(Vol. vii., p. 178.)

The following is a real epitaph. It was written by Dr. Greenwood on his wife, who died in childbed, and it is in all probability still to be seen, where it was originally set up, in Solyhull churchyard, Warwickshire. The most amusing point in it is, that the author seriously intended the lines to rhyme. There is wonderful merit in the couplet where he celebrates her courage and magnanimity in preferring him to a lord or judge:

The advice contained in the last couplet is sound.

F. D.

Pershore.

Your correspondent Erica gives us some quotations and epitaphs, in which the metaphor of an Inn is applied both to life and death. I find the former of these ideas embodied in the following distich, copied from a tombstone at Llangollen in North Wales, a village much frequented not only by tourists, but by holiday-makers from all the surrounding districts; for whose especial benefit I conceive the epitaph to have been written:

George S. Masters.

Welsh Hampton, Salop.

"The bathos can no further go" (Vol. vii., p. 5.).—

Inscription copied, Nov. 21, 1833, from a tombstone to a fisherman in Bathford churchyard.

"He drags no more, his nets reclin'd,

And all his tackle left behind,

His anchors cast within the veil,

No storms tempestious him assail.

In peace he rest—an Jesus plain

Reader I here lies—an honest man,

A husband—father—friend—compeer—

To all—who knew him—truely dear.

Search the Great Globe!—How few, alas!

Are worthy now to—take his place."

B. H. 1805."

Some rural wag had substituted with his pencil three words for the last three, which certainly rhymed better with alas!

E. D.

Allow me to send you one of much merit, founded upon the same metaphor as those inserted at the page above quoted:

Edw. Hawkins.

---

THROWING OLD SHOES FOR LUCK.

(Vol. ii., p. 196.; Vol. v., p. 143.; Vol. vii., p. 182.)

Some light may perhaps be thrown on this mysterious custom by the following quotation from the RÉfutation des Opinions de Jean Wier, by Bodin, the celebrated French jurisconsult, and author of the Demonomanie des Sorciers (Paris, 1586), to the quarto edition of which the RÉfutation is generally found attached. It may be necessary to observe, for the benefit of those unacquainted with demoniacal lore, that Wier, though a pupil of Cornelius Agrippa, and what would be now-a-days termed exceedingly superstitious, was far in advance of his age, and the first to assert that some, at least, of the many persons who were then burned for sorcery were merely hypochondriacs and lunatics,—fitter subjects for the care of the physician than the brand of the executioner. This heterodox opinion brought upon him a crowd of antagonistic replies, and amongst them the RÉfutation of Bodin. During a cursory examination of Wier's voluminous demonological works (De Lamiis Liber; Item de Commentatiis Jejuniis; De PrÆstigiis Demonum, et Incantationibus ac Veneficiis: Basil, 1583), I have not met with the passage underneath referred to by Bodin; but, no doubt, if time permitted, a closer search would discover it:

"Il se mocque aussi d'une Sorciere, À qui Sathan commanda de garder bien ses vieux souliers, pour un preservatif, et contre-charme contre les autre Sorciers. Je dy que ce conseil de Sathan a double sens, les souliers signifient les pechez, comme estas tousiours trainnez par les ordures. Et quand Dieu dist À Moyse et À JosuÉ, oste tes souliers, ce lieu est pur, et sainct: il entendoit, comme dict Philon Hebrieu, qu'il faut bien nettoyer son ame de peches, pour contempler et louer Dieu. Mais pour converser avec Sathan, il faut estre souillÉ, et plongÉ en perpetuelle impietez et mechancetez: alors Sathan assistera À ses bons serviteurs. Et quand aux sens literal, nous avons dict que Sathan fait ce qu'il peut, pour destourner les hommes de la fiance de Dieu aux creatures, qui est la vraye definition de l'idolatrie, que les Theologiens ont baillie: tellement que qui croira, que ses vieux souliers, ou les bilets, et autres babioles qu'il porte, le peut garder de mal, il est perpetuelle idolatrie."

W. Pinkerton.

Ham.

It will, I fear, be difficult to discover a satisfactory answer to Lord Braybrooke's questions on these two points. They cannot certainly be traceable to a Pagan origin, for Cupid is always pourtrayed barefooted; and there is not, I believe, a single statue to be found of a sandaled Venus. I can certainly direct his Lordship to one author, a Christian author, St. Gregory of Tours, who refers to a curious practice, and seemingly one well recognised, of lovers presenting shoes, as they now do bouquets, to the objects of their affection:

"Cumqu, ut Ætate huic convenit, amori se puellari prÆstaret affabiblem, et cum poculis frequentibus etiam calceamenta deferret."—Gregor. Turon. Ex Vitis Patrum, vol. ii. p. 449.: see also same page, note 3.

W. B. MacCabe.

Allow me to inform Lord Braybrooke that the custom of throwing a shoe, taken from the left foot, after persons for good luck, has been practised in Norfolk from time immemorial, not only at weddings, but on all occasions where good luck is required. Some forty years ago a cattle dealer desired his wife to "trull her left shoe arter him," when he started for Norwich to buy a lottery-ticket. As he drove off on his errand, he looked round to see if she performed the charm, and consequently he received the shoe in his face, with such force as to black his eyes. He went and bought his ticket, which turned up a prize of 600l.; and his son has assured me that his father always attributed his luck to the extra dose of shoe which he got.

E. G. R.

The custom of throwing an old shoe after a person departing from home, as a mode of wishing him good luck and prosperity in his undertaking, is not confined to Scotland and the northern counties, nor to weddings. It prevails more or less, I believe, throughout the kingdom. I have seen it in Cheshire, and frequently in towns upon the sea-coast. I once received one upon my shoulder, at Swansea, which was intended for a young sailor leaving his home to embark upon a trading voyage.

Edw. Hawkins.

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OWEN GLYNDWR [OWEN AP GRIFFITH VYCHAN, LORD OF GLYNDWRDWY].

(Vol. vii., p. 205.)

The arms referred to by Mr. Woodward are those on the great seal and privy seal of "the irregular and wild Glendower," as Prince of Wales, attached to two documents deposited in the Hotel Soubise, at Paris, in the Cartons I. 623. and I. 392., relating, it is supposed, to the furnishing of troops to the Welsh prince by Charles VI., king of France. Casts of these seals were taken by the indefatigable Mr. Doubleday, to whom the Seal department of the British Museum, over which he presides, is so much indebted; and impressions were exhibited by Sir Henry Ellis at a meeting of the Society of Antiquaries, on the 12th of December, 1833. Engravings of them, accompanied by the following notice, were communicated by Sir Henry to the ArchÆologia, and will be found in that publication, vol. xxv. plate lxx. fig. 2, 3. page 616., and ibid. pp. 619, 620.:

"The great seal has an obverse and reverse. On the obverse Owen is represented, with a bifid beard, very similar to Rich. II., seated under a canopy of Gothic tracery: the half body of a wolf forming the arms of his chair on each side: the background is ornamented with a mantle semÉe of lions, held up by angels. At his feet are two lions. A sceptre is in his right hand, but he has no crown. The inscription: 'Owenus ... Princeps Wallie.' On the reverse of the great seal Owen is represented on horseback, in armour; in his right hand, which is extended, he holds a sword, and with his left his shield, charged with, Quarterly, four lions rampant; a drapery, probably a kerchief de plesaunce, or handkerchief won at a tournament, pendant from his right wrist. Lions rampant also appear upon the mantle of the horse. On his helmet, as well as on his horse's head, is the Welsh dragon [passant]. The area of the seal is diapered with roses. The inscription on this side seems to fill the gap upon the obverse 'Owenus Dei gratia ... Wallie.'

"The privy seal represents the four lions rampant towards the spectator's left, on a shield, surmounted by an open coronet [crown]: the dragon^[3] of Wales, as a supporter, on the dexter side; on the sinister, a lion. The inscription seems to have been 'Sigillum Oweni Principis Wallie.' No impression of this seal is probably now to be found either in Wales or England. Its workmanship shows that Owen Glyndwr possessed a taste for art beyond the types of the seals of his predecessors."

The dragon is a favourite figure with Cambrian bards; and, not to multiply instances, the following lines may be cited from the poem of the "Hirlas Horn," by Owen Cyfeilioc, Prince of Powys Wenwynwyn,—

father of Gwenwynwyn, Prince of Powys Wenwynwyn (the Gwenwen of Sir Walter Scott's Betrothed):—

Gray, whose "Bard" indicates the inspiration with which he had seized the poetry and traditions of the Cymri, thus refers to the red dragon as the cognizance of the Welsh monarchs, in his Triumphs of Owen [ap Griffith, Prince of North Wales]:

The dragon and lion have been attributed to the Welsh monarchs, as insignia, from an early period, and the former is ascribed, traditionally, to the great Cadwallader.

In the ArchÆologia, vol. xx. p. 579. plate xxix. p. 578., are descriptions of engravings of the impressions of two seals appendant to charters of Edward, son of Edward IV., and Arthur, son of Henry VII., as Princes of Wales, the obverse of each bearing three lions in pale passant, reguardant, having their tails between their legs, reflected upon their backs, upon a shield surmounted by a cap of maintenance: Prince Edward's shield has on each side a lion as a supporter, holding single feathers, with the motto "Ich dien." On Prince Arthur's seal, the feathers are supported by dragons. Thomas William King, Rouge Dragon, in a letter to Sir Samuel Meyrick, dated 4th September, 1841, published in the ArchÆologia, vol. xxix. p. 408., Appendix, regards the lions on these shields as to the ensigns attributed at the period of the seals to certain Welsh princes, and the dragon as the badge of Cadwallader.

In a MS. (for reference to which I am indebted to the courtesy of Sir Frederick Madden), which was recently sold at Sotheby's, containing translations by Johannes Boerius, presented to Henry, Prince of Wales, son of Henry VII., about 1505, there is a beautiful illumination containing the arms of that prince: Quarterly France and England, with the red dragon as the dexter, and the greyhound of the House of York as the sinister, supporter.

"The red fierye drago beeten upo white and greene sarcenet" was the charge of a standard offered by Henry VII. at St. Paul's, on his entry into London after his victory at Bosworth Field; and this standard was represented on the corner of his tomb, held by an angel (Willement's Regal Heraldry, 4to., London, 1821, p. 57.). The red dragon rampant was assumed as a supporter by Henry VII. in indication of his Welsh descent, and was borne as a supporter, either on the dexter or sinister side of the shield, by all the other English monarchs of the House of Tudor, with the exception of Queen Mary, who substituted for it an eagle: and among the badges attributed to our present sovereign is, in respect of Wales, "a dragon passant, wings elevated gu., upon a mount vert."

It may be assumed, with little doubt, that the colour of the dragon borne by Owen Glyndwr was rouge; and although the colour of the other supporter of his shield, the lion, is not susceptible of such positive inference, it may be conjectured to have been sable, the colour of the lion, the principal charge on his hereditary shield.

To Mr. Woodward's immediate Query as to the blazon—colour of the field and charges—of the arms on these seals, I can afford no direct answer, never having met with any trace of these arms in the extensive collections of Welsh MSS. to which I have had access. These ensigns may have been adopted by Owen as arms of dominion (as those of Ireland by the English sovereigns) on his assumption of the principality of Wales, a suggestion countenanced, if not established, by four lions quarterly ("Quarterly gules and or, four lions rampant, counterchanged") being assigned to Griffith ap Llewelyn (killed April, 28 Hen. III., 1244, in attempting to escape from the Tower), eldest son of Llewelyn ap Iorwerth, prince of Wales (dead 31st November, 25 Hen. III., 1240), father of the ill-fated and gallant Llewelyn ap Griffith, last sovereign of Wales, slain at Builth, December 10, 8 Ed. I., 1282. Further confirmation is, perhaps, afforded to this suggestion by Owen having, it is understood, vindicated his assumption of the Cambrian throne as heir of the three sovereign dynasties of North Wales, South Wales, and Powys respectively,—of the last, as male representative, through the Lords of Bromfield, of Madoc ap Meredith, the last monarch of that principality; and of the two former as their heir-general, in respect of his mother, Elenor, sister of Owen (ap Thomas ap Llewelyn), Lord, with his paternal uncle, Owen ap Llewelyn ap Owen, of the comot [hundred] of Iscoed, September 20, 1344, Representative paternally of the sovereigns of South Wales, and, by female descent, of those of North Wales^[6], through Griffith ap Llewelyn above named.

The hereditary arms of Owen's paternal line, the Lords of Glyndwrdwy, are those of his ancestor, Griffith Maelor ap Madoc, of Dinas Bran, Lord of Bromfield, Yale, Chirk, Glyndwrdwy, &c., who died A.D. 1191, viz. "Paly of eight argent and gules, over all a lion rampant sable," thus differenced, apparently, from "The Black Lion of Powys" (Argent a lion rampant sable), the royal ensigns of his father, Madoc ap Meredith, last sovereign Prince of Powys, who died at Winchester in 1160. I am unable to refer to any seal of the Lords of Glyndwrdwy, or of the Lords of Bromfield, bearing the family arms of their line; but they are thus given invariably by the Cambrian heralds, and, so far, are susceptible of proof by the most authentic MS. authorities of the Principality. It is, however, remarkable, that the Heraldic Visitations of Wales of Lewis Dwnn, appointed in 1580 Deputy-Herald for all Wales, by Robert Cook Clarenceux, and William Flower Norroy King-at Arms, published in 1846 by the Welsh MSS. Society, contain no pedigree of the house of Glyndwrdwy. Of the descendants, if any, of Owen Glyndwr himself, beyond his children, I am not aware that there is any authentic pedigree, or other satisfactory proof; and there seems to be presumptive evidence that in 12 Henry VI., 1433—a period so recent as nineteen years from the last date, 19th February, 1 Henry V., 1414, on which Owen is ascertained to have been alive (Rymer's Foedera, ix. p. 330.),—his issue was limited to a daughter and heir, Alice, wife of Sir John Scudamore, Knt., described in a petition of John, Earl of Somerset, to whom Owen's domains, on his attainder, had been granted by his brother, Henry IV., as

"Un John Skydmore, Chivaler, et Alice sa femme, pretendantz la dite Alice etre file et heir au dit Owyn (Glyndwr)."—Rot. Parl. 12 Hen. VI.

I have not found evidence to show that there were any children of Alice's marriage with Scudamore; and, assuming the failure of her issue, and also the extinction of Owen's other offspring, the representation of the three dynasties—

reverted to that of his only brother, Tudor ap Griffith Vychan, a witness, as "Tudor de Glyndore," in the Scrope and Grosvenor controversy, 3rd September, 1386, and then twenty-four years and upwards, who is stated to have been killed under Owen's banner at the battle of Mynydd Pwll-Melyn, near Grosmont, Monmouthshire, fought 11th March, 1405. Tudor's daughter and heir, Lowry [Lady] of Gwyddelwern in Edeirnion, "una Baron. de Edurnyon," became the wife of Griffith ap Einion of Corsygedol, living 1400 and 1415; and from this marriage descend the eminent Merionethshire House of Corsygedol (represented by the co-heirs of the late Sir Thomas Mostyn, Bart., of Mostyn and Corsygedol; namely, his nephew, the Honorable Edward Mostyn Lloyd Mostyn, of Mostyn and Corsygedol, M.P., Lord Lieutenant of Merionethshire, and Sir Thomas's sister, Anna Maria, Lady Vaughan, mother of Sir Robert Williames Vaughan, Bart., of Nannau) and its derivative branches, the Yales of Plas-yn-Yale, co. Denbigh, and the Rogers-Wynns of Bryntangor in the same county; the former represented by the Lloyds of Plymog, and the latter by the Hughes's of Gwerclas in Edeirnion, Lords of Kymmer-yn-Edeirnion, co. Merioneth, and Barons of Edeirnion. These families, co-representatives of the three Cambrian dynasties, all quarter, with the arms of South Wales and North Wales, the ensigns I have referred to as the hereditary bearings of the Lords of Glyndwrdwy. Independently of the adoption of these ensigns in the Welsh MSS. in the British Museum, College of Heralds, and other depositories, it may be mentioned that they are quartered in an ancient shield of the Vaughans of Corsygedol, suspended in the hall of Corsygedol,—one of the finest and most picturesque mansions in the Principality,—and that they appear in the splendid emblazoned Genealogy of the House of Gwerclas, compiled in 1650 by Robert Vaughan, Esq., of Hengwrt, the Camden and Dugdale united of Wales.^[7] The arms in question are ascribed to the line of Bromfield and Glyndwrdwy, and, as quarterings to the families just named, by Mr. Burke's well-known Armory, the first and, indeed, only work, in conjunction with the Welsh genealogies in that gentleman's Peerage and Baronetage, and Landed Gentry, affording satisfactory, or any approach to systematic and complete, treatment of Cambrian heraldry and family history. Mr. Charles Knight also, highly and justly estimated, no less for a refined appreciation of our historic archÆology, than for careful research, adopts these arms as the escutcheon of Owen in the beautiful artistic designs which adorn and illustrate the First Part of the drama of King Henry IV., in his Pictorial edition of Shakspeare. (Histories, vol. i. p. 170.)

The shield of the Lords of Glyndwrdwy, as marshalled by Welsh heralds, displays quarterly the arms assigned to their direct paternal ancestors, as successively adopted previous to the period when armorial bearings became hereditary. Thus marshalled, the paternal arms of Owen Glyndwr are as follows: 1st and 4th, "Paly of eight, argent and gules, over all a lion rampant sable," for Griffith Maelor, Lord of Bromfield, son of Madoc ap Meredith, Prince of Powys-Fadog; 2nd, "Argent, a lion rampant sable" ("The Black Lion of Powys") for Madoc, Prince of Powys-Fadog, son of Meredith, Prince of Powys, son of Bleddyn, King of Powys; 3rd, "Or, a lion rampant gules," for Bleddyn ap Cyfnfyn, King of Powys.^[8] None of these ensigns is referable to a period anterior to that within which armorial bearings are attributed to the Anglo-Norman monarchs.

The lion rampant is common to all branches of the line of Powys; but the bearing peculiar to its last monarch, Madoc ap Meredith, "The Black Lion of Powys," without a difference, has been transmitted exclusively to the Hughes's, Baronial Lords of Kymmer-yn-Edeirnion, and the other descendants of Owen Brogyntyn, Lord of Edeirnion, younger son of Madoc; of whom, with the exception of the family just named, it is presumed there is no existing male branch. The same arms were borne by Iorwerth Goch, Lord of Mochnant, also a younger son of Madoc; but they are now only borne subordinately in the second quarter by that chief's descendant, Sir John Roger Kynaston of Hardwick, Bart., and by the other branches of the Kynastons; the first quarter having been yielded to the arms of (Touchet) Lord Audley, assumed by Sir Roger Kynaston of Hordley, Knt., after the battle of Blore in 1459, at which Lord Audley is said to have fallen by the hand of Sir Roger. As already stated, Griffith Maelor, Madoc's eldest son, bore the black lion differenced, as did also the twin sons of the latter, viz. Cynric Efell, Lord of Eglwys Egle, ancestor of the distinguished line of Davies of Gwysaney in Flintshire, whose ensigns were "Gules, on a bend, argent, a lion passant sable;" and Einion Efell, progenitor of the Edwards's of Ness Strange, and of other North Wallian families, who bore "Party per fess, sable and argent, a lion rampant counterchanged." The ancestor of the Vaughans of Nannau, Barts.,—Cadwgan (designated by Camden "the renowned Briton"), younger son of Blyddyn, king of Powys, sometime associated in the sovereignty with his elder brother Meredith, exhibited, it is stated, on his banner an azure lion on a golden ground; ensigns transmitted to the early Lords of Nannau and their descendants, with the exception—probably the only one—of the Vaughans of Wengraig and Hengwrt, represented paternally by the Vaughans of Nannau and Hengwrt, Baronets, who, transferring these arms to the second quarter, bear in the first, "Quarterly, or and gules, four lions rampant counterchanged." The Wenwynwyn branch of the dynasty of Powys continued, or at a later period resumed, the red lion rampant on a gold ground, ascribed to Blyddyn ap Cynfyn; and it is not a little interesting, that recently a beautiful silver seal, in perfect preservation, of Hawys Gadarn, heiress of that princely line, who by the gift of Edward II. became the wife of John de Cherlton, was found near Oswestry, representing her standing, holding two shields: the one in her right hand charged with her own arms, the lion rampant; that in the left with those of Cherlton, two lions passant. The legend around the seal is "S'HAWISIE DNE DE KEVEOLOC."

The original seal is now in the Museum of Chester, and was exhibited, I believe, by the Honorary Curator, the Rev. William Massie, at a recent meeting of the Society of Antiquaries. Of this venerable relic I possess an impression in wax; and of the great and privy seals of Owen Glyndwr, beautiful casts in sulphur; and I shall have pleasure in leaving them with the editor of "N. & Q." for the inspection of Mr. Woodward, should that gentleman desire it.

John ap William ap John.

Inner Temple.
March 7, 1853.

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COLERIDGE'S CHRISTABEL—"CHRISTOBELL, A GOTHIC TALE."

(Vol. vii., p. 206.).

Your correspondent S. Y. ought not to have charged the editors of Coleridge's Poems with negligence, until he had shown that the lines he quotes were inserted in the original edition of Christabel. They have not the musical flow of Coleridge's versification, but rather the dash and vivacity of Scott. At all events, they are not to be found in the second edition of Christabel (1816), nor in any subsequent edition. Indeed, I do not think that Coleridge made any alteration in the poem since its composition in 1797 and 1800. I referred to two reviews of Coleridge's Poems published in Blackwood in 1819 and 1834; but found no trace of S. Y.'s lines. "An old volume of Blackwood" is rather a vague mode of reference. It is somewhat curious that, previous to the publication of Christabel, there appeared a conclusion to that splendid fragment. It was entitled "Christobell, a Gothic Tale," and was published in the European Magazine for April, 1815. It is dated "March, 1815," and signed "V.;" and was reprinted in Fraser's Magazine for January, 1835. It is stated to be "written as a sequel to a beautiful legend of a fair lady and her father, deceived by a witch in the guise of a noble knight's daughter." It commences thus:

"Whence comes the wavering light which falls

On Langdale's lonely chapel-walls?

The noble mother of Christobell

Lies in that lone and drear chapelle."