With this excuse, or explanation, Waverley was silenced, if not satisfied; but he could not help testifying some displeasure against the Blessed Bear, which had given rise to the quarrel, nor refrain from hinting that the sanctified epithet was hardly appropriate. The Baron observed, he could not deny that the Bear, though allowed by heralds as a most honourable ordinary, had, nevertheless, somewhat fierce, churlish, and morose in his disposition (as might be read in Archibald's Simson, pastor of Dalkeith's "Hieroglyphica Animalium "), and had thus been the type of many quarrels and dissensions which had occurred in the house of Bradwardine; “ of which," he continued, "I might commemorate mine own unfortunate dissension with my third cousin by the mother's side, Sir Hew Halbert, who was so unthinking as to deride my family name as if it had been quasi Bear-Warden,

a most uncivil jest, since it not only insinuated that the founder of our house occupied such a mean situation as to be a custodier of wild beasts (a charge which, ye must have observed, is only intrusted to the very basest plebeians), but, moreover, seemed to infer that our coat-armour had not been achieved by honourable actions in war, but bestowed by way of paranomasia, or pun, upon our family appellation,- a sort of bearing which the French call armoires parlantes, the Latins arma cantantia, and your English authorities, 'canting heraldry;' being, indeed, a species of emblazoning more befitting canters, gaberlunzies, and such like mendicants, whose gibberish is formed upon playing upon the word, than the noble, honourable, and useful science of heraldry, which assigns armorial bearings as the reward of noble

and generous actions, and not to tickle the ear with vain quodlibets such as are found in jest-books. " 1 Of his quarrel with Sir Hew he said nothing more, than that it was settled in a fitting manner.

"

as

Having been so minute with respect to the diversions of Tully-Veolan on the first days of Edward's arrival, for the purpose of introducing its inmates to the reader's acquaintance, it becomes less necessary to trace the progress of his intercourse with the same accuracy. It is probable that a young man, accustomed to more cheerful society, would have tired of the conversation of so violent an assertor of the "boast of heraldry the Baron; but Edward found an agreeable variety in that of Miss Bradwardine, who listened with eagerness to his remarks upon literature, and showed great justness of taste in her answers. The sweetness of her disposition had made her submit with complacency, and even pleasure, to the course of reading prescribed by her father, although it not only comprehended several heavy folios of history, but certain gigantic tomes in High-Church polemics. In heraldry he was fortunately contented to give her only such a slight tincture as might be acquired by perusal of the

1 Although "canting heraldry' is generally reprobated, it seems nevertheless to have been adopted in the arms and mottoes of many honourable families. Thus the motto of the Vernons, "Ver non semper viret," is a perfect pun, and so is that of the Onslows," Festina lente." The “Periissem ni per-iissem" of the Anstruthers is liable to a similar objection. One of that ancient race, finding that an antagonist, with whom he had fixed a friendly meeting, was determined to take the opportunity of assassinating him, prevented the hazard by dashing out his brains with a battleaxe. Two sturdy arms, brandishing such a weapon, form the usual crest of the family, with the above motto, "Periissem ui per-iissem" (I had died, unless I had gone through with it).