Menestrier [_Origine des Ornemens_, published 1680] writes:--"Now
[_aujourd'hui_] persons of quality, particularly married ladies
[_femmes_], place two palms together on the escutcheon of their arms,
which makes an agreeable ornament, and is, at the same time, the
symbol of conjugal love, which the ancients have represented by the
palms, male and female." The earliest instance I have noted in England
is on the cups of Sir E. B. Godfrey, who died in 1678 [engraved in
_Gentleman's Magazine_, 1848, and in _Topographer and Genealogist_,
vol. ii, p. 467]. They occur beneath a shield of Bridgeman, Bart.
(the plain arms not impaled), in Sandford's _Genealogical History_,
1677, p. 228; also on a monumental slab, 1671, engraved in _Miscell.
Genealogica et Heraldica_, 1884, vol. i, p. 151. About 1765 we see
two palms extensively used as decorations below Georgian shields (see
the plates in Dugdale's _Warwickshire_, 1765; Hasted's _Kent_, 1778;
Rudder's _Gloucestershire_, 1779; and Hutchin's _Dorsetshire_, 1774).
Such are extensively seen throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries, and were frequently painted, as a pleasing decoration,
below the arms on carriage panels, almost to our own times. But they
must have lost the original symbolism, for they occur constantly on
ledger tombs [see _Miscell. Genealogica et Heraldica_, Mar., 1885, p.
233; dated 1696], and must then refer to the resurrection life. They
are found in book-plates in the middle of the eighteenth century,
and continue down to 1800 or later. The ledger tomb to Ashley Palmer
and his wife at Hawstead, dated 1792, shows a pleasing example. This
engraving is from _Miscell. Genealogica et Heraldica_, 1885, p. 307.
[Illustration]