No One Could See Him

Entry of the Day:
Dwarfs in Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable

Brewer, E. Cobham. Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, Giving the Derivation, Source, or Origin of Common Phrase, Allusions, and Words That Have a Tale to Tell. London, 1870.

Dwarfs. The most remarkable are:
    Phileʹtas, a poet (contemporary with Hippocʹratës), so small ‘that he wore leaden shoes to prevent being blown away by the wind.’ (Died B.C. 280.)
    Nicephʹorus Calistus tells us of an Egyptian dwarf not bigger than a partridge.
    Arisʹtratos, the poet, was so small that Athenæʹos says no one could see him.
    Sir Geoffrey Hudson, born at Oakham, in Rutlandshire, at the age of thirty was only eighteen inches in height. (1619–1678.)
    Owen Farrel, the Irish dwarf, born at Caʹvan, hideously ugly, but of enormous muscular strength. Height, three feet nine inches. (Died 1742.)

Swan-Embroydered?

Entry of the Day:

Stream in Poole's English Parnassus

Poole, Joshua. The English Parnassus; or, A Helpe to English Poesie: Containing a Collection of All Rhyming Monosyllables, the Choicest Epithets, and Phrases: With Some General Forms upon All Occasions, Subjects, and Theams, Alphabetically Digested. London, 1657.

In addition to providing a very early rhyming dictionary (“INDE | Binde | Blinde | In-clin’d | De-clin’d | Din’d | Finde | Grinde | Be-hinde | Lin’d | Kind | Minde | Pin’d | Rinde | De-sign’d | Re-sign’d | Shin’d | En-shrin’d | Twin’d | Winde | Whin’d | Whrin’d”), Poole offered a set of "the choicest epithets" that might produce satisfying poetry: you might call Aaron "Sacred, mitred, holy, blessed, grave, priestly, pious"; an abbey can be "Rich, wealthy, cloysterd, monkish, religious, old, ancient. | Abbot. | Old, antient, religious, cloysterd, recluse, mitred, reverend, regular, grave, humble, devotious, retired, zealous, abtemious, monkish"; use "Obedient, aged, old, prudent, faithfull, blessed, wise, devout, pious, godly, religious, reverend, sage, grave, holy" with Abraham; and so on.

You might also need the “Formes of protesting. | By all the oathes sacred religion knowes. | By all oathes made in reverential fear | Of heaven, and her inhabitants. | By your self, that is all thats good.”

Here's a typical set of adjectives that collocate with stream, in case you're eager to write painfully clichéd seventeenth-century poetry:

Stream.

Winding, curled, purling, foaming, silver, christal, writhing, wriggling, snaky, sweeping, hurrying, silent, chiding, impetuous, resistlesse, enraged, flowing, fruitful, fishie, gorgling, running, gliding, slippery, soft, whispering, wandering, roaring, stragling, gushing, cleansing, drenching, whirling, rushing, glassie, pearly, silver-brested, rolling, swelling, wheeling, spreading, gently-sliding, glancing, ranging, tumbling, incensed, shower-enhanced, dancing, vaulting, borned, careering, azure, wavie, rustling, amorous, angry, boyling, bustling, surgie, murmuring, murtering, rumbling, frothy, bank-courting, uxorious, sliding, hasty, swift-pac’d, swan-embroydered.

No One Could Even Read Them

Entry of the Day:

"Qui multa scripserunt" in Isidore's Etymologies

Those who have written many things (Qui multa scripserunt) 1. Among Latin speakers, Marcus Terentius Varro wrote innumerable books. Among the Greeks likewise Chalcenterus (i.e. Didumus) is exalted with great praise because he published so many books that any of us would be hard put merely to copy out in our own hand such a number of works by another. 2. From us (i.e. Christians) also Origen, among the Greeks, in his labor with the Scriptures has surpassed both Greeks and Latins by the number of his works. In fact Jerome says that he has read six thousand of his books. 3. Still, Augustine with his intelligence and learning overcomes the output of all of these, for he wrote so much that not only could no one, working by day and night, copy his books, but no one could even read them.

From Isidore, Etymologies, p. 139; VI.vii.1–3