That such a person there was, we shall not contend: for besides others, Dr. Heylin hath clearly asserted it in his History of St. George. The indistinction of many in the community of name, or the misapplication of the acts of one unto another, hath made some doubt thereof. For of this name we meet with more than one in history, and no less than two conceived of Cappadocia. The one an Arian, who was slain by the Alexandrians in the time of Julian; the other a valiant soldier and Christian martyr, beheaded in the reign of Dioclesian. This is the George conceived in this picture, who hath his day in the Roman calendar, on whom so many fables are delivered, whose story is set forth by Metaphrastes, and his miracles by Turonensis.

As for the story depending hereon, some conceive as lightly thereof, as of that of Perseus and Andromeda, conjecturing the one to be the father of the other; and some too highly assert it. Others with better moderation, do either entertain the same as a fabulous addition unto the true and authentic story of St. George,5 or else, we conceive the literal acception to be a misconstruction of the symbolical expression; apprehending a veritable history, in an emblem or piece of Christian poesy. And this emblematical construction hath been received by men not forward to extenuate

Pegge as to the reality of St. George, his identity with George of Cappadocia, and his distinctness from the Arian bishop. All these parties are agreed in declining assent to the dragon part of the story.

It is very probable that Sir Thomas was led partly by his residence at Norwich, to investigate the story of St. George, who is a personage of no small importance there. Pegge mentions the guild of St. George in that city (in his paper in the Archæologia), but he was probably not aware that there has been from time immemorial, on ["Lord] Mayor's Day" at Norwich, an annual pageant, the sole remnant of St. George's guild, in which an immense dragon, horrible to view, with hydra head, and gaping jaws and wings, and scales bedecked in gold and green, is carried about by a luckless wight, whose task it is, the live-long-day, by string and pulley from within, to ope and shut the monster's jaws, by way of levying contributions on the gaping multitude, especially of youthful gazers, with whom it is matter of half terror, half joy, to pop a half-penny into the opened mouth of SNAP (so is he called), whose bow of thanks, with long and forked tail high waved in air, acknowledges the gift. Throughout the rest of the year, fell Snap lives on the forage of that memorable day: quietly reposing in the hall of his conqueror's sainted brother, St. Andrew, where the civic feast is held.

5 some conceive, &c.] First added in 2nd edition.

the acts of saints: as, from Baronius, Lipellous the Carthusian hath delivered in the life of St. George; Picturam illam St. Georgi quâ effingitur eques armatus, qui hastæ cuspide hostem interficit, juxta quem etiam virgo posita manus supplices tendens ejus explorat auxilium, symboli potiùs quàm historia alicujus censenda expressa imago. Consuevit quidem ut equestris militiæ miles equestri imagine referri. That is, the picture of St. George, wherein he is described like a cuirassier or horseman completely armed, &c. is rather a symbolical image, than any proper figure.6

Now in the picture of this saint and soldier, might be implied the Christian soldier, and true champion of Christ: A horseman armed cap à pié, intimating the panoplia or complete armour of a Christian combating with the dragon, that is, with the devil, in defence of the king's daughter, that is, the Church of God." And therefore although the history be not made out, it doth not disparage the knights and noble order of St. George: whose cognisance is honourable in the emblem of the soldier of Christ, and is a worthy memorial to conform unto its mystery. Nor, were there no such person at all, had they more reason to be ashamed, than the noble order of Burgundy, and knights of the golden fleece; whose badge is a confessed fable.8

CHAPTER XVIII.

Of the Picture of Jerome.

THE picture of Jerome usually described at his study, with a clock hanging by, is not to be omitted; for though the meaning be allowable, and probable it is that industrious father did not let slip his time without account, yet must not

the picture, &c.] First added in 2nd edition.

7 Church of God.] Or rather the soule, for soe in the picture and story shee is called [psyche] that is the soul of man, which in a specificall sense is endeed every Christian soule, and comprehensively may signifye, the Church of God.- Wr.

8 fable.] Borowed from that old storye of the Argo-nauts, or Argoknights, as wee may call them, though the golden fleece be a meer romance.-Wr.

perhaps that clock he set down to have been his measure thereof. For clocks or automatous organs, whereby we now distinguish of time, have found no mention in any ancient writers, but are of late invention, as Pancirollus observeth. And Polydore Virgil, discoursing of new inventions whereof the authors are not known, makes instance in clocks and guns. Now Jerome is no late writer, but one of the ancient fathers, and lived in the fourth century, in the reign of Theodosius the first.

It is not to be denied that before the days of Jerome there were horologies, and several accounts of time; for they measured the hours not only by drops of water in glasses called clepsydra, but also by sand in glasses called clepsammia. There were also from great antiquity, scioterical or sun-dials, by the shadow of a stile or gnomon denoting the hours of the day; an invention ascribed unto Anaximenes by Pliny. Hereof a memorable one there was in Campus Martius, from an obelisk erected, and golden figures placed horizontally about it; which was brought out of Egypt by Augustus, and described by Jacobus Laurus.* And another of great antiquity we meet with in the story of Ezechias; for so it is delivered in 2 Kings, xx. : "That the Lord brought the shadow backward ten degrees by which it had gone down in the dial of Ahaz." That is, say some, ten degrees, not lines; for the hours were denoted by certain divisions or steps in the dial, which others distinguished by lines, according to that of Persius,

Stertimus indomitum quod despumare Falernum
Sufficiat, quintâ dum linea tangitur umbra.

That is, the line next the meridian, or within an hour of

noon.

* A peculiar description and particular construction hereof out of R. Chomer, is set down, Curios. de Caffarel. chap. ix.

9 clocks.] The ancient pictures of St. Hierom were naked, on his knees, in a cave, with an hour-glasse and a scull by him, intimating his indefatigable continuance in prayers and studye while hee lived in the cave at Bethleem. But the later painters at Rome, bycause hee had been senator and of a noble familye, picture him in the habit of the cardinals, leaning on his arm at a desk in study with a clock hanging by him, and his finger on a scull: and this they take to bee a more proper symbol of the cardinal eminencye.—Wr.

Of later years there succeeded new inventions, and horologies composed by trochilick or the artifice of wheels; whereof some are kept in motion by weight, others perform without it. Now as one age instructs another, and time, that brings all things to ruin, perfects also every thing; so are these indeed of more general and ready use than any that went before them. By the water-glasses the account was not regular; for from attenuation and condensation, whereby that element is altered, the hours were shorter in hot weather than in cold, and in summer than in winter. As for scioterical dials, whether of the sun or moon, they are only of use in the actual radiation of those luminaries, and are of little advantage unto those inhabitants, which for many months enjoy not the lustre of the sun.

It is, I confess, no easy wonder how the horometry of antiquity discovered not this artifice, how Architas, that contrived the moving dove, or rather the helicosophy of Archimides, fell not upon this way. Surely as in many things, so in this particular, the present age hath far sur passed antiquity; whose ingenuity hath been so bold not only to proceed below the account of minutes, but to attempt perpetual motions; and engines whose revolutions (could their substance answer the design) might out-last the exemplary mobility, and out-measure time itself. For such a one is that mentioned by John Dee, whose words are these, in his learned preface unto Euclid: "By wheels, strange works and incredible are done: a wondrous example was seen in my time in a certain instrument, which, by the inventor and artificer was sold for twenty talents of gold; and then by chance had received some injury, and one Janellus of Cremona did mend the same, and presented it unto the emperor Charles the Fifth. Jeronymous Cardanus can be my witness, that therein was one wheel that moved at such a rate, that in seven thousand years only his own period should be finished; a thing almost incredible, but how far I keep within my bounds many men yet alive can tell.”

1 perpetual motions.] John Romilly, a celebrated watchmaker, born at Geneva, wrote a letter on the impossibility of perpetual motion.—Jeff.

CHAP. XIX. OF MERMAIDS, UNICORNS, AND OTHERS. 59

CHAPTER XIX.

Of the Pictures of Mermaids, Unicorns, and some others. FEW eyes have escaped the pictures of mermaids; 2 that is, according to Horace's monster, with a woman's head.

2 mermaids.] The existence of mermaids has been so generally ridiculed, and high authorities have so repeatedly denounced as forgeries, delusions, or travellers' wonders, the detailed narratives and exhibited specimens of these sea-nymphs, that it must be a Quixotic venture to say a word in their defence. Yet am I not disposed to give up their cause as altogether hopeless. I cannot admit the probability of a belief in them having existed from such remote antiquity, and spread so widely, without some foundation in truth. Nor can I consent to reject en masse such a host of delightfully pleasant stories as I find recorded of these daughters of the sea (as Illiger call the Dugongs), merely because it is the fashion to decry them. I must be allowed, then, to hold my opinion in abeyance for further evidence. Unconvinced even by Sir Humphry Davy's grave arguments to prove that such things cannot be, and undismayed by his asserted detection of the apes and salmon in poor Dr. Philip's "undoubted original," I persist in expecting one day to have the pleasure of beholding-A MERMAID!

But what is a mermaid? Aye, there is the very gist of the question. Cicero little dreamt of his classical rule being degraded by application to such a discussion as the present; but I shall nevertheless endeavour to avail myself of his maxim ;-Omnis disputatio debet a definitione proficisci. What is a mermaid? Not the fair lady of the ocean, admiring herself in a hand-mirror, and bewitching the listener by her song ;-not the triton, dwelling in the ocean-cave, and sounding his conch-like cornet or trumpet;-not the bishop-frocked creature of Rondeletius; nor Aldrovandus' mer-devil, with his horns and face of fury; nor the howling and tempest-stirring monsters of Olaus Magnus-not, in short, the creature of poetry or fiction: but a most supposable, and probably often seen, though hitherto undescribed, species of the herbivorous cetacea (the seals and lamantins), more approaching, in several respects, the human configuration, than any species we know.

Let us hear and examine Sir Humphry's arguments against the probability of such a discovery. He says, that "a human head, human hands, and human mamma, are wholly inconsistent with a fish's tail." In one sense this is undeniable ;-viz.—since homo sapiens is (begging Lord Monboddo's pardon) an incaudate animal,-it follows that the head, hands, and mamme of any creature furnished also with a tail, could not be human: and so, conversely, the tail of such a creature could not be a fish's tail. But this is a truism, only to be paralleled by the exclamation attributed by Peter Pindar to Sir Joseph Banks, when he had boiled the fleas and found they did not turn red,-" Fleas are not lobsters! &c." Davy's was not a nominal objection, a mere play upon