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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    Bat. All the charms Of Sycorax, toads, beetles, bats, light on you. Tempest, i. 2, 339-40. Wool of bat, and tongue of dog. Macbeth, iv. i, 15. The reremouse [z>. Bat] hating light flyeth in the even- tide with breaking and blenching and swift moving, with full small skin of her wings. And is a beast like to a mouse in sounding with voice, in piping and crying. And he is like to a bird, and also to a four-footed beast ; and that is but seld found among birds. Reremice be blind as moles, and lick powder [dust] and suck oil out of lamps, and be most cold of kind ; therefore the blood of a reremouse [a]nointed upon the eve-lids suffereth not the hair to grow again. Bartholomew {BertMet), bk. xii. § 38. If you wish to see anything submerged and deep in the night, and that it may not be more hidden from thee than in the day, and that you may read books in a dark night, —anoint your face with the blood of a Bat, and that will happen which I say. Albertus Magnus^ Of the Wonders of the World. Bay, -tree. Rosemary and bays. Pericles, iv. 6, 160. The bav-trees in oar country are all wither'd. King Richard, ii. \, 8. [Bay was used in Shakespeare's time as a synonym for laurel. Cf. Minsheii^s Dictionary, s.v., and Cooper''s Thesaurus, s.v. Laiirus\ This tree worshippeth the house, and maketh it fair. The land that beareth laurel-tree is safe from lightning both in field and in house. Bartholomew {Berthlet), bk. xvii. § 48. Bay-berries taken in wine are good against the bitings of any venomous beast, and against all venom and poison. The oil pressed out of these cureth them that are beaten black and blue, and that be bruised by squats and falls. Common drunkards were accustomed to eat in the morning tasting two leaves thereof against drunkenness. Gerard's Herbal, bk. iii. ch. Ixviii.