The description of a shield which used to hang, before the Great Fire, in old St. Paul's, London, will be an interesting illustration of how shields were made in the fourteenth century. This was the shield of John of Gaunt (or Ghent, as it was originally spelled), our Duke of Lancaster, the third brother of Edward the Black Prince, and father of Henry IV. He was born 1340, and died 1399, so we may assign 1370 as about the date of its manufacture. In shape it is an oblong square with rounded corners and hollowed-out sides and base, while a very deep bouche is cleft into the dexter chief. It much resembles the "Gothic-rounded No. 12," but the base is flat and hollowed out. I am quoting from Bolton's _Elements of Armories, 1610_, p. 69:--"It is very convex toward the bearer, whether by warping through age, or as made of purpose. It hath in dimensions more than three-quarters of a yeard of length and above halfe a yeard in breadth: next to the body is a canvas glew'd to a boord, upon that thin board are broad thin axicles, slices or plates of horne nail'd fast, and againe over them 20 and sixe peeces of the like all meeting or centring about a round plate of the same in the navell of the shield, and over all a leather clozed fast to them with glew or other holding stuffe,--upon which his armorie was painted, but now they with the leather itself have very lately and very lewdly bin utterly spoil'd." This is engraved in Bolton's _Elements_, in Willement's _Regal Heraldry_, in Randle Holme's _Academy_, and in several other heraldic works. There is also engraved in Bolton's _Elements_, p. 67, the shield of Edward the Black Prince hanging over his tomb at Canterbury. This was of the egg shape No. 35; and in a circle in the centre were, on a heater shield No. 5, the arms of France and England quarterly with a label of three points; while around this circle the rest of the shield was embossed or "tooled" with an elaborate filagree pattern, and a narrow plain rim extended round the outer edge. The inscriptions in this century continue to be in Latin and in Roman letters, but sometimes Gothic lettering is used. FIFTEENTH CENTURY. Our materials for proof during this century are peculiarly numerous and rich. There is great store of beautiful seals, many of them highly decorated, and preparing us for their decay and disappearance after about 1490. Then again, MS. illustrations of tournaments show the shaped shields of the knights hung up on tents or elsewhere, and adorned with their heraldry; and occasionally, and in one case as late as 1480, two knights appear on horseback, jousting and bearing shields; also, in some cases, combats on foot, where the knights carry shields. We have also stained glass with shields, which, at this early time, seem more closely to follow the shapes of those actually in use.