Page:The Ancestor Number 1.djvu/81

THE ANCESTOR 41 and scant reverence, when owlish wisdom lays down that ' he that is a coward to his country must bear this — argent a gore sinister sable, albeit if it be a dexter gore although of staynand colour yet it is a good cote for a gentlewoman ' ; or when the hidden significance of colour or metal is laid bare, as in the case of the colour vert, ' which signifieth Venus, emaragd or emerald, loyalty in love, courtesy and affabilitie, Gemini and Virgo in planets. May and August, Friday, lusty green youth from 20 to 30 years, verdures and green things, water, spring time, flegmatique complexion, 6 in number and quicksilver in metals.' We admire, but are unable to follow, their evolving of the original story of a shield of arms by earnest contempla- tion of its charges. Holbeame's shield was for them ' a cheveron enarched,' and therein Master Gerard Leigh had good assur- ance that ' the ancestors of this cote had done some notable act in the art of geometry.' One may indeed suggest, with Master Leigh safely under turf, that ' the ancestor of this cote ' had but cast up his eyes to his own ' hall beam ' and taken its arch for his punning arms, but such an explanation in the days of the fathers would have been reckoned trivial and unedifying. These inward meanings and significations we may leave behind us for very jealousy, for we can never approach the standard of divination which Sylvanus Morgan could bring to bear upon the simplest charge. Hear him on the Inescutcheon. The In-Escutcheon is (as it were) the Honour Point of Joseph's Atchieve- ment, 'tis (as it were) a single heart deserving respect from all that behold him. It denoteth the pulchritude of his inward mind intire, which if you should or could behold through his brest, it should discover (as through the Orle) the most delightful Images of his natural and supernatural parts, by his wise carriage to his brethren, whereby he obtained the Escocheon of pretence by