Heraldry throughout employs the language of Emblems;—it is the picture-history of families, of tribes and of nations, of princes and emperors. Many a legend and many a strange fancy may be mixed up with it and demand almost the credulity of simplest childhood in order to obtain our credence; yet in the literature of Chivalry and Honours there are enshrined abundant records of the glory that belonged to mighty names. I recall now but one instance. In the fine folio lately emblazoned with the well-known motto “GANG FORWARD,” “I AM READY,” what volumes, to those who can interpret each mark and sign and tutored symbol, are wrapped up in the _Examples of the ornamental Heraldry of the sixteenth Century_: London, 1867, 1868. The custom of taking a device or badge, if not a motto, is traced by Paolo Giovio, in his _Dialogo dell’ Imprese militari et amorose_, ed. 1574, p. 9,[14] to the earliest times of history. He writes, “To bear these emblems was an ancient usage.” GIO. “It is a point not to be doubted, that the ancients used to bear crests and ornaments on the helmets and on the shields: for we see this clearly in Virgil, when he made the catalogue of the nations which came in favour of Turnus against the Trojans, in the eighth book of the Æneid; Amphiaraus then (as Pindar says) at the war of Thebes bore a dragon on his shield. Similarly Statius writes of Capaneus and of Polinices, that the one bore the Hydra, and the other the Sphynx,” &c. But these were simple emblems, without motto inscribed. The same Paolo Giovio, and other writers after him,[15] assign both “picture and short posie,” to two of the early Emperors of Rome. “Augustus, wishing to show how self-governed and moderate he was in all his affairs, never rash and hasty to believe the first reports and informations of his servants, caused to be struck, among several others, on a gold medal of his own, a Butterfly and a Crab, signifying quickness by the Butterfly, and by the Crab slowness, the two things which constitute a temperament necessary for a Prince.” The motto, as figured below,—“MAKE HASTE LEISURELY.” AVGVSTE. [Illustration: _Symeon, Dev. Her. 1561._] The Device is thus applied in Whitney’s _Emblems_, p. 121, and dedicated to two eminent judges of Elizabeth’s reign; “This figure, lo, AVGVSTVS did deuise, A mirror good, for Iudges iuste to see, And alwayes fitte, to bee before their eies, When sentence they, of life, and deathe decree: Then muste they haste, but verie slowe awaie, Like butterflie, whome creepinge crabbe dothe staie.” “The Prince, or Iudge, maie not with lighte reporte, In doubtfull thinges, giue iudgement touching life: But trie, and learne the truthe in euerie sorte, And mercie ioyne, with iustice bloodie knife: This pleased well AVGVSTVS noble grace, And Iudges all, within this tracke shoulde trace.”