Let us first consider the fitness of the constellation Lyra to indicate union. In Charles Anthon's _Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities_, we find the following account of the Lyra. He says:--
"Lyra. The Latin name _fides_, which was used for a lyre as well as a cithara, is probably the same as the Greek [Greek: sphides], which, according to Hesychius, signifies gut-strings; but Festus takes it to be the same as _fides_ (faith), _because the lyre was the symbol of harmony and unity among men_." The quotation from the Astronomicon of Manilius, presented in the following letter from Mr. Charles Francis Adams, grandson of Mr. John Adams, confirms the attributes above ascribed to the lyre, and its corresponding constellation "Lyra."
DEAR SIR: Your letter of the fourth came upon me unprepared to answer it without investigations, which I have ever since been hoping to pursue, but thus far in vain. Not a moment has been at my command since I received it, and as I am now expecting every moment to depart for Washington, I fear that I must give up all idea of doing more hereafter, at least in season for any object of yours.
With the exception of a few letters to and from Generals Green, Sullivan, Parsons, and Ward, there are no memorials remaining in my hands of my grandfather's services while chairman of the Board of War. He had no time to copy or record papers, so that very few are left. I am not aware of the existence of any journal or other record of the action of the body, nor of any further history of it than is given in his lately published diary. I am, therefore, wholly unable to give you any light upon the question of the origin of the American colors.
With regard to the other design, of the eagle, with the lyre on its breast, and the stars of the constellation Lyra, I can only say that I possess the seal which was the original form in which the device was presented. There it has the motto, _Nunc sidera ducit_, taken from the Astronomicon of Manilius, describing the effect of the Lyre of Orpheus,
"At Lyra diductis per coelum cornibus inter Sidera conspicitur, qua quondam ceperat Orpheus Omne quod attigerat, cantu, manesque per ipsos Fecit iter, domuit que infernas carmine leges. Hinc coelestis honos, similisque potentia causæ: Tunc silvas et saxa trahens, nunc sidera ducit, Et rapit immensum mundi revolubilis orbem."