127 HERALDRY. "Be mine to read the records old, COLLINS. "HERALDS are as old as priests; they were criers or messengers; they were chroniclers and historians." In the 22d chap. of Numbers, 2d verse, we may read, " All the children of Israel shall camp by their troops, ensigns, and standards, and the houses of their kindred round about the tabernacle of the covenant." Heraldry is a key to history and biography, and is daily becoming more and more acknowledged. Two initials and a crest have been the means of establishing the once owner (my own name, but I dare not claim alliance to him) of a very old mansion, built 1461, at Southam, in Gloucestershire. When Ralph Lord Cromwell, was treasurer to Henry VI., he built Tattershall castle, in Lincolnshire, and in part of the sculpture of the fire-places there are among many other heraldric devices a purse, which is not only a pretty ornament, but is at once symbolic of his office, and the date of its erection. There are no coronets of the nobility in military costumes, but only in robes of state. The first English subject who bore arms quarterly was Hastings, Earl of Pembroke. Family arms do not seem to have been continuedly adopted until toward the reign of Edward I. Seals were in use as family marks many ages before even wealthy families could write their names. There was no heraldric armorial bearings on coins before the thirteenth century. It is supposed that it was Pope Boniface, who was pontiff from 1294 to 1303, that first used a seal with arms to his private official deeds. "Artists often make great blunders in heraldry, by making the heraldric animals resemble those of nature; they should understand they are not so intended, they are entirely symbolic like the hierogylphicks of Egypt; the prescriptive forms should not be varied under this mistaken idea, which is outrageous to the eyes and judgment of those who study this amusing historic art. Besides, many of the heraldric animals are not to be found in nature's list, as they are used only symbolically, this licence may be poetically or imaginatively allowed. There is an anecdote told of Brooke, the herald, (and one of the most sceptical of his class,) going to the Tower of London purposely to see the lions; when this worthy king at arms was shown the royal beasts, he considered the warden was hoaxing him; he said, "he had tricked lions any time these forty years, passant, rampant, couchant, and regardant, and that he knew what a lion. was, but never saw one like that." A correspondent of the Gentleman's Magazine, states: "It was not originally intended that knights should carry elephants upon their heads, nor, in fact, any other entire animal; a head, or a jamb, (a paw,) or a wing, was sufficiently weighty for such a situation. The badges or cognizances for the arm were something smaller still, and more simple; a knotted cord, an etoile, (a star,) a crescent, a buckle, a fetterlock, a cross, were esteemed sufficient for that purpose; any object, in short, which conveyed to the mind of a rude, simple, and unlettered man, untaught in the mysteries of what some people are ready to call heraldric jargon, (having made it such by their own blundering,) could recognise at sight. As the Americans are such travellers, they should study this highly instructive art. They can scarcely visit any European country without finding memorials which are only to be thus unravelled; that learned linguist, Sir William Jones, says: "Ignorance is to the mind what darkness is to the nerves, both cause an uneasy sensation, and we naturally love light, when we have no design of applying it to essentially useful purposes." Suppose the people who constructed those wondrous buildings in central America, had left us their heraldric signs, how much more easy would be the solution of that hidden mystery which now surrounds them. They had a system of heraldry: for, according to Solis, over the gates of Montezuma's palace, there was sculptured a griffin, being half eagle and half lion displayed, and holding a tiger in its talons: probably, therefore, through this science, some one may be enabled to unravel their wonderful history. The present European system of heraldry is attributed to the crusades, a war, as Fuller says, "for continuance the longest, for money spent the most costly," (yet without creating national debts,) "for bloodshed the cruelest, for pretences the most pious, and for the true intent the most politick the world ever saw.' As those enthusiastic bands of men were composed of all the European nations, they must each have had their distinguishing marks. Thus, on the English banner, the cross was argent silver, or white; on the French, the cross was gules or red; on that of Flanders, the cross was synople or green. The knights of St. John of Jerusalem, wore a black mantle, with a cross argent emblazoned thereon; the knights templars wore a white mantle with a red cross: "And on his breast a bloody crosse he wore, The deare remembrance of his dying lord." SPENSER. "The feudal science of English heraldry," says Digby, jects ali immoralities, indicating, to a certain degree, the purity of the manners of the age.' Some years past it was stigmatised as 66 a science belonging to fools with long memories." It should rather be designated as "a science calculated to make fools wise." It has ingeniously called into its service, almost every object in natural history, and every symbol illustrative of such multitudinous objects, while it enforces the maxim of Horace Smith, that "the earth, sea, and air, is a three-leaved Bible." The earliest roll of heraldry is of the reign of Henry III.; the oldest document extant is of the time of Edward I. The English college of arms was founded by Richard III. Shakspeare, in "Taming the Shrew," says: "If no gentleman, no arms;" if not by right, there was, as I shall presently show, by courtesy, even for the merchant and "the uncrested yeoman." "But let us view those things with closer eye." وو "Not rough nor barren are the winding ways Of hoar antiquity, but strewn with flowers." In former days there were nine descriptions of gentry who could use coat armour, and for a fee they had them registered. But the very trader could use it, though he could not presume to adopt arms in which he had no property; but, nevertheless, by long custom, he was amply provided with ornaments for his mansion or his tomb; first, he could use the arms of the town of which he was a citizen or burgher; secondly, those of his company, of which he was a member; thirdly, those of his trade or livery; and, fourthly, his merchant's brand. The wood cut represents a brand from a once beautiful half-timbered house, at Lynn, in the county of Norfolk, built by Walter Coney, a merchant, in the 15th or 16th century, since taken down. At that period, an English merchant's brand was a sufficient gua rantee for the excellent quality of the goods, and the faith and integrity of the merchant. In Walker's "Critical Pronouncing Dictionary," 1825, to the honour of that nation in former days he states, on the word Swindle: "This word has been in very general use for near twenty years, and has not yet found its way into any of our Dictionaries. From the recent introduction, one should be led to believe that this country was, till lately, a stranger to this fraud; but that it should be imported to us by so honest a people as the Germans, is still more surprising. That a language is a map of the science and manners of the people who speak it, will scarcely be questioned by those who consider the origin and progress of the human understanding, and if so, it is impossible that the manners should not influence the language; therefore, we may conclude that the faith of traffickers was more sacred in England than in Germany, though Germany might, in other respects, be less vicious than England." The rural yeoman, if he had invented any new tool, or implement, or brought into cultivation any new plant, might have had it sculptured on his grave or tomb-stone; and where so proper, and so long to record it, for the benefit of posterity. In the year 1681, deputies from the herald's college visited the counties to investigate titles, enrol weddings, births, and burials, such accounts were considered good documentary evidence in disputed successions, or on any other occasion wherein they might be needful. At this time the births of the nobility are regularly registered there. Consuls, ambassadors, or other officers dying abroad, and being buried abroad, may, if they please, have the royal arms as well as their own private coat, sculptured on their tomb. In the diary of Peter Le Neve, is an entry, "May 1st, 1696, Seigneur Sorenzo, Ambassador from Venice, was knighted at Kensington. Their ambassadors always claim that honour, and also the sword of the king; Sorenzo had William III.'s sword, worth £100. In the time of Elizabeth, Hawkins (knighted by her, and the father of one of her admirals,) was the first who was extensively engaged in the slave trade; he thought it no disgrace to have a demi-moor on his escutcheon, as part of his armorial bearings. He did not say, as Cowper afterward wrote: "I pity them greatly, but I must be mum, For how can we do without sugar and rum?" The rowers of state barges have very frequently silver badges on one arm, these are called cognozances. Heretofore, noblemen and gentlemen of fair estates had their heralds, who wore their coats of arms at Christmas, and at other solemn times, and cried "Largesse," thrice. Aubrey. Heraldry has always been scrupulously and jealously watched. In Le Neve's MS. catalogue of knights, are the following remarks: speaking of "Williams, who calls himself the queen's occulist, he was knighted by the queen, (Anne,) 1705, as a mark of royal favour, for his great service done in curing a great number of seamen and soldiers of blindness, as the gazette said ; he was a mountebank formerly, and servant to Peutens; also a barber at Ashden, in Essex; had no right to arms, but bore by usurpation the common coat of Read, azure, a griffin segreant. His father was a shoe-maker at Hailsworth, in Sussex." Also, in speaking of "Edward Haines, first phesitian to the queen, (Anne,) 1705, knighted at Windsor, Sunday, 29th July; he hath no right to arms, his father sold herbs, &c., in Bloomsbury market, London.” I presume he means these individuals had no right to bear coat armour, without they were granted by the crown, that being considered the fountain of honour. He is Bishop Earle, thus describes an upstart or pretender to gentility: "he is a holiday clown, and differs only in the stuff of his clothes, not the stuff of himself, for he bare the king's sword before he had arms to wield it; yet, being once laid o'er the shoulder with a knighthood, he finds the herald his friend. His father was a man of good stock, though but a tanner or usurer: he purchased the land, and his son the title. He has doffed off the name of a country fellow, but the look not so easy; and his face still bears a relish of churne milk. guarded with more gold lace, than all the gentlemen of the country, yet his body makes his clothes still out of fashion. His house keeping is seen much in the distinct families, and serving men attendant on their kennels; and the deepness of their throats, is the depth of their discources. A hawk, he esteems the true burden of nobility, and is exceeding ambitious to seem delighted in the sport, and have his fist gloved with jesses. A justice of peace he is, to domineer in his parish, and do his neighbour wrong with more right. He will be drunk with his hunters for company, and stain his gentility with drippings of ale. He is fearful of being sheriff of the shire by instinct, and dreads the asize week, as much as the prisoner. In sum, he's but a clod of his own earth, or his land is the dunghill, and he the cock that crows over it; and commonly, his race is quickly run, and his children's children, though they escape hanging, return to the place from whence they came." Queen Elizabeth had the magnanimity to say, "Money in her subjects' purses was as well there as in her exchequer," but since they have run up a debt, which is "wrote up at the stock exchange with a figure of 8 and eight cyphers ;" every chancellor of the exchequer acts the part of a ravenous shark, snapping at everything that comes in his way. Those, therefore, who use heraldry on their plate, their carriages, or their seals, are compelled to pay a yearly tax; this very year, a gentleman |