Mermaids. 
103 
every place? Why so many thousand strange birds and beasts proper 
to America alone, as Acosta demands ? Were they created in six dayes, 
or ever in Noahs arke? If there, why are they not dispersed and 
found in other countries ? It is a thing, saith he, hath long held me 
in suspence. No Greek, Latine, Hebrew, ever heard of them before, 
and yet as differing from our European animals, as an egg and a 
chesnut: and, which is more, kine, horses, sheep, etc., till the Spaniards 
brought them were never heard of in those parts.” 
The popular notion of the Mermaid owed its origin to 
the classical fable of the siren, a sea maiden, who sat on 
a rock singing sweetly, and often luring mariners to their 
destruction. Shakspeare’s mermaids are all of the sweet¬ 
voiced siren type. Drayton also confuses the two:— 
“ To call for aid, and then to lie in wait, 
So the hyena murthers by deceit: 
By sweet enticement sudden death to bring, 
So from the rocks th* alluring mermaids sing.” 
( England’s Heroical Epistles.) 
The mediaeval mermaid was supposed to be half fish, half 
woman, and there are many accounts of specimens that 
were exhibited at shows. In the time of Elizabeth the 
mermaid was often adopted as a crest or charge, and was 
heraldically depicted as a beautiful woman, holding a 
mirror in her right hand and combing her long golden 
hair with her left. The arms of the Fishmongers’ Com¬ 
pany of London were supported most appropriately by 
a merman and a mermaid. 
The Mermaid tavern in Cornhill was the familiar resort 
of Shakspeare and other writers of the time, whose wit 
combats are commemorated by Beaumont in his epilogue 
to Ben Jonson:—■ 
“ What things we have seen 
Done at the Mermaid! heard words that have been 
So nimble, and so full of subtile flame, 
As if that every one from whence they came 
Had meant to put his whole life in a jest, 
And had resolved to live a fool the rest 
Of his dull life.” 
