is both in itself and its consequences purely good, however those men seek to degrade it who ascribe all feelings, and all virtuous emotions, whether in man or beast, to selfishness, being themselves conscious that they have no worthier motive for any of their own actions. Martin Luther says that the Hebrew word which we translate by _curse_, carries not with it in the original language so strong a meaning as is given to it in his mother tongue,—consequently in ours. The Hebrew imprecation, he says, imports no more than “ill betide thee!” intending by _ill_ temporal misfortune, or punishment, the proper reward of ill deeds; not what is implied by cursing in its dreadful acceptation. A curse then in the Hebrew sense, be upon those who maintain this sensual, and sensualizing opinion; an opinion of which it is the sure effect to make bad men worse, and the folly and falsehood of which birds, and beasts might teach them, were it not that—because their hearts are gross, seeing they see not, and hearing they hear not, neither do they understand.