Conjectural emendation of the text of our great poet is always to be made with extreme caution, and that reading which will afford a clear sense, with the slightest deviation from the first editions, is always to be preferred. The errors are chiefly typographical, and often clearly perceptible, but but they are also not unfrequently perplexing.
That MR. COLLIER and MR. KNIGHT, who do not often sin in this way, should on the present occasion have countenanced such a wide departure from the old copies as to read _ill_ and _doubt_, may well have surprised A. E. B., as it certainly did
Nat Lee's _Man i' th' Almanack stuck with Pins_ has no reference to "pricking for fortunes;" but to the figure of a man surrounded by the signs of the zodiac found in old almanacks, and intended to indicate the favourable, adverse, or indifferent periods for bloodletting. From the various signs are _lines_ drawn to various parts of the naked figure; and these lines give it very much the appearance of being _stuck with pins_.
I have not ready access to any old English almanacks; but a German one of the early part of the sixteenth century contained the figure as above described, with this inscription:
"In dieser Figur sihet man in welchem Zeichen güt, mittel, oder böss lassen sey."
Surrounding the frame, the words "güt," "mittel," or "böss" are placed against each sign of the zodiac from which the lines are drawn; and underneath the figure are the following verses:
"Im Glentz und in des Sommers zeit, So lass du auff der rechten seyt, In Winters zeit, und in dem Herbst, Auff der lincken;--dass du nit sterbst."
Some former possessor has written on the margin:
"Quatuor _boni_: Aries, Libra, Sagittarius, et Aquarius.
"Et etiam quatuor _medii_, sqr.: Cancro, Virgo, Scorpio, et Pisces.
"Et quatuor _mali_: Geminij, Leo, Capricornus et Taurus."
Similar figures no doubt occur in our old English almanacks. I will merely add that the figure above described is pasted on the back of the title-page of an edition of _Regimen Sanitatis_, with an interlineary version in German verse, bearing the following imprint: "Impressum Auguste per Johannem Froschauer, Anno D[=m] MDij." 4to.
The book also bears a German title which, as it mentions the subject of bloodletting [lassen], I may as well transcribe: ¶ _Diss ist das Regiment der Gesuntheyt durch all monat des ganzen iars, wie man sich halten sol mit essen und trincken, und auch von lassen._ I presume that the rules for bloodletting which accompany the old almanacks are chiefly derived from this _Regimen Sanitatis_, which is founded upon that of the school of Salerno, as they form a principal feature in its precepts.