“But that I am forbid To tell the secrets of my prison-house, I could a tale unfold whose lightest word Would harrow up thy soul, freeze thy young blood, Make thy two eyes, like stars, start from their spheres, Thy knotted and combined locks to part And each particular hair to stand an end, Like quills upon the fretful porpentine.” And of “John Cade of Ashford,” in _2 Henry VI._ (act. iii. sc. 1, l. 360, vol. v. p. 162), the Duke of York avers,— “In Ireland I have seen this stubborn Cade Oppose himself against a troop of kernes; And fought so long, ’till that his thighs with darts Were almost like a sharp-quill’d porcupine.” From the same source, Giovio’s and Symeoni’s “SENTENTIOSE IMPRESE,” Lyons, 1561, p. 115, we also derive the cognizance,— _DEL CAPITANO GIROLAMO_ MATTEI ROMANO. [Illustration: _Giovio and Symeoni, 1561._] _Diuora il ſtruzzo con ingorda furia Il ferro, & lo ſmaltiſce poi pian piano, Coſi (come dipinge il buon Romano) Smaltir fa il tempo ogni maggiore ingiuria._ Spiritus duriſſima coquit. To this Ostrich, with a large iron nail in its mouth, and with a scroll inscribed, “Courage digests the hardest things,” the stanza is devoted which means,— “Devour does the ostrich with eager greediness The iron, and then very easily digests it, So (as the good Romano represents) Time causes every injury to be digested.” Camerarius, to the same motto, _Ex Volatilibus_ (ed. 1595, p. 19), treats us to a similar couplet,— “_Magno animo fortis perferre pericula suevit, Vllo nec facile frangitur ille metu_.” [Sidenote: _i.e._] “With mighty mind the brave grows accustomed to bear dangers, Nor easily is that man broken by any fear.” Shakespeare’s description of the ostrich, as given by Jack Cade, _2 Henry VI._ (act iv. sc. 10, l. 23, vol. v. p. 206), is in close agreement with the ostrich device,— “Here’s the lord of the soil,” he says, “come to seize me for a stray, for entering his fee-simple without leave. Ah, villain, thou wilt betray me, and get a thousand crowns of the king for carrying my head to him; but I’ll make thee eat iron like an ostrich, and swallow my sword like a great pin, ere thou and I part.” Note the iron pin in the ostrich’s mouth. Sola facta ſolum Deum ſequor. [Illustration: _Paradin, 1562._]