Dec. 31. 1853.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



653 



always sufficiently describe it. If Broctuna, 

 however, be a practical herald, he must often have 

 experienced the difficulty of placing impalements 

 or quarterings correctly, even on a lozenge. On 

 the long and narrow fusil it would be impossible. 

 When the fusil, instead of being a mere heraldic 

 bearing, has to be used as tlie shape of a shield for 

 the actual use of the painter or engraver, it must 

 of necessity be widened into the lozenge; and as 

 the latter is probably only the same distaff with a 

 little more wool upon it, there seems no objection 

 to the arrangement. Broctuna is too good an 

 antiquary not to know on recollection that the 

 " vyings of widows " had little to do with funeral 

 arrangements in those days. Procrustes, the 

 herald, came down at all great funerals, and re- 

 gulated everything with just so much pomp, and 

 no more, as the precise rank of the deceased en- 

 titled him to. 



P. P. had not the smallest intention of giving 

 Broctuna offence by pointing out what seems a 

 fatal objection to his theory. 



Hugh Clark, a well-known modern writer upon 

 Heraldry, gives the following definition of the 

 word lozenge : 



" Lozenge, a four-cornered figure, resembling a pane 

 of glass in old casements : some suppose it a physical 

 composition given for colds, and was invented to re- 

 ward eminent physicians." 



Plutarch says, in the Life of Theseus, that at 

 Megara, an ancient town of Greece, the tomb- 

 stones, under which the bodies of the Amazons lay, 

 were shaped after that form, which some con- 

 jecture to be the cause why ladies have their arms 

 on lozenges, Kuby. 



77ie Crescent (Vol. \\u., p. 319.), — Be so good 

 as to insert in " N. & Q.," lor the information of 

 J. W. Thomas, that the Iceni (a people of Eng- 

 land, whose territory consisted of the counties of 

 Norfolk, Suffolk, Essex, &c.) struck coins both in 

 gold and silver ; having on their reverses crescents 

 placed back to back generally, except where a 

 rude profile is on a few of them. 



Two of the gold coins have fallen into my pos- 

 session ; one of which, found at Oxnead in this 

 county, I supplied to the British Museum some 

 years since. Twelve of the silver coins are 

 figured on a plate in Part L VII. of the Numis- 

 Tnatic Chronicle. Mr. Thomas observing (at 

 p. 321.) he has no work on numismatics, induces 

 ine to make this communication to him through 

 your very useful and instructive publication. 



GoDDARD Johnson. 



Norfolk. 



Abigail (Vol. iy., p. 424. ; Vol. v., pp. 38. 94. 

 450,). — The inquiry suggested in the first of the 



above references, " Whence, or when, originated 

 the application of Abigail, as applied to a lady's 

 maid?" has not yet, to my mind, been satisfac- 

 torily answered. It occurs to me that it may have 

 been derived from the notorious Abigail Hill, 

 better known as Mrs. Masham, a poor relative of 

 Sarah Duchess of Marlborough, and by her intro- 

 duced to a subordinate place about the person of 

 Queen Anne. She rapidly acquired sufficient in- 

 fluence to supplant her benefactress. The intrigues 

 of the Tory party received sufficient furtherance 

 from this bedchamber official to effect ultimately 

 the downfall of the Whig ministry ; and the use 

 of the term by Dean Swift, of which your original 

 Querist Mr. Warden speaks, would suffice to 

 give currency and to associate the name of so 

 famous an intrigicante Avith the office which she 

 filled. It must be matter of opinion whether the 

 Dean (as Mr. W. thinks) employed the term as 

 not neiv in those days, or as one which had taken 

 so rapidly in the current conversation of the day, 

 as to require but his putting it in print to esta- 

 blish it in its new sense so long as the language 

 shall be spoken or written. Balliolensis. 



Handbook to the Library of the British Museum 

 (Vol. viii., p. 511 .). — Neither Lord Seymour, nor 

 Mr. Bolton Cornet, nor Mr. Richard Sims, can 

 with justice claim originality in the suggestion 

 carried out by the latter gentleman in the pub- 

 lication of his Handbook to the Library of the 

 British Museum. 



In my own collection is a book entitled, — 



" A Critical and Historical Account of all the cele- 

 brated Libraries in Foreign Countries, as well ancient 

 as modern, with general Reflections on the choice of 

 Books," &c. . . " A work of great use to all men 

 of letters. By a Gentleman of the Temple. London, 

 printed for J. JoUiffe, in St. James's Street, jidccxxxix." 



In the preface to which work the author says : 



" It will be highly useful to such noblemen and 

 gentlemen as visit foreign countries, hy instructing 

 them in the manner of perusing whatever is curious in the 

 Vatican and other famous libraries." 



And in which he promises that — 



" If it should meet with the approbation of tlie public, 

 he (the autlior) will proceed with the libraries of these 

 kingdoms" &c. 



F. Seymour Haden. 



Chelsea. 



The Arms of Richard, King of the Romans 

 (Vol. viii., pp. 265. 454.). — With every respect 

 for such heraldic authorities as Mr. Gough and 

 Mr. Lover, I think the question as to whether 

 the so-called bezants in the arms of Richard, 

 King of the Romans, referred to his earldom of 

 Poictou or of Cornwall, inclines in favour of the 

 former : for instance, in 1253 he granted to the 



