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Poseidon or Neptune

Poseidon or Neptune, the younger brother of Zeus (Jupiter), sometimes appears in heraldry, usually as a supporter. In the ancient mythology he was originally a mere symbol of the watery element, he afterwards became a distinct personality; the mighty ruler of the sea who with his powerful arms upholds and circumscribes the earth, violent and impetuous like the element he represents. When he strikes the sea with his trident, the symbol of his sovereignty, the waves rise with violence, as a word or look from him suffices to allay the fiercest tempest. Poseidon (Neptune) was naturally regarded as the chief patron and tutelary deity of the seafaring Greeks. To him they addressed their prayers before entering on a voyage, and to him they brought their offerings in gratitude for their safe return from the perils of the deep.

Dexter supporter of Baron Hawke.

In a famous episode of the “Faerie Queen” (Book iv. c. xi.) Spenser glowingly pictures the procession of all the water deities and their attendants:

 
“First came great Neptune with his three-forked mace,
That rules the seas and makes them rise and fall;
His dewy locks did drop with brine apace
Under his diadem imperial:
 
 
“And by his side his Queen with coronal,
Fair Amphitrite, most divinely fair,
Whose ivory shoulders weren covered all,
As with a robe, with her own silver hair,
And decked with pearls which the Indian seas for her prepare.”
 

Amphitrite, his wife, one of the Nereids in ancient art, is represented as a slim and beautiful young woman, her hair falling loosely about her shoulders, and distinguished from all the other deities by the royal insignia. On ancient coins and gems she appears enthroned on the back of a mighty triton, or riding on a sea-horse, or dolphin.

Examples.—Baron Hawke bears for supporters to his shield an aggroupment of classic personations of a remarkable symbolic character, granted for the achievements of the renowned Admiral and Commander-in-Chief of the Fleet, Vice-Admiral of Great Britain, &c. &c., created Baron Hawke of Tarton, Yorks, 1776. The dexter supporter is a figure of Neptune, his mantle vert, edged argent, crowned with an eastern crown, or, his dexter arm erect and holding a trident pointing downwards in the act of striking, sable, headed silver, and resting his left foot on a dolphin proper.

Sir Isaac Heard, Somersetshire; Lancaster Herald, afterwards Garter. His arms, granted 1762, are thus blazoned in Burke’s “General Armory”: Argent a Neptune crowned with an eastern crown of gold, his trident sable headed or, issuing from a stormy ocean, the sinister hand grasping the head of a ship’s mast appearing above the waves, as part of a wreck, all proper; on a chief azure, the Arctic pole-star of the first between two water-bougets of the second.

Merman or Triton

 
“Triton, who boasts his high Neptunian race
Sprung from the God by Salace’s embrace.”
 

Camoëns, “Lusiad.”

 
“Triton his trumpet shrill before them blew
For goodly triumph and great jolliment
That made the rocks to roar as they were rent.”
 

Spenser, “Faerie Queen.” (Procession of the Sea Deities.)

Merman or Triton.

Triton, with two tails. German.

Triton was the only son of Neptune and Amphitrite. The poet Apollonius Rhodius describes him as having the upper parts of the body of a man, while the lower parts were those of a dolphin. Later poets and artists revelled in the conception of a whole race of similar tritons, who were regarded as a wanton, mischievous tribe, like the satyrs on land. Glaucus, another of the inferior deities, is represented as a triton, rough and shaggy in appearance, his body covered with mussels and seaweed; his hair and beard show that luxuriance which characterises sea-gods. Proteus, as shepherd of the seas, is usually distinguished with a crook. Triton, as herald of Neptune, is represented always holding, or blowing, his wreathed horn or conch shell. His mythical duties as attendant on the supreme sea-divinity would, as an emblem in heraldry, imply a similar duty or office in the bearer to a great naval hero.

Mermaid and Triton supporters.

Examples.—The City of Liverpool has for sinister supporter a Triton blowing a conch shell and holding a flag in his right hand.

Lord Lyttelton bears for supporters two Mermen proper, in their exterior hands a trident or.

Ottway, Bart.—Supporters on either side, a Triton blowing his shell proper, navally crowned or, across the shoulder a wreath of red coral, and holding in the exterior hand a trident, point downward.

Note.—In classic story, Triton and the Siren are distinct poetic creations, their vocation and attributes being altogether at variance—no relationship whatever existing between them. According to modern popular notions, however, the siren or mermaid, and triton, or merman as they sometimes term him, appear to be viewed as male and female of the same creature (in heraldic parlance baron and femme). They thus appear in companionship as supporters to the arms of Viscount Hood, and similarly in other achievements.

The Mermaid or Siren

 
“Mermaid shapes that still the waves with ecstasies of song.”
 

T. Swan, “The World within the Ocean.”

 
“And fair Ligea’s golden comb,
Wherewith she sits on diamond rocks,
Sleeking her soft alluring hair.”
 

Milton, “Comus.”

This fabulous creature of the sea, well known in ancient and modern times as the frequent theme of poets and the subject of numberless legends, has from a very early date been a favourite device. She is usually represented in heraldry as having the upper part the head and body of a beautiful young woman, holding a comb and glass in her hands, the lower part ending in a fish.

Ellis (Glasfryn, Merioneth).—Argent, a mermaid gules, crined or, holding a mirror in her right hand and a comb in her left, gold. Crest, a mermaid as in the arms. Motto, “Worth ein ffrwythau yn hadna byddir.” Another family of the same name, settled in Lancashire, bears the colours reversed, viz., gules, a mermaid argent.

Crest of Ellis.

Sir Josiah Mason.—Crest, a mermaid, per fess wavy argent and azure, the upper part guttée de larmes, in the dexter hand a comb, and in the sinister a mirror, frame and hair sable.

Balfour of Burleigh.—On a rock, a mermaid proper, holding in her dexter hand an otter’s head erased sable, and in the sinister a swan’s head, erased proper. The supporters of Baron Balfour are an otter and a swan, which will account for the heads appearing in the hands of the mermaid, instead of the traditionary comb and mirror. In some other instances the like occurs, as in the mermaid crest of Cussack, the mermaid sable crined or, holds in dexter hand a sword, and in the sinister a sceptre.

Sir George Francis Bonham, Bart.—Crest, a mermaid holding in dexter hand a wreath of coral, and in the sinister a mirror.

Wallop, Earl of Portsmouth, bears for crest a mermaid proper, with her usual accompaniments, the comb and mirror. Another family of the same name and bearing the same arms has for crest a mermaid with two tails extended proper, hair gold, holding her tails in her hands extended wide.

In foreign heraldry the mermaid is generally termed Mélusine, and represented with two fishy extremities.

Die Ritter, of Nuremberg.

Die Ritter of Nuremberg bears per fess sable and or, a mermaid holding her two tails, vested gules, crowned or.

The Austrian family of Estenberger bears for crest a mermaid without arms, and having wings.

A mermaid was the device of Sir William de Brivere, who died in 1226. It is the badge of the Berkeleys; in the monumental brass of Lord Berkeley, at Wolton-under-Edge, 1392 a.d., he bears a collar of mermaids over his camail. The Black Prince, in his will, mentions certain devices that he appears to have used as badges; among the rest we find “Mermaids of the Sea.” It was the dexter supporter in the coat-of-arms of Sir Walter Scott, and the crest of Lord Byron. The supporters of Viscount Boyne are mermaids. Skiffington, Viscount Marsereene, the Earl of Caledon, the Earl of Howth, Viscount Hood, and many other titled families bear it as crest or supporters. It is also borne by many untitled families.

The arms of the princely house of Lusignan, kings of Cyprus and Jerusalem, “Une sirène dans une cuvé,” were founded on a curious mediæval legend of a mermaid or siren, termed Mélusine, a fairy, condemned by some spell to become on one day of the week only, half woman, half serpent. The Knight Roimoudin de Forez, meeting her in the forest by chance, became enamoured and married her, and she became the mother of several children, but she carefully avoided seeing her husband on the day of her change; one day, however, his curiosity led him to watch her, which led to the spell being broken, and the soul with which by her union with a Christian she hoped to have been endowed, was lost to her for ever.

This interesting myth is fully examined in Baring Gould’s “Curious Myths of the Middle Ages.”

The mermaid is represented as the upper half of a beautiful maiden joined to the lower half of a fish, and usually holding a comb in the right hand and a mirror in the left; these articles of the toilet have reference to the old fable that always when observed by man mermaids are found to be resting upon the waves, combing out their long yellow hair, while admiring themselves in the glass: they are also accredited with wondrous vocal powers, to hear which was death to the listener. It was long believed such creatures really did exist, and had from time to time been seen and spoken with; many, we are told, have fatally listened to “the mermaid’s charmèd speech,” and have blindly followed the beguiling, deluding creature to her haunts beneath the wave, as did Sidratta, who, falling in the Ganges, became enamoured of one of these beautiful beings, the Upsaras, the swan-maidens of the Vedas.

All countries seem to have invented some fairy-like story of the waters. The Finnish Nakki play their silver harps o’ nights; the water imp or Nixey of Germany sings and dances on land with mortals, and the “Davy” (Deva), whose “locker” is at the bottom of the deep blue sea, are all poetical conceptions of the same description. The same may be said of the Merminne of the Netherlands, the White Lady of Scotland and the Silver Swan of the German legend, that drew the ship in which the Knight Lohengrin departed never to return.

In the “Bestiary” of Philip de Thaun he tells us that “Siren lives in the sea, it sings at the approach of a storm and weeps in fine weather; such is its nature: and it has the make of a woman down to the waist, and the feet of a falcon, and the tail of a fish. When it will divert itself, then it sings loud and clear; if then the steersman who navigates the sea hears it, he forgets his ship and immediately falls asleep.”

The legendary mermaid still retains her place in popular legends of our sea coasts, especially in the remoter parts of our islands. The stories of the Mirrow, or Irish fairy, hold a prominent place among Crofton Croker’s “Fairy Legends of the South of Ireland.” Round the shores of Lough Neagh old people still tell how, in the days of their youth, mermaids were supposed to reside in the water, and with what fear and trepidation they would, on their homeward way in the twilight, approach some lonely and sequestered spot on the shore, expecting every moment to be captured and carried off by the witching mere-maidens. On the Continent the same idea prevails. Among the numerous legends of the Rhine many have reference to the same fabled creature.

As we know, mariners in all ages have delighted in tales of the marvellous, and in less enlightened times than the present, they were not unlikely to have found many willing listeners and sound believers. Early voyagers tell wonderful stories of these “fish-women,” or “women-fish,” as they termed them. The ancient chronicles indeed teem with tales of the capture of “mermaids,” “mermen,” and similar strange creatures; stories which now only excite a smile from their utter absurdity. So late as 1857 there appeared an article in the Shipping Gazette, under intelligence of June 4, signed by some Scotch sailors, and describing an object seen off the North British coast “in the shape of a woman, with full breast, dark complexion, comely face” and the rest. It is probable that some variety of the seal family may be the prototype of this interesting myth.

The myth of the mermaid is, however, of far older date; Homer and later Greek and Roman poets have said and sung a great deal about it.

The Sirens of Classic Mythology

The Sirens (Greek, entanglers) enticed seamen by the sweetness of their song to such a degree that the listeners forgot everything and died of hunger. Their names were, Parthenope, Ligea, and Leucosia.

Ulysses and the Sirens. Flaxman’s “Odyssey.”

Parthenope, the ancient name of Neapolis (Naples) was derived from one of the sirens, whose tomb was shown in Strabo’s time. Poetic legend states that she threw herself into the sea out of love for Ulysses, and was cast up on the Bay of Naples.

The celebrated Parthenon at Athens, the beautiful temple of Pallas Athenæ, so richly adorned with sculptures, likewise derives its name from this source.

Dante interviews the siren in “Purgatorio,” xix. 7-33.

Flaxman, in his designs illustrating the “Odyssey,” represents the sirens as beautiful young women seated on the strand and singing.

Ulysses and the Sirens. From a painting on a Greek vase.

In the illustration from an ancient Greek vase gives a Grecian rendering of the story, and represents the Sirens as birds with heads of maidens.

The Sirens are best known from the story that Odysseus succeeded in passing them with his companions without being seduced by their song. He had the prudence to stop the ears of his companions with wax and to have himself bound to the mast. Only two are mentioned in Homer, but three or four are mentioned in later times and introduced into various legends. Demeter (Ceres) is said to have changed their bodies into those of birds, because they refused to go to the help of their companion, Persephone, when she was carried off by Pluto. “They are represented in Greek art like the harpies, as young women with the wings and feet of birds. Sometimes they appear altogether like birds, only with human faces; at other times with the bodies of women, in which case they generally hold instruments of music in their hands. As their songs are death to those subdued by them they are often depicted on tombs as spirits of death.”

By the fables of the Sirens is represented the ensnaring nature of vain and deceitful pleasures, which sing and soothe to sleep, and never fail to destroy those who succumb to their beguiling influence.

Spenser, in the “Faerie Queen,” describes a place “where many mermaids haunt, making false melodies,” by which the knight Guyon makes a somewhat “perilous passage.” There were five sisters that had been fair ladies, till too confident in their skill in music they had ventured to contend with the Muses, when they were transformed in their lower extremities to fish:

 
“But the upper half their hue retained still,
And their sweet skill in wonted melody;
Which ever after they abused to ill
To allure weak travellers, whom gotten they did kill.”
 

Book ii. cant. cxii.

Shakespeare charmingly pictures Oberon in the moonlight, fascinated by the graceful form and the melodious strains of the mermaid half reclining on the back of the dolphin:

 
“Oberon: … Thou rememberest
Since once I sat upon a promontory,
And heard a mermaid on a dolphin’s back
Uttering such dulcet and harmonious breath
That the rude sea grew civil at her song
And certain stars shot madly from their spheres
To hear the sea-maid’s music.”
 

Commentators of Shakespeare find in this passage (and subsequent parts) certain references to Mary Queen of Scots, which they consider beyond dispute. She was frequently referred to in the poetry of the time under this title. She was married to the Dauphin (or Dolphin) of France. The rude sea means the Scotch rebels, and the shooting stars referred to were the Earls of Northumberland and Westmoreland, who, with others of lesser note, forgot their allegiance to Elizabeth out of love to Mary.

“Few eyes,” says Sir Thomas Browne, “have escaped the picture of a mermaid with a woman’s head above and a fish’s extremity below.” In those old days when reading and writing were rare accomplishments, pictured signboards served to give “a local habitation and a name” to hostelries and other places of business and resort. Among the most celebrated of the old London taverns bearing this sign,³¹ that in Bread Street stands foremost.

We find this “Mermayde” mentioned as early as 1464. In 1603 Sir Walter Raleigh established a literary club in this house, and here Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, and the choice intellectual spirits of the time used to meet, and there took place those wit combats which Beaumont has commemorated and Fuller described. It is frequently alluded to by Beaumont and Fletcher in their comedies, but best known is that quotation from a letter of Beaumont to Ben Jonson:

 
“What things have we seen
Done at the Mermaid? heard words that have been
So nimble and so full of subtle flame,
As if that any one from whence they came
Had meant to put his whole wit in a jest,
And had resolved to live a fool the rest
Of his dull life; then when there had been thrown
Wit able enough to justify the town
For three days past; wit that might warrant be
For the whole city to talk foolishly,
Till that were cancell’d; and when that was gone,
We left an air behind us, which alone
Was able to make the next two companies
(Right witty, though but downright fools) more wise.”
 

The Dolphin of Legend and of Heraldry

 
“… his delights
Were dolphin-like; they showed his back above
The element they lived in.”
 

“Anthony and Cleopatra,” Act v. sc. 2.

As the Lion is the king of beasts, the Eagle the king of birds, so in similar heraldic sense the Dolphin is king of fishes. His position in legend is probably due to his being one of the biggest and boldest creatures of the sea that passed the Pillars of Hercules into the Mediterranean Sea. Pliny (Book ix. ch. 8) calls it “The swiftest of all other living creatures whatsoever, and not of sea fish only, is the dolphin; quicker than any fowle, swifter than the arrow shot from a bow.”

The dolphin, of which there are several varieties, enjoys a pretty wide geographical distribution, being found in the Arctic seas, the Atlantic Ocean, and indeed of all seas. It was well known to the ancients and furnished the theme of many a fabulous story.

The Dolphin.

The common dolphin (Delphinus Delphis) the true hieros ichthus, is only rarely met with on the British coast. Its length is usually seven or eight feet, though some specimens have been found to measure ten feet. Its back is almost straight, or only slightly elevated; its colour is dusky black above and whitish beneath. Its pectorals or flappers, which are placed low in the sides, are well developed, and a dorsal fin, which is somewhat short, is much elevated. Its tail is broad and notched in the centre and expanded horizontally—not vertically as in most other fishes—by the help of which it makes its peculiar leaps over the surface of the water and at the same time takes its breath.

Unlike its near relatives the porpoises, who haunt the coast, dolphins live far out at sea, and are generally mistaken for porpoises. The long-snouted dolphin feeds on pelagic fishes. The short-nosed porpoise likes salmon and mackerel, robs the fishermen’s nets, and even burrows in the sand in search of odds and ends. The dolphin is the sea-goose. The porpoise is the sea-pig; he is the porc-poisson, the porc-pois, or sea-hog.

The convex snout of the dolphin is separated from the forehead by a deep furrow; the muzzle is greatly extended, compressed, and much attenuated especially towards the apex, where it terminates in a rather sharp-pointed beak. The French name bec d’oie, from the great projection of its nose or beak, has led to its adoption in the arms of English families of the name of Beck. The dolphin is an elegant and swift swimmer, and capable of overtaking the swiftest of the finny tribe. Because the creature is noted for its swiftness it has been adopted in the arms of Fleet.

The dolphin is able to hold his own against nearly all others of his size and weight, and even some of the larger cetaceans only come off second best in an encounter with the dolphin. He is voracious, gluttonous, and ever on the look out for something to turn up, hunting his prey with great persistency and devouring it with avidity. He has been not inaptly styled “the plunderer of the deep.”

The destructive character of the dolphin amongst the various tribes of fish is not lessened when we examine its formidable jaws studded with an immense number of interlocking teeth. Notwithstanding its rapacious habits and the variety of its diet it was in England formerly regarded as a royal fish, and its flesh held in high estimation. Old chroniclers have frequent entries of dolphins being caught in the Thames, thus: “3 Henry V.—Seven dolphins came up the Thames, whereof four were taken.” “14th Richard II.—On Christmas Day one was taken at London Bridge, being ten feet long, and a monstrous grown fish.” (Delalune’s “Present State of London,” 1681.) The early fathers of the Church deemed “all fish that swam in the sea”; the dolphin was therefore eaten in Lent. He is, however, a mammal, not a fish, and though an air-breathing creature he lives and dies in the ocean. But one is brought forth at a birth, and between the old and young of their kind, as in the case of all marine animals, a strong affection exists.

Travellers’ tales are notoriously hard of belief, and must be taken cum grano salis. We learn from Sir Thomas Herbert, an early voyager, that when he was on the coast of Sanquehar, a large kingdom on the east side of the Cape of Good Hope, he “saw there great numbers of dolphins,” of which he says: “They much affect the company of men, and are nourished like men; they are always constant to their mates, tenderly affected to their parents, feeding and defending them against hungry fishes when they are old,” and much more information equally astonishing.

A story is related of a man who once went to a mufti and asked him whether the flesh of the sea-pig (the dolphin) was lawful food. Without any hesitation the mufti declared that pig’s flesh was unlawful at all times and under all circumstances. Some time after another person submitted the question to the same authority, whether the fish of the sea, called the sea-pig, was lawful food. The mufti replied: “Fish is lawful food by whatever name it may be called.”

Classic Fable and Mediæval Legend have shed a halo of romantic interest around the dolphin which cleaves to it even to the present hour; the rare event of a dolphin being caught in British waters revives with a thrill all the old-world stories and historic associations of this famous fish as if it were a veritable relic of the golden age. The dolphin of fact we have found to be quite a different creature from what he is pictured by the ancients. The mariner may be engulfed by “the yawning, dashing, furious sea,” but no generous dolphin now watches with tender eye, solicitous for his safety, nor offers his ready back to speed him to the shore.

The dolphin of our modern poets and sailors—the swift swimmer that leaps after the flying-fish and frolics in front of the vessel’s prow until he is caught by the glittering tin—is the Coryphæna hippurus, the species famed for its changing tints when taken from the water. During a calm, these fishes, when swimming about a ship, appear of a brilliant blue or purple, shining with a metallic lustre in every change of reflected light. On being captured and brought on deck, the variety of these tints is very beautiful. The bright purple and golden yellow hues change to brilliant silver, varying back again into the original colours, purple and gold. This alteration of tints continues for some time, diminishing in intensity, and at last settles down into a dull leaden hue. The iridescent lines which play along its elegant curves as he lies on deck has awakened the enthusiasm of many a writer. Byron tells us in a beautiful simile:

 
“Parting day
Dies like the dolphin, whom each pang imbues
With a new lustre, as it gasps away,
The last still loveliest, till ’tis gone—and all is grey.”
 

Dolphin of classic art.

It is needless to say that the legendary dolphin is not to be confounded with the gay and graceful coryphæna to whom alone belong those rainbow flashes of colour in dying. The common dolphin (Delphinus delphis) is dark on the back and satiny white beneath but not even in the agonies of death does he change colour, though like all dead things the body becomes slightly phosphorescent during decomposition. There are two curious fresh water dolphins, the Sooloo of the Ganges and the Inia of the Amazon, which form the connecting-link between the herbaceous and carnivorous cetacea.

The dolphin (δελφίν) may be considered an accessory symbol of Apollo, who, as we read in the Homeric hymns, once took the form of a dolphin when he guided the Cretan ship to Crissa, whence, after commanding the crew to burn the ship and erect an altar to him as Apollo Delphinios, he led them to Delphi, and appointed them to be the first priests of his temple.

The dolphin is the most classic of fishes, the favourite of Apollo, and sacred to that bright divinity, deriving his name from the oracular Delphi, that mysterious spot, “the earth’s umbilicus,” the very centre of the world, Delphi or Delphos, a town in Phocis, famous for its oracle in the Temple of Apollo, upon the walls of which were sculptured the Helios ichthus, Apollo’s fish.

In the legend of Tarento, Phalantus, heading the Patheniæ, was driven from Sparta and shipwrecked off the coast of Italy, and escaped on a friendly dolphin’s back to Tarentum. We learn from Aristotle that the youthful figure seated on the dolphin, which is the most common type on the coins of this city, was intended for Taras, a son of Poseidon, from whom the city is said to have derived its name.

The dolphins, “the arrows of the sea,” were the great carriers of ancient times. Not only did they bear the Nereides safely on their backs, but Arion, the sweet singer, when forced to leap into the sea to escape the mariners who would have murdered him, had previously so charmed the dolphins by his playing that they gathered round the ship and one of them bore Arion safely to Tænarus, whilst the musician

 
“with harmonious strains
Requites his bearer for his friendly pains.”
 

The classic myth of Arion and the dolphin, like many other pagan fictions, was invested by the early Christians with an entirely different signification, and in the sculptures and frescoes of the catacombs and other symbolic representations of the Christian converts, the frequent introduction of the dolphin “points not to the deliverer of Arion, but to Him who through the waters of baptism opens to mankind the paths of deliverance, causing them to so pass the waves of this troublesome world that finally they may come to the land of everlasting life.”

The poet Licophron says Ulysses bore a dolphin on his shield, on the pommel of his sword, as well as on his ring, in commemoration of the extraordinary escape of his son Telemachus, who when young fell into the sea and was taken up by a dolphin and safely brought on shore. Pliny and others relate a story of one of these fishes which frequented the Lake Lucrin: “A boy who went every day to school from Baia to Puzzoli used to feed this dolphin with bread, and it became at last so familiar with the boy that it carried him often on its back over the bay.”

The dolphins were early symbols on the coins of Ægina, and though abandoned for a time were afterwards resumed; and they appear upon later and well-known coins of that State accompanied by the wolf and other national devices. Argos had anciently two dolphins; Syracuse, a winged sea-dog, a dolphin, &c.; Teneos (Cyclades) two dolphins and a trident. The dolphin and trident figures also upon coins of the ancient city of Byzantium, signifying probably the sovereignty of the seas. It is even figured by the ancients as a constellation in the heraldry of the heavens. In botany it lives in larkspurs called delphiniums, from their curious petals and the slender segments of their leaves.

Coin of Ægina.

The dolphin and anchor is a famous historic symbol. Titus, Emperor of Rome, took the device of a dolphin twisted round an anchor, to imply, like the emblem of Augustus, the medium between haste and slowness, the anchor being the symbol of delay, as it is also of firmness and security, while the dolphin is the swiftest of fish. This device appears also upon the coins of Vespasian, the father of Titus. The anchor was also used as a signet ring by Seleneus, King of Syria. The dolphin and anchor was also used, with the motto “Festina lente” (“Hasten slowly”), by the Emperor Adolphus of Nassau, and by Admiral Chabot. The family of Onslow bear the same for crest and motto.

Aldus Manutius, the celebrated Venetian printer, adopted this well-known device from a silver medal presented to him by Cardinal Bembo, with the motto in Greek “hasten slowly.” Camerarius describes this sign in his book of symbols “to represent that maturity in business which is the medium between too great haste and slowness.” “When violent winds disturb the sea the anchor is cast by seamen, the dolphin winds herself round it out of a particular love for mankind, and directs it as with a human intellect so that it may more safely take hold of the ground; for dolphins have this peculiar property that they can, as it were, foretell storms. The anchor then signifies a stay and security whilst the dolphin is a hieroglyphic for philanthropy and safety.”

This sign was afterwards adopted by William Pickering, a worthy “Discipulus Aldi” as he styles himself. Sir Egerton Bridges has some verses upon it, amongst which occur the following: