watchfulness of the weasel is nothing to that
of the dragon, which, day and night, lies
waiting for its prey. A recalcitrant minister
who has a following, is described as
upsetting the coach, when he withdraws with
his tail from the cabinet to which he belongs;
but the dragon with his tail is in the habit of
upsetting boats, by taking a seat amongst the
passengers: "when," says the learned Glanvil,
"he espies a boat at sea, with the wind
filling the sails, he goes aboard to get as
much of the breeze as he can to cool himself;
but his great weight sends the boat to the
bottom, and therefore when the sailors
perceive him approaching they haul their sails
down."

Should any one wish to know where the
dragon is generated, let him understand that
the mightiest of his kind are brought forth
in the hottest parts of India (a locality
famous, as we know, for griffins), and in the
live volcanoes of Ethiopia. Solinus is the
authority for the latter assertion, which
modern African travellers may contradict, if
they please. I have spoken of the dragon in
connection with the Fine Arts, meaning
principally the subjects which he has
furnished to the most celebrated painters, from
the immortal Raffaelle to the unknown limner,
the prints of whose genius we admire in
Bishopsgate Street; but he contributes in a
more material way, for, according to Pliny,
cinnabar, that brilliant colour, is nothing
more than the elephant's blood vomited by
the dragon when the latter receives his
coup de grace in the mutually deadly
struggle. It is only of late years that the
resin, called dragon's blood has been
excluded from the pharmacopœia, where it
formerly occupied a place as an astringent.
The blood of dragons was held in great
esteem by some,—the Ethiopians for
instance,—who, according to Solinus, as he is
rendered by Father Corbichon, employ it as a
remedy against excessive heat; they, moreover,
eat dragon's flesh as a cure for several
maladies. "For they know how to extract
the poison from the flesh, which, indeed,
exists only in its tongue and its gall. And
this is what David means in his psalm, where
he says: Lord, thou hast given the dragons
for meat to the people of Ethiopia!"

The birth and parentage of the dragon—
I am sorry nothing is recorded of his education—
are thus described by John Leo, in his
history of Africa: "Many affirme that the
male eagle, engendering with a shee-wolfe,
begetteth a dragon, having the beake and
wings of a bird, a serpent's taile, the feete of
a wolfe, and a skin speckled and partie-
coloured like the skin of a serpent; neither
can it open the eyelids" (without assistance?)
"and it liveth in caves." John Leo carefully
adds—"This monster, albeit I, myself, have
not seene it, yet the common report of all
Africa affirmeth that there is such a one."
Father Pigafetta, a great authority in
unnatural history, tells us that "Mount Atlas
hath plenty of dragons, grosse of body, slow
of motion, and in byting or touching incurably
venomous. In Congo is a kind of dragons
like in bignesse to rammes, with wings, having
long tayles and chaps, and divers jawes of teeth
of blue and greene colour, painted like scales,
with two feet, and feed on rawe fleshe. The
pagan negros pray to them as gods." This
predilection for paying them divine honours is a
feature of Chinese admiration. The Celestial
people, says Marco Polo, "are superstitious
in chusing a plot of ground, to erect a dwelling-
house, or sepulchre, conferring it with
the head, tayle, and feete of divers dragons,
which live under our earth, whence depends
all good and bad fortune." The same
travelled Venetian, under the head of Huge
Dragons in Chinese Tartary, says, "They have
two little feet before, nigh the head, with
three talons or claws like lions, and the eyes
bigger than a great loafe, very shining. They
have their mouths and jaws so wide that
they are able to swallow a man; great sharpe
teeth; nor is there any man, or other living
creature, which may behold those serpents
without terror: these are found lesse of eight,
six, or five paces long" (the larger ones are
described as ten paces in length, and in thickness
ten spans), "which are taken after this
manner. In the day-time they use to lie hid,
by reason of the heat, in holes, out of the
whiche they goe by night to seeke their prey,
and devoure whatsoever they get—lions,
wolves, or others; and then goe to seeke
water, leaving such a tract with their weight
in the sands, as if some piece of timber had
been drawne there. Whereupon the hunters
fasten under the sands sharpe iron prickes
in the usuall tract, whereon they are wounded
and slayne. The crowes presently ring his
knell, and by their craving cries invite the
hunters, which come and flay him, taking
forth his gall, profitable for divers medicines
(amongst other things, for the biting of mad
dogs, a penie-weight given in wine; and for
women in travell, for carbuncles and pushes),
and they sell the flesh dear, as being exceedingly
delicate."

There is, it seems, one way in which you
may get the better of a dragon, provided you
are addicted to the black art—not paper-
staining with ink, but necromancy. "This
creature," says Albertus Magnus, "is greatly
afraid of thunder, and the magicians, who
require dragons for their enchantments" (vide
the witches' incantation in Macbeth—"scale
of dragon"), "get drums on which they roll
heavily, so that the noise is mistaken by the
dragons for thunder, and then they are
vanquished. Then the enchanter bestrides the
dragon, and flies through the air on his back.
But frequently the dragon sinks under the
magician's weight, and the length of the
journey, and falls with his rider into the sea,
where they are both drowned."

After all that has been said of the dragon's