standing awry; the going abroad without the girdle on ;" and "the bursting of the shoe-lachet." In Pet. Molinæi Vates, p. 218, we read: "Si corrigia calcei fracta est, omi nosum est." James Mason, Master of Artes, in the Anatomie of Sorcerie, 4to. Lond. 1612, p. 90, speaking of "vaine and frivolous devices, of which sort we have an infinite number also used amongst us," enumerates "6. 'foredeeming of evill lucke, by pulling on the shooe awry." It is accounted lucky by the vulgar to throw an old shoe after a person when they wish him to succeed in what he is going about. There was an old ceremony in Ireland of electing a person to any office by throwing an old shoe over his head.' Grose, citing Ben Jonson saying "Would I had Kemp's shoes to throw after you," observes, perhaps Kemp was a man remarkable for his good luck or fortune; throwing an old shoe or shoes after any one going on an important business is by the vulgar deemed lucky. See instances of this in Reed's Old Plays, xii. 434. Shenstone, the pastoral poet, somewhere in his works asks the following question: "May not the custom of scraping when we bow be derived from the ancient custom of throwing the shoes backwards off the feet?" and in all probability it may be answered in the affirmative. In Gayton's Festivous Notes upon Don Quixote, p. 104, is the following passage, which will be thought much to our purpose: "An incantation upon the horse, for want of nailing his old shoes at the door of his house when he came forth; or because, nor the old woman, nor the barber, nor his niece, nor the curate, designed him the security of an old shooe after 1 See the Idol of the Clownes, p. 19. In Sir John Sinclair's Statistical Account of Scotland, vol. x. 8vo. Edinb. 1794, p. 543, parish of Campbelton, in Argyleshire, the following curious anecdote occurs: "We read of a king of the Isle of Man sending his shoes to his Majesty of Dublin, requiring him to carry them before his people on a high festival, or expect his vengeance." This good Dublinian king discovers a spirit of humanity and wisdom rarely found in better times. His subjects urged him not to submit to the indignity of bearing the Manksman's shoes. "I had rather," said he, "not only bear but eat them, than that one province of Ireland should bear the desolation of war." him." So in the Workes of John Heywoode, newlie imprinted, 1598: "And home agayne hitherward quicke as a bee, Now, for good lucke, cast an olde shooe after mee." I find the following in the Raven's Almanacke: “But at his shutting in of shop could have beene content to have had all his neighbours have throwne his olde shooes after him when hee went home, in signe of good lucke." In Ben Jonson's masque of the Gypsies, 1640, p. 64, we find this superstition mentioned: See Beaumont and Fletcher's Honest Man's Fortune, p. 3979, and the Wild Goose Chace, p. 1648. LOOKING-GLASS OMENS. To break a looking-glass is accounted a very unlucky accident. Should it be a valuable one this is literally true, which is not always the case in similar superstitions. Mirrors were formerly used by magicians in their superstitious and diabololical operations,' and there was an ancient kind of divina "Some magicians (being curious to find out by the help of a lookingglasse, or a glasse viall full of water, a thiefe that lies hidden) make choyce of young maides, or boyes uupolluted, to discerne therein those images or sights which a person defiled cannot see. Bodin, in the third book of his Dæmonomachia, chap. 3, reporteth that in his time there was at Thoulouse a certain Portugais, who shewed within a boy's naile things that were hidden. And he addeth that God had expressely forbidden that none should worship the stone of imagination. His opinion is that this stone of imagination or adoration (for so expoundeth he the first verse of the 26th chapter of Leviticus, where he speaketh of the idoll, the graven image, and the painted stone) was smooth and cleare as a looking-glasse, wherein they saw certaine images or sights, of which they enquired after the things hidden. In our time conjurers use chrystall, calling the divination chrystallomantia, or onycomantia, in the which, after they have rubbed one of the nayles of their fingers, or a piece of chrystall, they utter I know not what words, and they call a boy that is pure and no way corrupted, to see therein that which they require, as the same Bodin doth also make mention." Molle's Living Librarie, 1612, p. 2. tion by the looking-glass ; hence, it should seem, has been derived the present popular notion. When a looking-glass is broken, it is an omen that the party to whom it belongs will lose his best friend. See the Greek Scholia on the Nubes of Aristophanes, p. 169. Grose tells us that "breaking a looking-glass betokens a mortality in the family, commonly the master." In the Mémoires de Constant, premier valet de chambre de l'Empereur, sur la vie privée de Napoléon, 1830, Bonaparte's superstition respecting the looking-glass is particularly mentioned: "During one of his campaigns in Italy, he broke the glass over Joséphine's portrait. He never rested till the return of the courier he forthwith despatched to assure himself of her safety, so strong was the impression of her death upon his mind.' In a list of superstitious practices preserved in the Life and Character of Harvey the famous Conjurer of Dublin, 1728, p. 58, with "fortune-telling, dreams, visions, palmestry, physiognomy, omens, casting nativities, casting urine, drawing images," there occur also "mirrors.' "Mettals Willsford, in his Nature's Secrets, p. 138, tells us : in general, against much wet or rainy weather, will seem to have a dew hang upon them, and be much apter to sully or foul anything that is rubbed with the mettal; as you may see in pewter dishes against rain, as if they did sweat, leaving a smutch upon the table cloaths; with this Pliny concludes as a sign of tempests approaching. "Stones against rain will have a dew hang upon them; The following occurs in Delrio, Disquisit. Magic. lib. iv. chap. 2, quæst 7, sect. 3, p. 594: "Genus divinationis captoptromanticum: quo augures in splendenti cuspide, velut in crystallo vel ungue, futura inspiciebant." So, also, ibid. p. 576: "Kатоптроμаvтɛia, quæ rerum quæsitarum figuras in speculis exhibet politis: in usų fuit D. Juliano Imper. (Spartianus in Juliano)." Consult also Pausanias, Cœlius Rhodoginus, and Potter's Greek Antiquities, vol. i. p. 350. Potter says: "When divination by water was performed with a looking-glass it was called catoptromancy: sometimes they dipped a looking-glass into the water, when they desired to know what would become of a sick person: for as he looked well or ill in the glass, accordingly they presumed of his future condition. Sometimes, also, glasses were used, and the images of what should happen, without water." Mr. Douce's manuscript notes add that washing hands in the same water is said to forebode a quarrel." 66 but the sweating of stones is from several causes, and sometimes are signs of much drought. Glasses of all sorts will have a dew upon them in moist weather; glasse-windows will also shew a frost, by turning the air that touches them into water, and then congealing of it.” In the Marriage of the Arts, by Barton Holiday, 1630, is the following: "I have often heard them say 'tis ill luck to see one's face in a glasse by candle-light." TINGLING OF THE EARS, &c. IN Shakspeare's Much Ado About Nothing, Beatrice says: "What fire is in mine ears!" which Warburton explains as alluding to a proverbial saying of the common people that their ears burn when others are talking of them. On which Reed observes that the opinion from whence this proverbial saying is derived is of great antiquity, being thus mentioned by Pliny: "Moreover is not this an opinion generally received that when our ears do glow and tingle some there be that in our absence doe talke of us?"-Philemon Holland's Translation, b. xxviii. p. 297; and Browne's Vulgar Errors. Thomas Browne says: "When our cheek burns, or ear tingles, we usually say somebody is talking of us, a conceit of great antiquity, and ranked among superstitious opinions by Pliny. He supposes it to have proceeded from the notion of a signifying genius, or universal Mercury, that conducted sounds to their distant subjects, and taught to hear by touch." The following is in Herrick's Hesperides, p. 391: "On himselfe : One care tingles; some there be Sir 1 Pliny's words are: "Absentes tinnitu aurium præsentire sermones de se receptum est." In Petri Molinæi Vates, p. 218, we read: "Si cui aures tinniunt, indicium est alibi de eo sermones fieri." I find the following on this in Delrio, Disquisit. Magic. p. 473: “Quidam sonitum spontaneum auris dextræ vel sinistra observant, ut si hæc tintinet, inimicum, si illa, Mr. Douce's MS. notes say: "Right lug, left lug, wilk lug lows?" If the left ear, they talk harm; if the right, good. Scottish, J.M.D. Werenfels, in his Dissertation upon Superstition, p. 6, speaking of a superstitious man, says: "When his right ear tingles, he will be cheerful; but, if his left, he will be sad." Gaule, in his Mag-astromancers Posed and Puzzel'd, p. 181, has not omitted, in his list of "Vain Observations and Superstitious Ominations thereupon," the tingling of the ear, the itching of the eye, the glowing of the cheek, the bleeding of the nose, the stammering in the beginning of a speech, the being over-merry on a sudden, and to be given to sighing, and to know no cause why." Dr. Nathaniel Home, in his Dæmonologie, or the Character of the crying Evils of the present Times, 1650, p. 61, tells us: "If their eares tingle, they say it is a signe they have some enemies abroad, that doe or are about to speake evill of them: so, if their right eye itcheth, then it betokens joyfull laughter; and so, from the itching of the nose and elbow, and severall affectings of severall parts, they make severall predictions too silly to be mentioned, though regarded by them." In the third Idyllium of Theocritus, the itching of the right eye occurs as a lucky omen: Αλλεται οφθαλμος μεν ο δεξιος αρα γ' ιδησῶ Λυταν; thus translated by Creech, 1. 37 :— amicum, nostri putent memoriam tum recolere; de quo Aristænetus in Epist. amatoria: ουκ βομβεισοι τα ώτα, σου μεταδ ακροων εμεμνημην, nonne auris tibi resonabat quando tui lachrymans recordabar; et alicui huc pertinere videatur illud Lesbyæ Vatis a Veronensi conversum,' Sonitus suopte tintinant aures. Quod illa dixerat βομβεύς ευδ' ακοα εμοι : et apertius incertus quidam, sed antiquus (inter Catalect. Virg.): 'Garrula quid totis resonas mihi noctibus auris Nescio quem dicis nunc meminisse mei.'" The subsequent occurs in Roberti Keuchenii Crepundia, p. 113, "Aurium tinnitus : "Laudor et adverso, sonat auris, lædor ab ore; Dextra bono tinnit murmure, læva malo. Non moror hoc, sed inoffensum tamen arceo vulgus ; |