The classic writers limited the number of their syrens to three ordinarily, though they were not quite unanimous as to the exact number, while the mediæval mermaids were simply as unnumbered and as un-named denizens of the deep as the cod-fish. In mediæval times the mermaidens were not ordinarily credited with any particular musical gifts, though we remember seeing a Gothic carving of one playing on a violin. It will be remembered that with their antique prototypes the musical part of the entertainment was a very conspicuous feature:— “Withe pleasaunte tunes the syrenes did allure, Vlisses wise, to listen to theire songe: But nothinge could his manlie harte procure, He sailde awaie, and scaped their charming stronge, The face he likde; the nether parte did loathe, For woman’s shape, and fishes, had they bothe. Which showes to us, when Bewtie seeks to snare The carelesse man, who dothe no daunger dreede, That he should flie, and should in time beware, And not on lookes his fickle fancie feede: Such Mairemaides liue, that promise onelie ioyes, But he that yeldes at lengthe him selffe distroies.“[23] We will consider first the mermaid of the artist and the poet, and then see how the poetic and artistic type tallies with, or differs from, the mermaid as the ancient voyager vouches for her from ocular demonstration. Naturally the poets were unwilling to surrender the sweet song of the mermaid, and the bellowing and whooping of the matter-of-fact naturalists becomes with the poets a “dulcet and harmonious breath.” All our readers must be familiar with the beautiful passage in the “Midsummer Night’s Dream”:— “I sat upon a promontory, And heard a mermaid on a dolphin’s back Uttering such dulcet and harmonious breath, That the rude sea grew civil at her song; And certain stars shot madly from their spheres To hear the sea-maid’s music.”[24] Several other allusions to the mermaid will be found in the writings of Shakespeare and many others of our poets, though it would be somewhat foreign to our purpose to quote them at any length, fascinating as the subject would be. Our present prosaic intent is but to introduce the poets as witnesses to the widespread belief in such a creature as the mermaid and to show their sympathy with it.