20 INTRODUCTION. 



an arrow in the other; emblematical as we 

 may suppose of their powers to assist death. 



Emblems in general are ingenious pictures, 

 representing one thing to the eye and ano- 

 ther to the understanding. The rebus, or re- 

 presentations of names by familiar images 

 w as invented in Picardy, and imported to us 

 by the English residing at Calais. This sym- 

 bolical mode of describing proper names was 

 in great use with the monks of those days, 

 who sometimes made the analogy so remote 

 as to require interpretation. When any 

 name ended in " ton," the tun or vessel was 

 usually substituted, of which numerous in- 

 stances are found in stained glass. Thomas 

 Compton, abbot of Cirencester in 1480, in a 

 window of stained glass which he contributed 

 to our lady's chapel at St. Peter's in Glou- 

 cester, has his rebus (a comb and a tun) very 

 frequently repeated. John Naileheart, abbot 

 of St. Augustines, near Bristol, in 1510, bore 



