“τῆς σκοτεινῆς με τῶν διαμόνων λυτρου μέτημορφῆς, (I am not answerable either for Damascene Greek, or for my MS. of it, in 1396,) τοῦ πικροτάτου λογοθεσίου τῶν τελωνῶν τοῦ ἀέρος καὶ τῶν ἀρχόντων τοῦ σκότους ἐξαίρουσα.” And now—of this entangling in the shrine of half born and half-sighted things, see this piece of Sir Philip Sidney’s psalm. I want it also for the bit of conchology at the end. The italics are mine. “And call ye this to utter what is just, You that of justice hold the sov’raign throne? And call yee this to yield, O sonnes of dust, To wronged brethren ev’ry one his own? O no: it is your long malicious will Now to the world to make by practice known, With whose oppression you the ballance fill, Just to your selves, indiff’rent else to none. But what could they, who ev’n in birth declin’d, From truth and right to lies and injuries? To shew the venom of their cancred mynd The adder’s image scarcely can suffice. Nay, scarce the aspick may with them contend, On whom the charmer all in vaine applies His skillful’st spells: aye, missing of his end, While shee self-deaf, and unaffected lies. Lord, crack their teeth, Lord, crush Thou these lions’ jawes, Soe lett them sinck as water in the sand: When deadly bow their aiming fury drawes, Shiver the shaft, ere past the shooter’s hand. So make them melt as the dishowsed snaile, Or as the embrio, whose vitall band Breakes ere it holdes, and formlesse eyes doe faile To see the sun, though brought to lightfull land.” ‘Dishoused’ snail! That’s a bit, observe, of Sir Philip’s own natural history, perfecting the image in the psalm, “as a snail which melteth.” The ‘housed’ snail can shelter himself from evil weather, but the poor houseless slug, a mere slimy mass of helpless blackness,—shower-begotten, as it seems,—what is to become of it when the sun is up!