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

1

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.

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. He is 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

at Manchester was surcharged (and a surcharge, if you cannot get relieved, doubles the amount that year) for using a seal of Neptune upon it; the commissioners could not, or would not, relieve him; he wrote to the minister, who told him the surcharge was an imposition, he thereby got relieved, such an impression being only a fancy seal, and not contemplated by the act.

Previous to the Reformation, there were a few instances of the royal arms being put in churches; since that event, (as the uler, whether male or female, is declared head of the church,) that custom has become universal. There is no particular law for it, but the clergyman takes care it is done. In all the churches, built by Wren, they have never been placed over the communion table, which is rather a common place for them in the rural districts.

The supporters to the arms of England have been often varied: Edward III. had a lion and an eagle; Richard II. had a lion and a white hart; Richard III. had a lion and a boar; Henry VII. had a dragon (his own supporter) and a grey-hound, (which was the supporter of the house of York.) James I. brought in the Scotch unicorn, to which was added the lion, the longest known supporter which now remains.

In Le Neve's diary, 5th February, 1695, he has the following entry about a noble person's funeral: Lady Mary Heveringham lay in state, she was carried out of town (London) in state, between twelve and one, at midnight, through the city toward Ketteringham, Norfolk, with pennons, escocheons, and four banner rolls; although her husband, William Heveringham, Esq., was attainted, being one of the regicides, and never restored.

BRASSES. AS I have previously stated, (vol. i. p. 251) the monumental brasses, once so thickly strewed in all the churches, before the short-sighted Puritans waged war against them, "preserved armorial bearings before the creation of a college of arms, and they also illustrated the costumes, genealogies, and other historical rules and customs."

The earliest known brass is in Trumpington church, near Cambridge, on Sir Roger de Trumpington, who died 1289. It was not put up till several years after his death. A paper was read last year, by H. Addington, Esq., of Lincoln college, be fore the architecturial society of Oxford; in which he exhibited copies of a series of brasses of every age down to their destruction, with the costumes of each period, of bishops, priests, merchants, warriors, and ladies; each as they appeared in life, in the dress peculiar to their age.

"The last and most interesting of these brasses, is the magnificent one of Archbishop Harsnett, at Chigwell, in Essex, 1631; with that veneration for antiquity, with which he was so strongly imbued, he gave in his will ample instructions for his tomb, which has been strictly followed; the inscription on a slip of the brass surrounding the effigy, bearing the evangelists, with their symbols at the angles, is exactly in accordance with the ancient examples; the representation of the archbishop is clad in his rochet, covered with a splendidly embroidered cope, bearing his staff in his left hand, and his right holding a small book; on his head, which is rendered patriarchal by the length of the beard, is the mitre. Such was the attire of a bishop at that period, such was the dress which dignified a Laud; it has since then ceased to be the episcopal costume of the church of England."*

Hartshorne's "Monuments," &c. states, that the brasses to the Wynn's, at Llanwryst, are in several respects worthy of attention. They are among the latest of importance, and they are cut with a degree of delicacy, that no line engraver, at present, need feel ashamed to own. It is singular, that the name of this engraver was Sylvanus Crewe, (an artist whose works are equal to those of Marshall and Fairthorne,) should have entirely escaped the notice of the biographers of the fine

arts."

So that it appears, that although the plates were principally imported from Flanders, yet, some of the embellishments and illustrations were added by English artists.

I have been informed that Mr. Thomas King, an antiquarian of Chichester, now provides brasses with proper designs.

A curious work has been published by Signeur Raffalo Caruana, on the knights of Malta, wherein is 400 specimens of their tombs, monuments, heraldry, &c.

HATCHMENTS

I presume the original of this name was achievements. Those persons, either male or female, who are entitled to use heraldry at their deaths, have their arms fully emblazoned on prepared canvass or silk, in a frame of wood, in the shape of the ace of diamonds; they are first placed for one year over the entrance to their mansions, and then removed into the church where the corpse is buried; beautifully reminding us by that hope-inspiring motto, often attached to them: IN CELA QUIES." In heaven there is rest.

* Waller's Series of Monumental Brasses.

In Hurley church, Berkshire, there was one in 1834, which was put up to the memory of one of the Lovelace family, who died in 1579; this was one of the oldest hatchments perhaps in England, scarcely any of it remained but the frame. No part of those sorrowful memorials should be removed, even in a tattered state; though mute, they proclaim a meaning. It is their age which greatly enhances their value, as forcibly reminding us of an eternity. When intelligible, they are sometimes the only records of important facts; and when defaced, their tattered form and feature are not inapt objects for impressing on our minds (and where so proper as in a church,)" the pomps and vanities of this wicked world." At the period when that hatchment was mounted, pennons, banners, and real coats or tabards, were the usual family memorials placed about the tombs of the nobility or gentry.

When the body of Lord Byron was brought from Greece to England, in the brig Florida, the mourning ensign was of black silk, with a broad blue streak, charged with a Baron's coronet hoisted half mast. 1824.

This little incident may be interesting to the American people, whom Byron always liked; he said, "I would rather have a nod from an American, than a snuff box from an emperor ;" and how extraordinary it appears, that by mere accident, the vessel which brought his mortal remains home to be laid by the side of his ancestors, should be named after one of the States of those people whom he thus so pleasingly complimented.

EMBROIDERED HERALDRY.

This pleasing and instructive science, may be practised by females, and is a very proper subject for the needle. Heraldry, when it is tricked or portrayed in sculpture, has its distinguishing lines which express the colours.

If the reader will notice the notched or indented shield attached to this paragraph, he will perceive it tricked, parted per bend, dovetailed; the lines at top, are cut perpendicular down to the dovetailing, this part represents gules or red; below the dovetailing, the lines are cut diagonally, which represent vert or green; the lines of the cross, which is a passion cross portate, are cut diagonally the contrary way, this represents purpure, or purple.

An embroideres would, therefore, fill up the shield with the above colours, and place the threads in the same directions.