a dragon with wings elevated and addorsed, argent, and charged
on the wing with a cross, gules. Motto: "Domine dirige
nos."--THE CITY.

Gules, two swords in saltire, argent, the hilts in base,
or.--THE SEE.

The origin of the City of London is almost as unknown as that of Rome
itself, and all its earliest history is lost in the misty traditions of
the Middle Ages, and to this may be due the fact that the arms it
blazons on its shield, and the weird supporters it claims to use, have
but little to warrant them but custom and age. Other cities, less
ancient and much less important, can give the full authority for the
armorials which they have assumed, and even the great guilds associated
with the Corporation are able to quote the reign and year--many of them
dating back to the time of Queen Elizabeth--when they received the grant
of arms which they still enjoy. But for the arms of the City of London
itself no authority can be adduced, and in the opinion of many none is
required, "seeing," as an old writer on the subject says, "that of
things armorial the very essence is undefinable antiquity; a sort of
perpetual old age, without record of childhood." That the arms which the
Corporation now use differ from those it first employed is freely
admitted, but comparatively few are aware of the modifications they have
undergone, or of the recentness of the date when they first assumed
their present form; and to those who are interested in the City itself,
or in heraldry generally, a short sketch of the history of the subject
will be welcome.

It was only in the year 1224, the ninth of Henry III., that permission
was granted to the commonalty of London to have a Common Seal; and the
seal which was then made continued in use until 1380, the fourth of
Richard II., when, to quote Stow, "it was by common consent agreed and
ordained that the old seal being very small, old, unapt and uncomely for
the honour of the city, should be broken up, and one other new should be
had." Of this first seal no copy seems to have survived, and we are left
to conjecture what arms, if any, it displayed. From the first, the
simple cross of St. George appears to have been the only bearing adopted
by the citizens for their shield, but they sometimes varied it by an
augmentation in the dexter chief symbolizing their patron saint, St.
Paul, but they appear to have used these two shields quite
indifferently. Thus, when they rebuilt