he gave her a Spider to drink, as supposing her past cure, promising to make her well in three dayes, and so in a coach with four horses he presently hastes out of town, lest there being a rumor of the death of her (which he supposed to be very neer) he should be apprehended for killing her. But the woman shortly after by the force of the venome was cured, and the ignorant physician, who was the author of so great a work, was not known. After some moneths this good man returns, not knowing what had happened, and secretly enquiring concerning the state of that woman, he heard she was recovered. Then he began to boast openly, and to ask her how she had observed her diet, and he excused his long absence, by reason of the sickenesse of a principal friend, and that he was certain that no harm could proceed from so healthful physick; also he asked confidently for the rest of his reward, and to be given him freely.”[1229] “A third kind of Spiders,” says Pliny, “also known as the ‘phalangium,’ is a Spider with a hairy body, and a head of enormous size. When opened, there are found in it two small worms, they say: these, attached in a piece of deer’s skin, before sunrise, to a woman’s body, will prevent conception, according to what Cæcilius, in his Commentaries, says. This property lasts, however, for a year only; and, indeed, it is the only one of all the anti-conceptives that I feel myself at liberty to mention, in favour of some women whose fecundity, quite teeming with children (plena liberis), stands in need of some such respite.”[1230] Mr. John Aubrey, in the chapter of his Miscellanies devoted to Magick, gives the following: “To cure a Beast that is sprung, (that is) poisoned (It mostly lights upon Sheep): Take the little red Spider, called a tentbob (not so big as a great pin’s-head), the first you light upon in the spring of the year, and rub it in the palm of your hand all to pieces: and having so done, make water on it, and rub it in, and let it dry; then come to the beast and make water in your hand, and throw it in his mouth. It cures in a matter of an hour’s time. This rubbing serves for a whole year, and it is no danger to the hand. The chiefest skill is to know whether the beast be poisoned or no.”[1231] Mr. Aubrey had this receipt from Mr. Pacy.