JANUARY 51 



a coat of arms. He quotes Bracket's Etymological 

 Dictionary to the effect that, in the eleventh century, 

 blason meant a buckler or shield. It may be so, 

 though one may venture to doubt it ; but, technically, 

 to blazon never means ' to pourtray armorial bearings.' 

 To do so in colour is ' to display ' or ' to limn ' arms ; 

 to draw them without colour is ' to trick ' them. ' To 

 blazon,' says Guillim, 'is to express what the shapes, 

 kinds, and colours of things born in Armes are, together 

 with their apt significations.' Ruskin had quite lost 

 sight of the true sense when he wrote : ' Their effect is 

 often deeper when the lines are dim than when they 

 are blazoned in crimson and pale gold' (Modern 

 Painters). It may be said that literature has no 

 concern with the technical meaning of words ; yet it 

 conduces to understanding that words should not be 

 misapplied. Readers may remember the uncertainty 

 caused by a recent historian, who, in attempting to 

 describe Cromwell's wars, several times writes of a 

 ' division ' of infantry, when he means a battalion or 

 company. Shakespeare, at all events, frequently uses 

 the term blazon, and never in any sense but that of 

 describing or proclaiming : 



' Beatrice. The Count is neither sad, nor sick, nor merry, 

 nor well ; but civil, Count, civil as an orange, and somewhat 

 of that jealous complexion. 



'Don Pedro. I' faith, lady, I think your blazon to be 

 true.' 



' He hath achieved a maid,' says Cassio about Desde- 

 mona, ' one that exceeds the quirks of blazoning pens.' 

 Here the reference is clearly to literary description, 



