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And again, in the same scene, Cloten speaks of the Romans finding us in our “salt-water girdle.”

But no play of Shakespeare’s, except “The Tempest,” smacks so smartly of the brine as “Pericles,” the story of that much enduring Prince of Tyre whose nautical mishaps are made to have such a miraculously happy ending. In Act II., Scene 1, enter Pericles, wet, invoking Heaven that the sea having manifested its sovereignty over man, may grant him one last boon,—a peaceful death. To him appear three fishermen characteristically engaged in handling their nets, bullying one another, and discussing the latest wreck. And here we get a bit of sea-lore that all sailors deeply appreciate. “3rd Fish. Nay, master, said not I as much, when I saw the porpus how he bounced and tumbled? they say, they are half fish, half flesh; a plague on them! they ne’er come but I look to be wash’d.” Few indeed are the sailors even in these steamship days who have not heard that the excited leaping of porpoises presages a storm. The whole scene well deserves quotation, especially the true description of the whale (rorqual) “driving the poor fry before him and at last devours them all at a mouthful.” Space presses, however, and it will be much better for those interested to read for themselves. Act III., Scene 1, brings before us a companion picture to that in the opening of “The Tempest,” perhaps even more vivid; where the terrible travail of the elements is agonisingly contrasted with the birth-wail of an infant, and the passing of the hapless Princess. Beautiful indeed is the rough but honest heartening offered by the labouring sailors, broken off by the sea-command to—