POPULAR ERRORS AND SUPER STITIONS. POISON-DIET. It is not perhaps likely that many young ladies will be taken with a fancy for feeding upon poisons, yet the case is not altogether an imaginary one. The beautiful Venezia Stanley, Lady Digby, wife to the celebrated Sir Kenelm, is an instance of this. To preserve those charms, which had been the admiration, or the envy, of all who came within their influence, she had brought herself to feed upon vipers, and capons fattened on vipers, and in consequence she was found one morning lifeless in her bed, her face reclining upon one hand.* At least, as she had been labouring under no previous illness, the snails and vipers bore the blame of having killed her. I have seen a picture of her by Petitot, which certainly goes far to excuse the unusual means she took to preserve her beauty. According to this picture she had a full voluptuous form, a fair complexion—pale indeed and clear as the palest and clearest lily—and rich auburn locks flowing in profusion down to the shoulders, and over her white swelling bosom. There is another 7 May 1st 1683. She was buried in Christ Church, London. picture of her and her two sons painted by Vandyke, in which she is teaching them the use of the orrery, and a miniature of her by Peter Oliver, which so late as 1842 was at Strawberry Hill, when the whole collection was brought to the hammer. The story of the snail-and-viperdiet is told by Pennant, though he does not say upon what authority.* I have however a distinct recollection of having read a similar account elsewhere but with more details, and it is from this strong impression upon my mind that I have added the particulars of the way in which she was found upon the morning of her death. Even the grave Clarendon alludes to her as being "a lady of an extraordinary beauty." It was not, however, so much to show the danger of poison-eating to the ladies themselves, as to their lovers, that I commenced this article, when the recollection of the beautiful Venezia came across me, and led me away from my purpose. It is time then to come to the story told by Camerarius, which, stript of all that is not absolutely essential, amounts to this. A maiden of surpassing beauty was presented by an Indian king to Alexander the Great, who had been accustomed to feed upon poison so long that it produced no injurious effect. upon her. Luckily Aristotle happened to see the dangerous stranger, and judging by the serpent-like sparkling of her eyes how matters stood with her, he exclaimed, "take care what you do, O Alexander; there is peril in this woman." And so the result proved. Those, who ventured to touch her perished in a state of intoxication. The moral that is hidden under this fable is too obvious to need explanation, † but there can be little doubt that it was based upon popular belief. Paracelsus, in speaking * Pennant's Journey from Chester to London, p. 336. 4to. London. 1782. + Camerarius, Cent. 1, p. 263, cap. 69. * of the basilisk says that he carries a poison in his eyes, which he compares to those of women under certain constitutional derangements. At the same time it must be allowed that Paracelsus was no friend to the fair sex and was even too glad to catch hold of any story to their disadvantage, while Pliny † on the other hand goes so far as to say, that if a woman stand bare against the weather it will secure sailors and passengers from all tempests-a new sort of lightning conductor, and very profitable to be known by farmers as well as seamen. We have the less reason to doubt its efficacy, when Pliny upon the authority of Democritus relates the yet greater miracle of women, that they can be made to speak truth in their sleep, and by a very simple process. Take out the tongue of a live frog, but mind that no other part adhere to it; then, having first flung the creature into water, apply the extracted part upon the heart of a sleeping woman just where you can feel its palpitation; to whatever you ask she will return a true answer. The Owl.-Amongst most people he has ever laboured under a bad name as a bird of ill omen, and many are the stories told of this unlucky prophet both in our own and other countries. He seems to be particularly fond of attending the bed of the dying, and letting them know by his presence that there is no hope for them. Thus, when Charles Frederick, Duke of Juliers and Treves, was *Of the Nature of Things, book i. p. 6. + “Jam primùm abigi grandines turbinesque, contra fulgura ipsa in mense nudata; in navigando quidem tempestates etiam sine menstruis." C. Plinii Sec. Nat. Hist. lib. xxviii. cap. 23. "Democritus quidem tradit si quis extrahat ranæ viventi linguam, nulla alia corporis parte adherente, ipsaque dimissa in aquam, imponat supra cordis palpitationem mulieri dormienti, quæcumque interrogaverit vera responsuram." C. Plinii Sec. Nat. Hist. lib. xxxii. cap. 18. struggling at Rome with the disease, of which he afterwards died, an owl was seen and heard for many days upon the palace at Cleves, and in the broad day-light, who was scarcely to be driven away from the towers by any missiles. * The learned Pighius, however, who tells the story, has the grace to observe that he does not think such things are altogether to be believed, though he deems it right they should be recorded. The Ethiopians also, and the Egyptians who borrowed many rites from them, accounted the owl a fatal augury, and its image was used, like the bull's head among more modern races, as a messenger of death. So great was the respect paid by these people to their king, that upon his sending the image of this bird to any culprit, it was considered as a token that he should immediately kill himself, and to fail in doing so, or to seek in any way to escape from the fate prescribed, was considered disgraceful to the condemned no less than to his country, suicide in this case being deemed a virtue. story is told of an Egyptian mother, who exceeding the virtue, or the cruelty, of the elder Brutus, actually strangled with her own girdle the son who was attempting to fly from this agreeable invitation.† A *"Eodem ferè, quo Romæ cum morbo conflictabatur æger, tempore, bubo Clivis per plures dies in palatio visus ac auditus mediâ luce, qui vix jaculis abigi a turribus ac tectis tum potuit." Hercules Prodicius. Per Stephanum Pighium, p. 406. 12mo. Coloniæ, 1609. "Hoc igitur mortis signum illud esse crediderim, quod ab lictore ferebatur ad damnatum publico judicio, præsertim apud Ethiopas, a quibus Ægyptios aiunt multa rituum genera mutuatos; nam pios eos ante omnes extitisse, familiaritates eorum commerciaque cum diis, et invicem agitata convivia, de quibus et Homerus et alii scripserunt, facile indicant ita fuisse tunc hominibus persuasum. Eo verò signo viso reus sponte sibi mortem consciscebat, magno et sibi et patriæ dedecori futurus, nisi fecisset; adeo illi regem suum ut numen venerabantur, vulgòque adorabant. Atque ferunt quemdam per hoc morti Vulnerary Plants." Some empiric surgeons in Scotland take a journey to the Picts' wall every summer to gather vulnerary plants, which they say grow plentifully there, and are very effectual, being planted by the Romans for surgical uses." Ghost-Seers. (Oral).—According to a popular superstition, people born between twelve and one see ghosts. Saint John's Wort and Vervain.-Among the peasantry of the Northern countries the devil is believed to hold these herbs in abhorrence, from its bearing the name and being a sacred attribute of Saint John the Baptist. Sir Walter Scott says, "I remember a popular rhyme supposed to be addressed to a young woman by the devil, who attempted to seduce her, in the shape of a handsome young man : "Gin you wish to be leman mine, Do off the Saint John's Wort and the Vervine." By his repugnance to these sacred plants his mistress discovered the cloven foot."† Being thus potent against the devil himself, it was of course irresistible when employed against his subordinate agents, the witches. Accordingly we read in Drayton, "The night-shade strows to work him ill, Therewith the vervain and her dill, That hindreth witches of their will." The Saint John's Wort was also called Hypericon,‡ from destinatum, cum de fuga coepisset cogitare, priusquam a periculo se abstraheret, zona a matre strangulatum." Joannis Pierii Valeriani HIEROGLYPHICA, lib. xx. cap. xix. p. 203, D. folio, Lugduni. 1610. See also Diodorus Siculus (lib. iii.) who tells this same story of a mother strangling her son with her own girdle upon his attempting to fly after the messenger of death had been sent to him. * Burton's Admirable Curiosities, p. 38, 12mo. London. 1737. + Scott's Poetical Works, vol. iv. p. 277. "Hypericum à Gr. VπEρIKòv quoniam existimantur folia habere plusquam viginti foramina."—" Perforata, quia si inspiciamus herbam |