"Lepori vivo talum abstrahes, pilósque ejus de subventre tolles atque ipsum vivum dimittes. De illis pilis, vel lana filum validum facies et ex eo talum leporis conligabis corpusque laborantis præcinges; miro remedio subvenies. Efficacius tamen erit remedium, ita ut incredibile sit, si casu os ipsum, id est talum leporis in stercore lupi inveneris, quod ita custodire debes, ne aut terram tangat aut a muliere contingatur, sed nec filum illud de lana leporis debet mulier ulla contigere. Hoc autem remedium cum uni profuerit ad alias translatum cum volueris, et quotiens volueris proderit. Filum quoque, quod ex lana vel pilis, quos de ventre leporis tuleris, solus purus et nitidus facies, quod si ita ventri laborantis subligaveris plurimum proderit, ut sublata lana leporem vivum dimmittas, et dicas ei dum dimittis eum: "'Fuge, fuge, lepuscule, et tecum aufer coli dolorem!'" That is to say, you must "first catch your hare," then pluck from it the fur needed ad dolorem coli, then "let it go again," bidding it carry the disorder with it. In which the hare appears as a scape-goat. It may be observed that all this ceremony of catching the hare, letting it go and bidding it run and carry away the disorder, is still in familiar use in Tuscany. It has been observed to me that "any nursery rhyme may be used as a charm." To this we may reply that any conceivable human utterance may be taken for the same purpose, but this is an unfair special pleading not connected with the main issue. Mr. Carrington Bolton admits that he has only found one instance of coincidence between nursery rhymes and spells, and I have compared hundreds of both with not much more result than what I have here given. But those who are practically familiar with such formulas recognize this affinity. On asking the Florentine fortune-teller if she knew any children's counting-out rhymes which deemed to her to be the same with incantations, she at once replied:-- "In witchcraft you sometimes call on people one by one by name to bewitch them. And the little girls have a song which seems to be like it." Then she sang to a very pretty tune:-- "Ecco l'imbasciatore, Col tra le vi la lera, Ecco l'imbasciatrice, Col tra la li ra la! Cosa volete col tua la li la, Col tra le li va la, Voglio Giuseppina, Col tra le li va le va. Voglio la Cesarina, Col tra le li ra le ra. Voglio la Armida, &c. Voglio la Gesualda, Voglio la Barbera, Voglio la Bianca, Voglio la Fortunata, Voglio la Uliva, Voglio la Filomena, Voglio la Maddalena, Voglio la Pia, Voglio la Gemma, Voglio la Ida, Voglio la Lorenzina, Voglio la Carolina, Voglio la Annunciatina, Voglio la Margo," &c.