_House-marks_ (Vol. vii., p. 594.).--It appears to me that the
_house-marks_ he alluded to may be traced in what are called _merchants'
marks_, still employed in marking bales of wool, cotton, &c., and which are
found on tombstones in our old churches, _incised_ in the slab during the
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and which till lately puzzled the
heralds. They were borne by merchants who had no arms.