T. F.
In reply to Serviens's Query about Major André, I beg to inform him that there is a good picture of the Major by Sir Joshua Reynolds in the house of Mrs. Fenning, at Tonbridge Wells, who, I have no doubt, would be enabled to give him some particulars respecting his life.
W. H. P.
Early Edition of the New Testament (Vol. viii., p. 219.).—The book, about which your correspondent A. Boardman inquires, is an imperfect copy of Tyndale's Version of the New Testament: probably it is one of the first edition; if so, it was printed at Antwerp in 1526; but if it be one of the second edition, it was printed, I believe, at the same place in 1534. Those excellent and indefatigable publishers, Messrs. Bagster & Sons, have within the last few years reprinted both these editions; and if your correspondent would apply to them, I have no doubt but they will be able to resolve him on all the points of his inquiry.
F. B——w.
Ladies' Arms borne in a Lozenge (Vol. vii., p. 571. Vol. viii., pp. 37. 83.).—As this question is still open, I forward you the translation of an article inserted by me in the first volume of the Navorscher. Lozenge-formed shields have not been always, nor exclusively, used by ladies; for, in a collection of arms from 1094 to 1649 (see Descriptive Catalogue of Impressions from Scottish Seals, by Laing, Edinburgh) are many examples of ladies' arms, but not one in which the shield has any other form than that used at the time by men. In England, however, as early as the fourteenth century, the lozenge was sometimes used by ladies, though perhaps only by widows. Nisbet (System of Heraldry, ii. 35.) mentions a lozenge-formed seal of Johanna Beaufort, Queen Dowager of Scotland, attached to a parchment in 1439; while her arms, at an earlier period, were borne on a common shield (Gent. Mag., April, 1851). In France the use of the lozenge for ladies was very general; yet in the great work of Flacchio (Généalogie de la Maison de la Tour) are found several hundred examples of ladies' arms on oval
shields; and in Vredii Genealogia comitum Flandriæ (p. 130.), on shields rounded off below. On the other hand, lozenges have sometimes been used by men: for instance, on a seal of Ferdinand, Infant of Spain, in Vredius, l. c. p. 148.; also on a dollar of Count Maurice of Hanau, in Kohler's Müntzbelustig. 14. See again the arms of the Count of Sickingen, in Siebmacher, Suppl. xi. 2. So much for the use of the lozenge. Most explanations of its origin appear equally far-fetched. That of Menestrier, in his Pratique des Armoires (p. 14.), seems to me the least forced. He derives the French name lozange from the Dutch lofzang:
"In Holland," he says, "the custom prevails every year, in May, to affix verses and lofzangen (songs of praise) in lozenge-formed tablets on the doors of newly-made magistrates. Young men hung such tablets on the doors of their sweethearts, or newly-married persons. Also on the death of distinguished persons, lozenge-shaped pieces of black cloth or velvet, with the arms, name, and date of the death of the deceased, were exhibited on the front of the house. And since there is little to be said of women, except on their marriage or death, for this reason has it become customary on all occasions to use for them the lozenge-shaped shield."
In confirmation of this may be mentioned, that formerly lozange and lozanger were used in the French for louange and louer; of which Menestrier, in the above-quoted work (p. 431.), cites several instances.
Besides the conjectures mentioned by H. C. K. and Broctuna, may be cited that of Laboureur: who finds both the form and the name in the Greek word ὀξυγώνιος (ozenge with the article, l'ozenge); and of Scaliger, who discovers lausangia in laurangia, lauri folia. See farther, Bernd. Wapenwesen, Bonn, 1841.