MOONIVORT, 389 



' And horse that, feeding on the grassy hills. 

 Tread upon moon-wort with their hollow heelesj 

 Though lately shod, at night goe bare-foot home. 

 Their master musing where their shooes become. 

 O moon-wort ! tell us where thou hid'st the smith. 

 Hammer, and pincers, thou unshoo'st them with ? 

 Alas ! what lock or iron engine is't 

 That can thy subtile secret strength resist, 

 Sith the best farrier cannot set a shoo 

 So sure, but thou (so shortly) canst undoo ?' 



Longfellow speaks 



' Of the marvellous powers of four-leaved clover and horse-shoes ' 



as a sujDerstition among the primitive settlers in Acadie, 

 now Nova Scotia. And we have quoted M. Megnin's 

 opinion that the apex of the ensign of a Roman cohort, 

 figured on Trajan's column, was surmounted by a hoof- 

 iron. If this be really a horse-shoe, it not only demon- 

 strates that the custom of shoeing was known to the 

 Romans, but that the strange virtues superstitiously 

 attached to that object had already been credited by 

 them ; as it would also appear to have been by the 

 Arabs in Mahomet's time. 



