'=Sic Epus dilerit nos=,'--'Thus hath Christ loved us.' [101] The Heraldry of Fish, by Thomas Moule, Esq. London, 1842. [102] Vide cut at the head of this chapter. [103] Loadstone. [104] Op. Maj. edit. Jebb. 232. [105] Halliwell's Sir John Maundevile, p. 319. [106] Succinct Account of Religions and Sects, sect. 4, No. 42. [107] Some of the Greek coins of Sicily bear an impress of three legs conjoined, exactly similar to this fanciful charge, except that they are naked, and have at the point of conjunction a Mercury's head. [108] Dallaway. [109] The flower of the 'sword-grass, a kind of sedge.' _Dict._ [110] A work on the Fleur-de-Lis, in 2 vols. 8vo (!), was published in France in 1837. [111] The following jest on the _fleur-de-lis_ may amuse some readers. Sir William Wise "having lente to the King (Henry VIII) his signet to seale a letter, who having powdred eremites engrayl'd in the seale, [qy. ermine?--Several families of Wise bear this fur:] 'Why, how now, Wise,' quoth the King, 'What? hast thou _lice_ here?' 'And if it like your Majestie,' quoth Sir William, 'a _louse_ is a rich coate, for, by giving the louse, I part armes with the French King, in that he giveth the _floure de lice_.' Whereat the king heartily laugh'd, to heare how pretily so byting a taunt (namely, proceeding from a Prince,) was so sodaynely turned to so pleasaunte a conceyte." (Stanihurst's Hist. of Ireland in Holinshed's Chron.) Nares thinks that Shakspeare, who is known to have been a reader of Holinshed, took his conceit of the '_white lowses_,' which 'do become an old coat well,' in the Merry Wives of Windsor, from this anecdote. (Heraldic Anom. vol. i, p. 204.) [112] Essay on Armories, p. 10. [113] Chevaux-de-frise (in fortification), large joists of wood stuck full of wooden spikes, armed with iron, to stop breaches, or to secure the passes of a camp.--_Bailey's Dict._ [114] Heywood's Epigrams and Prov. 1566. No. 13. [115] _Wende_, thought; _mulne_, mill. [116] Modern naturalists place it in the class cryptogamia, and give it the name of _Tremella nostoc_. [117] In reading this list it will be seen that it contains several monsters not of the 'Gothick' but of the Classical era, as the chimera, harpy, and sagittary; but it is a curious and characteristic fact that the purely classical monsters were never great favourites in heraldry. [118] Nisbet on Armories, edit. 1718; pp. 12-13. [119] Workes of Armorie, folio 66. [120] Cocatryse, basilicus, _cocodrillus_! Prompt. Parv. Camd. Soc. [121] Hence sometimes called the basilisk, from the Greek [Greek: basiliskos].