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 (_Genealogie de la Maison de la Tour_) are found several hundred examples of ladies' arms on oval {278} shields; and in _Vredii Genealogia comitum Flandriae_ (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 _Muentzbelustig_. 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.