CHAP. XI.] COLOURS. 333 



. . . With regard to Britomart's nurse I have not Spenser 

 here, but I think Spenser was not a magician himself, and 

 got all his black art out of romances and not out of the pro- 

 fessional treatises, the notions to be brought out were: 1st, 

 The unweaving any web in which B. had been caught ; 2d, 

 Doing so in witch-like fashion ; 3d, Not like a wicked witch, 

 but like a well-intentioned nurse, unused to the art, and there- 

 fore blunderingly. She believes in the number three and in 

 contrariety, and therefore says everything thrice and does 

 everything thrice, saying inversions of sentences, and doing 

 reversions of her revolutions, which are described in similar 

 language. The revolutions begin by + 3 (2?r) against the 

 visible motion of the sun, then by a revolution 6 TT she 

 returns all contrary and unweaves the first. Then she goes 

 round -f- GTT, to make the final result contrary to the natural 

 revolution, and to make a complete triad. Withershins is, 

 I believe, equivalent to wider die Sonne in High Dutch, 

 which I am not aware is a modern or ancient idiom in that 

 language, but it may be one in a cognate language. If the 

 " phamplets " have not turned up in Madeira yet, let me 

 know, that I may " replace" them. 



I suppose in your equations, when the numbers do not 

 amount to unity, Black has been present- ^ k ^^ 



841 Brunsw/G + '159 W= '200 V l + '423 U + 'S'T'T Black. 



That is, green a little palish and dark mauve, your 

 last equation by the young eyes. It is something like a 

 colour-blind eq n- , but all those I know say 100 Brunswick 

 G = 100 Vermillion, so that this person sees the green 

 darker than the Vermillion, or in other words sees much 

 more of the second side of the equation than a colour-blind 

 person would. But in twilight TJ comes out strong, while Gr 

 does not ; so that I think the apparent equality arises from 

 suppression of all colours but blue (in U and W) in the 

 twilight, so that you may write 



841 Black + '159 W = -577 Black + -423 U. 



There is no use going to the 3 rd ' place of decimals, unless 

 you spend a good while on each observation, and have first- 



