128 SHAKESPEARE'S [GNAT. 



with quicksilver, and so put it into a vial and hang the 

 same in a dark place, and it will give light. This I had 

 out of an old book, which is not much unlike the descrip- 

 tion of Mizaldus. 



Lupton, "A Thousand Notable Things," bk. viii. 84. 



WHERE the Glow-worm creepeth in the night, no adder 

 will go in the day. Lilly, Campaspe," Epilogue. 



[Albertus Magnus (" Of the Wonders of the World ") states 

 that you may make a carbuncle of Glow-worms, treated accord- 

 ing to the directions given in the first quotation from Luptou's 

 "Notable Things."] 



Gnat. 



COMEDY OF ERRORS, ii. 2, 30. 



A GNAT is a little fly, and is accounted among volatiles,- 

 as the bee is, though he have the body of a worm with 

 many feet. And is gendered of rotted or corrupt vapours 

 of carrions and corrupt place of marais [i.e., marshes]. By 

 continual flapping of wings he maketh noise in the air, as 

 though he [w]hurred ; and sitteth gladly upon carrions, 

 botches, scabs and sores ; and is full noyful to scabbed 

 horses and sore-backed, and grieveth sleeping men with 

 noise and with biting, and waketh them of their rest, and 

 fleeth about most by night, and pierceth and biteth mem- 

 bers upon the which he sitteth, and draweth toward light, 

 and so unwarily he falleth into a candle or into the fire. 

 And for covetous[ness] for to see light, he burneth himself 

 oft, and is best to feeding of swallows. 



Bartholomew (Bertkelet), bk. xii. 12. 



IF any list to sleep, and lay by him the branches of moist 

 hemp, Gnats will not trouble him nor come nigh him. 



Lupton, "A Thousand Notable Things," bk. iv. 47. 



THE network coverlid spread on beds, we at this day 

 name a canopy, a thing to catch all manner of Gnats. The 

 Gnat seems to be a kind of fly, yet as flies love sweet 

 things, Gnats love things sour and tart ; the flies do couple, 

 the Gnats do not. By their goodwill, they will wound 



