The stars and orders which modern sovereigns bestow on their princes and nobility, are merely emblematical ornaments of their monarchs favour.

His holiness the pope carries a representation of St. Peter's key as an emblem of great trust. And most of the European cities and towns derive their arms from some symbolical allusion to the history of their particular spot or neighbourhood, as the various incorporated companies have some device in their arms emblematical of their profession or trade. Thus King Edward the Third granted the Company of Grocers, a cheveron, gules, between nine cloves, sable. Henry the Seventh gave the Company of Merchant Taylors, a tent-royal between two parliamentary robes.

The Company of Apothecaries are represented by glorious Apollo mounted on the serpent Python, with a bow in one hand, and

an arrow in the other; emblematical as we may suppose of their powers to assist death.

Emblems in general are ingenious pictures, representing one thing to the eye and another to the understanding. The rebus, or representations of names by familiar images was invented in Picardy, and imported to us by the English residing at Calais. This symbolical mode of describing proper names was in great use with the monks of those days, who sometimes made the analogy so remote as to require interpretation. When any

name ended in " ton," the tun or vessel was usually substituted, of which numerous instances are found in stained glass. Thomas Compton, abbot of Cirencester in 1480, in a window of stained glass which he contributed to our lady's chapel at St. Peter's in Gloucester, has his rebus (a comb and a tun) very frequently repeated. John Naileheart, abbot of St. Augustines, near Bristol, in 1510, bore

upon the escutcheon in his seal a human heart proper, pierced with five nails, in allusion both to the " quinque vulnera" and his

own surname.

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We have been too much amused by Peacham's account of the rebuses that were invented during the reign of Charles the First, to withhold them from our readers. This author says Excellent have beene the conceipt of some citizens, who wanting armes, have coined themselves certaine devices as neere as may be alluding to their names, which we call rebus. Master Jugge the printer, (as you may see in many of his bookes,) tooke, to expresse his name, a nightingale sitting in a bush with a scrowle in her mouth, wherein was written Jugge, Jugge, Jugge."

One Foxe-crafte caused to be painted in his hall and parlour a foxe, counterfeiting himselfe dead upon the ice, among a company of ducks and goslings."

"One Master Gutteridge drew for himselfe a giant standing in a gutter, and looking over the ridge of a house, which could not chuse but make Gutteridge."

The same author says "A churchwarden of Saint Martins in the Fields, I remember when I was in that parish, to expresse Saint Martins in the Fields, caused to be engraven a martin (a bird like a swallow) sitting upon a molehill betweene two trees, which was Saint Martins in the Fields. It is there yet to be seene upon the communion cup."

The celebrated Le Notre, who planted the gardens of Versailles, Saint Cloud, the Tuilleries, the Champs Elysées, and several other royal pleasure grounds, was rewarded by a patent of nobility, by Louis the Fourteenth, on which occasion he chose for his arms a cabbage, with a spade and a rake for supporters; alleging that he owed so many obligations to gardening, that he would not

have his descendants lose the remembrance of them.

In the gallant days of knight-errantry, respectful and faithful love often had recourse to the symbolical language of flowers, and the bashful swains of our rural scenes still frequently explain their first passion by the assistance of these emblems. Although unpractised in the rules of the floral grammar, they are instructed by nature to seek the earliest or the fairest flower of the season, scarce knowing why they wait at the stile, or wherefore they enter the wicket to present it. Their wish is to please, the flower proves it, and a smile rewards them.

Cottage friendship is frequently commenced through the aid of flowers, for where the tongue is disposed, but reluctant to say to its neighbour, come let us live in friendship and kindness, a nosegay will explain the wish, and the offer of a few flowering plants