The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1835-11-10 00:00:00

HERALDIC DEVICES.

In: Europe the combinations of marks worn on the
'shields of officers,jn. those ages when the face was by
defensive armour, concealed from view were strictly idea-
graphic, and, as they enabled the soldiery to recognise
:the vt+arees, they virtually, to their apprehensions, served
the purpose of written names. These combinations were
the foundation of 'what is now called " coats of arms ;"
and, however they may be explained in modern heraldry,
it is quite evident, from the use to which they were at
first applied, that their constituent parts were originally
intended to denote the qualities by which the persons on
whose shields they appeared were supposed to be distin-
guished. Thus the sign of the cross, which so frequently
meets the eye among those marks, was an emblem of
devotedness to the christian reliion, and the repetition
of it implied an intensity of the feeling. As to the pre-
cise number of them employed in each combination, their
arrangement and their shape, these are technical points
which it belongs to heraldry to account for: my object
is to consider only the first and simplest efforts of: the ,
kind to form badges, whereby certain persons might be
known and distinguished from each other. Thus, also,
ethe figure of the lion, so commonly used for the same
purpose, was a natural emblem of strength and courage ;
and since this, as well as the former one, was a favourite
sign among knights, it became necessary to derive sub-
distinctions from particular circumstances—from the di-
rection in which the animal was looking, and its posture,
in order that several might have it engraved among their
insignia, and yet not be confounded with each other. In
like manner the original use of various other signs might
be detailed: of many of them, I admit, it is very difficult,
now to perceive what was or could have been the imme-
diate meaning, and perhaps it would puzzle even heralds
to determine the point; but that in their general nature
they were all of them ideagraphic marks, is a position
'which does not admit of the slightest doubt: And in
barbarous ages, when but a very small portion of an
army could read or write, these marks enabled the sol-
diery to recognise and distinguish their officers- far better
than alphabetic characters would have done. However,
if we consider the matter, we shall find that this recogni-
tion was in itself a species of reading, confined, it is true,
to a very limited use ; yet still,as far as that use reached,
was essentially ideagraphic reading as much as any now
practised in China. The soldier knew by the assemblage
of marks the person who bore them on his shield, and
this person he was in the habit of calling by a certain
name; so that lie passed, without dwelling on the inter-
mediate idea, instantly from one extreme of the process
to the other, as lie would from a sign to the thing signi-
fied, that is, in his conception the marks had the same
relation to the o'fficer'S mule that a written denomination
has .to a spoken one. The . few, however, who at the
time understood alphabetic writing, looked upon the
same marks in a light somewhat different. Being ac-
quainted with a superior mode of designation, they did
notconSider those marks as the name of the officer, but
only as an appendage of his name—as what M. dam-
pollion might hare called a prenom cartouche ;. and if we
compare any assemblage of them with an Egyptian pre-
nom, we shall- he at once struck with the close resem-
blance which they have to each other.—Wall's Examina-
tion of the Ancient Orthography of the Jews.

EXTRAORDINARY CAE OF ACCIDENTAL
ENTOMBMENT.

On the morning of Thursday the Bth ult, part of the
roof -of the coal-works belonging to the Duke de Coignv,
at Kilgrammie, near the village of Dailly, Ayrshire, set
down, and before the men could get clear of the work-
ings, John Brown, a native of Mid-Lothian, about sixty
years of age, was intercepted in his egress, and conse-
quently confined in this subterraneous abode until Sa-
turday last the 31st ult., at four in the morning, when he
was restored again to light and liberty, being thus
twenty-three days without one morsel of food ! When
entombed, he had- with him a small portion of tobacco,
sufficient for one day's consumption, and two small flasks
of lamp oil: some of the latter he attempted to swallow,
but was unable to do so, and the only substance he took
besides the tobacco, during tho whole period of his con-
finement, was a strong chalvbeate water within the
range of his prison, and which he declared was " very
bad indeed." His mind remained quite composed and
continues very distinct—he never despaired of ultimately
escaping, and his greatest anxiety, he says, was for the
fate of Thomas Wason, the person with whom he had
for more than two years resided, whom he supposed had
perished when the accident occurred, leaving a wife and
Helpless family. He calculated time by the noise made
by the men at their stated periods of work:—for the first
and second week, he moved about in his gloomy cell, an
area of nearly thirty yards, seeX‘ina every avenue of es-
cape ; but latterly he became so weak as to be unable to
reach his only but disagreeable beverage—the water.
The feeling of hunger left him about the second day,
which may be attributed to the astringent quality of the
water. When found, he was extended on the ground,
and lying on his breast, nearly extinct, his extremities,
cold, his voice reduced almost to a whisper, or childish;
treble, and his emaciation so great as to make him a
complete personification of the Anatomie Vivante. His
dark unshaven beard, sunken features, and glistenink
eye, had given him an unearthly appearance. Gene-
rally, great danger arises from imprudently giving food
too freely to persons who have suffered from Ibstinence,
but in Brown's case, his brother labourers cautiously
first lubricated his parched mouth with butter, then gave
him milk, arrow-root, and sherry, in small spoonfuls, at in-
tervals—milk being the first thing he asked for when he
was discovered. His pulse is regular and strong, and
his tongue clean and moist; indeed, there is every hope
of his ultimate restoration to health, should he receive,
sufficient nourishment in the same cautious way. When
Dr. Hill, the minister of the parish, visited him, he put
out his hand to the Rev. Dr. and asked him to return
thanks to God for his deliverance. He feels 'much pleased
at the interest his'ca:se has excited in the country, and he
bestows a ghastly smile of satisfaction on the numerous
gazers, which the circumstance has drawn from consider-
able distances, to the humble cottage where he now lies.
On a former occasion, he was entombed in a coal-pit three
days and three nights, and we have also been informed
that he once suffered shipwreck.—Ayr Observer.