These suggestions are offered without the slightest intention to depreciate or disparage the greater and more elaborate works of Mr. McCulloch, and others who compile and publish works worthy of reference, and standards of authority among men of highest science. No man who can afford it would ever be without the latest edition (without the aid of supplements) of large works; but it is manifest that there has been a great neglect to supply the mass of readers in ordinary circumstances with books of common reference, at moderate prices; and I hope that some publishers of enterprise and sagacity will see it to be their interest to act on the advice now offered. PHILANTHROPOS. * * * * * RIB, WHY THE FIRST WOMAN FORMED FROM. Allow me to request a place for the following curious and quaint exposition of the propriety of the selection of _the rib_ as the material out of which our first mother Eve was formed; and the ingenious illustration which it is made to afford of the relation between wife and husband. {214} "Thirdly, God so ordered the matter betwixt them, that this adhæsion and agglutination of one to the other should be perpetuall. For by taking a bone from the man (who was _nimium osseus_, exceeded and was somewhat monstrous, by one bone too much) to strengthen the woman, and by putting flesh in steede thereof to mollifie the man, he made a sweete complexion and temper betwixt them, like harmony in musicke, for their amiable cohabitation. "Fourthly, that bone which God tooke from the man, was from out the midst of him. As Christ wrought saluation _in medio terræ_, so God made the woman _è medio viri_, out of the very midst of man. The _species_ of the bone is exprest to be _costa_, a rib, a bone of the side, not of the head: a woman is not _domina_, the ruler; nor of any anterior part; she is not _prælata_, preferred before the man; nor a bone of the foote; she is not _serva_, a handmaid; nor of any hinder part; she is not _post-posita_, set behind the man: but a bone of the _side_, of a middle and indifferent part, to show that she is _socia_, a companion to the husband. For _qui junguntur lateribus, socii sunt_, they that walke side to side and cheeke to cheeke, walke as companions. "Fifthly, I might adde, a bone from vnder the arme, to put the man in remembrance of protection and defense to the woman. "Sixthly, a bone not far from his heart to put him in minde of dilection and loue to the woman. Lastly, a bone from the left side, to put the woman in minde, that by reason of her frailty and infirmity she standeth in need of both the one and the other from her husband.