There is no term of opprobrium more offensive to a Frenchman than that of cochon, although ignorant English tourists occasionally apply it by mistake to a cabdriver. But here we have a gentleman of the old school who rejoiced in the name, and put a little pig in his field in order that there might be no mistake about it. The moon and stars are thrown into the bargain, as being of secondary importance.
This plate of Jacob Houblon, Esq., is unmistakably the work of R. Mountaine, and we may therefore fix its date as 1750, or thereabouts. Although the workmanship of the plate is English, the armes parlantes it bears are obviously of French origin, the hop vine signifying Houblon.
Samuel Pepys in his diary mentions that the five brothers Houblon came to supper at his house on May 15, 1666. They were rich merchants, one of them later on coming to be Lord Mayor of London, and the first Governor of the Bank of England.
According to an epitaph in the church of St. Mary Woolnoth, in London, their ancestor was one Peter Houblon, who came over from Flanders.
The late Lord Palmerston was descended from a Sir John Houblon, who was Lord Mayor of London in 1695.
As recently as 1894 the death of a descendant of the family was announced, that of Mr. Richard Archer Houblon, J.P., of Cambridgeshire, aged eighty-five years, whose estate was valued at over £50,000, whilst but a short time since a Colonel Archer Houblon was in command of a battalion of the Royal Berkshire Regiment.
Of somewhat similar origin, but from the grapevine, come the arms of the Vignoles family, a branch of which, long settled in England, produced the well-known civil engineer.
