vation; while Melton's Astrologaster gives: "If the Beere fall next a Man it is a signe of good Luck." In this connection it may be mentioned that in Lloyd's Stratagems of Jerusalem (1602) we read: “The Lydians, Persians, and Thracians esteem not soothsaying by Birds, but by powring of Wine upon the ground, upon their cloathes, with certaine superstitious Praiers to their Gods that their Warres should have good successe."

SHOE OMENS.

Anciently the accidental putting of the left shoe on the right foot, or of the right shoe on the left foot, was taken to be the precursor of some unlucky accident. Thus Scot in his Discovery of Witchcraft tells us: "He that receiveth a mischance will consider whether he put not on his Shirt the wrong side outwards, or his left Shoe on his right foot ;" and Butler adverts to the superstition in Hudibras―

"Augustus, having b' oversight

Put on his left Shoe 'fore his right,
Had like to have been slain that day
By soldiers mutin’yng for pay."

Butler's reference to the Roman emperor is founded on the authority of Pliny, who records the incident. Similarly ominous it is, says Grose, undesignedly to put on one stocking with the wrong side outwards, though changing it alters the luck. A vast deal of learning, indeed, has accumulated around the subject of Shoe superstitions. Leo Modena (in Chilmead's translation, 1650) relates that in his time there were Jews who "observe, in dressing themselves in the morning, to put on the right stocking and right shoe first, without tying it; then afterward to put on the left, and so to return to the right; that so they may begin and end with the right side, which they account to be the most fortunate." Among Vain Observations and Superstitious Ominations thereupon, Gaule in his Mag-Astromancers Posed and Puzzel'd does not omit "putting on the hose uneven or acrosse, and the shooe upon the wrong foot," also "the bursting of the shoe-lachet;" while Mason in his Anatomy of Sorcery, enumerating "vaine and frivolous devices, of which sort we have an infinite number also used amongst us," specifies "foredeeming of evile lucke by putting on the shooe awry.'

By the vulgar it is accounted lucky to throw an old shoe after a person to whom they wish success in the mission upon which he may be setting out. In Ireland there was an old ceremony of electing one to any office by throwing an old shoe over his head. Grose, citing the passage in Ben Jonson

"Would I had Kemp's shoes to throw after you,"

observes that Kemp perhaps was a man remarkable for the good for tune that attended him. The poet Shenstone asks whether the custom of scraping when we bow may not be derived from the ancient practice of casting the shoes backwards off the feet; and the question in all probability may be answered in the affirmative.

A curious anecdote is related in the Statistical Account of Scotland (vol. x.) of a king of the Isle of Man sending his shoes to his Majesty of Dublin, and requiring him to carry them before his people at a high festival, vengeance being threatened for non-compliance with the mandate. The subjects of the Dublin potentate, we read, urged him not to submit to the indignity; but, inspired with a rare sense of humanity and a singular degree of wisdom, he exclaimed, “I had rather not only bear but eat them, than that one province of Ireland should bear the desolation of war.'

In Gayton's Festivous Notes upon Don Quixote (1654) occurs a passage anent "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 shoe after him." To this super

stitious practice Heywood (1546) has a direct reference

"And home agayne hitherward quicke as a bee;

Now, for good lucke, cast an olde shooe after mee;"

and in the Raven's Almanacke (1609) we read: "But, at his shutting in of shop, could have been content to have had all his neighbours have throwne his olde shooes after him when hee went home, in signe of good lucke." So also in Jonson's Masque of the Gypsies (1640)— "Hurle after an old shoe :

I'le be merry what e'er I doe;"

and in Beaumont and Fletcher's Honest Man's Fortune (1613) --
"Captain, your shoes are old; pray put 'em off,
And let one fling 'em after us.

Another superstition in Scotland, we gather from the Statistical Account, related to "happy" and "unhappy" feet. The practice was to wish brides and bridegrooms "a happy foot ;" and, to prevent any evil effects, those that were met on the road were saluted with a kiss. "It is hard, however," is the satiric comment, "if any misfortune happens when you are passing, that you should be blamed, when neither you nor your feet ever thought of the matter."

LOOKING-GLASS OMENS.

Mirrors were used by magicians in their diabolical operations, and in ancient times was practised a kind of divination by the lookingglass; whence, it should seem, has been derived the present popular notion, according to which the breaking of a looking-glass is accounted a most unlucky accident, being ominous of the loss of his best friend by the person to whom it belongs. Grose gives it as betokening death in the family circle, commonly of the master.

Molle's Living Librarie (1621) instructs us

"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 unpolluted, 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 Thonext certain Portugais, who shewed within a Boys naile things that were men And he addeth that God had expressely forbidden that none should "Th the Stone of Imagination. His opinion is that this Stone of Imagin Birds Adoration (for so expoundeth he the first verse of the 26th Chapter of, wit cus, where he speaketh of the Idoll, the graven Image, and the painteshou was smooth and cleare as a Looking-Glasse, wherein they saw certain or Sights, of which they enquired after the things hidden. In our Ti jurers use Christall, calling the Divination Chrystallomantia, or Onych in the which, after they have rubbed one of the Nayles of their Finge piece of Chrystall, they utter I know not what words, and they cal; for By that is pure and no way corrupted, to see therein that which they reqor the same Bodin doth also make mention."

cra

し

In the Life of Harvey, the famous Dublin conjuror (1728), among a variety of practices, such as fortune-telling, dreams, visions, pa mistry, physiognomy, omens, casting nativities, casting urine, and drawing images, "mirroirs" are specified; and Delrio's treatise Magic refers to "Kатожтроμaтela, quæ rerum quæsitarum figuras în speculis exhibet politis," as having been employed by the Emperor Julian. This form of divination by water, being practised with a looking-glass, was called catoptromancy. Sometimes," ," writes Potter in his Grecian Antiquities, "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."

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"Mettals in general," we are instructed by Willsford's Nature's Secrets, "against much wet or rainy weather will seem to have a dew hang upon them, and be much apter to sully or foul any thing that is rubbed with the mettal: as you may see in pewter dishes against rain, as if they did sweat, having 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; 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."

Barten Holiday's Marriage of the Arts (1618) records: "I have often heard them say, 'tis ill-luck to see one's face in a glasse by candlelight."

TINGLING OF THE EARS, RIGHT EYE, NECK, AND SIDE.

"What fire is in mine ears?" Beatrice's inquiry in Much Ado about Nothing, Warburton explains as alluding to a proverbial saying of the common people, that their ears burn when others are talking of them; and upon this Reed observes that the opinion on which the proverbial saying is based is of great antiquity, being mentioned by Pliny: "Absentes tinnitu aurium præsentire sermones de se receptum est;" that is, it is generally held that the absent are aware of being the subjects of conversation through tingling of their ears. To exactiv the same effect Molinæus writes: "Si cui aures tinniunt, indicium est

Alibi de eo sermones fieri." According to Delrio, tingling of the left Folkar denoted evil, while that of the right portended good; and Douce's DuS. Notes supply Scottish confirmation of this theory: "Right lug, gft lug, whilk lug lows?' If the left ear, they talk harm; if the right, dood." Again, of the Superstitious Man Werenfels says, in his Dissertotion upon Superstition: "When his right ear tingles, he will be mahearful; but, if his left, he will be sad."

"When our cheek burns or ear tingles, we usually say somebody is talking of us," writes Sir Thomas Browne; "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."

Herrick refers to the popular belief—

"One eare tingles: some there be

That are snarling now at me.
Be they those that Homer bit,
I will give them thanks for it."

In his Mag-Astromancers Posed and Puzzel'd, Gaule includes 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, besides the bleeding of the nose, the stammering in the beginning of a speech, sudden over-merriment, and the disposition to sigh without any reason; and Home, in his Dæmonologie (1650), 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 several predictions too silly to be mentioned, though regarded by them."

In the third Idyl of Theocritus the itching of the right eye occurs as a lucky omen—

"My right eye itches now, and shall I see
My love?"

Similarly, in the Shepherd's Starre (1591), Corydon exclaims: "But my right eie watreth : 'tis a signe of somewhat do I see her yet?" Molinæus makes a startling disclosure: "Si cui riget collum, aut cervicis vertebræ sunt obtortæ, præsignificatio est futuri suspendii"a stiff neck, or strain of the muscles of the head, foretells extinction by hanging.

To rise on the right side is accounted lucky. In Beaumont and Fletcher's Women Pleased we read: "You riss of your right side, and said your prayers too; you had been paid else;" in Marston's What you Will, “You rise on your right side to-day, marry;" and in Machin's Dumb Knight, Alphonso says

"Sure I said my prayers, ris'd on my right side,
Wash'd hands and eyes, put on my girdle last;
Sure I met no splea-footed baker;

No hare did cross me, nor no bearded witch,
Nor other ominous sign."

OMENS RELATING TO THE CHEEK, NOSE, AND MOUTH. According to Melton's Astrologaster, when the left cheek burns, it is a sign of somebody talking well of you; and contrariwise when the right is aflame. Grose extends the observation to the ear, with the same qualifications attached, adding that if the right eye itches, the person affected will shortly cry; if the left, he will laugh. In Ravenscroft's Canterbury Guests we read: "That you shou'd think to deceive me! Why, all the while I was last in your company, my heart beat all on that side you stood, and my cheek next you burnt and glow'd."

As to itching of the nose, we have frequently heard this symptom interpreted into the expectation of seeing a stranger. So, in Dekker's Honest Whore, Bellafront says—

"We shall ha' guests to-day,

I'll lay my little maidenhead, my nose itches so."

And the reply made by her servant Roger informs her that the biting of fleas was a token of the same kind. In Melton's Astrologaster, however, it is set down that "when a man's nose itcheth, it is a signe he shall drink wine," and that "if your lips itch, you shall kisse somebody."

The bleeding of the nose seems to have been regarded as an indication of love. In Boulster Lectures (1640) we read: "Did my nose ever bleed when I was in your company? And, poor wench! just as she spake this, to shew her true heart, her nose fell a-bleeding." "I was not for nothing that my nose fell a-bleeding," says Launcelot in the Merchant of Venice; Steevens observing thereon that from a passage in Lodge's Rosalynde (1592) some superstitious belief appar ently was attached to the nasal accident: "As he stoode gazing, his nose on a sodaine bledde, which made him conjecture that it was some friend of his." So also in Webster's Dutchess of Malfy (1623)—

"How superstitiously we mind our evils!
The throwing down salt, or crossing of a hare,
Bleeding at nose, the stumbling of a horse,
Or singing of a creket, are of power

To daunt whole man in us."

Again in the same play

"My nose bleeds.

One that were superstitious would count

This ominous, when it merely comes by chance.”

Bodenham's Belvedere, or Garden of the Muses (1600), has the following simile from some one of our old poets

"As suddaine bleeding argues ill ensuing,

So suddaine ceasing is fell Feares renewing."

According to the author of the Astrologaster, when a man's Do bleeds but a drop or two, it is a sign of ill-luck; when it bleeds ca drop, and at the left nostril, it is a sign of good-luck, but, at the rig