360 ARANEID.E — TRUE SPIDERS. 



our dear friend worthy to be believed, Brueriis. A lustfuU 

 nephew of his, having spent his estate in rioting and brothel- 

 houses,. being ready to undertake anything for money, to the 

 hazzard of his life ; when he heard of a rich matron of Lon- 

 don, that was troubled with a tirapany, and was forsaken of 

 all physicians as past cure, he counterfeited himself to be a 

 physician in practice, giving forth that he would cure her 

 and all diseases. But as the custom is, he must have half in 

 hand, and the other half under her hand, to be payed when 

 she was cured. Then he gave her a Spider to drink, as 

 supposing her past cure, promising to make her well in 

 three dayes, and so in a coach with four horses he presently 

 hastes out of town, lest there being a rumor of the death of 

 her (which he supposed to be very neer).he should be ap- 

 prehended for killing her. But the woman shortly after by 

 the force of the venome was cured, and the ignorant physi- 

 cian, who was the author of so great a work, was not known. 

 After some moneths this good man returns, not knowing what 

 had happened, and secretly enquiring concerning the state of 

 that woman, he heard she was recovered. Then he began 

 to boast openly, and to ask her how she had observed her 

 diet, and he excused his long absence, by reason of the sicke- 

 nesse of a principal friend, and that he was certain that no 

 harm could proceed from so healthful physick; also he asked 

 confidently for the rest of his reward, and to be given him 

 freely."^ 



"A third kind of Spiders," says Pliny, "also known as 

 the 'phalangium,' is a Spider with a hairy body, and a head 

 of enormous size. When opened, there are found in it two 

 small worms, they say : these, attached in a piece of deer's 

 skin, before sunrise, to a woman's body, will prevent con- 

 ception, according to what CaBcilius, in his Commentaries, 

 says. This property lasts, however, for a year only ; and, 

 indeed, it is the only one of all the anti-conceptives that I 

 feel myself at liberty to mention, in favour of some women 

 whose fecundity, quite teeming with children (plena liberis), 

 stands in need of some such respite."^ 



Mr. John Aubrey, in the chapter of his Miscellanies de- 

 voted to Magick, gives the following : " To cure a Beast that 

 is sprung, (that is) poisoned (It mostly lights upon Sheep): 



1 Moufet, Theatr. Insect., p. 237. Topsel's Hist, of Beasts and Ser- 

 pents, p. 1073. 



'i ^^at. Hist., xxix. 27. 



