Figures of the unicorn are found on the archaic cylinder seals of Assyria and Babylonia, and throughout the whole course of ancient and mediæval history we find belief in the creature as much a matter of course as belief in horse or elephant, and it would not be difficult to bring forward a score or more of authors who have written even in comparatively recent times on the existence of the unicorn.[42] In a curious old book on our shelf, the “Philosophical Grammar” of Benjamin Martin, published in 1753, the author raises the question as to whether such creatures as the phœnix, syrens, dragons, mermaids, fairies, and many others that he mentions really exist, and in the matter of the unicorn he evidently suspends judgment. “Most naturalists,” he says, “have affirmed that there have been such creatures and give descriptions of them; but the sight of the creatures or credible relations of them having been so rare, has occasioned many to believe there never were any such animals in nature; at least it has made the history of them very doubtful. In all such ambiguous pieces of history ’tis better not to be positive, and sometimes to suspend our belief rather than credulously embrace every current report.” In another book, however, published in 1786, and therefore not much more than a century ago, the unicorn is described in all sober seriousness as having equine body, a voice like the lowing of an ox, and his horn “as hard as iron and as rough as any file” to the touch. Guillim declares that the unicorn cannot be taken alive, “the greatness of his mind is such that he chuseth rather to die,” while De Thaun gives full directions for its capture. It would appear that the animal is of a particularly impressionable nature, and is always prepared to pay homage to maiden beauty and innocence, hence fierce as it is the wily hunter by taking advantage of this amiable trait in its character effects its capture, for “when a man intends to hunt and ensnare it he goes to the forest where is its repair, and there places a virgin. Then it comes to the virgin, falls asleep on her lap, and so comes to its death. The man arrives immediately and kills it in its sleep, or takes it alive, and does as he will with it.” As this must be rather a trying experience for the young lady, “the Indian and Ethiopians,” says a later writer, “catch of these unicornes which be in their country after the following manner. They take a goodly-strong and beautifull young man, whom they clothe in the apparell of a woman, besetting him with divers flowers and odoriferous spices, setting him where the Unicornes use to come, and when they see this young man they come very lovingly and lay their heads down in his lap (for above all creatures they do great reverence to young maids), and then the hunters having notice given them, suddenly come, and finding him asleep, they will deal so with him, as that before he goeth he must leave his horn behind him” and fall a victim to his guileful