Notes and Queries, Number 57, November 30, 1850 | Page 3

really an ironical outburst on _would-be_ philosophers, into something like a serious common-place?
A. ROFFE.
Query, In a work entitled _Philosophy of Shakspeare_, by W.H. Roukin, Lafeu's speech is quoted, and one word changed; "and we have our philosophical persons," &c., becomes "yet we have," &c. Is there any authority for such a change?
A.R.
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FOLK LORE.
_The bigger the Ring, the nearer the Wet._--On Sunday evening, the 20th Oct., the moon had a {435} very fine ring round it, which apparently was based near the horizon, and spread over a considerable area of the heavens. This was noticed by myself and others as we returned home from church; and upon my mentioning it to my man-servant, who is a countryman, he said he had been noticing it, and that it reminded him of the old saying, "the bigger the ring, the nearer the wet." On the next day, however, it was fine and windy, and my faith began to be shaken as to the truth of the saying; but the almost incessant rain of the four or five subsequent days fully proved its correctness.
J.A.
_Power of prophesying before Death._--To the passages on this subject lately supplied by your correspondents (Vol. ii., pp. 116. 196.) may be added the following from Tertullian, _De Anima_, c. 53. (vol. ii. col. 741., ed. Migne, Paris, 1844):
"Evenit s?pe animam in ipso divortio potentius agitari, sollicitiore obtutu, extraordinaria loquacitate, dum ex majori suggestu, jam in libero constituta, per superfluum quod adhuc cunctatur in corpore enuntiat qu? videt, qu? audit, qu? incipit nosse."
J.C.R.
_Change in the Appearance of the Dead._--A woman near Maidstone, who had had much experience as a sick-nurse, told me some years ago that she had always noticed in corpses a change to a more placid expression on the third day after death; and she supposed this to be connected with our Lord's resurrection. I omitted to ask her whether the belief were wholly the result of her own observation, or whether it had been taught her by others, and were common among her neighbours.
J.C.R.
_Strange Remedies._--I find some curious prescriptions in an old book entitled _The Pathway to Health,_ &c. (I will not trouble you with the full title), "by Peter Levens, Master of Arts in Oxford, and Student in Physick and Chirurgery."... "Printed for J.W., and are to bee sold by Charles Tym, at the Three Bibles on London Bridge, MDCLXIV." The first is a charm
_For all manner of falling evils._--Take the blood of his little finger that is sick, and write these three verses following, and hang it about his neck:
'_Jasper fert Mirrham, Thus Melchior Balthazar Aurum,_ _H?c quicum secum portat tria nomina regum,_ _Soleitur �� morbo, Domini pietate, caduca.'_
and it shall help the party so grieved."
"_For a man or woman that is in a consumption._--Take a brasse pot, and fill it with water, and set it on the fire, and put a great earthen pot within that pot, and then put in these parcels following:--Take a cock and pull him alive, then flea off his skin, then beat him in pieces; take dates a pound, and slit out the stones, and lay a layer of them in the bottom of the pot, and then lay a piece of the cock, and upon that some more of the dates, and take succory, endive, and parsley roots, and so every layer one upon another, and put in fine gold and some pearl, and cover the pot as close as may bee with coarse dow, and so let it distill a good while, and so reserve it for your use till such time as you have need thereof."
I could select some exceedingly ludicrous prescriptions (for the book contains 400 pages), but the most curious unfortunately happen to be the most indelicate. Besides this, I am afraid the subject is scarcely worthy of much space in such an important and useful work as "NOTES AND QUERIES."
ALEXANDER ANDREWS.
Abridge, Essex.
Mice as a Medicine (Vol. i., p. 397.).--An old woman lately recommended an occasional roast mouse as a certain cure for a little boy who wetted his bed at night. Her own son, she said, had got over this weakness by eating three roast mice. I am told that the Faculty employ this remedy, and that it has been prescribed in the Oxford Infirmary.
J.W.H.
_Omens from Birds._--It is said that for a bird to fly into a room, and out again, by an open window, surely indicates the decease of some inmate. Is this belief local?
J.W.H.
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MODE OF COMPUTING INTEREST.
The mode of computing interest among the ancient Greeks appears to have been in many respects the same as that now prevailing in India, which has probably undergone no change from a very remote period. Precisely the same term, too, is used to denote the rate of interest,