Notes and Queries, Number 44, August 31, 1850 | Page 7

for their amiable cohabitation.
"Fourthly, that bone which God tooke from the man, was from out the midst of him. As Christ wrought saluation _in medio terr?_, so God made the woman _è medio viri_, out of the very midst of man. The species of the bone is exprest to be _costa_, a rib, a bone of the side, not of the head: a woman is not _domina_, the ruler; nor of any anterior part; she is not _pr?lata_, preferred before the man; nor a bone of the foote; she is not _serva_, a handmaid; nor of any hinder part; she is not _post-posita_, set behind the man: but a bone of the _side_, of a middle and indifferent part, to show that she is _socia_, a companion to the husband. For _qui junguntur lateribus, socii sunt_, they that walke side to side and cheeke to cheeke, walke as companions.
"Fifthly, I might adde, a bone from vnder the arme, to put the man in remembrance of protection and defense to the woman.
"Sixthly, a bone not far from his heart to put him in minde of dilection and loue to the woman. Lastly, a bone from the left side, to put the woman in minde, that by reason of her frailty and infirmity she standeth in need of both the one and the other from her husband.
"To conclude my discourse, if these things be duely examined when man taketh a woman to wife, _reparat latus suum_, what doth he else but remember the maime that was sometimes made in his side, and desireth to repaire it? _Repetit costam suam_, he requireth and fetcheth back the rib that was taken from him," &c. &c.--From pp. 28, 30, of "_Vitis Palatina_, A sermon appointed to be preached at Whitehall, upon Tuesday after the marriage of the Ladie Elizabeth, her Grace, by the B. of London. London: printed for John Bill, 1614."
The marriage actually took place on the 14th of February, 1612. In the dedication to the Prince of Wales, afterwards Charles I., the Bishop (Dr. John King) hints that he had delayed the publication till the full meaning of his text, which is Psalm xxviii. ver. 3, should have been accomplished by the birth of a son, an event which had been recently announced, and that, too, on the very day when this Psalm occurred in the course of the Church service.
The sermon is curious, and I may hereafter trouble you with some notices of these "Wedding Sermons," which are evidently contemplated by the framers of our Liturgy, as the concluding homily of the office for matrimony is by the Rubric to be read "if there be no sermon." It is observable that the first Rubric especially directs that the woman shall stand on the man's left hand. Any notices on the subject from your correspondents would be acceptable.
In the first series of Southey's _Common Place Book_, at page 226., a passage is quoted from Henry Smith's _Sermons_, which dwells much upon the formation of the woman from the rib of man, but not in such detail as Bishop King has done. Notices of the Bishop may be found in Keble's edition of _Hooker_, vol. ii. pp. 24, 100, 103. It appears that after his death it was alleged that he maintained Popish doctrines. This his son, Henry King, canon of St. Paul's, and Archdeacon of Colchester, satisfactorily disproved in a sermon at Paul's Cross, and again in the dedication prefixed to his "_Exposition upon the Lord's Prayer_," 4to., London, 1634. See Wood's _Athen? Oxon._, fol. edit. vol. ii. p. 294.
As for the marriage of the Princess Elizabeth, afterwards celebrated for her misfortunes as Queen of Bohemia, it was celebrated in an epithalamium by Dr. Donne, _Works_, 8vo. edit. vol. vi. p. 550. And in the Somer's _Tracts_, vol. iii., pp. 35, 43., may be found descriptions of the "_shewes_," and a poem of Taylor the Water Poet, entitled "Heaven's Blessing and Earth's Joy," all tending to show the great contemporary interest which the event occasioned.
Balliolensis.
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MINOR NOTES
_Cinderella, or the Glass Slipper._--Two centuries ago furs were so rare, and therefore so highly valued, that the wearing of them was restricted by several sumptuary laws to kings and princes. Sable, in those laws called _vair_, was the subject of countless regulations: the exact quality permitted to be worn by persons of different grades, and the articles of dress to which it might be applied, were defined most strictly. Perrault's tale of Cinderella originally marked the dignity conferred on her by the fairy by her wearing a slipper of _vair_, a privilege then confined to the highest rank of princesses. An error of the press, now become inveterate, changed vair into _verre_, and the slipper of sable was suddenly converted into a glass