THAT THE SERPENT HAS A STING IN ITS TAIL 199 



The idea that large lenses are the most powerful is so very 

 prevalent that "Send me one of your largest and most 

 powerful magnifiers," is an order with which every optician 

 is familiar, and yet such an order contains a positive con- 

 tradiction in terms. A lens cannot possibly be very large 

 and magnify greatly at the same time. 



THAT THE SERPENT HAS A STING IN ITS TAIL 



HIS curious belief, the falsity of which must 

 have been known to every country boy, seems 

 to have permeated our literature down to a period 

 well along in the nineteenth century, and I do 

 not know but that it prevails yet amongst the litterateurs 

 of the day. In Shakespeare we find more than half a dozen 

 passages in which the "sting" of the serpent is spoken of, 

 and the Bible tells us that wine "stingeth like an adder." 

 That the general impression derived from these expressions 

 was that adders, snakes, and serpents had stings in their 

 tails, is very evident, and this view is corroborated by a 

 passage in Scott's novel "The Monastery" 1 in which the 

 peddler says: "Now let us hurry down the hill; for to tell 

 the truth a Scottish noble's march is like a serpent the 

 head is furnished with fangs, and the tail hath its sting; 

 the only harmless point of access is the main body. " 



And as that which is unknown is generally more dreaded 

 than that which is seen, the sting of the tail seems to have 

 been more feared than the fangs of the head. 



1 Vol. II, Chap. XVIII. In some of the bastard editions where the 

 chapters of both volumes are numbered consecutively this would be 

 Chap. XXXV. 



