nd it fame.'"

He is fond of introducing quaint old legends--

"There are certain Rabbis who affirm that Eve was not taken out of
Adam's side, but that Adam had originally been created with a tail,
and that among the various experiments and improvements which were
made in form and organization before he was finished, the tail was
removed as an inconvenient appendage, and of the excrescence or
superfluous part, which was then lopped off, the woman was formed."

While on this subject he says that Lady Jekyll once asked William Wiston
"Why woman was formed out of man's rib rather than out of any other part
of his body?" Wiston scratched his head and replied, "Indeed, Madam, I
do not know, unless it be that the rib is the most crooked part of the
body."

Southey gives a playbill of the Drolls of Bartholomew Fair in the time
of Queen Anne--

"At Crawley's booth over against the Crown Tavern in Smithfield,
during the time of the Bartholomew Fair, will be presented a little
opera, called the 'Old Creation of the World,' yet newly revived,
with the addition of 'Noah's Flood.' Also several fountains playing
water during the time of the play. The last scene does represent
Noah and his family coming out of the Ark, with all the beasts two
and two, and all the fowls of the air seen in a prospect sitting
upon trees. Likewise over the Ark is seen the sun rising in a most
glorious manner. Moreover, a multitude of angels will be seen in a
double rank, which represents a double prospect, one for the sun,
the other for a palace, where will be seen six angels ringing of
bells. Likewise machines descend from above, double and treble,
with Dives rising out of Hell, and Lazarus seen in Abraham's bosom;
besides several figures, dancing jigs, sarabands, and country
dances to the admiration of the spectators, with the merry conceits
of Squire Punch and Sir John Spendall."

"So recently as the year 1816 the sacrifice of Isaac was
represented on the stage at Paris. Samson was the subject of the
ballet; the unshorn son of Manoah delighted the spectators by
dancing a solo with the gates of Gaza on his back; Delilah clipt
him during the intervals of a jig, and the Philistines surrounded
and captured him in a country-dance."

Sometimes Southey indulges his fancy on very trifling subjects as,

"The D