pheasant, or other bird of beautiful plumage."—History of England, Edward I.
"Nec dissimili ingenio Heraldi antiquiores, musicos et cantatores cygnis[[10]] donarunt. Ejusque haud ignarus perspicax noster Franciscanus cum hos a non cantoribus latos observasset, rationem se ait a rege heraldorum petiisse, eumque duplicem assignasse: hanc quia viri essent pulcherrimi, illam quia haberent longa colla. Sane candorem animi per cygni effigiem antiquitùs prædicabant, nec insulsè igitur corporis. Sed gloriæ studium ex eodem hoc symbolo indicari multi asserunt.
"Cum Edwardus primus," &c. &c.—Spelmanni Aspilogia, p. 132.
The Spaniards found that the swan had been employed emblematically in Mexico, supporting the theory of Hornius that that part of America was colonised by the Phœnicians and Carthaginians, inasmuch as, according to Bryant, "where the Canaanites or their descendants may have settled, there will a story be found in reference to swans."
The mythological history of the Cygnus will be found in the latter author's Analysis, and in Hill's Urania, or a Complete View of the Heavens, containing the Ancient and Modern Astronomy, in Form of a Dictionary, which will perhaps meet the wants of G.I.C. (Vol. iii. p. 24.).
It will not, perhaps, be irrelevant to this subject to advert to the story of Albertus Aquensis (in Gesta Dei per Francos, p. 196.), regarding a Goose and a Goat, which in the second crusade were considered as "divino spiritu afflati," and made "duces viæ in Jerusalem." Well may it be mentioned by the histoian as "scelus omnibus fidelibus incredibile;" but the imputation serves to show that the Christians of that age forgot what a heathen poet could have taught them,—
"Εις οιωνος αριστος αμυνεσθαι περι πατρης."
T.J.
Footnote 9:[(return)]
With this solecism in the printed Flores Historiarum I find that a MS. in the Chetham Library agrees, the abbreviative mark used in the Hundred Rolls of Edward I. for the terminations us and er having been affixed to this participle.