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

rib as the material out
of which our first mother Eve was formed; and the ingenious
illustration which it is made to afford of the relation between wife and

husband. {214}
"Thirdly, God so ordered the matter betwixt them, that this adhæsion
and agglutination of one to the other should be perpetuall. For by
taking a bone from the man (who was _nimium osseus_, exceeded and
was somewhat monstrous, by one bone too much) to strengthen the
woman, and by putting flesh in steede thereof to mollifie the man, he
made a sweete complexion and temper betwixt them, like harmony in
musicke, 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 terræ_, 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 _prælata_, 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 _Athenæ 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.
* * * * *
MINOR NOTES
_Cinderella, or the Glass Slipper._--Two centuries ago furs were so
rare, and