No More Learning

In such a case, the
slightest errors in the direction of visual lines exercise an enor-
mous influence upon the results. In the beginning of the last
century, Halley had remarked that certain interpositions of Venus
between the earth and the sun -or to use the common term, the
transits of the planet across the sun's disk—would furnish at each
observing station an indirect means of fixing the position of the
visual ray much superior in accuracy to the most perfect direct
measures. Such was the object of the many scientific expeditions
undertaken in 1761 and 1769, years in which the transits of
Venus occurred. A comparison of observations made in the
Southern Hemisphere with those of Europe gave for the distance
of the sun the result which has since figured in all treatises on
astronomy and navigation. No government hesitated to furnish


## p. 714 (#124) ############################################

714
DOMINIQUE FRANÇOIS ARAGO
scientific academies with the means, however expensive, of estab-
lishing their observers in the most distant regions. We have
already remarked that this determination seemed imperiously to
demand an extensive base, for small bases would have been
totally inadequate. Well, Laplace has solved the problem with-
out a base of any kind whatever; he has deduced the distance of
the sun from observations of the moon made in one and the
same place.
The sun is, with respect to our satellite the moon, the cause
of perturbations which evidently depend on the distance of the
immense luminous globe from the earth. Who does not see that
these perturbations must diminish if the distance increases, and
increase if the distance diminishes, so that the distance determines
the amount of the perturbations? Observation assigns the nu-
merical value of these perturbations; theory, on the other hand,
unfolds the general mathematical relation which connects them with
the solar distance and with other known elements. The deter-
mination of the mean radius of the terrestrial orbit· of the dis-
tance of the sun-then becomes one of the most simple operations
of algebra. Such is the happy combination by the aid of which
Laplace has solved the great, the celebrated problem of parallax.
It is thus that the illustrious geometer found for the mean
distance of the sun from the earth, expressed in radii of the ter-
restrial orbit, a value differing but slightly from that which was
the fruit of so many troublesome and expensive voyages.
The movements of the moon proved a fertile mine of research
to our great geometer. His penetrating intellect discovered in
them unknown treasures. With an ability and a perseverance
equally worthy of admiration, he separated these treasures from
the coverings which had hitherto concealed them from vulgar
eyes. For example, the earth governs the movements of the
moon. The earth is flattened; in other words, its figure is
spheroidal. A spheroidal body does not attract as does a sphere.
There should then exist in the movement - I had almost said in
the countenance-of the moon a sort of impress of the spheroidal
figure of the earth. Such was the idea as it originally occurred
to Laplace. By means of a minutely careful investigation, he
discovered in its motion two well-defined perturbations, each
depending on the spheroidal figure of the earth. When these
were submitted to calculation, each led to the same value of the
ellipticity. It must be recollected that the ellipticity thus derived


## p. 715 (#125) ############################################

DOMINIQUE FRANÇOIS ARAGO
715
from the motions of the moon is not the one corresponding to
such or such a country, to the ellipticity observed in France, in
England, in Italy, in Lapland, in North America, in India, or in
the region of the Cape of Good Hope; for, the earth's crust
having undergone considerable upheavals at different times and
places, the primitive regularity of its curvature has been sensibly
disturbed thereby. The moon (and it is this which renders the
result of such inestimable value) ought to assign, and has in
reality assigned, the general ellipticity of the earth; in other
words, it has indicated a sort of average value of the various
determinations obtained at enormous expense, and with infinite
labor, as the result of long voyages undertaken by astronomers
of all the countries of Europe.
Certain remarks of Laplace himself bring into strong relief
the profound, the unexpected, the almost paradoxical character
of the methods I have attempted to sketch. What are the ele-
ments it has been found necessary to confront with each other
in order to arrive at results expressed with such extreme
precision? On the one hand, mathematical formulæ deduced
from the principle of universal gravitation; on the other, cer-
tain irregularities observed in the returns of the moon to the
meridian. An observing geometer, who from his infancy had
never quitted his study, and who had never viewed the heavens
except through a narrow aperture directed north and south, — to
whom nothing had ever been revealed respecting the bodies
revolving above his head, except that they attract each other
according to the Newtonian law of gravitation,- would still per-
ceive that his narrow abode was situated upon the surface of a
spheroidal body, whose equatorial axis was greater than its polar
by a three hundred and sixth part. In his isolated, fixed position
he could still deduce his true distance from the sun!
-
Laplace's improvement of the lunar tables not only promoted
maritime intercourse between distant countries, but preserved the
lives of mariners. Thanks to an unparalleled sagacity, to a limit-
less perseverance, to an ever youthful and communicable ardor,
Laplace solved the celebrated problem of the longitude with a
precision even greater than the utmost needs of the art of navi-
gation demanded. The ship, the sport of the winds and tem-
pests, no longer fears to lose its way in the immensity of the
ocean. In every place and at every time the pilot reads in the
starry heavens his distance from the meridian of Paris. The


## p. 716 (#126) ############################################

716
DOMINIQUE FRANÇOIS ARAGO
extreme perfection of these tables of the moon places Laplace in
the ranks of the world's benefactors.
In the beginning of the year 1611, Galileo supposed that he
found in the eclipses of Jupiter's satellites a simple and rigorous
solution of the famous problem of the longitude, and attempts
to introduce the new method on board the numerous vessels of
Spain and Holland at once began. They failed because the neces-
sary observations required powerful telescopes, which could not
be employed on a tossing ship. Even the expectations of the
serviceability of Galileo's methods for land calculations proved
premature. The movements of the satellites of Jupiter are far
less simple than the immortal Italian supposed them to be. The
labors of three more generations of astronomers and mathema-
ticians were needed to determine them, and the mathematical
genius of Laplace was needed to complete their labors. At the
present day the nautical ephemerides contain, several years in
advance, the indications of the times of the eclipses and reap-
pearances of Jupiter's satellites. Calculation is as precise as
direct observation.
Influenced by an exaggerated deference, modesty, timidity,
France in the eighteenth century surrendered to England the
exclusive privilege of constructing her astronomical instruments.
Thus, when Herschel was prosecuting his beautiful observations
on the other side of the Channel, we had not even the means of
verifying them. Fortunately for the scientific honor of our
country, mathematical analysis also is a powerful instrument.
The great Laplace, from the retirement of his study, foresaw,
and accurately predicted in advance, what the excellent astrono-
mer of Windsor would soon behold with the largest telescopes
existing. When, in 1610, Galileo directed toward Saturn a lens
of very low power which he had just constructed with his own
hands, although he perceived that the planet was not a globe,
he could not ascertain its real form. The expression "tri-
corporate," by which the illustrious Florentine designated the
appearance of the planet, even implied a totally erroneous ideal
of its structure. At the present day every one knows that
Saturn consists of a globe about nine hundred times greater than
the earth, and of a ring. This ring does not touch the ball of
the planet, being everywhere removed from it to a distance.
of twenty thousand (English) miles. Observation indicates the
breadth of the ring to be fifty-four thousand miles. The thickness


## p. 717 (#127) ############################################

DOMINIQUE FRANÇOIS ARAGO
717
certainly does not exceed two hundred and fifty miles. With the
exception of a black streak which divides the ring throughout its
whole contour into two parts of unequal breadth and of different
brightness, this strange colossal bridge without foundations had
never offered to the most experienced or skillful observers either
spot or protuberance adapted for deciding whether it was immov-
able or endowed with a motion of rotation. Laplace considered.
it to be very improbable, if the ring was stationary, that its con-
stituent parts should be capable of resisting by mere cohesion
the continual attraction of the planet. A movement of rotation
occurred to his mind as constituting the principle of stability,
and he deduced the necessary velocity from this consideration.
The velocity thus found was exactly equal to that which Herschel
subsequently derived from a series of extremely delicate observa-
tions. The two parts of the ring, being at different distances
from the planet, could not fail to be given different movements
of precession by the action of the sun. Hence it would seem that
the planes of both rings ought in general to be inclined toward
each other, whereas they appear from observation always to
coincide. It was necessary then that some physical cause capable
of neutralizing the action of the sun should exist. In a memoir
published in February, 1789, Laplace found that this cause
depended on the ellipticity of Saturn produced by a rapid move-
ment of rotation of the planet, a movement whose discovery
Herschel announced in November of the same year.
If we descend from the heavens to the earth, the discoveries
of Laplace will appear not less worthy of his genius. He reduced.
the phenomena of the tides, which an ancient philosopher termed
in despair "the tomb of human curiosity," to an analytical theory
in which the physical conditions of the question figure for the
first time. Consequently, to the immense advantage of coast nav-
igation, calculators now venture to predict in detail the time and
height of the tides several years in advance. Between the phe-
nomena of the ebb and flow, and the attractive forces of the sun
and moon upon the fluid sheet which covers three fourths of the
globe, an intimate and necessary connection exists; a connection
from which Laplace deduced the value of the mass of our satellite
the moon.
Yet so late as the year 1631 the illustrious Galileo,
as appears from his 'Dialogues,' was so far from perceiving
the mathematical relations from which Laplace deduced results
so beautiful, so unequivocal, and so useful, that he taxed with
F


## p. 718 (#128) ############################################

718
DOMINIQUE FRANÇOIS ARAGO
frivolousness the vague idea which Kepler entertained of attribut-
ing to the moon's attraction a certain share in the production of
the diurnal and periodical movements of the waters of the ocean.
Laplace did not confine his genius to the extension and im-
provement of the mathematical theory of the tide. He considered
the phenomenon from an entirely new point of view, and it was
he who first treated of the stability of the ocean. He has estab-
lished its equilibrium, but upon the express condition (which,
however, has been amply proved to exist) that the mean density
of the fluid mass is less than the mean density of the earth.
Everything else remaining the same, if we substituted an ocean.
of quicksilver for the actual ocean, this stability would disappear.
The fluid would frequently overflow its boundaries, to ravage con-
tinents even to the height of the snowy peaks which lose them-
selves in the clouds.
No one was more sagacious than Laplace in discovering inti-
mate relations between phenomena apparently unrelated, or more
skillful in deducing important conclusions from such unexpected
affinities. For example, toward the close of his days, with the
aid of certain lunar observations, with a stroke of his pen he
overthrew the cosmogonic theories of Buffon and Bailly, which
were so long in favor. According to these theories, the earth
was hastening to a state of congelation which was close at hand.
Laplace, never contented with vague statements, sought to deter-
mine in numbers the rate of the rapid cooling of our globe which
Buffon had so eloquently but so gratuitously announced. Noth-
ing could be more simple, better connected, or more conclusive
than the chain of deductions of the celebrated geometer. A body
diminishes in volume when it cools. According to the most ele-
mentary principles of mechanics, a rotating body which contracts
in dimensions must inevitably turn upon its axis with greater and
greater rapidity. The length of the day has been determined in
all ages by the time of the earth's rotation; if the earth is cool-
ing, the length of the day must be continually shortening. Now,
there exists a means of ascertaining whether the length of the
day has undergone any variation; this consists in examining, for
each century, the arc of the celestial sphere described by the
moon during the interval of time which the astronomers of the
existing epoch call a day; in other words, the time required by
the earth to effect a complete rotation on its axis, the velocity of
the moon being in fact independent of the time of the earth's


## p. 719 (#129) ############################################

DOMINIQUE FRANÇOIS ARAGO
719
rotation. Let us now, following Laplace, take from the standard
tables the smallest values, if you choose, of the expansions or
contractions which solid bodies experience from changes of tem-
perature; let us search the annals of Grecian, Arabian, and mod-
ern astronomy for the purpose of finding in them the angular
velocity of the moon: and the great geometer will prove, by
incontrovertible evidence founded upon these data, that during a
period of two thousand years the mean temperature of the earth
has not varied to the extent of the hundredth part of a degree
of the centigrade thermometer. Eloquence cannot resist such
a process of reasoning, or withstand the force of such figures.
Mathematics has ever been the implacable foe of scientific ro-
mances. The constant object of Laplace was the explanation of
the great phenomena of nature according to inflexible principles
of mathematical analysis. No philosopher, no mathematician,
could have guarded himself more cautiously against a propensity
to hasty speculation. No person dreaded more the scientific
errors which cajole the imagination when it passes the boundary
of fact, calculation, and analogy.
Once, and once only, did Laplace launch forward, like Kepler,
like Descartes, like Leibnitz, like Buffon, into the region of con-
jectures. But then his conception was nothing less than a com-
plete cosmogony. All the planets revolve around the sun, from
west to east, and in planes only slightly inclined to each other.
The satellites revolve around their respective primaries in the
same direction. Both planets and satellites, having a rotary mo-
tion, turn also upon their axes from west to east. Finally, the
rotation of the sun also is directed from west to east. Here,
then, is an assemblage of forty-three movements, all operating
alike. By the calculus of probabilities, the odds are four thou-
sand millions to one that this coincidence in direction is not the
effect of accident.
It was Buffon, I think, who first attempted to explain this
singular feature of our solar system. "Wishing, in the explana-
tion of phenomena, to avoid recourse to causes which are not to
be found in nature," the celebrated academician sought for a
physical cause for what is common to the movements of so
many bodies differing as they do in magnitude, in form, and in
their distances from the centre of attraction. He imagined that
he had discovered such a physical cause by making this triple
supposition: a comet fell obliquely upon the sun; it pushed


## p. 720 (#130) ############################################

720
DOMINIQUE FRANÇOIS ARAGO
before it a torrent of fluid matter; this substance, transported to
a greater or less distance from the sun according to its density,
formed by condensation all the known planets. The bold hy-
pothesis is subject to insurmountable difficulties. I proceed to
indicate, in a few words, the cosmogonic system which Laplace
substituted for it.
According to Laplace, the sun was, at a remote epoch, the
central nucleus of an immense nebula, which possessed a very
high temperature, and extended far beyond the region in which
Uranus now revolves. No planet was then in existence. The
solar nebula was endowed with a general movement of rotation
in the direction west to east. As it cooled it could not fail to
experience a gradual condensation, and in consequence to rotate
with greater and greater rapidity. If the nebulous matter ex-
tended originally in the plane of its equator, as far as the limit
where the centrifugal force exactly counterbalanced the attraction
of the nucleus, the molecules situate at this limit ought, during
the process of condensation, to separate from the rest of the
atmospheric matter and to form an equatorial zone, a ring,
revolving separately and with its primitive velocity.
We may
conceive that analogous separations were effected in the remoter
strata of the nebula at different epochs and at different distances
from the nucleus, and that they gave rise to a succession of dis-
tinct rings, all lying in nearly the same plane, and all endowed
with different velocities.
This being once admitted, it is easy to see that the perma-
nent stability of the rings would have required a regularity of
structure throughout their whole contour, which is very improb-
able. Each of them, accordingly, broke in its turn into several
masses, which were obviously endowed with a movement of rota-
tion coinciding in direction with the common movement of revo-
lution, and which, in consequence of their fluidity, assumed
spheroidal forms. In order, next, that one of those spheroids
may absorb all the others belonging to the same ring, it is suffi-
cient to suppose it to have a mass greater than that of any
other spheroid of its group.
Each of the planets, while in this vaporous condition to which
we have just alluded, would manifestly have a central nucleus,
gradually increasing in magnitude and mass, and an atmosphere
offering, at its successive limits, phenomena entirely similar to
those which the solar atmosphere, properly so called, had exhib-


## p. 721 (#131) ############################################

DOMINIQUE FRANÇOIS ARAGO
721
ited. We are here contemplating the birth of satellites and the
birth of the ring of Saturn.
The Nebular Hypothesis, of which I have just given an imper-
fect sketch, has for its object to show how a nebula endowed with
a general movement of rotation must eventually transform itself
into a very luminous central nucleus (a sun), and into a series of
distinct spheroidal planets, situate at considerable distances from
one another, all revolving around the central sun, in the direction
of the original movement of the nebula; how these planets ought
also to have movements of rotation in similar directions; how,
finally, the satellites, when any such are formed, must revolve
upon their axes and around their respective primaries, in the
direction of rotation of the planets and of their movement of
revolution around the sun.
In all that precedes, attention has been concentrated upon the
'Mécanique Céleste. ' The 'Système du Monde' and the 'Théorie
Analytique des Probabilités' also deserve description.
The Exposition of the System of the World is the 'Mécanique
Céleste' divested of that great apparatus of analytical formulæ
which must be attentively perused by every astronomer who, to
use an expression of Plato, wishes to know the numbers which
govern the physical universe. It is from this work that persons
ignorant of mathematics may obtain competent knowledge of the
methods to which physical astronomy owes its astonishing progress.
Written with a noble simplicity of style, an exquisite exactness of
expression, and a scrupulous accuracy, it is universally conceded
to stand among the noblest monuments of French literature.
The labors of all ages to persuade truth from the heavens
are there justly, clearly, and profoundly analyzed.
Genius pre-
sides as the impartial judge of genius. Throughout his work.
Laplace remained at the height of his great mission. It will be
read with respect so long as the torch of science illuminates the
world.
The calculus of probabilities, when confined within just limits,
concerns the mathematician, the experimenter, and the statesman.
From the time when Pascal and Fermat established its first prin-
ciples, it has rendered most important daily services. This it is
which, after suggesting the best form for statistical tables of pop-
ulation and mortality, teaches us to deduce from those numbers,
so often misinterpreted, the most precise and useful conclusions.
This it is which alone regulates with equity insurance premiums,
II-46


## p. 722 (#132) ############################################

722
JOHN ARBUTHNOT
pension funds, annuities, discounts, etc. This it is that has grad-
ually suppressed lotteries, and other shameful snares cunningly
laid for avarice and ignorance. Laplace has treated these ques-
tions with his accustomed superiority: the Analytical Theory of
Probabilities' is worthy of the author of the 'Mécanique Céleste. '
A philosopher whose name is associated with immortal discov-
eries said to his too conservative audience, "Bear in mind, gentle-
men, that in questions of science the authority of a thousand is
not worth the humble reasoning of a single individual. " Two
centuries have passed over these words of Galileo without lessen-
ing their value or impugning their truth. For this reason, it has
been thought better rather to glance briefly at the work of La-
place than to repeat the eulogies of his admirers.
JOHN ARBUTHNOT
(1667-1735)
RBUTHNOT'S place in literature depends as much on his asso-
ciation with the wits of his day as on his own satirical and
humorous productions. Many of these have been published
in the collections of Swift, Gay, Pope, and others, and cannot be
identified. The task of verifying them is rendered more difficult
by the fact that his son repudiated a collection claiming to be his
'Miscellaneous Works,' published in 1750.
John Arbuthnot was born in the manse near Arbuthnot Castle,
Kincardineshire, Scotland, April 29th, 1667. He was the son of a
Scotch Episcopal clergyman, who was soon
to be dispossessed of his parish by the
Presbyterians in the Revolution of 1688.
His children, who shared his Jacobite sen-
timents, were forced to leave Scotland; and
John, after finishing his university course
at Aberdeen, and taking his medical de-
gree at St. Andrews, went to London and
taught mathematics. He soon attracted
attention by a keen and satirical Exam-
ination of Dr. Woodward's Account of the
Deluge,' published in 1697. By a fortunate
chance he was called to attend the Prince
Consort (Prince George of Denmark), and
in 1705 was made Physician Extraordinary
JOHN ARBUTHNOT
to Queen Anne. If we may believe Swift, the agreeable Scotchman



## p. 723 (#133) ############################################

JOHN ARBUTHNOT
723
at once became her favorite attendant. His position at court was
strengthened by his friendships with the great Tory statesmen.
Arbuthnot's best remembered work is 'The History of John Bull';
not because many people read or will ever read the book itself, but
because it fixed a typical name and a typical character ineffaceably
in the popular fancy and memory. He is credited with having been
the first to use this famous sobriquet for the English nation; he
was certainly the first to make it universal, and the first to make
that burly, choleric, gross-feeding, hard-drinking, blunt-spoken, rather
stupid and decidedly gullible, but honest and straightforward charac-
ter one of the stock types of the world. The book appeared as four
separate pamplets: the first being entitled 'Law is a Bottomless Pit,
Exemplified in the Case of Lord Strutt, John Bull, Nicholas Frog,
and Lewis Baboon, Who Spent All They Had in a Law Suit'; the
second, John Bull in His Senses'; the third, John Bull Still in
His Senses'; and the fourth, Lewis Baboon Turned Honest, and
John Bull Politician. ' Published in 1712, these were at once attrib-
uted to Swift. But Pope says, "Dr. Arbuthnot was the sole writer
of 'John Bull'"; and Swift gives us still more conclusive evidence
by writing, "I hope you read 'John Bull. ' It was a Scotch gentle-
man, a friend of mine, that writ it; but they put it on to me. "
his humorous preface Dr. Arbuthnot says:—
In
"When I was first called to the office of historiographer to John Bull, he
expressed himself to this purpose:- Sir Humphrey Polesworth, I know you
are a plain dealer; it is for that reason I have chosen you for this important
trust; speak the truth, and spare not. ' That I might fulfill those, his honor-
able intentions, I obtained leave to repair to and attend him in his most
secret retirements; and I put the journals of all transactions into a strong
box to be opened at a fitting occasion, after the manner of the histori-
ographers of some Eastern monarchs.
And now, that posterity may
not be ignorant in what age so excellent a history was written (which would
otherwise, no doubt, be the subject of its inquiries), I think it proper to
inform the learned of future times that it was compiled when Louis XIV.
was King of France, and Philip, his grandson, of Spain; when England and
Holland, in conjunction with the Emperor and the allies, entered into a war
against these two princes, which lasted ten years, under the management of
the Duke of Marlborough, and was put to a conclusion by the treaty of
Utrecht under the ministry of the Earl of Oxford, in the year 1713. "
The characters disguised are: "John Bull," the English; "Nicholas
Frog," the Dutch; "Lewis Baboon," the French king; "Lord Strutt,"
the late King of Spain; "Philip Baboon," the Duke of Anjou;
"Esquire South," the King of Spain; "Humphrey Hocus," the Duke
of Marlborough; and "Sir Roger Bold," the Earl of Oxford. The
lawsuit was the War of the Spanish Succession; John Bull's first wife


## p. 724 (#134) ############################################

724
JOHN ARBUTHNOT
was the late ministry; and his second wife the Tory ministry. To
explain the allegory further, John Bull's mother was the Church of
England; his sister Peg, the Scotch nation; and her lover Jack, Pres-
byterianism.
That so witty a work, so strong in typical freehand character-
drawing of permanent validity and remembrance, should be unread.
and its author forgotten except by scholars, is too curious a fact not
to have a deep cause in its own character. The cause is not hard to
find: it is one of the books which try to turn the world's current
backward, and which the world dislikes as offending its ideals of
progress. Stripped of its broad humor, its object, rubbed in with no
great delicacy of touch, was to uphold the most extreme and reac-
tionary Toryism of the time, and to jeer at political liberalism from
the ground up. Its theoretic loyalty is the non-resistant Jacobitism
of the Nonjurors, which it is so hard for us now to distinguish from
abject slavishness; though like the principles of the casuists, one
must not confound theory with practice. It seems the loyalty of a
mujik or a Fiji dressed in cultivated modern clothes, not that of a
conceivable cultivated modern community as a whole; but it would
be very Philistine to pour wholesale contempt on a creed held by
so many large minds and souls. It was of course produced by the
experience of what the reverse tenets had brought on, -a long civil
war, years of military despotism, and immense social and moral dis-
organization. In 'John Bull,' the fidelity of a subject to a king is
made exactly correspondent, both in theory and practice, with the
fidelity of a wife to her husband and her marriage vows; and an
elaborate parallel is worked out to show that advocating the right of
resistance to a bad king is precisely the same, on grounds of either
logic or Scripture, as advocating the right of adultery toward a bad
husband. This is not even good fooling; and, its local use past and
no longer buoyed by personal liking for the author, the book sinks
back into the limbo of partisan polemics with many worse ones and
perhaps some better ones, dragging its real excellences down with it.
In 1714 the famous Scriblerus Club was organized, having for its
members Pope, Swift, Arbuthnot, Gay, Congreve, Lord Oxford, and
Bishop Atterbury. They agreed to write a series of papers ridiculing,
in the words of Pope, "all the false tastes in learning, under the
character of a man of capacity enough, but that had dipped into
every art and science, but injudiciously in each. " The chronicle of
this club was found in 'The Memoirs of the Extraordinary Life,
Works, and Discoveries of Martinus Scriblerus,' which is thought to
have been written entirely by Arbuthnot, and which describes the
education of a learned pedant's son. Its humor may be appreciated
by means of the citation given below. The first book of Scriblerus'


## p. 725 (#135) ############################################

JOHN ARBUTHNOT
725
appeared six years after Arbuthnot's death, when it was included in
the second volume of Alexander Pope's works (1741). Pope said that
from the 'Memoirs of Scriblerus' Swift took his idea of 'Gulliver';
and the Dean himself writes to Arbuthnot, July 3d, 1714:-
-
"To talk of Martin' in any hands but Yours is a Folly.
You every day
give better hints than all of us together could do in a twelvemonth.
And to
say the truth, Pope, who first thought of the Hint, has no Genius at all to it,
in my mind; Gay is too young; Parnell has some ideas of it, but is idle; I
could put together, and lard, and strike out well enough, but all that relates
to the Sciences must be from you. "
Swift's opinion that Arbuthnot "has more wit than we all have, and
his humanity is equal to his wit," seems to have been the universal
dictum; and Pope honored him by publishing a dialogue in the 'Pro-
logue to the Satires,' known first as 'The Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot,'
which contains many affectionate personal allusions. Aitken says, in
his biography:-
"Arbuthnot's attachment to Swift and Pope was of the most intimate
nature, and those who knew them best maintained that he was their equal at
least in gifts. He understood Swift's cynicism, and their correspondence
shows the unequaled sympathy that existed between the two. Gay, Con-
greve, Berkeley, Parnell, were among Arbuthnot's constant friends, and all
of them were indebted to him for kindnesses freely rendered. He was on
terms of intimacy with Bolingbroke and Oxford, Chesterfield, Peterborough,
and Pulteney; and among the ladies with whom he mixed were Lady Mary
Wortley Montagu, Lady Betty Germain, Mrs. Howard, Lady Masham, and
Mrs. Martha Blount. He was, too, the trusted friend and physician of Queen
Anne. Most of the eminent men of science of the time, including some who
were opposed to him in politics, were in frequent intercourse with him; and
it is pleasant to know that at least one of the greatest of the wits who were
most closely allied to the Whig party-Addison - had friendly relations with
him. »
―――
From the letters of Lord Chesterfield we learn that
"His imagination was almost inexhaustible, and whatever subject he
treated, or was consulted upon, he immediately overflowed with all that it
could possibly produce.
It was at anybody's service, for as soon as he was
exonerated he did not care what became of it; insomuch that his sons, when
young, have frequently made kites of his scattered papers of hints, which
would have furnished good matter for folios. Not being in the least jealous
of his fame as an author, he would neither take the time nor the trouble of
separating the best from the worst; he worked out the whole mine, which
afterward, in the hands of skillful refiners, produced a rich vein of ore. As
his imagination was always at work, he was frequently absent and inattentive
in company, which made him both say and do a thousand inoffensive absurd-
ities; but which, far from being provoking, as they commonly are, supplied
new matter for conversation, and occasioned wit both in himself and others. »


## p. 726 (#136) ############################################

726
JOHN ARBUTHNOT
Speaking to Boswell of the writers of Queen Anne's time, Dr.
Johnson said, "I think Dr. Arbuthnot the first man among them.
He was the most universal genius, being an excellent physician, a
man of deep learning, and a man of much humor. " He did not,
however, think much of the Scriblerus' papers, and said they were
forgotten because "no man would be the wiser, better, or merrier
for remembering them"; which is hard measure for the wit and
divertingness of some of the travesties. Cowper, reviewing Johnson's
'Lives of the Poets,' declared that "one might search these eight
volumes with a candle to find a man, and not find one, unless per-
haps Arbuthnot were he. " Thackeray, too, called him "one of the
wisest, wittiest, most accomplished, gentlest of mankind. "
Thus fortunate in his sunny spirit, in his genius for friendship, in
his professional eminence, and in his literary capacity, Dr. Arbuthnot
saw his life flow smoothly to its close. He died in London on Feb-
ruary 27th, 1735, at the age of sixty eight, still working and playing
with youthful ardor, and still surrounded with all the good things of
life.
THE TRUE CHARACTERS OF JOHN BULL, NIC. FROG, AND
HOCUS
From The History of John Bull,' Part I.
OR the better understanding the following history, the reader
to know that Bull, in the main, was an honest, plain-
dealing fellow, choleric, bold, and of a very unconstant tem-
per; he dreaded not old Lewis either at backsword, single fal-
chion, or cudgel play; but then he was very apt to quarrel with
his best friends, especially if they pretended to govern him. If
you flattered him, you might lead him like a child. John's tem-
per depended very much upon the air; his spirits rose and fell
with the weather-glass. John was quick and understood his busi-
ness very well; but no man alive was more careless in looking
into his accounts, or more cheated by partners, apprentices, and
servants. This was occasioned by his being a boon companion,
loving his bottle and his diversion; for, to say truth, no man
kept a better house than John, nor spent his money more gener-
ously. By plain and fair dealing John had acquired some plums,
and might have kept them, had it not been for his unhappy law-
suit.
Nic. Frog was a cunning, sly fellow, quite the reverse of
John in many particulars; covetous, frugal, minded domestic


## p. 727 (#137) ############################################

JOHN ARBUTHNOT
727
affairs, would pinch his belly to save his pocket, never lost a
farthing by careless servants or bad debtors. He did not care
much for any sort of diversion, except tricks of High German
artists and legerdemain. No man exceeded Nic. in these; yet
it must be owned that Nic. was a fair dealer, and in that way
acquired immense riches.
Hocus was an old, cunning attorney; and though this was the
first considerable suit that ever he was engaged in, he showed
himself superior in address to most of his profession. He kept
always good clerks, he loved money, was smooth-tongued, gave
good words, and seldom lost his temper. He was not worse than
an infidel, for he provided plentifully for his family, but he loved
himself better than them all. The neighbors reported that he
was henpecked, which was impossible, by such a mild-spirited
woman as his wife was.
HOW THE RELATIONS RECONCILED JOHN AND HIS SISTER
PEG, AND WHAT RETURN PEG MADE TO JOHN'S MESSAGE
From the History of John Bull, Part I.
JOHN
OHN BULL, otherwise a good-natured man, was very hard-
hearted to his sister Peg, chiefly from an aversion he had
conceived in his infancy. While he flourished, kept a warm
house, and drove a plentiful trade, poor Peg was forced to go
hawking and peddling about the streets selling knives, scissors,
and shoe-buckles; now and then carried a basket of fish to the
market; sewed, spun, and knit for a livelihood till her fingers'
ends were sore: and when she could not get bread for her fam-
ily, she was forced to hire them out at journey-work to her neigh-
bors. Yet in these, her poor circumstances, she still preserved
the air and mien of a gentlewoman-a certain decent pride that
extorted respect from the haughtiest of her neighbors. When
she came in to any full assembly, she would not yield the pas to
the best of them. If one asked her, "Are you not related to
John Bull? " "Yes," says she, "he has the honor to be my
brother. " So Peg's affairs went till all the relations cried out
shame upon John for his barbarous usage of his own flesh and
blood; that it was an easy matter for him to put her in a credit-
able way of living, not only without hurt, but with advantage
to himself, seeing she was an industrious person, and might be


## p. 728 (#138) ############################################

728
JOHN ARBUTHNOT
>>
serviceable to him in his way of business. "Hang her, jade,"
quoth John, "I can't endure her as long as she keeps that rascal
Jack's company. They told him the way to reclaim her was to
take her into his house; that by conversation the childish humors.
of their younger days might be worn out.
These arguments were enforced by a certain incident. It
happened that John was at that time about making his will and
entailing his estate, the very same in which Nic. Frog is named
executor. Now, his sister Peg's name being in the entail, he
could not make a thorough settlement without her consent.
There was indeed a malicious story went about, as if John's last
wife had fallen in love with Jack as he was eating custard on
horseback; that she persuaded John to take his sister into the
house the better to drive on the intrigue with Jack, concluding
he would follow his mistress Peg. All I can infer from this
story is that when one has got a bad character in the world,
people will report and believe anything of them, true or false.
But to return to my story.
When Peg received John's message she huffed and stormed:-
"My brother John," quoth she, "is grown wondrous kind-hearted
all of a sudden, but I meikle doubt whether it be not mair for
their own conveniency than for my good; he draws up his writs
and his deeds, forsooth, and I must set my hand to them,
unsight, unseen. I like the young man he has settled upon well
enough, but I think I ought to have a valuable consideration for
my consent.
He wants my poor little farm because it makes a
nook in his park wall. You may e'en tell him he has mair than
he makes good use of; he gangs up and down drinking, roaring,
and quarreling, through all the country markets, making foolish
bargains in his cups, which he repents when he is sober; like a
thriftless wretch, spending the goods and gear that his fore-
fathers won with the sweat of their brows; light come, light go;
he cares not a farthing. But why should I stand surety for his
contracts? The little I have is free, and I can call it my own
hame's hame, let it be never so hamely. I ken well enough, he
could never abide me, and when he has his ends he'll e'en use
me as he did before. I'm sure I shall be treated like a poor
drudge I shall be set to tend the bairns, darn the hose, and
mend the linen. Then there's no living with that old carline,
his mother; she rails at Jack, and Jack's an honester man
than any of her kin: I shall be plagued with her spells and her
-


## p. 729 (#139) ############################################

JOHN ARBUTHNOT
729
Paternosters, and silly Old World ceremonies; I mun never
pare my nails on a Friday, nor begin a journey on Childermas
Day; and I mun stand becking and binging as I gang out and
into the hall. Tell him he may e'en gang his get; I'll have
nothing to do with him; I'll stay like the poor country mouse,
in my awn habitation. »
So Peg talked; but for all that, by the interposition of good
friends, and by many a bonny thing that was sent, and many
more that were promised Peg, the matter was concluded, and
Peg taken into the house upon certain articles [the Act of Tol-
eration is referred to]; one of which was that she might have
the freedom of Jack's conversation, and might take him for bet-
ter or for worse if she pleased; provided always he did not come
into the house at unseasonable hours and disturb the rest of the
old woman, John's mother.
OF THE RUDIMENTS OF MARTIN'S LEARNING
From Memoirs of Martinus Scriblerus ›
MRS
RS. SCRIBLERUS considered it was now time to instruct him
in the fundamentals of religion, and to that end took no
small pains in teaching him his catechism. But Cornelius
looked upon this as a tedious way of instruction, and therefore
employed his head to find out more pleasing methods, the better
to induce him to be fond of learning. He would frequently carry
him to the puppet-show of the creation of the world, where the
child, with exceeding delight, gained a notion of the history of
the Bible. His first rudiments in profane history were acquired
by seeing of raree-shows, where he was brought acquainted with
all the princes of Europe. In short, the old gentleman so con-
trived it to make everything contribute to the improvement of
his knowledge, even to his very dress. He invented for him a
geographical suit of clothes, which might give him some hints
of that science, and likewise some knowledge of the commerce of
different nations. He had a French hat with an African feather,
Holland shirts, Flanders lace, English clothes lined with Indian
silk, his gloves were Italian, and his shoes were Spanish: he was
made to observe this, and daily catechized thereupon, which his
father was wont to call "traveling at home. " He never gave
him a fig or an orange but he obliged him to give an account


## p. 730 (#140) ############################################

730
JOHN ARBUTHNOT
from what country it came. In natural history he was much
assisted by his curiosity in sign-posts; insomuch that he hath
often confessed he owed to them the knowledge of many creat-
ures which he never found since in any author, such as white
lions, golden dragons, etc. He once thought the same of green
men, but had since found them mentioned by Kercherus, and
verified in the history of William of Newburg.
His disposition to the mathematics was discovered very early,
by his drawing parallel lines on his bread and butter, and inter-
secting them at equal angles, so as to form the whole superficies
into squares.
But in the midst of all these improvements a stop
was put to his learning the alphabet, nor would he let him pro-
ceed to the letter D, till he could truly and distinctly pronounce
C in the ancient manner, at which the child unhappily boggled
for near three months. He was also obliged to delay his learn-
ing to write, having turned away the writing-master because he
knew nothing of Fabius's waxen tables.
Cornelius having read and seriously weighed the methods by
which the famous Montaigne was educated, and resolving in some
degree to exceed them, resolved he should speak and learn noth-
ing but the learned languages, and especially the Greek; in which
he constantly eat and drank, according to Homer. But what
most conduced to his easy attainment of this language was his
love of gingerbread: which his father observing, caused to be
stamped with the letters of the Greek alphabet; and the child the
very first day eat as far as Iota. By his particular application to
this language above the rest, he attained so great a proficiency
therein, that Gronovius ingenuously confesses he durst not confer
with this child in Greek at eight years old; and at fourteen he
composed a tragedy in the same language, as the younger Pliny
had done before him.
He learned the Oriental languages of Erpenius, who resided
some time with his father for that purpose. He had so early a
relish for the Eastern way of writing, that even at this time he
composed (in imitation of it) A Thousand and One Arabian
Tales,' and also the 'Persian Tales,' which have been since
translated into several languages, and lately into our own with
particular elegance by Mr. Ambrose Philips. In this work of his
childhood he was not a little assisted by the historical traditions
of his nurse.


## p. 731 (#141) ############################################

731
OTOKO
THE ARGONAUTIC LEGEND
HE legend of the Argonauts relates to the story of a band of
heroes who sailed from Thessaly to Ea, the region of the
Sun-god on the remotest shore of the Black Sea, in quest
of a Golden Fleece. The ship Argo bore the heroes, under the com-
mand of Jason, to whom the task had been assigned by his uncle
Pelias. Pelias was the usurper of his nephew's throne; and for Jason,
on his coming to man's estate, he devised the perilous adventure of
fetching the golden fleece of the Speaking Ram which many years
before had carried Phrixus to Ea, or Colchis. Fifty of the most
distinguished Grecian heroes came to Jason's aid, while Argus, the
son of Phrixus, under the guidance of Athena, built the ship, insert-
ing in the prow, for prophetic advice and furtherance, a piece of
the famous talking oak of Dodona. Tiphys was the steersman, and
Orpheus joined the crew to enliven the weariness of their sea-life
with his harp.
The heroes came first to Lemnos, where the women had risen in
revolt and slain fathers, brothers, and husbands.
Here the voyagers
lingered almost a year; but at last, having taken leave, they came
to the southern coast of Propontis, where the Doliones dwelt under
King Cyzicus. Their kind entertainment among this people was
marred by ill-fate; for having weighed anchor in the night, they
were driven back by a storm, and being mistaken for foes, were
fiercely attacked. Cyzicus himself fell by the hand of Jason. They
next touched at the country of the Bebrycians, where the hero Pol-
lux overcame the king in a boxing-match and bound him to a tree;
and thence to Salmydessus, to consult the soothsayer Phineus. In
gratitude for their freeing him from the Harpies, who, as often as
his table was set, descended out of the clouds upon his food and
defiled it, the prophet directed them safe to Colchis. The heroes
rowing with might, thus passed the Symplegades, two cliffs which
opened and shut with such swift violence that a bird could scarce fly
through the passage. The rocks were held apart with the help of
Athena, and from that day they became fixed and harmless. Fur-
ther on, they came in sight of Mount Caucasus, saw the eagle which
preyed on the vitals of Prometheus, and heard the sufferer's woeful
cries. So their journey was accomplished, and they arrived at Ea
and the palace of King Eetes.
When the king heard the errand of the heroes he was moved
against them, and refused to give up the fleece except on terms


## p. 732 (#142) ############################################

732
THE ARGONAUTIC LEGEND
which he thought Jason durst not comply with. Two bulls, snorting
fire, with feet of brass, Jason was required to yoke, and with them
plow a field and sow the land with dragon's teeth. Here the heav-
enly powers came to the hero's aid, and Hera and Athena prayed
Aphrodite to send the shaft of Cupid upon Medea, the youthful
daughter of the king. Thus it came about that Medea conceived a
great passion for the young hero, and with the magic which she
knew she made for him a salve. The salve rendered his body invul-
nerable. He yoked the bulls, and ploughed the field, and sowed the
dragon's teeth. A crop of armed men sprang from the sowing, but
Jason, prepared for this marvel by Medea, threw among them a stone
which she had given him, whereupon they fell upon and slew one
another.
But Eetes still refused to fetch the fleece, plotting secretly to
burn the Argo and kill the heroic Argonauts. Medea came to their
succor, and by her black art lulled to sleep the dragon which guarded
the fleece. They seized the pelt, boarded the Argo, and sailed away,
taking Medea with them. When her father followed in pursuit, in
the madness of her love for Jason she slew her brother whom she
had with her, and strewed the fragments of his body upon the wave.
The king stopped to recover them and give them burial, and thus
the Argonauts escaped. But the anger of the gods at this horrible
murder led the voyagers in expiation a wearisome way homeward.
For they sailed through the waters of the Adriatic, the Nile, the
circumfluous stream of the earth, passed Scylla and Charybdis and
the Island of the Sun, to Crete and Ægina and many lands, before
the Argo rode once more in Thessalian waters.
The legend is one of the oldest and most familiar tales of Greece.
Whether it is all poetic myth, or had a certain foundation in fact, it
is impossible now to say. The date, the geography, the heroes, are
mythical; and as in the Homeric poems, the supernatural and seem-
ing historical are so blended that the union is indissoluble by any
analysis yet found. The theme has touched the imagination of poets
from the time of Apollonius Rhodius, who wrote the 'Argonautica'
and went to Alexandria B. C. 194 to take care of the great library
there, to William Morris, who published his 'Life and Death of Jason'
in 1867. Mr. Morris's version of the contest of Orpheus with the
Sirens is given to illustrate the reality of the old legends to the
Greeks themselves. Jason's later life, his putting away of Medea, his
marriage with Glauce, and the revenge of the deserted princess, fur-
nish the story of the greatest of the plays of Euripides.


## p. 733 (#143) ############################################

THE ARGONAUTIC LEGEND
733
THE VICTORY OF ORPHEUS
From The Life and Death of Jason'
The Sirens:
H, HAPPY Seafarers are ye,
And surely all your ills are past,
And toil upon the land and sea,
Since ye are brought to us at last.
O"
To you the fashion of the world,
Wide lands laid waste, fair cities burned,
And plagues, and kings from kingdoms hurled,
Are naught, since hither ye have turned.
For as upon this beach we stand,
And o'er our heads the sea-fowl flit,
Our eyes behold a glorious land,
And soon shall ye be kings of it.
Orpheus:
A little more, a little more,
O carriers of the Golden Fleece,
A little labor with the oar,
Before we reach the land of Greece.
E'en now perchance faint rumors reach
Men's ears of this our victory,
And draw them down unto the beach
To gaze across the empty sea.
But since the longed-for day is nigh,
And scarce a god could stay us now,
Why do ye hang your heads and sigh,
And still go slower and more slow?
The Sirens:
Ah, had ye chanced to reach the home
Your fond desires were set upon,
Into what troubles had ye come!
What barren victory had ye won!
But now, but now, when ye have lain
Asleep with us a little while
Beneath the washing of the main,
How calm shall be your waking smile!


## p. 734 (#144) ############################################

THE ARGONAUTIC LEGEND
734
For ye shall smile to think of life
That knows no troublous change or fear,
No unavailing bitter strife,
That ere its time brings trouble near.
Orpheus:
Is there some murmur in your ears,
That all that we have done is naught,
And nothing ends our cares and fears,
Till the last fear on us is brought?
The Sirens:
Alas! and will ye stop your ears,
In vain desire to do aught,
And wish to live 'mid cares and fears,
Until the last fear makes you naught?
Orpheus:
Is not the May-time now on earth,
When close against the city wall
The folk are singing in their mirth,
While on their heads the May flowers fall?
The Sirens:
Yes, May is come, and its sweet breath
Shall well-nigh make you weep to-day,
And pensive with swift-coming death
Shall ye be satiate of the May.
Orpheus:
Shall not July bring fresh delight,
As underneath green trees ye sit,
And o'er some damsel's body white,
The noon-tide shadows change and flit?
The Sirens:
No new delight July shall bring,
But ancient fear and fresh desire;
And spite of every lovely thing,
Of July surely shall ye tire.
Orpheus:
And now when August comes on thee,
And 'mid the golden sea of corn
The merry reapers thou mayst see,
Wilt thou still think the earth forlorn?


## p. 735 (#145) ############################################

THE ARGONAUTIC LEGEND
735
The Sirens:
Set flowers on thy short-lived head,
And in thine heart forgetfulness
Of man's hard toil, and scanty bread,
And weary of those days no less.
Orpheus:
Or wilt thou climb the sunny hill,
In the October afternoon,
To watch the purple earth's blood fill
The gray vat to the maiden's tune?
The Sirens:
When thou beginnest to grow old,
Bring back remembrance of thy bliss
With that the shining cup doth hold,
And weary helplessly of this.
Orpheus:
Or pleasureless shall we pass by
The long cold night and leaden day,
That song and tale and minstrelsy
Shall make as merry as the May?
The Sirens:
List then, to-night, to some old tale
Until the tears o'erflow thine eyes;
But what shall all these things avail,
When sad to-morrow comes and dies?
Orpheus:
And when the world is born again,
And with some fair love, side by side,
Thou wanderest 'twixt the sun and rain,
In that fresh love-begetting tide;
Then, when the world is born again,
And the sweet year before thee lies,
Shall thy heart think of coming pain,
Or vex itself with memories?
The Sirens:
Ah! then the world is born again
With burning love unsatisfied,
And new desires fond and vain,
And weary days from tide to tide.


## p. 736 (#146) ############################################

736
THE ARGONAUTIC LEGEND
Ah! when the world is born again,
A little day is soon gone by,
When thou, unmoved by sun or rain,
Within a cold straight house shall lie.
Therewith they ceased awhile, as languidly
The head of Argo fell off toward the sea,
And through the water she began to go;
For from the land a fitful wind did blow,
That, dallying with the many-colored sail,
Would sometimes swell it out and sometimes fail,
As nigh the east side of the bay they drew;
Then o'er the waves again the music flew.
The Sirens:
Think not of pleasure short and vain,
Wherewith, 'mid days of toil and pain,
With sick and sinking hearts ye strive
To cheat yourselves that ye may live
With cold death ever close at hand.
Think rather of a peaceful land,
The changeless land where ye may be
Roofed over by the changeful sea.
Orpheus:
And is the fair town nothing then,
The coming of the wandering men
With that long talked-of thing and strange.
And news of how the kingdoms change,
The pointed hands, and wondering
At doers of a desperate thing?
Push on, for surely this shall be
Across a narrow strip of sea.
The Sirens:
Alas! poor souls and timorous,
Will ye draw nigh to gaze at us
And see if we are fair indeed?
For such as we shall be your meed,
There, where our hearts would have you go.
And where can the earth-dwellers show
In any land such loveliness
As that wherewith your eyes we bless,
O wanderers of the Minyæ,
Worn toilers over land and sea?


## p. 737 (#147) ############################################

THE ARGONAUTIC LEGEND
Orpheus:
Fair as the lightning 'thwart the sky,
As sun-dyed snow upon the high
Untrodden heaps of threatening stone
The eagle looks upon alone,
Oh, fair as the doomed victim's wreath,
Oh, fair as deadly sleep and death,
What will ye with them, earthly men,
To mate your threescore years and ten?
Toil rather, suffer and be free,
Betwixt the green earth and the sea.
The Sirens:
If ye be bold with us to go,
Things such as happy dreams may show
Shall your once heavy lids behold
About our palaces of gold;
Where waters 'neath the waters run,
And from o'erhead a harmless sun
Gleams through the woods of chrysolite.
There gardens fairer to the sight
Than those of the Phæacian king
Shall ye behold; and, wondering,
Gaze on the sea-born fruit and flowers,
And thornless and unchanging bowers,
Whereof the May-time knoweth naught.
So to the pillared house being brought,
Poor souls, ye shall not be alone,
For o'er the floors of pale blue stone
All day such feet as ours shall pass,
And 'twixt the glimmering walls of glass,
Such bodies garlanded with gold,
So faint, so fair, shall ye behold,
And clean forget the treachery
Of changing earth and tumbling sea.
Orpheus:
Oh the sweet valley of deep grass,
Where through the summer stream doth pass,
In chain of shadow, and still pool,
From misty morn to evening cool;
Where the black ivy creeps and twines
O'er the dark-armed, red-trunkèd pines,
737
II-47


## p. 738 (#148) ############################################

738
THE ARGONAUTIC LEGEND
Whence clattering the pigeon flits,
Or brooding o'er her thin eggs sits,
And every hollow of the hills
With echoing song the mavis fills.
There by the stream, all unafraid,
Shall stand the happy shepherd maid,
Alone in first of sunlit hours;
Behind her, on the dewy flowers,
Her homespun woolen raiment lies,
And her white limbs and sweet gray eyes
Shine from the calm green pool and deep,
While round about the swallows sweep,
Not silent; and would God that we,
Like them, were landed from the sea.
The Sirens:
Shall we not rise with you at night,
Up through the shimmering green twilight,
That maketh there our changeless day,
Then going through the moonlight gray,
Shall we not sit upon these sands,
To think upon the troublous lands
Long left behind, where once ye were,
When every day brought change and fear!
There, with white arms about you twined,
And shuddering somewhat at the wind
That ye rejoiced erewhile to meet,
Be happy, while old stories sweet,
Half understood, float round your ears,
And fill your eyes with happy tears.
Ah! while we sing unto you there,
As now we sing, with yellow hair
Blown round about these pearly limbs,
While underneath the gray sky swims
The light shell-sailor of the waves,
And to our song. from sea-filled caves
Booms out an echoing harmony,
Shall ye not love the peaceful sea?
Orpheus:
Nigh the vine-covered hillocks green,
In days agone, have I not seen
The brown-clad maidens amorous,
Below the long rose-trellised house,


## p. 739 (#149) ############################################

THE ARGONAUTIC LEGEND
Dance to the querulous pipe and shrill,
When the gray shadow of the hill
Was lengthening at the end of day?
Not shadowy or pale were they,
But limbed like those who 'twixt the trees
Follow the swift of goddesses.
Sunburnt they are somewhat, indeed,
To where the rough brown woolen weed
Is drawn across their bosoms sweet,
Or cast from off their dancing feet;
But yet the stars, the moonlight gray,
The water wan, the dawn of day,
Can see their bodies fair and white
As hers, who once, for man's delight,
Before the world grew hard and old,
Came o'er the bitter sea and cold;
And surely those that met me there
Her handmaidens and subjects were;
And shame-faced, half-repressed desire
Had lit their glorious eyes with fire,
That maddens eager hearts of men.
Oh, would that I were with them when
The risen moon is gathering light,
And yellow from the homestead white
The windows gleam; but verily
This waits us o'er a little sea.
The Sirens:
Come to the land where none grows old,
And none is rash or over-bold
Nor any noise there is or war,
Or rumor from wild lands afar,
Or plagues, or birth and death of kings;
No vain desire of unknown things
Shall vex you there, no hope or fear
Of that which never draweth near;
But in that lovely land and still
Ye may remember what ye will,
And what ye will, forget for aye.
So while the kingdoms pass away,
Ye sea-beat hardened toilers erst,
Unresting, for vain fame athirst,
Shall be at peace for evermore,
With hearts fulfilled of Godlike lore,
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740
THE ARGONAUTIC LEGEND
And calm, unwavering Godlike love,
No lapse of time can turn or move.
There, ages after your fair fleece
Is clean forgotten, yea, and Greece
Is no more counted glorious,
Alone with us, alone with us,
Alone with us, dwell happily,
Beneath our trembling roof of sea.
Orpheus:
Ah! do ye weary of the strife,
And long to change this eager life
For shadowy and dull hopelessness,
Thinking indeed to gain no less
Than this, to die, and not to die,
To be as if ye ne'er had been,
Yet keep your memory fresh and green,
To have no thought of good or ill,
Yet keep some thrilling pleasure still?
Oh, idle dream! Ah, verily
If it shall happen unto me
That I have thought of anything,
When o'er my bones the sea-fowl sing,
And I lie dead, how shall I pine
For those fresh joys that once were mine,
On this green fount of joy and mirth,
The ever young and glorious earth;
Then, helpless, shall I call to mind
Thoughts of the flower-scented wind,
The dew, the gentle rain at night,
The wonder-working snow and white,
The song of birds, the water's fall,
The sun that maketh bliss of all;
Yea, this our toil and victory,
The tyrannous and conquered sea.
The Sirens:
Ah, will ye go, and whither then
Will ye go from us, soon to die,
To fill your threescore years and ten
With many an unnamed misery?
And this the wretchedest of all,
That when upon your lonely eyes
The last faint heaviness shall fall,
Ye shall bethink you of our cries.


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क
0brosch
60640
LUDOVICO ARIOSTO.


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