that amusing Folk's-book of Neapolitan childish tales, the Pentamerone of the noble Count-Palatine Cavalier Giovan-Battista Basile, in the seventeenth tale, entitled "La Palomma," we have a similar rhyme:
"Jesce, jesce, corna;
Ça mammata te scorna,
Te scorna 'ncoppa lastrico,
Che fa lo figlio mascolo."
of which the sense may probably be:
"Peer out! Peer out! Put forth your horns!
At you your mother mocks and scorns;
Another son is on the stocks,
And you she scorns, at you she mocks."
The Evil Eye.—This superstition is still prevalent in this neighbourhood (Launceston). I have very recently been informed of the case of a young woman, in the village of Lifton, who is lying hopelessly ill of consumption, which her neighbours attribute to her having been "overlooked" (this is the local phrase by which they designate the baleful spell of the evil eye). An old woman in this town is supposed to have the power of "ill-wishing" or bewitching her neighbours and their cattle, and is looked on with much awe in consequence.
"Millery! Millery! Dousty-poll!" &c.—I am told by a neighbour of a cruel custom among the children in Somersetshire, who, when they have caught a certain kind of large white moth, which they call a miller, chant over it this uncouth ditty:—
"Millery! Millery! Dousty-poll!
How many sacks hast thou stole?"
And then, with boyish recklessness, put the poor creature to death for the imagined misdeeds of his human namesake.
"Nettle in, Dock out."—Sometime since, turning over the leaves of Clarke's Chaucer, I stumbled on the following passage in "Troilus and Cressida," vol. ii. p. 104.:—
"Thou biddest me that I should love another
All freshly newe, and let Creseidé go,
It li'th not in my power levé brother,
And though I might, yet would I not do so:
But can'st thou playen racket to and fro,
Nettle' in Dock out, now this now that, Pandare?
Now foulé fall her for thy woe that care."
I was delighted to find the charm for a nettle sting, so familiar to my childish ear, was as old as Chaucer's time, and exceedingly surprised to stumble on the following note:—
"This appears to be a proverbial expression implying inconstancy; but the origin of the phrase is unknown to all the commentators on our poet."
If this be the case, Chaucer's commentators may as well be told that children in Northumberland use friction by a dock-leaf as the approved remedy for the sting of a nettle, or rather the approved charm; for the patient, while rubbing in the dock-juice, should keep repeating,—
"Nettle in, dock out,
Dock in, nettle out,
Nettle in, dock out,
Dock rub nettle out."
The meaning is therefore obvious. Troilus is indignant at being recommended to forget this Cressida for a new love, just as a child cures a nettle-sting by a dock-leaf. I know not whether you will deem this trifle worth a corner in your valuable and amusing "Notes."
THE SCALIGERS
"Lo primo tuo rifugio e 'l primo ostello Sarà la cortesia del gran Lombardo, Che 'n su la Scala porta il santo uccello."
The Scaligers are well known, not only as having held the lordship of Verona for some generations, but also as having been among the friends of Dante in his exile, no mean reputation in itself; and, at a later period, as taking very high rank among the first scholars of their day. To which of them the passage above properly belongs—whether to Can Grande, or his brother Bartolommeo, or even his father Alberto, commentators are by no means agreed. The question is argued more largely than conclusively, both in the notes to Lombardi's edition, and also in Ugo Foscolo's Discorso nel testo di Dante.
Perhaps the following may be a contribution to the evidence in favour of Can Grande. After saying, in a letter, in which he professes to give the history and origin of his family,—
"Prisca omnium familiarum Scaligeræ stirpis insignia sunt, aut Scala singularis, aut Canes utrinque scalæ innitentes."
Joseph Scaliger adds—
"Denique principium Veronensium progenitores eadem habuerunt insignia: donec in eam familiam Alboinus et Canis Magnus Aquilam imperii cum Scala primum ab Henrico VIIo, deinde à Ludovico Bavaro acceptam nobis reliquerunt."
Alboinus, however, who received this grant upon being made a Lieutenant of the Empire, and having the Signory of Verona made hereditary in his family, only bore the eagle "in quadrante scuti."
"Sed Canis Magnus, cum eidem à Cæsare Ludovico Bavaro idem privilegium confirmatum esset, totum scutum Aquilâ occupavit, subjectâ Alitis pedibus Scalâ."
Can Grande, then, was surely the first who carried the "santo uccello" in su la Scala; and his epithet of Grande would also agree best with Dante's words, as neither his father nor brothers seem to have had the same claim to it.
I would offer a farther remark about this same title or epithet Can Grande, and the origin of the scala or ladder as a charge upon the shield or coat of this family. Cane would at first sight appear to be a designation borrowed from the animal of that name. There would be parallels enough in Italy and elsewhere, as the Ursini, Lewis the Lion (VIII. of France), our own Cœur de Lion, and Harold Harefoot. Dante, too, refers to him under the name "Il Veltro," Inferno, canto 1. l. 101. But Joseph Scaliger, in the letter to which I referred before, gives the following account of it:—
"Nomen illi fuerat Franscisco, à sacro lavacro, Cani à gentilitate, Magno à merito rerum gestarum. Neque enim Canis ab illo latranti animali dictus est, ut recte monet Jovius, sed quod linguâ Windorum, unde principes Veronenses oriundos vult, Cahan idem est, quod linguâ Serviana Kral, id est Rex, aut Princeps. Nam in gente nostrâ multi fuerunt Canes, Mastini, Visulphi Guelphi."—P. 17.
This letter consists of about 58 pages, and stands first in the edition of 1627. It is addressed "ad Janum Dousam," and was written to vindicate his family from certain indignities which he conceived had been put upon it. Sansovino and Villani, it appears, had referred its origin to Mastin II., "qui," to use Scaliger's version of the matter,—
"Qui primus dictator populi Veronensis perpetuus creatus est, quem et auctorem nobilitatis Scaligeræ et Scalarum antea fabrum impudentissime nugantur hostes virtutis majorum nostrorum."
It was bad enough to ascribe their origin to so recent a date, but to derive it from a mere mechanic was more than our author's patience could endure. Accordingly he is not sparing of invective against those who so disparage his race.
Vappa, nebulo, and similar terms, are freely
