Sable, a bend between six cross crosslets fitchy argent, on a chief of the last the fish of Mogul, per pale or and vert, banded vert, and gules, surmounting the Goog and Ullum, honourable insignia, in saltier.

The creed in India appears to consider a fish as the saviour of the world.

"In the whole world of creation

None were seen but these seven sages, Menu, and the Fish.

Years on years, and still unwearied drew that Fish the bark along,

Till at length it came where reared Himavan its loftiest peak.

There at length they came, and smiling thus the Fish addressed the Sage:

'Bind thou now thy stately vessel to the peak of Himavan.'

At the Fish's mandate, quickly to the peak of Himavan

Bound the Sage his bark; and even to this day that loftiest peak

Bears the name of Naubandhana." ⁕

The fish, in the Hindu example here shown, are evidently carp, and are disposed with barbaric fancy in a manner not unknown to heraldry, a tricorporated fish meeting under one head,

and one eye only seen; the flower is intended for the celebrated Indian Lotus, the Nilumbium speciosum of the botanist.

⁕ Translation of Sanscrit poetry in the Quarterly Review, 1839.

Azure, three fish conjoined in one head at the fess point, one tail in dexter chief, another in sinister chief, and the third in base, argent, are the arms of the Silesian family of Kreckwitz.

Gules, three fish with one head argent, and disposed as the above, are the arms of Die Hünder of Franconia.

Gules, three fish, their heads meeting at the fess point argent, are the arms of Dornheim of Silesia.⁕

Gules, three fish conjoined at their tails in triangle or, their heads sable, are the arms of Bernbach.

THE GUDGEON.

Gudgeons swim in shoals in the rivers Thames, Mersey, Colne, Kennet, and Avon: the only instances in which these fish are used in heraldry are in reference to the name, and that from the Latin Gobio, or the French Goujon.

A Catalogue of the Nobility of England, compiled by Glover, Somerset Herald in the reign of Elizabeth, being the first printed, requires to be quoted with caution. The same may be said of many manuscript lists of early date, well known to the admirers of heraldry by the name of Barons' Books. In several of this latter class is to be found the name of William Gobyon, Earl of Southampton, whose heirs-general were married to Sir Stonor, and to Sir George Turpin, knights, in the time of Edward I.

Quarterly, 1st and 4th or, 2nd and 3rd barry argent, and gules, all within a border sable, charged with eight gudgeons fesswise argent are the arms of Gobyon.

Sibmacher's Wapenbuch.

G

Gobions, a manor at North Mims, in Hertfordshire, was held by a family of the same name as early as the reign of Stephen. Gobions, in the parish of Toppesfield in Essex, was named from a knightly family who had large possessions in other parts of that county. Sir Thomas Gobion was Sheriff of Essex and Hertfordshire in 1323; and John Gobion was in the list of the gentry of Essex in 1433.* The manor house of Black Notley is also called Gobions, from having been in possession of a family of that name at an early period.

Argent, three gudgeons hauriant, within a border engrailed sable, are the arms of the ancient family of Gobion, of Waresley in Huntingdonshire, on the borders of Cambridgeshire. These arms are borne as one of the quarterings of the Earl of Lanesborough, the lineal descendant of John Butler, and Isolda the daughter and heiress of William Gobion, seated at Waresley, in the reign of Edward III.

Arms quarterly, 1st and 4th argent, three covered cups in bend between two bendlets engrailed sable; for Butler: 2nd, argent, three gudgeons hauriant, within a border engrailed sable; for Gobion: 3rd, per pale or and sable, a chevron between three escallops, all counterchanged; for Brinsley of Nottinghamshire. Mary, the daughter and heiress of Gervase Brinsley in the reign of Charles I, married Sir Stephen Butler of Belturbet, in Ireland, the ancestor of the Earl of Lanesborough.

Argent, three gudgeons within a border sable, are the arms of the family of Gobaud. Azure, billetty two gudgeons addorsed or, are the arms of Gougeux, a family of Vendome, which assumed the surname of Rouville, that of an ancient house of Normandy.⁕

Azure, two gudgeons in saltier argent, in base water, waved proper, are the arms of the French family of Goujon; a name that ranks high in art. John Goujon was one of the most eminent sculptors of the reign of Francis I.; his relievos have rarely been surpassed, and from the inimitable spirit and grace which pervade his works he is termed the Correggio of sculpture.

Water, as shown in the arms of Goujon, is rarely introduced in English heraldry; but an undulated line expressive of waves, and conveying the idea of water, is commonly used.

Rivers that move

are equally depicted on the shields of feudal lords where privilege or potency is necessary to be shown.

Barry wavy argent and azure, are the arms of the family of

*Palliot, Science des Armoiries.

Sandford, which derived the name from lands near a passage of the Isis in Oxfordshire, and whose possessions subsequently falling to the Veres, these arms were quartered by the Earls of Oxford of that name, and by their representatives.

Gules, two bars wavy or, are the arms of De la River, the name of a family which, as early as the reign of Edward I, was seated at Shefford, a passage of the Lambourn, one of the sources of the Kennet, and like that river abundant with trout, barbel, and pike. The family of Rivers of River Hill, in Hampshire, bore for arms, azure, two bars indented or, in chief three bezants with the motto, Secus Rivos aquarum.

As a boundary, the river becomes of importance to an estate, and of this the heralds as well as the poets are not unmindful. Drayton notices

The furious Teme, that on the Cambrian side,
Doth Shropshire as a meare from Hereford divide.

Hotspur, it will be remembered, objects to the division of his country by the Trent,

See how this river comes me crankling in,

And cuts me from the best of all my land.⁕

The passage of water has been so constant a source of dispute between states and inhabitants that the word river might thence have been the root of rivalry or contention of any kind.†

Heralds refer the four silver stripes in the arms of Hungary to the principal rivers of the country, the Drave, the Nyss, the Save, and the Danube, all abounding with fish. The arms of Drummond, or, three bars wavy gules, show Hungarian descent, the family of the Viscount Strathallan deriving its origin from Maurice, an Hungarian who attended Edgar Atheling and his sister Margaret, afterwards Queen of Scotland, to Dumfermlin, and was by King Malcolm III. made Seneschal of Lennox.

Water, having reference to some important boundary of the fief, appears to be indicated by the adoption of barry argent and azure, in the arms of the family of Grey, one of the most ancient, wide-spread, and illustrious in the English peerage, descended from that of De Croy, in Picardy, a name having the same deriForsyth's Italy.

* Shakespeare, Henry IV.