These Sirens resided in certain pleasant islands, and when, from their watch-tower, they saw any ship approaching, they first detained the sailors by their music, then, enticing them to shore, destroyed them. Their singing was not of one and the same kind, but they adapted their tunes exactly to the nature of each person, in order to captivate and secure him. And so destructive had they been, that these islands of the Sirens appeared, to a very great distance, white with the bones of their unburied captives. Two different remedies were invented to protect persons agunst them, the one by Ulysses, the other by Orpheus. Ulysses commanded his associates to stop their ears close with wax; and he, determining to make the trial, and yet avoid the danger, ordered himself to be tied fast to a mast of the ship, giving strict charge not to be unbound, even though himsen should entreat it ; but Orpheus, without any binding at all, escaped the danger, by loudly chanting to his arp the praises of the gods, whereby he drowned the voices The Sirens. EXPLANATION—This table is of the morai kind, and appears no less degant than easy to interpret. For pleasures proceed Pompiency and luence, attended with activity or exultaThe mind Ancienty their first incentives were and seled upon men as if they had been winged, but aring and paleseply alterwards prevailing, had at least newer to lay the mind under some restraint, and make it Che issue of things, and thus deprived pleasures of redounded greatly to the honour and ecialien, of the 'tuses, or after it appeared, by the example En, Clac mal seply could introduce a contempt of v: thediately seemed to be a sublime thing that Tad save and clevate the soul, fixed in a manner down to cach, ma chus ender men's thoughts, which reside in Neal waged as i were, or sublime. Cnjy die never of the Sirens was not thus plumed on the head, winch out less denotes superficial learning, in eiver Achelous, and the other by TerpsiTented the cithara and delighted in dancing. vented and used for delight and levity; an eminent example whereof we have in Petronius, who, after receiving sentence of death, still continued his gay frothy humour, and, as Tacitus observes, used his learning to solace or divert himself, and instead of such discourses as give firmness and constancy of mind, read nothing but loose poems and verses.b Such learning as this seems to pluck the crowns again from the Muses' heads, and restore them to the Sirens. The Sirens are said to inhabit certain islands, because pleasures generally seek retirement, and often shun society. And for their songs, with the manifold artifice and destructiveness thereof, this is too obvious and common to need explanation. But that particular of the bones stretching like white cliffs along the shores, and appearing afar off, contains a more subtile allegory, and denotes that the examples of others' calamity and misfortunes, though ever so manifest and apprent, a have yet but little force to deter the corrupt nature of man from pleasures. The allegory of the remedies against the Sirens is not difficult, but very wise and noble: it proposes, in effect, three remedies, as well against subtile as violent mischiefs, two drawn from philosophy and one from religion. The first means of escaping is to resist the earliest temptation in the beginning, and diligently avoid and cut off all occasions that may solicit or sway the mind; and this is well represented by shutting up the ears, a kind of remedy to be necessarily used with mean and vulgar minds, such as the retinue of Ulysses. But nobler spirits may converse, even in the midst of pleasures, if the mind be well guarded with constancy and resolution. And thus some delight to make a severe trial of their own virtue, and thoroughly acquaint themselves with the folly and madness of pleasures, without complying or being wholly given up to them; which is what Solomon professes of himself when he closes the account of all the b"Vivamus, mea Lesbia, atque amemus; And again Omnes unius estimemus assis."-Catull. Eleg. v. "Jura senes norint, et quod sit fasque nefasque Inquirant tristes; legumque examina servent.' numerous pleasures he gave a loose to, with this expression, "But wisdom still continued with me." Such heroes in virtue may, therefore, remain unmoved by the greatest incentives to pleasure, and stop themselves on the very precipice of danger; if, according to the example of Ulysses, they turn a deaf ear to pernicious counsel, and the flatteries of their friends and companions, which have the greatest power to shake and unsettle the mind. But the most excellent remedy, in every temptation, is that of Orpheus, who, by loudly chanting and resounding the praises of the gods, confounded the voices, and kept himself from hearing the music of the Sirens; for divine contemplations exceed the pleasures of sense, not only in power but also in sweetness. NEW ATLANTIS. A WORK UNFINISHED.. TO THE READER. This fable my lord devised, to the end that he might exhibit therein & model or description of a college, instituted for the interpreting of nature, and the producing of great and marvellous works for the benefit of man, under the name of Solomon's House, or the College of the Six Days' Works. And even so far his lordship hath proceeded as to finish that part. Certainly the model is more vast and high than can possibly be imitated in all things, notwithstanding most things therein are within men's power to effect. His lordship thought also in this present fable to have composed a frame of laws, or of the best state or mould of a commonwealth; but foreseeing it would be a long work, his desire of collecting the natural history diverted him, which he preferred many degrees before it. RAWLEY. NEW ATLANTIS. WE sailed from Peru, where we had continued for the space of one whole year, for China and Japan, by the South Sea, taking with us victuals for twelve months, and had good winds from the east, though soft and weak, for five months' space and more; but then the wind came about, and settled in the west for many days, so as we could make little or no way, and were sometimes in purpose to turn back. But then again there arose strong and great winds from the outh, with a point east, which carried us up, for all that we ould do, towards the north; by which time our victuals failed us, though we had made good spare of them. So that, finding ourselves in the midst of the greatest wilderness of waters in the world, without victuals, we gave ourselves for lost men, and prepared for death. Yet we did lift up our hearts and voices to God above, "whe showeth his wonders in the deep," beseeching him of his mercy, that as in the beginning he discovered the face of the deep, and brought forth dry land, so he would now discover land to us, that we might not perish. And it came to pass that the next day about evening we saw, within a kenning before us, towards the north, as it were, thicker clouds, which did put us in some hope of land; knowing how that part of the South Sea was utterly unknown, and might have islands or continents that hitherto were not come to light. Wherefore we bent our course thither, where we saw the appearance of land all that night; and in the dawning of the next day we might plainly discern that it was a land flat to our sight, and full of boscage, which made it show the more dark and after an hour and a half's sailing we entered into a good haven, being the port of a fair city, not great indeed, but well built, and that gave a pleasant view from the sea. And we, thinking every minute long till we were on land, came close to the shore, and offered to land; but straightways we saw divers of the people with batons in their hands, as it were forbidding us to land, yet without any cries or fierceness, but only as warning us off by signs that they made. Whereupon, being not a little discomforted, we were advising with ourselves what we should do. During which time there made forth to us a small boat with about eight persons in it, whereof one of them had in his hand a tipstaff of a yellow cane, tipped at both ends with blue, who made aboard our ship without any show of distrust at all. And when he saw one of our number present himself somewhat afore the rest, he drew forth a little scroll of parchment, somewhat yellower than our parchment, and shining like the leaves of writingtables, but otherwise soft and flexible, and delivered it to our foremost man. In which scroll were written, in ancient Hebrew, and in ancient Greek, and in good Latin of the school, and in Spanish, these words, "Land ye not, none of you, and provide to be gone from this coast within sixteen days, except you have further time given you: meanwhile, if you want fresh water, or victual, or help for your sick, or that your ship needeth repair, write down your wants, and you shall have that which belongeth to mercy." This scroll was signed with a stamp of cherubim's wings, not spread, but hanging downwards, and by them a cross. This being delivered, the officer returned, and left only a servant with us to receive our answer. Consulting hereupon amongst ourselves, |