The Curiosities of Heraldry

by Mark Antony Lower

[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 βασιλισκος.