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ley; the brilliant Leicester; and to Sir Philip Sidney. Lord Heytesbury, as heir of the Vernons, is the representative of this branch of the Lawrence family.*

One of the peculiar features of the old city of London was the number of houses enriched with plaster-work, skilfully modelled in imitation of foliage, fruit, heads of men, and animals, and most prominent heraldic insignia. A house of this description bore on its front the turbot crest and arms of Lawrence, differenced by a canton, and was the residence of Sir John Lawrence, Lord Mayor in 1665: he was the grandson of a Fleming, who left the Netherlands in the reign of Elizabeth and settled in Great Saint Helen's, where Sir John built a mansion not unworthy of the Doge of Genoa, "la superba." The Genoese nobility do not disdain to follow mercantile pursuits, and derive a rich source of revenue from the exports of the city; in early times, when a nobleman engaged in trade, his nobility was said to sleep. The Emperors of Germany allowed printers to bear coat armour in acknowledgment of the importance of the discovery printing was then practised by many who were of noble family as well as by eminent ecclesiastics. The solidity of the anchor used by Aldus corresponds with prudence; the dolphin was an ancient emblem of swiftness, and its meaning was, that to work successfully it was necessary to labour without relaxation, to be deliberate in choice, and quick in execution.

THE BRILL.

The Brill, or brett, a fish of the turbot kind, frequenting, like that fish, sandy bays, as well as deep water, is taken in abundance on the southern coast of England. Azure, three bretts naiant, are the arms of the family of Bretcock; and the crest of the family of Britwesill is a brill naiant.

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Naturalists seem to be of opinion that the celebrated turbot of Ancona, the subject of Juvenal's satire, was a brill, the Rhombus * Gentleman's Magazine for 1815 and 1829.

vulgaris of Cuvier. The fish which desired to be caught for the Emperor's table was of unequalled size, and quite filled the fisherman's net; nets are certainly used at the beginning of the season, but in warm weather the fish make for deep water, when the fishermen have recourse to their many-hooked lines.

THE PLAICE.

These fish, commonly called Dutch plaice, are taken wherever lines or nets can be used on the English coast, but the Diamond ground, off the coast of Sussex, produces the fish most remarkable for purity of colour and for the brilliancy of their spots, which are of a bright orange red. English heraldry does not afford an instance of plaice, but Palliot gives an example in the arms of the Danish family of Bukens: azure, on a bend argent, three plaice of the field, in chief an escutcheon chevrony or and gules.

"The best fish swim near the bottom" is an expression applicable to the varieties of flat-fish; and it is remarked by the naturalist that, as birds are seen to occupy very different situations, some obtaining their food on the ground, others on trees, and not a few at various degrees of elevation in the air, so are fish destined to reside in different situations in the water. The flat-fish are, by their depressed form of body, admirably adapted to inhabit the lowest position, and where they occupy the least space among their kindred fish.⁕

*Yarrell's British Fishes.

THE FLOUNDER.

This fish is found near the mouths of large rivers and in the sea all round the coast of Great Britain; it is termed flounder from its manner of swimming when close to the ground; at Yarmouth it is called a butt, and in Scotland, a fluke, on account of its flattened form. Sable, a fluke argent, is the armorial distinction of a family of the name of Fisher.

Captain Franck gives a lively description of this fish in his rambling memoirs of angling, which are full of amusement to the traveller, the soldier, and the fisherman. By way of a general rule, he commences with—

He that intends the flounder to surprise,

Must rise betimes, and fish before sunrise.

"The flounder is a fish that's as bold as a buccaneer, of much more confidence than caution, and is so fond of a worm that he'11 go to the banquet though he die at the board. He is a resolute fish, and struggles stoutly for victory with the angler, and is more than ordinarily difficult to deal with, by reason of his build, which is altogether flat, as it were a level. The flounder delights, I must tell you, to dwell among stones; besides, he's a great admirer of deeps and ruinous decays, yet as fond as any fish of moderate streams; and none beyond him, except the perch, that is more solicitous to rifle into ruins, insomuch that a man would fancy him an antiquary, considering he is so affected with reliques."⁕

Under its name of butt the flounder appears in the heraldry of

*Franck's Northern Memoirs, 1694.

the family of Butts of Dorking, in Surrey, which bears for arms, argent, a saltier gules, between four ermine spots, on a chief of the second, three buttfish hauriant of the first: crest, an arm couped at the elbow and erect, grasping a buttfish, or flounder.

Argent on a bend sable, three fish of the field, are the arms of the family of Sankey of Cawdwells, a manor in the parish of Edlesborough, in Buckinghamshire. Sable, three fish in bend between two cottises argent, are the arms of the family of Sankey of Worcestershire. The particular species of fish is not described, but it is possible flounders are intended, from the known preference of the flat-fish to the sandy bottom of the water, and the slight play upon the name afforded by that circumstance.

X.

The Cel, Conger, and Lamprey.

The form of the "fine silver eel," unlike that of many other fish, is well known; but the whiteness of the belly is not the only mark to know the best fish, the colour of the back should be of a bright coppery hue. Eels inhabit almost all the rivers, lakes, and ponds in England, and are found in almost every part of the world. Being caught with the greatest ease, they were, in early times, more common as food than other descriptions of fish. Fisheries formed one of the most important sources of revenue in the Anglo-Norman period of history, and wherever the produce in kind is mentioned it seems to have consisted chiefly in eels, herrings, or salmon. The rent in eels appears to have been paid numerically, and sometimes it was paid by sticks, the eels being strung on tough willow twigs, every stick bearing twenty-five. The revenue produced by mills is variously stated, sometimes in money and in grain, but occasionally from the fishery in the mill-stream, consisting chiefly of eels.⁕

Elmore, on the banks of the Severn, near Gloucester, received its name from the number of eels there taken. Gules, on a chief or, a dolphin azure, are the arms of the family of Elmore: the dolphin being used as the emblem of the fishery. The lords of manors in the Isle of Ely were entitled to more than a hundred thousand eels, so productive of this fish were the fens, which were formerly overflowed with water.

Argent, a chevron engrailed gules, between three eels nowed, or twisted like a knot, are the arms of the family of Radley of Yarborough, which is situated on the banks of the Ankholme, a river celebrated for its production of eels in an old Lincolnshire proverb—

Ankholme eel and Witham pike,

In all the world there is ne sike.

The eel occurs frequently in English heraldry in reference to a family name. Argent, three eels naiant in pale, are the arms of Ellis of Treveare, the most westerly part of Cornwall, an

* Introduction to Domesday Book, by Sir Henry Ellis.

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