The tendency to embalm falsehoods is a part of the question of the worth of traditions, which is really worthy of a philosophical inquiry. The rib of the Dun cow and Guy's porridge-pot are still shown at Warwick Castle, though the one is the bone of a fossil elephant, and the other a military cooking vessel of the time of Charles I. Sir Samuel Meyrick scientifically classified and arranged the collection of armour in the Tower, but the Beefeaters stick to the old stories still. Richard the Third's bed in the neighbourhood of Bosworth, turns out to be Elizabethan;[75] Queen Mary's, at Holyrood, to be of the last century. Only the other day they sold off at Berkeley the bed of the murdered Edward as an undoubted anachronism and admitted imposture. Old chairs are as little to be trusted. Some persons have even doubted the famous Glastonbury specimen, but these are unduly cautious and sceptical. St. Crispin's chair in Linlithgow Cathedral is of excellent mahogany,--a wood which he could only have obtained by miracle previous to the discovery of America. Princes of Wales are not more fortunate in their traditions than the Popes themselves, for the Tower of Carnarvon, in which it is said that the first of them was born, was almost certainly built after he came into existence. The printing press will dispose of these false traditions in time, as it has already extinguished so many others, whether false or true.[76] FOOTNOTES: [68] See Murray's _Handbook to Hampshire, Surrey, and the Isle of Wight_. [69] _Quarterly Review_, No. 223. [70] _English Review_, No. 2. [71] Grafton, vol. ii. p. 154. Balls of about a pound and a half weight have been dug up on the field, but none of the chroniclers speak of artillery as used by either side. [72] "Sir John Cheney, of Sherland, personally encountering King Richard, was felled to the ground by the monarch, had his crest struck off, and his head laid bare: for some time, it is said, he remained stunned; but recovering after awhile, he cut the skull and horns off the hide of an ox which chanced to be near, and fixed them upon his head, to supply the top of the upper part of his helmet: he then returned to the field of battle, and did such signal service that Henry, on being proclaimed King, assigned Cheney for crest the bull's scalp, which his descendants still bear."--Sir Bernard Burke's _Vicissitudes of Families_, p. 350. [73] In his very interesting _Visits to the Fields of Battle, in England, of the Fifteenth Century_. [74] _Times_ journal. [75] See page 305, _ante_. [76] _Times_ journal. CURIOSITIES OF HATFIELD.