paid." Speedily they are escorted into the Strangers' House, a fair and spacious house, built of brick, of a somewhat bluer colour than our brick; and with handsome windows, some of glass, some of a kind of cambric oiled," with "handsome and cheerful chambers furnished civilly," and containing, for the sick, "seventeen cells, very neat ones, having partitions of cedar wood." And here their guide leaves them-he also declining pistolets with the exclamation "Twice paid!"-to enjoy "right good viands, both for bread and meat, better than any collegiate diet that I have known in Europe," with "store of those scarlet oranges for our sick" and " a box of small grey and whitish pills" to hasten their recovery. After a probation of three days there enters " a new man that we had not seen before, clothed in blue as the former was, save that his turban was white, with a small red cross on the top. He had also a tippet of white linen. At his coming in, he did bend to us a little, and put his arms abroad." The new-comer, introducing himself as the Governor of the House of Strangers, and by vocation a Christian Priest, announced that the State has licensed the strangers to remain six weeks; only none must go "above a karan (that is with them a mile and a-half) from the walls of the city, without special leave."

On the morrow the Governor, answering such questions as they like to put, informs them how "this island of Bensalem (for so they call it in their language)" miraculously received a copy of the New Testament twenty years after the Ascension. A pillar of light surmounted by a cross, appearing in the East and then vanishing, disclosed a small ark of cedar, containing "all the Canonical books of the Old and New Testament And the Apocalypse itself, and some other books of the New Testament which were not at that time written, were nevertheless in the book." Therewith was a letter from the Apostle St. Bartholomew, declaring that he had sent this ark. And then was "wrought a great miracle, conform to that of the Apostles in the original gift of tongues. For there being at that time in this land Hebrews, Persians, and Indians, besides the natives, every one read upon the Book and Letter, as if they had been written in his own language. And thus was this land saved from infidelity."

On the next day an account is given of the early history of the island and an explanation of its isolation, and of the causes of its being unknown to Europe, while Europe is known to the islanders; and then reference is made to a great King who ruled the island nineteen hundred years ago. "His name says the Governor was Solamona; and we esteem him as the lawgiver of our nation. This King had a large heart, inscrutable for good, and was wholly bent to make his kingdom and people happy." 1 Of all the excellent acts of this monarch the most excellent is the erection and institution of an Order or Society called "Salomon's House, the noblest foundation that ever was upon the earth, and the lantern of this Kingdom;" dedicated to the study of the Works and Creatures of God, and so called after Salomon, the son of David, because Solamona found himself "to symbolize in many things with that King of the Hebrews."2

At this point a digression introduces us to a "Feast of the Family, a most natural, pious, and reverend custom," given, at the cost of the State, "to any man"-whom they call a Tirsan -" that shall live to see thirty persons descended of his body, alive together, and all above three years old." After the Tirsan has taken bis seat on a daïs under a canopy of ivy "curiously wrought with silver and silk of divers colours, broiding or binding in the ivy "-the mother in a separate gallery where she sitteth but is not seen, and "all the lineage on the daïs behind and around the Tirsan in order of years-there approaches a Taratan, or herald, in a mantle of sea-green satin streamed with gold, who, "with three curtesies, or rather inclinations," presents a charter from the King containing gifts of revenue, and many privileges, exemptions, and points of honour granted to the Tirsan, who is addressed in it as Such an one our well-beloved friend and creditor: "which is a title proper only to this case. For they say the King is debtor to no man but for propagation of his subjects." Then the herald takes a cluster of grapes wrought of gold, the grapes being in

1 Compare Spedding, vii. 244 "Our Sovereign, a King. . whose heart is inscrutable for wisdom and goodness."

2 Mr. Ellis is (no doubt) right in saying that Bacon here alludes to James I. Mr. Spedding's dissent is based upon the hypothesis of a late date for the New Atlantis, which has been shown to be incorrect; see note above, p. 416.

number as many as there are descendants of the family, and presents it to the Tirsan, who delivers it to one of the sons, called ever after the Son of the Vine. After this, the Tirsan is served at dinner by his own children, such as are male, who perform unto him all services of the table upon the knee;" and then a hymn commemorates the praises of Adam, Noah, and Abraham, "concluding ever with a thanksgiving for the nativity of our Saviour, in whose birth the births of all are only blessed." Finally the Tirsan, calling forth his lineage in order, gives to each his blessing in a solemn prescribed form, together with a jewel: and the day is ended with music, dances, and other recreations.

The traveller then relates how he "fell into straight acquaintance" with a Jewish merchant: "for they have some few stirps of Jews yet remaining among them, whom they leave to their own religion: which they may the better do, because these Jews give unto our Saviour many high attributes, and love the nation Bensalem extremely." With this Jew he has some conversation concerning the relations between the sexes in the island of Bensalem, and from him he learns that in a few days he may witness a rare sight. One of the Fathers of Salomon's House (of whom they have seen none this dozen years) is to enter the city in state.

"The day being come he made his entry. He was a man of middle stature and age, comely of person, and had an aspect as if he pitied men.2 He was clothed in a robe of fine black cloth, with wide sleeves and a cape. His under-garment was of excellent white linen down to the foot, girt with a girdle of the same; and a sindon or tippet of the same about his neck. He had gloves that were curious, and set with stone; and shoes of peachcoloured velvet. His neck was bare to the shoulders. His hat was like a helmet, or Spanish montera; and his locks curled below it decently; they were of colour brown. His beard was cut round, and of the same colour with his hair, somewhat lighter. He was carried in a rich chariot without wheels, litter-wise; with two horses at either end, richly trapped in blue velvet embroidered; and two footmen at each side in the like attire. chariot was all of cedar, gilt, and adorned with crystal; save that the fore-end had pannels of sapphires, set in borders of gold, and the hinderend the like of emeralds of the Peru colour. There was also a sun of gold

1 i.e. "in whose birth alone the births of all are blessed."

2 Compare the description of the Father in the Redargutio, above, p. 366.

The

radiant, upon the top, in the midst; and on the top before, a small cherub of gold, with wings displayed. The chariot was covered with cloth of gold tissued upon blue. He had before him fifty attendants, young men all, in white satin loose coats to the mid-leg; and stockings of white silk ; and shoes of blue velvet; and hats of blue velvet; with fine plumes of divers colours, set round like hat-bands. Next before the chariot went two men, bare-headed, in linen garments down to the foot, girt, and shoes of blue velvet; who carried the one a crosier, the other a pastoral staff like a sheep-hook; neither of them of metal, but the crosier of balm-wood, the pastoral staff of cedar. Horsemen he had none, neither before nor behind his chariot; as it seemeth, to avoid all tumult and trouble. Behind his chariot went all the officers and principals of the Companies of the City. He sat alone, upon cushions of a kind of excellent plush, blue; and under his foot curious carpets of silk of divers colours, like the Persian, but far finer. He held up his bare hand as he went, as blessing the people, but in silence."

Soon afterwards the good Jew comes joyfully to the travellers with the tidings that the Father will have private conference with one of them; and accordingly the narrator, being chosen by his fellows for this purpose, is admitted to an audience. The reader may remember that, in the Redargutio Philosophiarum,1 the Elder who utters the oration ad filios is seated on the same level as his audience "without platform or pulpit." This is apparently an emblem of the deprecation of authority in Science, where all should stand on the uniform level of reason and probably with the same emblematic meaning here we read that the Father of Salomon's House was "in a fair chamber, richly hanged and carpeted under foot, without any degrees to the state." 2

:

"He was set upon a low throne richly adorned, and a rich cloth of state over his head, of blue satin embroidered. He was alone, save that he had two pages of honour, on either hand one, finely attired in white. His under-garments were the like that we saw him wear in the chariot; but instead of his gown, he had on him a mantle with a cape, of the same fine black, fastened about him."

When the traveller has received his blessing and has "kissed the hem of his tippet," all else depart from the chamber, and the

1 See above, p. 367.

2 i.e. "without any steps leading up to the chair of state."

Father, in the Spanish tongue, declares that he will give the stranger the greatest jewel he has; for he will impart to him a true account of Salomon's House, its object, its instruments, the functions of its inmates, and their ordinances and rites; and he at once states the object of the House to be "the knowledge of Causes and secret motions of things, and the enlarging of the bounds of human empire, to the effecting of all things possible."

Here the literary interest ceases for the rest of the fragment consists of little more than an enumeration of the instruments and the divisions of labour in Salomon's House. Now and then we meet with an amusing instance in which Bacon's sanguine prophecies have been fulfilled, as when the Father prophetically describes speaking-tubes, declaring that they have "means to convey sounds in trunks and pipes to great distances and in curved lines" but for the most part there is not much literary charm-though there is something stimulating and hopeinspiring in the description of the material microcosm in which the Fathers reproduce all the phenomena of the Universe; the caverns, miles deep, in which they conserve bodies, cure diseases, and prolong the life of hermits; the turrets-half a mile in height, on mountains more than two miles high-which they use for meteorological observations; the great and spacious houses where they imitate and demonstrate meteors; the chamber of health where they qualify the air for the cure of divers diseases; the gardens where they produce new kinds of flowers and fruits; the parks and inclosures for beasts and birds. where they practise experiments of breeding and vivisection; the perspective houses where they make demonstrations of all lights, radiations, and colours, making artificial rainbows, haloes and circles of light, and conducting (by means of glasses) observations in urine and blood, not otherwise to be seen and lastly the houses of deceits of the senses, where they "represent all manner of feats of juggling, false apparitions, impostures, and illusions, and their fallacies."

From the description of the instruments the Father passes on to describe the functions of the Fellows of the House. Some of them travel to obtain information; these are Merchants

1 I adopt here the Latin text.