NOTES IN ANSWER TO QUERIES.
The Lobster in the Medal of the Pretender.
Your correspondent, Mr. B. NIGHTINGALE, desires an answer to his Query (in your No. 4), Why is the figure of a Lobster introduced into the impression upon the rare medal struck 20th June, 1688, in contempt or ridicule of Prince James Edward, the newly-born son of King James II.?
A reference to the two following works will, perhaps, supply the answer:—
1st. In Philemon Holland's translation of Pliny's Natural History (a great authority at the time) this passage occurs in book ix. cap. 30.:—
"Lobsters, so long as they are secure of any fear and danger, go directly straight, letting down their hornes at length along their sides;... but if they be in any fear, up go their hornes straight—and then they creep byas and go sidelong."
And in the next chapter (31.):—
"Crabs" (which were often confounded with lobsters) "when they will be afraid, will recule backward, as fast as they went forward."
2nd. In the celebrated work of Sebastian Brandt, entitled Stultifera Naxis (which went through many editions after its first appearance in 1494), is an engraving of a fool, wearing cap and bells, seated astride on the back of a lobster, with a broken reed in his hand, and a pigeon flying past him as he stares vacantly at it with open mouth. The following lines are attached:—
DE PREDESTINATIONE