WISDOM OF THE A\\:ir.XTS. 439 



description of the division of the year ; for the spirit diffused through 

 the earth lives above ground in the vegetable world during the summer 

 months, but in the winter returns under ground again. 



The attempt of Theseus and Pentiums to bring Proserpine away. 

 denotes that the more subtile spirits, \\hi&amp;lt; h descend in many bodies to 

 the earth, may frequently be unable to drink in, unite with themselves, 

 and carry off the subterraneous spirit, but on the contrary be coagulated 

 by it, and rise no more, so as to increase the inhabitants and add to the 

 dominion of Proserpine.* 



The alchemists will be apt to fall in with our interpretation of the 

 golden bough, whether we will or no, because they promise golden 

 mountains, and the restoration of natural bodies from their stone, as 

 from the gates of Pluto ; but we are well assured that their theory has 

 no just foundation, and suspect they have no very encouraging or 

 practical proofs of its soundness. Leaving, therefore, their conceits to 

 themselves, we shall freely declare our o\vn sentiments ujxm this last 

 part of the fable. \\ c are certain, from numerous figures and expres 

 sions of the ancients, that they judged the conservation, and in some 

 degree the renovation, of natural bodies to be no desperate or impossible 

 thing, but rather abstruse and out of the common road than wholly 

 impracticable, and this seems to be their opinion in the present case, 

 as they have placed this bough among an infinite number of shrubs, 

 in a spacious and thick wood. They supposed it of gold, because gold 

 is the emblem of duration. They feigned it adventitious, not native, 

 because such an effect is to be expected from art, and not from any 

 medicine or any simple or mere natural w.iy of working. 



X:i.-TIIK FAMJ-: OF MEMNON. 



FXPI.AINKU OF TI1K FATAL TRKCIPITANCY OF YOUTH. 



&quot;J HK poets made Mcmnon the son of Aurora, and bring him to 

 ti o Irojan war in beautiful armour, and flushed with popular praise ; 

 where, thirsting after farther glory, and rashly hurrying on to the 

 greatest enterprises, he engages the bravest warrior of all the Creeks, 

 Achilles, and falls by his hand in single combat. Jupiter, in com 

 miseration of his death, sent birds to grace his funeral, that per 

 petually chanted certain mournful and bewailing dirges. It is alsa 

 reported, that the rays of the rising sun, striking his statue, used tc 

 give a lamenting sound. 



Kxi LANATinN. This fable regards the unfortunate end of those 



Many philosophers hare certain speculations to this purpose. Sir Ivuc Ncwti-n, 

 in p.ut.ailiir, suspects that the cart h n-cnvrs its vivifying spirits from tbeooowts. 

 And the philosophical chemists nd ulrologen have spun the thought into many 

 fant.iMit.il distinctions and varieties. Sec Newton, Princip. lib. iii. p. 473. &c. 



