P.S.--I think I may plead the privilege of a postscript for the purpose of
recording (what may be taken as) an indication, though perhaps not a proof,
that the idea of devices or contrivances was implied in the name so
recently as the period of the civil war. The _Mercurius Civicus_, a
parliamentary paper, 1644, states that Devizes was being garrisoned for the
king, in the following terms:
"Hopton is fortifying amain at the Devises in Wiltshire, but I fear
greater fortifyings for the Devices in Oxford."
* * * * *
Minor Queries.
_Gold Signet Ring._--I possess an ancient gold signet ring, which was dug
up a few years since not far from an old entrenchment in the borough of
Leominster, in the county of Hereford, the device thereon being a _cock_;
it is of very pure metal, and weighs 155 grains. It is in fine
preservation: and device is rudely cut, but I beg to inclose an impression
from which you may judge. Can any of your antiquarian readers throw any
light on the subject to whom this device originally belonged?
In levelling the fortified entrenchment above referred to some half century
ago, various utensils of pottery, burnt bones, spear and arrow heads,
tesselated tiles, fragments of sculptured stones, and other relics of
antiquity, were found.