"Dantes Poëta illustrissimum Christianissimorum Regum Franciæ genus à laniis Parisiensibus deducit, utique tam vere, quam ille tenebrio nostrum à scalarum fabro: quas mirum, ni auctor generis in suspendium eorum parabat, quos vaticinabatur illustri nobilitate suæ obtrectaturos."
Now the charge of a ladder upon their shield was certainly borne by the several branches of this family long before any of them became masters of Verona; and I should suggest that it originated in some brilliant escalade of one of the first members of it. Thus, of course, it would remind us all of perhaps the earliest thing of the kind—I mean the shield and bearings of Eteoclus before Thebes:
"Εσχημάτισται δ' ἀσπὶς οὐ σμικρὸν τρόπον·
Ἀνὴρ δ' ὁπλιτης κλίμακος προσαμβάσεις
Στείχει πρὸς ἐχθρῶν πύργον, ἐκπέρσαι θέλων."
Sept. c. Thebas, 461.
Waldegrave Brewster.
H——n, Jan. 28. 1851.