Ashbey de la Zouch.
_The Five Fingers_ (Vol. iv., pp. 150. 193.).--With something like
compunction for lavishing on Macrobius and his prosy compeers so many
precious hours of a life that is waning fast, permit me to refer you to
his _Saturnalia_, vii. 13., ed. Gryph. 1560, p. 722., for the nursery
names of the five fingers. They nearly coincide with those still
denoting those useful implements in one of the Low-Norman isles, to wit,
_Gros det_, _ari det (hari det?)_, _longuedon_ or _mousqueton_, _Jean
des sceas_, _courtelas_. The said _Jean des sceas_ is, of course, "John
of the Seals," the "annularis" or ring-finger of Macrobius and the
Anglican Office-Book. Among the Hebrews [Hebrew: etsba elohim], "the
finger of God," denoted His power; and it was the forefinger, among the
gods of Greece and Italy, which wore the ring, the emblem of divine
supremacy.