To eyes like our own, accustomed to see nowhere but in English heraldry, and English devices, harts figured as lodged beneath green trees in a park as in Nos. 1283-4, p. 43, or stags couchant, with a chain about the neck, as at pp. 53, 239, and in both samples gazing upward to the sun behind a cloud, it would appear that they were but varieties of the pattern sketched for the silken stuffs worn by Richard II., and admirably shown on that valuable, yet hitherto overlooked specimen of English mediæval workmanship in copper and engraving still to be found in Westminster Abbey, as we before observed,[435] and the symbolism of which we now explain. The pattern of the silken textile worn by the king consists of but three elements--the broom-pod, the sun’s rays darting upwards from behind a cloud, and a stag lying down on the grass, looking right forward, with about its neck a royal crown, down from which falls a long chain. The broom tells, of course, that Richard was a Plantagenet. His grandfather’s favourite cognizance was that of sunbeams issuing from clouds; his mother’s--Joan, the fair maid of Kent--the white hart. The latter two were evidently meant to bring to mind the words of the Psalmist, who says:--“The heavens show forth the glory of God. He hath set His tabernacle in the sun. The Lord is my light, and His throne as the sun.” The white hind brings to our thoughts how the hart panting for the water-fountains, is likened to the soul that pants after God. This symbolism is unfolded into a wider breadth upon the design for the stuffs here, No. 1310, p. 53; No. 8624, p. 239. Here, instead of the sunbeams shooting upwards, as if to light the whole heavens, they dart downward, as if for the individual stag with upturned gaze, amid a gentle shower of rain; as if to say that if man look heavenward by prayer, light will be sent down to him, and helping grace, like rain, like the shower upon the grass to slake his ghostly thirst. [435] P. cxx.