"It is likewise on the first day of this month [May] that we see the ruddy milk-maid exerting herself in a most sprightly manner under a pyramid of silver tankards, and, like the virgin Tarpeia, oppressed by the costly ornaments which her benefactors lay upon her."—Spectator, No. 365.
MELANION.
[Our correspondent will find much curious illustration of this now obsolete custom in Strutt's Sports and Pastimes p. 357. (ed. Hone), where the preceding passage from the Spectator is quoted; and we are told "these decorations of silver cups, tankards, &c. were borrowed for the purpose, and hung round the milk pails (with the addition of flowers and ribands), which the maidens carried upon their heads when they went to the houses of their customers, and danced in order to obtain a small gratuity from each of them." In Tempest's Cryes of London there is a print of a well-known merry milk-maid, Kate Smith, dancing with the milk pail decorations upon her head. See also Hone's Every Day Book, i. p. 576.]
Dr. Dee's Petition.—There is no mention of Dr. Dee's petition to King James in the list of his works in Tanner's Bibliotheca Britannica; but in Beloe's Anecdotes, vol. ii. p. 263., is an account of the preface to a scarce work of his, in which he defends himself from the charge of being a conjurer, or caller of divels, &c.
Tanner mentions his Supplication to Queen Mary for the Recovery of Ancient Writings and Monuments.
I fear, however, that your correspondent is acquainted with these more easily obtained accounts of Dr. Dee's works.
the Dictionary of M. l'Abbé Ladoocat states that he died in England, A.D. 1607, at the age of 81; so that his petition to James must have been made at the close of his life.
HERMES.
Lines quoted by Goethe.—I beg to inform your correspondent "TREBOR," that he will find the lines quoted by Goethe in his Autobiography, in Rochester's Satire against Mankind.
J.S.