of aphis.[144]

[144] See Patterson's "Insects Mentioned by Shakespeare," 1841,
p. 145.

_Rainbow._ Secondary rainbows, the watery appearance in the sky
accompanying the rainbow, are in many places termed "water-galls"--a term
we find in the "Rape of Lucrece" (1586-89):

"And round about her tear-distained eye
Blue circles stream'd, like rainbows in the sky:
These water-galls in her dim element
Foretell new storms to those already spent."

Horace Walpole several times makes use of the word: "False good news are
always produced by true good, like the water-gall by the rainbow;" and
again, "Thank heaven it is complete, and did not remain imperfect, like
a water-gall."[145] In "The Dialect of Craven" we find "Water-gall, a
secondary or broken rainbow. _Germ._ Wasser-galle."

[145] "Letters," vol. i. p. 310; vol. vi. pp. 1, 187.--Ed.
Cunningham.

_Thunder._ According to an erroneous fancy the destruction occasioned by
lightning was effected by some solid body known as the thunder-stone or
thunder-bolt. Thus, in the beautiful dirge in "Cymbeline" (iv. 2):

"_Guid._ Fear no more the lightning flash,

_Arv._ Or the all-dreaded thunder-stone."

Othello asks (v. 2):

"Are there no stones in heaven
But what serve for the thunder?"

And in "Julius Caesar" (i. 3), Cassius says:

"And, thus unbraced, Casca, as you see,
Have bared my bosom to the thunder-stone."

The thunder-stone is the imaginary product of the thunder, which the
ancients called _Brontia_, mentioned by Pliny ("Nat. Hist." xxxvii. 10)
as a species of gem, and as that which, falling with the lightning, does
the mischief. It is the fossil commonly called the Belemnite, or
finger-stone, and now known to be a shell.

A superstitious notion prevailed among the ancients that those who were
stricken with lightning were honored by Jupiter, and therefore to be
accounted holy. It is probably to this idea that Shakespeare alludes in
"Antony and Cleopatra" (ii. 5):

"Some innocents 'scape not the thunderbolt."[146]

[146] Douce's "Illustrations of Shakespeare," 1839, p. 369.

The bodies of such were supposed not to putrefy; and, after having been
exhibited for a certain time to the people, were not buried in the usual
manner, but interred on the spot where the lightning fell, and a
monument erected over them. Some, however, held a contrary opinion. Thus
Persius (sat. ii. l. 27)