Notes and Queries, Number 46, September 14, 1850 | Page 6

quos vult hos dementat;"
the source of which some of your contributors have endeavoured to ascertain.
JAMES BLISS.
Ogbourne St. Andrew.
* * * * *
MINOR QUERIES.
_The Spider and the Fly._--Can any of your readers, gentle or simple, senile or juvenile, inform me, through the medium of your useful and agreeable periodical, in what collection of nursery rhymes a poem called, I think, "The Spider and Fly," occurs, and if procurable, where? The lines I allude to consisted, to the best of my recollection, of a dialogue between a fly and a spider, and began thus:-- {246}
Fly. Spider, spider, what do you spin? Spider. Mainsails for a man-of war. Fly. Spider, spider, 'tis too thin. Tell me truly, what 'tis for. Spider. 'Tis for curtains for the king, When he lies in his state bed. Fly. Spider, 'tis too mean a thing, Tell me why your toils you spread. &c. &c. &c.
There were other stanzas, I believe, but these are all I can remember. My notion is, that the verses in question form part of a collection of nursery songs and rhymes by Charles Lamb, published many years ago, but now quite out of print. This, however, is a mere surmise on my part, and has no better foundation than the vein of humour, sprightliness, and originality, obvious enough in the above extract, which we find running through and adorning all he wrote. "Nihil quod tetigit non ornavit."
S.J.
_A Lexicon of Types._--Can any of your readers inform me of the existence of a collection of emblems or types? I do not mean allegorical pictures, but isolated symbols, alphabetically arranged or otherwise.
Types are constantly to be met with upon monuments, coins, and ancient title-pages, but so mixed with other matters as to render the finding a desired symbol, unless very familiar, a work of great difficulty. Could there be a systematic arrangement of all those known, with their definitions, it would be a very valuable work of reference,--a work in which one might pounce upon all the sacred symbols, classic types, signs, heraldic zoology, conventional botany, monograms, and the like abstract art.
LUKE LIMNER.
_Montaigne, Select Essays of._--
"Essays selected from Montaigne, with a Sketch of the Life of the Author. London. For P. Cadell, &c. 1800."
This volume is dedicated to the Rev. William Coxe, rector of Bemerton.
The life of Montaigne is dated the 28th of March, 1800, and signed Honoria. At the end of the book is this advertisement:--
"Lately published by the same Author 'The Female Mentor.' 2d edit., in 2 vols. 12mo."
Who was _Honoria_? and are these essays a scarce book in England? In France it is entirely unknown to the numerous commentators on Montaigne's works.
O.D.
_Custom of wearing the Breast uncovered in Elizabeth's Reign._--Fynes Moryson, in a well-known passage of his _Itinerary_, (which I suppose I need not transcribe), tells us that unmarried females and young married women wore the breasts uncovered in Queen Elizabeth's reign. This is the custom in many parts of the East. Lamartine mentions it in his pretty description of Mademoiselle Malagambe: he adds, "it is the custom of the Arab females." When did this curious custom commence in England, and when did it go out of fashion?
JARLTZBERG.
_Milton's Lycidas._--In a Dublin edition of Milton's Paradise Lost (1765), in a memoir prefixed I find the following explanation of than rather obscure passage in _Lycidas_:--
"Besides what the grim wolf, with privy paw, Daily devours apace, and nothing said; But that two-handed engine at the door Stands ready to smite once, and smite no more."
"This poem is not all made up of sorrow and tenderness, there is a mixture of satire and indignation: for in part of it, the poet taketh occasion to inveigh against the corruptions of the clergy, and seemeth to have first discovered his acrimony against Arb. Laud, and to have threatened him with the loss of his head, which afterwards happened to him thorough the fury of his enemies. At least I can think of no sense so proper to be given to these verses in Lycidas." (p. vii.)
Perhaps some of your numerous correspondents will kindly inform me of the meaning or meanings usually assigned to this passage.
JARLTZBERG.
_Sitting during the Lessons._--What is the origin of the congregation remaining seated, while the first and second lessons are read, in the church service? The rubric is silent on the subject; it merely directs that the person who reads them shall stand:--
"He that readeth so standing and turning himself, as he may best be heard of all such as are present."
With respect to the practice of sitting while the epistle is read, and of standing while the gospel is read, in the communion service; there is in the rubric a distinct direction that "all the people are to stand up" during the latter, while it is silent as to the former. From the silence of