"To his good friends thus wide I'll ope my arms,
And like the kind, life-rendering pelican,
Repast them with my blood."
The best representation I have ever seen of the pelican feeding her young occurs in the works of a Roman printer, in the early part of the eighteenth century, Rocco Bernabo, who has taken for his device a pelican feeding her five young ones, a crown of thorns encircling them.
The pelican has a long bag or pouch, reaching the entire length of the bill to the neck. In feeding its young, the bird squeezes the food deposited in the bag into their mouths, by strongly compressing it upon its breast with the bill. (See Calmet and Shaw.) Hence the popular idea.
MARICONDA.
Feb. 10. 1852.
Bow-bell (Vol. v., pp. 28. 140.).
—Your correspondent W. S. S. is, I think, right in supposing Bow-bell to be almost synonymous with Cockney. I quote a passage from the London Prodigall, which had once the honour of being attributed to Shakspeare.
"Enter Sir Lancelot Weathercock Young Flowerdale, &c. (Sir Arthur Green-hood, Oliver, &c., had been on the stage before.)