The following are very beautiful scraps on bells, and bell ringing: "At last a soft and breathing sound Rose like a stream of rich distill'd perfume And stole upon the ear; that even Silence Was took 'ere she was aware, and wish'd she might Still, to be so displaced!" MILTON. "But hark! that blythe and jolly peal, Makes the Franciscan steeple reel." Scott's Lady of the Lake. The royal funerals are always at night, by torch light; the following lines well apply: "The midnight clock has tolled, and hark the bell Flings to the hollow gale its sullen sound!" MASON. It is a custom all over England, to ring on Christmas eve and New Year's eve; hundreds may then say: The following exquisite piece of poetry, by Arthur Cleveland Coxe, shows that talented poet to have caught this delightful charm, and to have historically and pathetically expressed himself: wold. From "The Poets and Poetry of America," by Rufus Wilmot Gris Those chimes, those chimes of Motherland, Upon a Christian morn, For a Redeemer born; The chimes of England, how they peal And then those Easter bells in spring, And sing the rising of the Lord, I love ye, chimes of Motherland, For she is lovely to the Lord, And heir of her ancestral fame, Thee, too, I love, my forest land, The joy of all the earth; For thine thy mother's voice shall be, And here where God is king, With English chimes, from Christian spires, The wilderness shall ring. He also makes some pretty allusions to bells in some elegant stanza to old churches. In the same work of beautiful selections, there are some fine poetic allusions to bells, in the "Belfry Pigeon," by N. P. Willis. To conclude, then, "Ring on, ye bells, most pleasant is your chime." Wilson, Isle of Palms. *My feelings have irresistibly compelled me to put this verse in italics. 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, cause an uneasy sensation, and we naturally love light, when we have no design of applying it to essentially useful purposes." both 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, SPENSER. "The feudal science of English heraldry," says Digby, "rejects all 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." "Not rough nor barren are the winding ways 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 |