Note 214 — SCENE IV.
Reading edition
The following seems to be the story here alluded to: "But the strangest I have met with in this kinde, is the historie of Eve Fleigen, out of the Dutch translated into English, and printed at London, Anno 1611: who being borne at Meurs, is said to have taken no kinde of sustenance by the space of fourteen yeeres together; that is, from the yeere of her age twenty-two to thirty-six, and from the yeere of our Lord, 1597 to 1611; and this we have confirmed by the testimony of the magistrate of the towne of Meurs, as also by the minister, who made tryall of her in his house thirteene days together, by all the meanes he could devise, but could detect no imposture. Over the picture of this maiden, set in the front of the Dutch copie, stand these Latin verses—
'Meursæ hæc quem cernis decies ter sexque peregit Annos, bis septem prorsus non vescitur annis Nec potat, sic sola sedet, sic pallida vitam Ducit, et exigui se oblectat floribus horti."
Thus rendred in the English copie—
"This maid of Meurs thirty-six yeares spent, Fourteene of which she tooke no nourishment: Thus pale and wan shee sits, sad and alone, A garden's all shee loves to looke upon."
—Hakewill's "Apologie," fol. 1635, p. 440.
In Davenant's "News from Plymouth," act i. sc. 1, the same person is mentioned—
"How? Do you think I bring you tidings of The Maid of Brabant, that liv'd by her smell; That din'd on a rose, and supp'd on a tulip?"
[The narrative of Eve Fleigen, above referred to, is appended to an excessively rare tract of eight 4o leaves, printed in 1611, and noticed in Hazlitt's "Handbook," 1867, p. 277.]