THE WONDERS OF THE SHORE. 137 



Sleep in soft bosoms for ever, and dream of the surge and the sea- 

 maids. 



So they past 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 medusse 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 



