[218] “It is rather peculiar that the same superstitious notions should be found in India in connexion with the horn of the rhinoceros, whom some consider as the fabled unicorn divested of his romantic garb. His horn, too, was thought useful in diseases, and for the purpose of discovering poisons.”--_Calmet’s Dictionary of the Bible._ “The fine shavings were supposed to cure convulsions and spasms in children. Goblets made of these would discover a poisonous draught that was poured into them, by making the liquor ferment till it ran quite out of the goblet.”--_Thunberg’s Journey to Caffraria._
[220] “This is the Civet, as you may see; but enter. Perfumes sold here for men and women.”
[221] The reason why the hedgehog was generally represented with apples stuck on his quills, appears from the following words in Bossewell, (p. 61,)--“He clymeth upon a vine or an apple-tree and biteth off their braunches and twigges, and when they [the apples] be fallen downe, he waloweth on them, and so they sticke on his prickes, and he beareth them unto a hollow tree or some other hole.” The early naturalists also said that if, when he was so loaded, one of the apples happened to drop off, he would throw all the others down in anger and return to the tree for a new load.
[224] _London Gazette_, Sept. 18-21, 1682. I am confident the newspapers made a misprint, and that the man’s name was Haase, Dutch or German, for the Hare he represented on his sign.
[225] Hone’s Every-Day Book, Oct. 17, fol. 1.
[226] Rev. J. Richardson, LL.B., Recollections of the Last Half Century. See also under STUNNING JOE BANKS in the Slang Dictionary, recently issued by the publisher of this work.
[227] _Gentleman’s Magazine_, March 1842.
[231] Hone’s Every Day Book, Jan. 17, vol. ii.
“I wear horns, which everybody sees, But many a one wears horns and does not know it.”
[236] Timbs, Curiosities of London, p. 402.
[237] As quoted by Strutt in “Gliggam,” &c.
[238] Printed in Leland’s Collectanea, pp. 270, 272.
[239] A MS. of the sixteenth century, Bib. Harl. 2150, fol. 356, gives full particulars of this _fête_ and procession.
“At the White Horse, horses are shod with iron, Pity the same cannot be done to men, for then they would need no shoes.”