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

I have stopped it, the sense quadrates
with the context: and surely it is one unalterable property of philosophy
to make seeming strange and preternatural phenomena familiar and
reducible to cause and reason."
Does not Mr. Theobald, in his closing remark, turn what in Lafeu is
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.
* * * * *
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 sæpe animam in ipso divortio potentius agitari, sollicitiore
obtutu, extraordinariâ loquacitate, dum ex majori suggestu, jam in
libero constituta, per superfluum quod adhuc cunctatur in corpore
enuntiat quæ videt, quæ audit, quæ 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,_ _Hæc quicum
secum portat tria nomina regum,_ _Soleitur à 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