have any matter to work upon. W. Yworth, Medicina Professor, Ingenuarum Artium Studens, et per Ignem Philosophus. This man's notion is, that the wild and unruly gass is the grand enemy and fatal destroyer of the life of man," the wild gass the sword of mankind." Scurvy, stone, and gout proceed from it, " for the gass is mineral and excrementitious, and hath in it such wrathful qualities as stagmatize the vital functions, for it is endued with a coagulative and forming quality, and will make stones or excrements, and sometimes taken in the bodily form of arsenic or poison, it must be doing, although evil.”—P. 31. BEAUCAIRE, Bishop of Metz, wrote a Treatise Contra Calvinianorum dogma de Sanctificatione Infantium in uteris matrum, -it was to oppose “l'opinion qu'ils ont que les enfans des fidèles sont sanctifiés dès le ventre de leur mère; et qu'ainsi quoiqu'ils meurent sans recevoir le baptême, ils ne laissoient pas d'être sauvés."- Bayle, vol. 3, p. 219. as witches, because that either of them kept a monstrous toad. One of them was ordered to resort to the minister every Sunday and holyday to testify her faith.Panorama, vol. 9, p. 544. When Vaninus the Atheist (?) was seized at Thoulouse, there was found in his lodgings a great toad enclosed in a phial.— Ibid. The male toad acts as accoucheur to the female, who, it is said, could not lay her eggs without his help. And the number of females is believed to be very inferior to the males. John Hunter, at Belleish, dissected some hundreds, and found not a single female among them. Lord Hungerford, who was hanged and degraded, had a toad put into his coat of arms.-DEFOE's Tour, vol. 1, p. 301. Toads near Salerno eight inches long and five broad, and so tough as to be almost unstoneable.-GALIFFE's Italy, vol. 2, p. 246. "I KNEW him for a rogueish boy, When he would poison dogs, and keep tame toads." BEAUMONT and FLETCHER, Cupid's Concerning Toads. HAD the Greeks thought this animal as odious and as deformed as we do, they would have given another name to Phryne. "In time of common contagion they use to carry about them the powder of a toad, and sometimes a living toad or spider shut up in a box; or else they carry arsenic, or some other venomous substance, which draws unto it the contagious air, which otherwise would infect the party; and the same powder of toad draws unto it the poison of a pestilential cold. The scurf or farcy is a venomous and contagious humour within the body of a horse; hang a toad about the neck of the horse in a little bag, and he will be cured infallibly; the toad, which is the stronger poison, drawing to it the venom which was within the horse."SIR K. DIGBY, Powder of Sympathy, p. 77. Boun-Dehesch. The great toad. P. 384. 1585. Three women at Deptford reputed ""Tis an ordinary remedy, though a nasty one, that they who have ill breaths hold their mouths open at the mouth of a privy, as long as they can; and by the reiteration of this remedy, they find themselves cured at last, the greater stink of the privy drawing unto it and carrying away the less, which is that of the mouth."-SIR K. DIGBY, Powder of Symp. p. 76. An old gallant taking this remedy would be a good caricature; and it would be in the spirit of old comedy to mark an invincible breath by saying that he had gone to the jakes to cure it, and brought away the whole stink of the privy. "THY bodies bolstered out with bumbast and with bags, Thy rowles, thy ruffs, thy cauls, thy coifs, thy jerkins, and thy jaggs, Thy curling and thy cost, thy friesling and thy fare To court, to court, with all those toyes, and there set forth such ware." GEORGE GASCOIGNE. "WITH Sweet enticing bait I fisht for many a dame, great service in chronic cases. It consisted in a person's walking on tip-toe, and stretching his hands as high above his head as he could, keeping the whole body also as much upon the stretch as might be. In this condition the patient was to walk as far as he was well able, all the while moving about both hands as much as he could in all directions. BELLARMINE at his death bequeathed onehalf of his soul to the Virgin Mary, and the And warmed me by many a fire, yet felt I other half to Christ! It is said that he would not the flame. But when at last I spied that face that pleased me most, The coals were quick, the wood was dry, and I began to tost." Ibid. GREGORIA GARCIA. Origen de los Indios. The mariner's compass was known to Adam, the angelic doctor St. Thomas, and with him toda la Escuela de los Teologos, teaching that he knew all things which God has made, and all arts, crafts, and sciences, and better than any one else. Vide p. 13. This Glorioso Doctor he calls him presently, where he proves that Noah knew everything also. They twain were the great encyclopædists of the old world, and Ephraim Chambers and Dr. Abraham Rees of the new. PIERRE d'automne. Dr. Dove made some, and when making it, as it blackened and thickened said, "Verily this must be the true pissasphaltum." PIG-CASE, for making brawn,-to keep the pig in. THE pigtail of the field, a small strip in grass. PITYLISMA,1 a name of one of the exercises described by the ancient physicians as of On turning to Fas. Econ. Hippocrat. in v. TITÚλots, I find these words: "Inter corporis gymnasia recenset Galenus, lib. de San. tuendâ 2." I have not Galen at hand.-J. W. W. not allow his own vermin to be molested, saying that they had no other paradise than the present existence, and that it was cruel to deprive them of it. I SHOULD like to see the tales which Jean Pierre Camus, Bishop of Bellay, wrote to inspire horror and disgust for love. CHAMBERLAYNE, who wrote the Angliæ Notitia, had notice given upon his monument, that he had caused some of these books, wrapt in cere-cloth, to be buried with him, as they might possibly be of use to a remote age. JOHN ZEPHANIAH HOLWELL (of the Black Hole) published Dissertations on the Origin, Nature, and Pursuits of intelligent Beings, &c. 1788; wherein he argues that men are fallen angels, condemned to suffer in human bodies for the sins committed in their for mer state. HORTENSIUS the orator used to irrigate his fine plane trees with wine, of which he left at his death 10,000 casks! NICHOLAS VAUGUELIN, Seigneur des Ivetaux, a French poet, and preceptor to Louis XIII. retired to a handsome house in the Fauxbourg St. Germaine, where, fancying that happiness was to be found in a pastoand his mistress, who was a player on the ral life, he habited himself as a shepherd, harp, as a shepherdess, and led imaginary SQUASHES and pumpkins certainly degenerate if grown near gourds; the latter even communicate an emetic quality to their neighbours. In like manner melons will degenerate if planted near squashes and pumpkins. An action was brought against a gardener in Charles II.'s time for selling cabbage-seed instead of cauliflower-seed. On trial it appeared that both had been planted near each other by the purchaser, and to this error, the gardener contended, was owing the degeneracy of the true seed which he had sold. He was cast, but later discoveries show that he was right. WILLY CALVERT, lying flat on his face, and Isabel and Kate, one on each side, trying to kiss him. John Ponsonby exhibited a similar scene here upstairs. An infant St. Anthony in point of persecution, though not of temptation.1 PETERSBURGH. In the coldest and brightest weather, you see an infinite multitude of little shining darts or spiculæ flying in all directions through the sky. They seem to be about a quarter of an inch in length; they have not more thickness than the finest hair, and their golden colour, glancing as they shoot through the deep azure sky, has This is a domestic scene, and the names will be familiar to many readers.-J. W. W. 66 JAMES BOWDOIN, Governor of Massachusetts, a philosopher and statesman, wrote treatises to prove by phenomena and Scripture the existence of an orb which surrounds the whole material system, and which may be necessary to preserve it from that ruin to which, without such a counterbalance, it seems liable, by that universal principle in matter, gravitation." He supposes that the blue expanse of the sky is a real concave body encompassing all visible nature, that the milky way and the lucid spots in the heavens are gaps in this orb, through which the light of exterior orbs reaches us, and that thus an intimation may be given of orbs on orbs, and systems on 2 Δὴξ γάρ ἐστιν εἶδος σκώληκος ἐγγινομένου ἔνδον ξύλου. Schol. in Hes. Ερν. καὶ Ημερ. ν. 418.-J. W. W. systems innumerable, and inconceivably grand. F. MARTENE says that some abbesses formerly confessed their nuns, but their excessive curiosity carried them such lengths that there arose a necessity for checking it. MR. JAMIESON tells us that among the ancient Scandinavians the manner of extolling a person was to call him or her, not the flower of the family, but the leek of the family. IN Rees's Cyclopædia it is very gravely said, under the word Abbé, that the abbés are a numerous and useful body,-persons of universal talents and learning,-held in esteem and respect by people of various descriptions, and particularly by the female sex, to whom they are devoted! 'Akakía, a purple bag filled with earth or sand, and borne by the Greek emperors and princes in the left hand, to remind them of mortality. ACIDALIUS edited a treatise entitled, Mulieres non esse Homines, to appease the ladies, he said; the author was right, for women certainly more resembled angels. AGYEI, posts or obelisks, sacred to Apollo, or Bacchus, or Mercury, with sometimes a head of one of them, placed in the vestibule of houses for their security, and as Steph. Byz. says, serving like our directing posts, which is most likely. ALLUMEE, a term in heraldry, when the eyes of a beast are drawn red or sparkling. THE Guernsey lily (Amaryllis Sarniensis), a native of Japan, became naturalized in Guernsey by the shipwreck of a vessel returning from Japan. Some bulbs being cast on shore, took root in the sand, and Mr. Hatton, the governor, observing the beauty of the flower, propagated it." WORTHY is this book to be written with indelible ink amianthus. upon incombustible paper of SIR EDMUNDBERRY GODFREY, "I find finger die." murdered by rogues,” or “By Rome's rude PILATE'S question, "Quid est veritas," makes the best answer, "Est vir qui adest." ANASTATICA,—Resurrection plant. The Rose of Jericho, or Rosa Mariæ, is one. The dry woody plant being set for some time in water, will dilate and open, so as to disclose THE number of adepts is believed to be the seed vessels and seed. never more or less then twelve. ELURUS, the Egyptian God of the Cats, -a man with a cat's head. Sir Thomas1 might have sat for him. AGLA.-CYCL. the initials of "thou art strong in the eternal God." This word the Jews applied to the Deity, and wrote it in the three angles, and the middle of two triangles laid one above the other, which they called the shield of David, saying it was a security against wounds, would extinguish fire, and do other wonders. A splendid cat belonging to the cat's Eden of Greta Hall. - J. W. W. PALUMBULA, a Latin term of endearment, but so was Anaticula. Odd that in vulgar life this last should so long have been preserved. THE mite was anciently thought the limit of littleness, but we are not now surprised to be told of animals twenty-seven millions of times smaller than a mite! A mite! how vastly swifter does it run than a race-horse! Cyclopædia. Animalculæ have been discovered equal in size only to twenty-seven ten thousand billion parts of a cubic inch! And Leeu 2 See Third Series, p. 628.-J. W. W. wenhoeck calculates that a hundred millions of animalculæ which are discovered in common water, are not altogether so large as a grain of sand. Query, may we not for Leeuwenhoeck read Lying-hoax! THE ancients say there was a stone found in Arcadia of the colour of iron, which, if it were once heated red-hot, never grew cool again. They called it Apsyctos. A "warming stone" is used in Cornwall and Yorkshire, to lay at the feet in bed, because of its property of retaining heat. Near Cordoba, also, there is such a stone, which retains heat for twenty-four hours. THE Aspalax of Aristotle has been discovered. Olivier brought it from the Levant. It lives under ground, and certainly has no eyes; the skin is not even pierced in the place of the eyes. up the legs perpendicularly to the body. This was cutting the coat indeed according to the cloth. But Dr. D.D. must have canvas enough, &c. RINGELBERG recommended bearing burdens as the best exercise for men of study. He had a gown lined with lead, as much as he could lift with both hands, which he used to wear, and thus write and exercise at the same time. Dr. ——, following this rule, has his wig lined with lead,―a needless precaution, when the head was already so well lined with the same materials. CAFFARELLI, the singer, lived in a palace of his own building, over which was this inscription, "Amphion Thebas, ego domum ;" and he purchased for his nephew and heir a dukedom,-Sante Dorato! Dr. Spurzheim, the craniologist, shows NAPLES, or Italy itself, might properly that there is a great difference between the be called Sol-fa-terra. BEZOZZI. See the history of these two musical brothers. Cyclopædia. See also Damiani for a Burney-Mus-Doc-ism. THE earliest account of the contagious catarrhal fever, or influenza, published by Boeckel, 1580, who calls it a new disease, which had grievously afflicted, not Germany alone, but almost all Europe. CARAMUEL'S scheme was, to write about 100 volumes in folio, which all powers were to compel all their subjects to read. (?)— Cycl. Were these to supersede all other books? THERE is a painter known by the name of Hellish Breughel, because of his infernal subjects. BUFFALMACCO was engaged to paint a whole-length St. Christopher, twelve braccia high. The wall not being high enough, he painted him lying on his back, and turned skulls of men and of women; that in Germany the difference is greater than in England, in England than in France, where, indeed, it scarcely exists at all. THE Canary fanciers in London have a pattern bird engraved and coloured, as the standard of perfection at which they are to aim, with his characteristic requisites explained in technical terms. So Nobs might have been the fugel horse. DIDO was Jezebel's grand-daughter, says REES'S Cyclopædia! Louis Bertrand Castel. See Cyclopædia for his scheme of a Clavecin Oculaire, and the music of colours. See also Clavecin, ibid. THE Cyclopædia says that the petrified child at Copenhagen is actually what it is said to be. It was cut out of a woman at Sens, 1582, having been in her about twenty years. As far as petrifying the heart, such changes are but too common. |