410
NOTES 'AND QUERIES. [9 th s. vm. NOV. 16, 1901.
them, the privy part is extended and pained, if
the party be young ; relaxed, if old ; a cold sweat
universally possesseth them, and sometimes they
void by urine some what like unto a Spider."
Spiders as diet are, by the way, mentioned in Jonson's play * The Staple of News,' but it is only as diet for monkeys, where Almanac says of Penny boy, Sen. (II. i.) :
Sweeps down no cobwebs here, But sells them for cut fingers ; and the spiders, As creatures rear'd of dust, and cost him nothing, To fat old ladies' monkeys. This seems to hint at some nutritious virtue in them. C. 0. B.
In Lincolnshire it is thought that to swallow a spider is dangerous to health, if not absolutely fatal. At Lincoln assizes in July, 1872, I heard a witness, whose home was at Flixborough or the immediate neighbour- hood, depose that she had said to a young woman who appeared to be very ill, *' Thoo looks straange an' badly, lass ; thoo must hev swalla'd a spider." Spiders are said to have been taken here as a cure for ague, but that form of suffering has ceased to occur in these parts for many years, so I never knew an instance of the remedy being applied. EDWARD PEACOCK.
Wick entree House, Kirton-in-Lindsey.
GEORGE BORROW (9 th S. viii. 343). Sir Alured Clarke was made a field-marshal on the accession of William IV. See 'D.N.B.,' x. 415-6. W. 0. B.
ST. MARCELLA (9 th S. viii. 264, 328). Surely MR. C. S. WARD cannot have read my question. It did not relate to a septua- genarian widow who was not a martyr, but to a young and beautiful woman represented with such a wound in her neck as led me to think that she must have sealed her testimony with her blood. From my point of view, therefore, " there is more than one corrigen- dum" in MR. WARD'S instructive reply. I did not write to 'N. & Q.' without pre- viously consulting several books which might have spared me any further quest. I begin to wonder if I have got hold of the right name of my saint. Hosv is St. Maxentia of Beauvais figured ? ST. SWITHIN.
ASAYiN(! OF SOCRATES (9 th S. viii. 339).- A few months before his death I had a conversation with Longfellow in his house at Cambridge (Mass.), and among other topics he mentioned man's limitations with regard to knowledge in the aggregate. He instanced Voltaire as a case of an author who had written too copiously, and asserted that it would take a lifetime to master his books
alone. The poet's 'Hermes Trismegistus,
contained in a volume published after his
death, may be read as a commentary on the
vanity of human efforts ; but the priest's
name lives, though his writings are lost.
ARTHUR MAYALL.
MR. AULD writes as follows of De Quincey : "He planned and purposed writing a history of England and an historical novel such as should be worth reading, felt equal to the task at last and then died."
This reminds me of what Swift, when he was old, in the year 1734 wrote to Pope :
' Yet, what is singular, I am never without some great work in view, enough to take up forty years of the most vigorous healthy man ; although I am convinced that I shall never be able to finish three treatises, that have lain by me several years, and want nothing but correction."
Young has said in his ' Night Thoughts,'
Like our shadows, Our wishes lengthen as our sun declines.
E. YARDLEY.
THOMAS WILLIAMSON (9 th S. viii. 325). This name occurs in Mr. Algernon Graves's Dictionary of Artists' as exhibiting in 1825. Mr. Graves (6, Pall Mall) is generally in a position to give further information than is to be found in his ' Dictionary.'
RALPH THOMAS.
Holden's 'Directory' (London, 1805) has l 'Tho. Williamson, historical engraver, 21, Charlton Street, Somers-town." H. J. B.
SARTEN (9 th S. viii. 345). Sarten is a German plural, corresponding to Sartes in French, and Sarts in English, and denoting a social distinction rather than a race. The term seems to have originally meant "traders/' and is applied to the urban population in Central Asia, as opposed to the nomad element, irrespective of nationality. Sarts may therefore be either Aryans or Turanians, according to circumstances. There is no such language as Sarten. For example, Uzbegs when settled become Sarts, but continue to speak Uzbeg. For further information see the ' Encyclopaedia Britannica,' sub voce 'Khiva,' 'Syr-Daria,' 'Turkestan,' or almost any good geographical compendium, such as Stanford's ' Asia.' JAS. PLATT, Jun.
Sarten was originally under the influence of the Persian and Arabian tongues, but is more correctly spoken of at that stage as Tadjik. The Tadjiks of Tashkend, Turkestan, and the district thereabouts are known as Sarts, and are said to speak Turkish. They number 80,000 in Tashkend alone. On the west of the Caspian they are known as Tats.
