One more singular fact must be added, that strengthens this argument, and affords strong presumption, if such were wanted, that armorial bearings, were in use for centuries among our Saxon ancestors. But this would not be questioned, if the theory advanced, making the Teutonic tribes the originators of the practice, be admitted. The fact, however, is the historical one, of the banner borne by Hengist in the fifth century when he set foot on our shores, being emblazoned with the well-known White horse of Kent. The almost entire absence of the horse as an armorial bearing in all the early Norman shields, would be remarkable, except upon the theory here propounded, viz. that after the most prominent objects in the animal world were chosen as personal devices by the heads of tribes, the creation of coats of arms, from generation to generation, was made by composition and development of these and other primitive elements; not that new ones did not now and then arise, as perhaps the fleur-de-lis 17 and the

electric telegraph to the times of the Crusades. This, then, is but another indirect proof of the early existence of armorial bearings.

The heralds of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries are charged with most of the fabrications of arms and genealogies which cannot, in the present day, be authenticated. No doubt many venal forgeries, to flatter the vanity of parvenus, may be brought home to them; but the greater part of their errors arose from the same causes as prevailed long before their time, continue in action at the present day, and always will, viz., oral and written confusion of names and dates, taking conjectures for facts, hasty conclusions and imperfect knowledge. Thus, Thierry speaks of the "three lions of Normandy," whereas William the Conqueror bore only two; and Worsam, in his 'Danes in England,' makes the notoriously unfounded assertion "that the lion was not, nor is indeed at present, found in coats of arms in England." Similar errors in Saxon and Norman historians have doubtless given rise to much of the proved erroneous blazonry and genealogy which are to be met with in old writers, but they could not be greater than are to be found in professedly genealogical works of the present day.

The preposterous incredulity of current

criticism in a very flippant manner stigmatizes every coat of arms and every genealogical statement that are not corroborated by the best existing documentary evidence as the "inventions" of the heralds of the reigns of the Tudors and the Stuarts, as if it were not a fact that a mass of writings of all kinds, accessible to them, has perished, or is buried in obscurity. But fortunately for their reputation, a collation of facts and constant discoveries of documents is continually establishing the truth of their assertions. Thus, statements in Collins and authors of his time, that the writers of this century have sneered at, investigation proves in most cases to be true. As a specimen of the rigidly demonstrative reasoning exacted in the present day, Mr. Planché, in a paper on the arms of the Ferrers family, brands the horse shoe bearings, one of their reputed coats, as an "invention" of the heralds, because he cannot find such a blazon assigned to the name in any of the rolls of arms that happen to have come down to us, forgetting that there are hundreds of ancient coats not recorded in any existing roll of arms, and that a family frequently relinquished their ancient bearings on assuming those of a heiress allied by marriage.

17 The fleurs-de-lys, there is little doubt, are the armes parlantes chosen by one of the early kings of France of the name

ermine of the dukes of Bretagne, 18 but every new coat was compounded of existing materials, varied infinitely by colour, position, attitude, dimidiation, multiplication,19 &c. no entirely new charge being introduced that had been already appropriated. Now, the horse, it may be imagined, would be one of the first devices assumed by a warrior; and, according to the theory, Hengist would have inherited his device from its original bearer, unless he or his ancestors had acquired it by marriage or otherwise.20 Supposing, as is probable, the horse entered largely into the bearings of the Anglo-Saxon nobles; as those nobles were for the most part deprived of their possessions at the Conquest, and everything Saxon degraded and despised, the non-introduction of the horse and other Saxon ensigns into Anglo-Norman heraldry may be accounted for in part; but chiefly, from the Normans having a different immediate origin to the Saxons, and therefore descended from those who bore different bearings, such as the lion (so common

of Louis, perhaps by Louis the son of Charlemagne. The water-flags and the spear-heads, said also to have been the arms of that kingdom, are probably pictorial corruptions of the lilies, as the lions of England are supposed to be of the original leopards. The arms of France are also said to have been, at different times, crescents, bees, three diadems, and three toads; changes made by different races and by sovereigns of the same race, and similar to the changes in the royal arms of England from the earliest times, and to those in France itself during the last sixty years.

18 According, however, to the Ency. Metrop. before quoted, the furs in heraldry are to be traced to the ancient Germans, an opinion arrived at from this passage of Tacitus :-Eligunt feras, et detracta celamina spargunt maculis pellibusque belluarum quas exterior Oceanus atque ignotum mare gignit.

19 The lords of Montpellier bore argent one torteau gules; the three torteaux of the Courtenays, Earls of Bolougne, was probably an extension of this device, and the family of the same lineage. Innumerable instances occur in English heraldry where this multiplication of charges can be traced in a family; thus the Herveys bore originally one trefoil, then three, and finally three trefoils on a bend; and the Gernons bore at first one stag's head ca

boshed; on the marriage, temp. Edward II, of Roger de Gernon with the heiress of Potton, lord of Cavendish, that name was assumed, and three stag's heads instead of one were adopted as a new family escutcheon.

Or for the field and azure for the charge seem to have been, in the original choice of colours, those preferred; they are the tinctures in the escutcheons of most of the ancient families of Europe, in the elder line, as Vermandois, the Dukes of Brabant, &c.; wherever other colours, or these reversed, are met with in royal and noble houses, as in those of England and France, or in less noble families, it may be safely presumed the descent is from a junior branch, or the early rules of choosing colours have been departed from, or some irregularity has taken place.

20 It seems more probable that Hengist derived his name from the device of his standard or shield than the converse, and that like Hugh Lupus and the Dauphin of France (the latter of whom was so called from the dolphin on his shield), he was of noble blood; and the horse might not have been an hereditary bearing, but assumed by him as an original emblem. It is well known that in the later periods of chivalry many knights bore as new names those of their armorial bearings.

in English blazonry), the eagle, the ordinaries, and other simple devices. But still, the horse as an heraldic charge is to be found plentifully in German coat armour; one of the emblems of the house of Hanover being a horse courant.

To conclude. As it is hardly probable that any discoveries will hereafter be made, of a nature, or of an extent, to satisfy the scepticism of those whom nothing will content but positive proof, the claims of heraldry to an early origin must always rest on circumstantial evidence; and this, when the subject is thoroughly considered, is so strong, so cumulative, as to amount almost to demonstration. Indeed, it would be possible, by great labour and research, to make out such a reductio ad absurdum as to be unanswerable. Were a vast genealogical table prepared of the nobles and knights of Europe, down to the twelfth century, with the arms attributed to them affixed, such a result would be exhibited as would be entirely opposed to all preconceived notions. We should look for the crown, the sceptre, and the sword, on the escutcheons of kings, and princes, and dukes; and on those of great functionaries of state, appropriate symbols of office. We should expect to find an array of devices drawn from the whole animal and vegetable kingdom, and of every object under the sun, typical of moral and physical qualities; and not such unmeaning marks as the chevron, the fess, and the bend. These latter, however, it is contended are "refinements," subsequently introduced, as additional distinctions: but they stand alone, as well as in composition, and constitute some of the most ancient coats. In all the instances, ancient and modern, where we know the origin of personal emblems, there is some significance in the choice, and often some romantic incident at the bottom of it. The crescent, the escallop, and the cross, so prevalent in crusading coats, have an obvious allusion. Canting arms have a meaning, as in the wolf's head of Hugh Lupus; and the pel-icans of the Pel-hams; 21 the crozier in

21 Canting arms are ranked by Dalla way, Porny, and other writers, as of the lowest class in their origin, and as assumed by upstarts. This notion Mr. Lower and others do not admit, adducing many of such which are of great antiquity, and borne by very ancient families. Probably all significant armorial bearings of this

kind were in most cases, and especially by barbarians, intended as pictorial representations of the personal or mental qualities of those who assumed them, and who by such superiority had arisen from a humble position to that of a military leader. The arms of the kingdom of Leon are a lion; probably it was founded

the arms of an abbot, the mitre in those of a bishop, the sprig of hop in the shield of a hop-grower, the shuttle in that of a manufacturer, are personal characteristics. The devices assumed, too, at tournaments had a similar personal expression. If therefore the modern heraldry of Europe, originated in the twelfth or even in the eleventh century, analogy would lead us to expect an ingenious profusion of significant objects, where there was such a wide field of selection. In the blazonry of all Europe there is undoubtedly great variety; but the ordinaries, and parti-coloured shields form a large proportion, and the occurrence of lions and eagles is prodigious; whilst the swan, the fox, the stag, the wolf, the hare, and the greyhound, are comparatively rare, and an infinite variety of excellent devices are scarcely if at all to be met with. The lion is the predominant bearing in Anglo-Norman heraldry, whilst the horse is nearly, if not quite, unknown. In explanation of this, it is insufficient to say that several would choose the same device: the object of these ensigns was distinction, and this in the first instance would be easy, infinitely more so, than three centuries afterwards, when a much larger number of coats, each distinct, existed in England alone, than in all Europe at an early period. The premises, then, do not lead us to the conclusion that we should à priori expect. But take the other hypothesis. Assume that all these diverse and heterogeneous ensigns have in their germs subsisted through ages, are the gradual extension and development through centuries, of the hereditary emblems of the earliest races, and semi-barbarous chieftains of mankind, transmitting the ensigns of their glory, along with the mysterious symbols of their religion:22 assume

by a victorious warrior whose name and whose device were a lion, and received its name and national arms from him. Such, in most cases, was the origin of the names and national arms of states.

Allusive arms, or armes parlantes, seem thus, in ancient and modern times, to have been adopted by all novi homines, for those entitled to hereditary arms would not, in any age, hardly capriciously relinquish them, but would assume others only for some special reason. In modern heraldry it is remarkable that the great majority of families bearing canting arms cannot be traced as descendants of men of noble blood; the first progenitor is fre

quently to be found to owe his rise to ecclesiastical nepotism, and as a feudal tenant of an abbey or bishopric, or as a recipient of the favour of his sovereign, or as a man acquiring wealth by commerce or marriage. Such persons, unless they could appropriate the uxorial coat, if any there were, had no alternative but to adopt something entirely new, and yet in some manner personal; so, as far as they could, they made pictures of their

names.

22 "The heraldry of Europe has evidently derived its origin from the east, and it was intimately associated with religion and superstition. Maurice ob

an unbroken continuity,23 irregular it may be, and subject to fluctuating laws, of such of these, as belonged to conquering tribes (those of subjugated nations being in part rejected and in part adopted) especially of the Northmen and the Teutons ;and, in their domination, and dispersion, in the rise of the feudal system, of tournaments and the crusades, we have a solution of the problem, which no phalanx of chroniclers and heralds, however inventive, and even confederate, could have accomplished, in producing, such multifarious and consistent fabrications, as the reputed blazonry of the eleventh and preceding centuries.