clerk, sold to Margaret his mother, one messuage, a barn and four acres of ground in the parish of Kingston-on-Thames.
The device appears to be founded on the ancient popular legend that a husbandman who had stolen a bundle of thorns from a hedge was, in punishment of his theft, carried up to the moon. Alexander Necham, a writer of the twelfth century, in commenting on the dispersed shadow in the moon, thus alludes to the vulgar belief; "nonne novisti quid vulgus vocet rusticum in luna portantem spinas. Unde quidam vulgariter loquens ait
Rusticus in Luna, quem sareina deprimit una,
Monstrat per spinas nulli prodesse rapinas[1]."
The legend reading—TE WALTERE DOCEBO CVR SPINAS PHEBO GERO—"I will teach you, Walter, why I carry thorns in the moon," seems to be an enigmatical mode of expressing the maxim that "honesty is the best policy."
We are indebted to the kindness of Mr. R. P. Pullan, of Manchester, for the communication of a very interesting sepulchral brass, of which no representation appears hitherto to have been published. It exists in the church of Allerton Mauleverer, in the West Riding of Yorkshire, and is the memorial of a knight and lady of the ancient family named Malus Leporarius, or Mauleverer, possessed of considerable estates in that parish, which received from their name its distinctive appellation. The knight is represented in the armour of plate, with some portions of mail, usually worn in the times of Richard II.; on his short surcoat, which fits closely to the body, and has the skirt escalloped, is seen the bearing of Mauleverer, of the class termed "canting" arms, armoiries parlantes, namely, three greyhounds courant, in allusion to his name[2]. One feature, of rather rare occurrence in English sepulchral memorials, may deserve notice: this is the projecting visor, attached to his tall and acutely peaked basinet. The visor is seldom seen in the monumental portraitures of any period, in this country, although not infrequently found in those of Germany. It may be noticed, however, more than once amongst the curious small figures representing the contemporaries and friends of Sir Hugh Hastings, introduced in the tabernacle work, on either side of his figure, in the remarkable sepulchral brass at Elsing, in Norfolk[3]. In later times examples of the visored salade
- ↑ "De Natura Rerum," MS. Harl. 3737, fo. 20 b.
- ↑ "Halvatheus Mauleverer, mil. temp. Hen. v., or Mal-levorer, in Latin malus leporarius, or the bad hare-hunter. A gentleman of the county being to slip a brace of greyhounds to run for a great wager, so held them in the swinge, that they were more likely to strangle themselves than kill the hare; whereupon this surname was fixed on his family." Fuller's Worthies, vol. iii. p. 453.
- ↑ Representations of this brass are given in Carter's Sculpture and Painting,
