Francis Bacon and his secret society - Grand Lodge of Colorado

AND HIS SECRET SOCIETY. 249
lent whirlwinds, " and it is interesting to find that the hint for
"the sound of battle in the air," and which is introduced as a
portent in Julius Ccesar —
" The noise of battle hurtled in the air" l
(and which, by the way, is also included in the notes of the
Anatomist — " Counterfeit armies in the air, strange noises,
swords, etc.) — was originally taken from the poet Virgil, from
whom, indeed, the idea of the meeting of the four witches, as
of "the rushing together of the four winds," may have been
taken.
" Virgil . . . was by no means ignorant of Natural Philosophy.
" At once the winds rush forth, the east, and south, and southwest
laden with storms." 2
And again:
" I have seen all the battles of tlve winds meet together in the air." 3
In the Tempest much of the fun and sprightliness of the Midsummer
Night's Dream peeps out again, and the " gross matter »
of prosaic scientific notes is again vapourized into ideas as light
as the airs of the enchanted isle of which the poet-philosopher
wrote.
"Inquire," says the History, " into the nature of the winds,
whether some are not free? . . What do mountains contribute
.
to them ? "
Prospero says to Ariel: " Thou shalt be free as mountain
winds."
" The poets," continues the History, " have feigned that the
Kingdom of Sol was situated in subterranean deus and caverns,
where the Winds are imprisoned, and whence they were occasionally
let loose. . . . The air will submit to some compression. . . .
At Aber Barry there is a rocky cliff filled with holes, to which
if a man apply his ear, he will hear sounds and murmurs." In
Potosi are vents for hot blasts."
i Jul. Cces. ii. 2. 2 ^neid, i. 83, quoted in Hist, of Winds. 3 Georgics, i, 318,
and compare Macbeth, ii. 3, 55, CO.