THE WONDERS OF THE SHORE. 149 
Sleep in soft bosoms for ever, and dream of the surge and the sea- 
maids, 
So they passed by in their joy, like a dream, on the murmuring 
ripple.” 
Such a rhapsody may be somewhat out of order, 
even in a popular scientific book; and yet one can- 
_ not help at moments envying the old Greek imagi- 
nation, which could inform the soulless sea-world 
with a human life and beauty. For, after all, star- 
fishes and sea-anemones are dull substitutes for 
Sirens and Tritons; the lamps of the sea-nymphs, 
those glorious phosphorescent medusee whose beauty 
Mr. Gosse sets forth so well with pen and pencil, 
are not as attractive as the sea-nymphs themselves 
would be; and who would not, like Menelaus, take 
the grey old man of the sea himself asleep upon the 
rocks, rather than one of his seal-herd, probably too 
with the same result as the world-famous combat in 
the Antiquary, between Hector and Phoca? And 
yet—is there no human interest in these pursuits, 
more human, ay and more divine, than there would 
be even in those Triton and Nereid dreams, if realized 
