rinth; under which the general nature of mechanics is represented. For all the more ingenious and exact mechanical inventions may, for their subtlety, their intricate variety, and the apparent likeness of one part to another, which scarcely any judgment can order and discriminate, but only the clue of experiment, be compared to a labyrinth. Nor is the next point less to the purpose; viz. that the same man who devised the mazes of the labyrinth disclosed likewise the use of the clue. For the mechanical arts may be turned either way, and serve as well for the cure as for the hurt and have power for the most part to dissolve their own spell.

Moreover the unlawful contrivances of art, and indeed the arts themselves, are often persecuted by Minos; that is by the laws; which condemn them and forbid people to use them. Nevertheless they are secretly preserved, and find every where both hiding-places and entertainment; was well observed by Tacitus in his times, in a case not much unlike: where speaking of the mathematicians and fortune-tellers, he calls them a class of men which in our state will always be retained and always prohibited. And yet these unlawful and curious arts do in tract of time, since for the most part they fail to perform their promises, fall out of estimation, as Icarus from the sky, and come into contempt, and through the very excess of ostentation perish. And certainly if the truth must be told, they are not so easily bridled by law as convicted by their proper vanity.

XX.

ERICTHONIUS;

OR IMPOSTURE.

THE poets tell us that Vulcan wooed Minerva, and in the heat of desire attempted to force her; that in the struggle which followed his seed was scattered on the ground; from which was born Ericthonius, a man well made and handsome in the upper parts of the body, but with thighs and legs like an eel, thin and deformed and that he, from consciousness of this deformity, first invented chariots, whereby he might shew off the fine part of his body and hide the

mean.

This strange and prodigious story seems to bear this meaning: that Art (which is represented under the person of Vulcan, because it makes so much use of fire) when it endeavours by much vexing of bodies to force Nature to its will and conquer and subdue her (for Nature is described under the person of Minerva, on account of the wisdom of her works) rarely attains the particular end it aims at; and yet in the course of contriving and endeavouring, as in a struggle, there fall out by the way certain imperfect births and lame works, specious to look at but weak and halting in use: yet impostors parade them to the world with a great deal of false shew in setting forth, and carry them about as in triumph. Such things may often be observed among chemical productions, and among mechanical subtleties and novelties; the rather because men being too intent upon their end to recover themselves from the errors of their way,

rather struggle with Nature than woo her embraces with due observance and attention.

THE poets relate that when the inhabitants of the old world were utterly extinguished by the universal deluge, and none remained except Deucalion and Pyrrha, these two being inflamed with a pious and noble desire to restore the human race, consulted the oracle and received answer to the following effect; they should have their wish if they took their mother's bones and cast them behind their backs. This struck them at first with great sorrow and despair, for the face of nature being laid level by the deluge, to seek for a sepulchre would be a task altogether endless. But at last they found that the stones of the earth (the earth being regarded as the mother of all things) were what the oracle meant.

This fable seems to disclose a secret of nature, and to correct an error which is familiar to the human mind. For man in his ignorance concludes that the renewal and restoration of things may be effected by means of their own corruption and remains; as the Phoenix rises out of her own ashes; which is not so: for matters of this kind have already reached the end of their course, and can give no further help towards the first stages of it: so we must go back to more common principles.

OR THE

XXII.

NEMESIS;

VICISSITUDE OF THINGS.

NEMESIS, according to the tradition, was a goddess, the object of veneration to all, to the powerful and fortunate of fear also. They say she was the daughter of Night and Ocean. She is represented with wings, and a crown: an ashen spear in her right hand; a phial, with Ethiops in it, in her left; sitting upon a stag.

The parable may be understood thus. The very name Nemesis plainly signities Revenge or Retribution: for it was the office and function of this goddess to interrupt the felicity of fortunate persons, and let no man be constantly and perpetually happy, but step in like a tribune of the people with her reto; and not to chastise insolence only, but to see also that prosperity however innocent and moderately borne had its turn of adversity: as if no one of human race could be admitted to the banquets of the gu, etage in derison. And certainly when I have wad that chapter of Caius Plinius in which he has osioned the mideraves and miseries of Augustus Cesen him whom I thought of as men the most bo had more re certain art of

and wiring is detune, and a whose mind

The parents of this goddess were Ocean and Night; that is, the vicissitude of things, and the dark and secret judgment of God. For the vicissitude of things is aptly represented by the Ocean, by reason of its perpetual flowing and ebbing; and secret providence is rightly set forth under the image of Night. For this Nemesis of the Darkness (the human not agreeing with the divine judgment) was matter of observation even among the heathen.

Ripheus fell too,

Than whom a juster and a truer man

In all his dealings was not found in Troy.
But the gods judged not so.

Nemesis again is described as winged; because of the sudden and unforeseen revolutions of things. For in all the records of time it has commonly been found that great and wise men have perished by the dangers which they most despised. So was it with M. Cicero ; who when warned by Decimus Brutus to beware of Octavius Cæsar's bad faith and evil mind towards him, only answered, I am duly grateful to you, my dear Brutus, for giving me that information, though it is but folly.

Nemesis is distinguished also with a crown; in allusion to the envious and malignant nature of the vulgar; for when the fortunate and the powerful fall, the people commonly exult and set a crown upon the head of Nemesis.

The spear in her right hand relates to those whom she actually strikes and transfixes. And if there be any whom she does not make victims of calamity and misfortune, to them she nevertheless exhibits that dark and ominous spectre in her left: for mortals must needs.