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Finches were fledged; and in old deeds the name is given Filius Herberti.

Champernoun.-Devonshire: a corruption of Campernulph, or De Campo Arnulphi; called, says Camden, Champernoun *.

Smelt.-Ralph Luvel (or Lovel) an ancestor of the Percivals, was, in the time of King Stephen, called also Simelt, for which no reason is given †.

Names of Men, of Places, and Things, have changed, and by seeming corruption have come right again.

Thus, for Men.

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Osbaldiston Osberton Osbaldiston.

I take this to be a local name, from Osbaldiston in Lancashire, q. Osbald his Town. There is in Yorkshire Osbaldwick, pronounced

* Britannia, col. 35.

+ See Collins's Peerage, 1779, art. Lovel and Holland. So Shakspeare has it.

Osberwick. It should be Oswald, a Bishop of York and Martyr, in both cases.

We have the name Bernardiston, from a place of the name in Suffolk *.

Robertsbridge, in Sussex, appears to be a corruption of Rothersbridge, as it was long called, and with plausibility; for it is situated on the river Rother: but the former is the truth, as I have been informed that in old Latin deeds it is styled Pons Roberti.

There are some terms which, by a double corruption, have got home again; as Crevisses, in Derbyshire; where Crevise, the word for a Cray-fish, is a corruption: but it gets home by it; for the French word from whence cray-fish was first formed, is ecrevisse. This too is the radical word; for the lobster is but a species of it, and called l'ecrevisse de mer, or sea-cray-fish; what is now called the sea-cray-fish, is properly the lobster. This difference consists in the want of claws.

*For both the places see Spelman's Villare.

Symbola Scotica ;

OR,

An Attempt to Elucidate some of the more Obscure Armorial Bearings, principally the MOTTOES used by many of the Scottish Families.

In a Letter to the Earl of Leicester, President of the Society of Antiquaries.

"Arma Virumque.”

There seems to be something peculiarly significant and quaint in the greatest part of the Mottoes and Devices used by the Scottish Nobility, and perhaps in those of many Families of inferior Rank; though these last do not so easily come under our observation.

My intention is, to trouble your Lordship with my thoughts on a few of these Mottoes (as we call them); and refer to your extensive knowledge in the science of Heraldry, and your love of investigation, for the rest of these obscure impreses.

We must, however, distinguish between the Motto and the Slug horn (or, as Sir George Mackenzie gives it, upon the more

Southern pronunciation, Slogan*); the latter being a cry de guerre, whereas the former (though one may sometimes answer both purposes) seems more to relate to some historical circumstance by which the Family have been signalized. The original idea of these words, I have no doubt, related to War, and operated as what we now call the Watch-Word, and more emphatically the Word by the circulation of which the King can, at this day, call his guards about him, as the Chiefs of Scotland formerly assembled their Vassals in their respective divisions or clans. The French call it a Mot; and the Italians, by an augmentation, Motto; which last we have adopted when we speak in an heraldic style. The true Scottish term is a Ditton, the Slughorn being properly the cry de Guerre. Not to go into the antiquity of Mottoes, or Armory, further than the subject in question shall lead me, I shall content myself with observing that Armorial Bearings in general, with us in England, have little

* The Glossary to Douglas's Virgil adduces the Term from the Anglo-Saxon Slegan, interficere.

more than the fancy of the party, with Heraldic sanction, for their foundation; or some distant allusion to the name. Take one singular instance of this last case, which Mr. Boyer (in his Theatre of Honour) gives, as a whimsical bearing. The Arms of the name of Matthias are three Dice (sixes as the highest throw), having, I make no doubt (though Mr. Boyer gives no reason for it), a reference to the election of St. Matthias into

the Apostleship: "And the lot fell upon

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Matthias." One of the writers in the Antiquarian Discourses (Mr. Agarde) thinks the old Motto of the Caves, of Stanford, in Northamptonshire, a happy conceit; the ancient Crest being a Grey-hound currant, with a label issuing out of its mouth, with these words," Adsum; Cave." Had the Cave stood alone, without the Dog or the Adsum, it might have been very well, and have operated religiously, morally, or politically but otherwise the Dog seems to run away with the Wit. The Family, since Mr. Agarde's time, appear to have been sensible of this awkward compound, and have adopted

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