Spider, 'tis too mean a thing,
Tell me why your toils you spread.
&c. &c. &c.

There were other stanzas, I believe, but these are all I can remember.
My notion is, that the verses in question form part of a collection of
nursery songs and rhymes by Charles Lamb, published many years ago, but
now quite out of print. This, however, is a mere surmise on my part, and
has no better foundation than the vein of humour, sprightliness, and
originality, obvious enough in the above extract, which we find running
through and adorning all he wrote. "Nihil quod tetigit non ornavit."

S.J.

_A Lexicon of Types._--Can any of your readers inform me of the
existence of a collection of emblems or types? I do not mean allegorical
pictures, but isolated symbols, alphabetically arranged or otherwise.

Types are constantly to be met with upon monuments, coins, and ancient
title-pages, but so mixed with other matters as to render the finding a
desired symbol, unless very familiar, a work of great difficulty. Could
there be a systematic arrangement of all those known, with their
definitions, it would be a very valuable work of reference,--a work in
which one might pounce upon all the sacred symbols, classic types,
signs, heraldic zoology, conventional botany, monograms, and the like
abstract art.

LUKE LIMNER.

_Montaigne, Select Essays of._--

"Essays selected from Montaigne, with a Sketch of the Life of
the Author. London. For P. Cadell, &c. 1800."

This volume is dedicated to the Rev. William Coxe, rector of Bemerton.

The life of Montaigne is dated the 28th of March, 1800, and signed
_Honoria_. At the end of the book is this advertisement:--

"Lately published by the same Author 'The Female Mentor.' 2d
edit., in 2 vols. 12mo."

Who was _Honoria_? and are these _essays_ a scarce book in England? In
France it is entirely unknown to the numerous commentators on
Montaigne's works.

O.D.

_Custom of wearing the Breast uncovered in Elizabeth's Reign._--Fynes
Moryson, in a well-known passage of his _Itinerary_, (which I suppose I
need not transcribe), tells us that unmarried females and young married
women wore the breasts uncovered in Queen Elizabeth's reign. This is the
custom in many parts of the East. Lamartine mentions it in his pretty
description of Mademoiselle Malagambe: he adds, "it is the custom of the
Arab females." When did this curious custom commence in England, and
when did it go out