Natural history in Shakespeare's time : being extracts illustrative of the subject as he knew it / Made by H. W. Seager, M. B., &c. Also pictures thereunto belonging.

  • Seager, H. W. (Herbert West), 1848-
Date:
1896
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Natural history in Shakespeare's time : being extracts illustrative of the subject as he knew it / Made by H. W. Seager, M. B., &c. Also pictures thereunto belonging. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University.

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    name and behalf of those whom they would hurt and mis- chief, according to the practice of pricking the images of any person in wax, used in the witchcraft of these days.] Holland's Pliny, bk. xxviii. ch. iii. and note. Sherris. ii. King Henry IV., iv. 3, iio, etc. [Wine of Xeres.] V. Sack. Shough. Macbeth, iii. i, 94. [A kind of rough-haired dog.] Shrew[-mouse]. {^S/ireiu is only used by Shakespeare of woman. The word has the same meaning {v. infra)?\ A Shrew-mouse quasi shrewd mouse, which by biting cattle so venometh them that they die, whereof came our English I beshrew thee, when we wish ill. M'uisheu's Dictionary, s.v. It is a ravening beast, feigning itself gentle and tame, but being touched, it biteth deep, and poisoneth deadly. They annoy vines, and are seldom taken, except in cold ; ^hay frequent ox-dung. If they fall into a cart-road, they die and cannot get forth again. They go very slowly, they are fraudulent, and take their prey by deceit. Many times they gnaw the ox's hoofs in the stable. They love the rotten flesh of a raven. The Shrew being cut and applied in the manner of a plaister doth effectually cure her own bites. The dust of a cart-rut [in which a Shrew has died] being taken and sprinkled into the wounds made by her poisonous teeth is a very excellent and present remedy for the curing of the same. If horses or any other labouring creature do feed in that pasture or grass in which a Shrew shall put forth her venom or poison in, they will presently die, Topsell, Four-footed Beasts, pp. 415-20.