or **DEVICE**, in heraldry, painting, and sculpture, any emblem used to represent a certain family, person, action, or quality; with a suitable motto, applied in a figurative sense. See **MOTTO**.

The essence of a device consists in a metaphorical similitude between the things representing and represented: thus, a young nobleman, of great courage and ambition, is said to have borne for his devise, in a late earl's coat at the court of France, a rocket mounted in the air, with this motto in Italian, "*poco duri purché m'invalizi*"; expressing, that he preferred a short life, provided he might thereby attain to glory and eminence.

The Italians have reduced the making of devices into an art, some of the principal laws of which are these.

1. That there be nothing extravagant or monstrous in the figures. 2. That figures be never joined which have no relation or affinity with one another; excepting some whimsical unions established in ancient fables, which custom has authorized. 3. That the human body be never used. 4. The fewer figures the better. 5. The motto should be every way suitable.

in law, the act whereby a person bequeaths his lands or tenements to another by his last will or testament.