A bit of heraldic cant

Today's subject: a set of the works of William Paley, D.D., with armorial bookplates of Samuel Tombs. Whose arms are: on a field sable, three tombs. Not the most inspired or wittiest instance, perhaps, but nevertheless an example of "canting arms", in which the the images used refer, in an allusive or punning way, to the name of the bearer. Who Samuel Tombs was, other than probably the inhabitant of The Hollies, Droitwich, I have failed to establish. Much more fruitful, and even more tangential, is investigation of the etymology and ramificating meanings of the word cant, from French chant to thieves' cant to ski boot canting ...