Francis Bacon and his secret society - Grand Lodge of Colorado

AND HIS SECRET SOCIETY. 253
moonlight (where, Beacon says, nothing will ripen), and which
even the sheep will not eat, though sheep love mushrooms.
The wind-fairies " rejoice to hear the solemn curfew, lms
tells us that these are the south winds, "for the south wind is
the attendant of the night; it rises in the night, and blows
stronger.'' 11 _ . . „
The south and west winds, too, are
" warm and moist, favourable
to plants, flowers, and all vegetation; " hence the mushrooms
spring up quickly under their influence.
But the north winds are " more potent ministers ;
" with them
occur " thunder, lightning, and tornadoes, accompanied with
cold and hail. » 2 They are " unfriendly, » and even destructive
to vegetable life, and either " bind the flower on tlie opening of it,
or shake it off."*
"The tyrannous breathing of the north
Shakes all our buds from growing."*
" Storms," continues our observant naturalist, « when attended
with clouds and fog, are very dangerous at sea." Prospero,
therefore, to make his tempest the more terrible, " bedims the
noontide sun," before calling forth the winds and the thunder.
» The anniversary north winds » come "from the frozen sea,
and the region about the Arctic Circle, where the ice and snow are
not melted till the summer is far advanced." Prospero taunts
" Thouthink'st it much to tread the ooze
Of the salt deep,
To run upon the sharp wind of the north
When it is baFd with frost."
The last lines seem to be suggested by the Latin entry in
Promus (No. 1367): " Frigus adurit."
The idea is repeated in Hamlet:
" Frost itself as actively doth burn." 6
the
1 Hist. Winds, 1, 2, 10, 12, etc., qualities and powers.
2 Comp. Macb. i. 1, 2. Ham. v. 2, 97.
3 lb. 21, 24.
4 Cymh - i- 4 -
5 Compare. Macb. i. 1, of the witches' storms.
6 Hamlet, iii. 4.