"Thou biddest me that I should love another All freshly newe, and let Creseide go, It li'th not in my power leve brother, And though I might, yet would I not do so: But can'st thou playen racket to and fro, _Nettle' in Dock out_, now this now that, Pandare? Now foule fall her for thy woe that care." I was delighted to find the charm for a nettle sting, so familiar to my childish ear, was as old as Chaucer's time, and exceedingly surprised to stumble on the following note:-- "This appears to be a proverbial expression implying inconstancy; but the origin of the phrase is unknown to all the commentators on our poet." If this be the case, Chaucer's commentators may as well be told that children in Northumberland use friction by a dock-leaf as the approved remedy for the sting of a nettle, or rather the approved charm; for the patient, while rubbing in the dock-juice, should keep repeating,-- "Nettle in, dock out, Dock in, nettle out, Nettle in, dock out, Dock rub nettle out." The meaning is therefore obvious. Troilus is indignant at being recommended to forget this Cressida for a new love, just as a child cures a nettle-sting by a dock-leaf. I know not whether you will deem this trifle worth a corner in your valuable and amusing "NOTES." * * * * * THE SCALIGERS. "Lo primo tuo rifugio e 'l primo ostello Sara la cortesia del gran Lombardo, Che _'n su_ la Scala porta il santo uccello." Dante, _Paradiso_, xvii. 70. The Scaligers are well known, not only as having held the lordship of Verona for some generations, but also as having been among the friends of Dante in his exile, no mean reputation in itself; and, at a later period, as taking very high rank among the first scholars of their day. To which of them the passage above properly belongs--whether to Can Grande, or his brother Bartolommeo, or even his father Alberto, commentators are by no means agreed. The question is argued more largely than conclusively, both in the notes to Lombardi's edition, and also in Ugo Foscolo's _Discorso nel testo di Dante_. Perhaps the following may be a contribution to the evidence in favour of Can Grande. After {134} saying, in a letter, in which he professes to give the history and origin of his family,-- "Prisca omnium familiarum Scaligerae stirpis insignia sunt, aut _Scala singularis_, aut Canes utrinque scalae innitentes." Joseph Scaliger adds-- "Denique principium Veronensium progenitores eadem habuerunt insignia: _donec_ in eam familiam Alboinus et _Canis Magnus_ Aquilam imperii cum Scala primum ab Henrico VII^o, deinde a Ludovico Bavaro acceptam nobis reliquerunt." Alboinus, however, who received this grant upon being made a Lieutenant of the Empire, and having the Signory of Verona made hereditary in his family, only bore the eagle "_in quadrante scuti_."