He adds:

"Of old times colleges were built and livinges given for the maintenance of poor men's children; but now, I would wish some to build colleges for the maintenance of poore younger brethren, gentlemen destitute of succour and support.""

The Gentleman having been fully discussed, the herald now proceeds to describe the Esquire, a title which he affirms to be very much "abused and prophaned," "whereunto (he adds) I wish that the Lord Earle-Marshall, with the advice and consultation of a learned herealde now in office, would add some sharpe correction and punishment." Had his lordship seen fit to act upon Paradinus's gentle suggestion, there is no doubt of his power to have done it, since we find one of his successors qualified by a royal commission from Charles the First, through the heralds of arms, to "reprove, controul, and make infamous by proclamation at courts of assize, all persons who had unwarrantably assumed the title of Esquire or Gentleman. Good old times those, when the court of chivalry was in full feather—when (upon the authority of Hyde, afterwards Lord Clarendon) "a citizen of good quality, a merchant, was by that court ruined in his estate, and his body imprisoned," for vilifying a gentleman's coat of arms-" by calling a swan a goose!" What would these strict enforcers of etiquette of the days of Elizabeth and Charles have thought of the degenerate and "profane" practice prevailing in this present year of grace (or disgrace) eighteen hundred and fifty-three, when the great difficulty is, not how to limit our esquires in that great mass commonly called and known as the Public," but where, without offence, to withhold the genteel affix.

We cannot follow our legist through his observations upon the various superior titles of banneret, knight, baron, and the other degrees of the peerage, but must hasten to notice that part of the dialogue which relates to the "bearing of armes." Regarding the origin of this practice, he entertains, as we have already intimated, the wildest notions, such as that it sprang up among the Egyptians, and was brought to great perfection by the Greeks. Warming with his subject, he assures us, a page further on, that the Israelites used these insignia in their march through the desert, "under the conduct of their captain, duke Moyses." He further informs us that Alexander the Great was the first who granted them to his subjects for meritorious services, and that Julius Cæsar was the first who appointed officers of arms or heralds. Then once more, carried away by his zeal for antiquity, he presents us with the coats-armorial of Osyris king of Egypt, Hercules king of Lybia,

Macedonus, Anubis, and Semiramis! One of the greatest whimsies of the old armorists was their various modes of naming the seven tinctures or colours of heraldry. Not content with Or for gold or yellow, Gules for red, Vert for green, &c., they also employed the names of the planets, precious stones, moral virtues, zodiacal signs, flowers, days of the week, &c.; thus making a very plain and simple nomenclature as confused and mysterious as possible. Ferne deals largely in this rubbish, and furnishes forth no less than fourteen sets of terms. Paradinus, who is still the chief speaker, next lays before his pupil, Torquatus, various singular and unusual coats for him to blazon or describe. The dialogue is amusing enough, but we are unable to give our readers a specimen of it in the absence of the quaint old woodcuts upon which it is based. Many royal, episcopal, and other coats are then introduced, for the sake of illustrating heraldric rules; but the whole treatise deals more in theory than in the rudimental parts of the science, and presupposes a considerable acquaintance with the latter on the part of the reader. The following passage on the emblematical signification of animals borne in heraldry, may be amusing to some; but we presume that it is unnecessary to inform them that there is no truth whatever in this symbolism-nearly all the ancient heraldry (of this country at least) being rather allusive to the name, office, tenure, or other "accident" of the bearer, than to his moral character and disposition.

66

'The cuckow is for ingratitude, and the dove for thankfulnesse; the storke signifieth pietie and love towardes parents; the bee representeth a king; the partrich signifieth contumelious or reproachful men: the goshawk noteth celeritie of dispatch....; a lyon for courage, furie, and rage; his fore parts must signifie fortitude, and his head carefull vigilancie. The flye is taken for a shamelesse or impudent person, overbold at each man's table. The ant should note foreknowledge and providence; the hyena an inconstant man ....; the viper shadoweth a deceitful woman, and the goat is taken for a quicke hearer; the camell for slouth; and the oxe to signifie the earth, with her labors and increase; the crocodile representeth an evill person; and so foorth with all the rest. But let him passe with all his conjecturall expositions. I could not wish gentlemen too curious in the signes of their coatearmors, for if any man should communicate in his life or conversation but halfe the partes or quallities of that beast which he beareth in his coate of armes, on my credit it were more fit for him to be stabled amongst brute beasts than chambred with the noble, albeit he bare even the most worthie beast of all the rest."

We cannot follow Sir John, or rather his representative the herald, through his longwinded discussion of false arms and true arms, the seven true colours, the coat-armours imperfect and perfect, the

differences, arms abstract, arms terminal, arms collateral, and arms fixall, with which he draws his discourse towards a close. Sir John evidently thinks he has been writing an eclogue, for all this long colloquy of 259 pages has taken place in the open air under a hedge, and is brought to an end in the true poetical fashion : "because also the night comes on, as it seemeth by these sheephearde boyes that drive their flocks to foulde, we will for this time depart." The knight invites all the interlocutors home to " a light supper."

"By this time they were all commen to the knightes house, which was scituat upon a hill statelye buylded of bricke in a quadrangle forme, shadowed with woodes and affronted with a large parke (ful of deere and savage beastes of chase) before his gate. The knight calling all the afore saide persons to his table, feasted them plentifullye. So that the poore heralde, the devine, and the antiquarie confessed how this supper would cause them to rumenate and chew the cud a weeke after, their diet beeing slender at home. After supper the knight put the lawyer in mind of his promise, who delivered unto him certain written leaves of paper, containing questions of the lawes of armes, with their solucions, which he had devided into fourteen motives. . . . and here follow the saide motives."

These "motives" we must pass over, albeit they contain much that is highly interesting to the antiquary, and much that explains and illustrates the usages of our ancestors in the important affairs of heraldry and chivalry. The principal topics treated of are—the great dignity of coat-armour granted by the sovereign—of the right to place arms upon public buildings and other works—of the placing of the royal arms in houses of the removal of arms-of the descent of arms-of bastardy—of the transfer of arms by bequest or sale of battles, combats, and challenges. Under the last head are comprised all the old canons of duelling, which are handled with great learning and ability, and enriched with numerous quotations out of the various elaborate treatises which Ferne loved to study, but which have since his time become entirely obsolete. One of the most singular features of medieval times was the zeal with which two individuals, claimants of a particular heraldric bearing, would spend their money in long litigations, or their life-blood in personal combats, in order to establish its legitimate ownership. The famous Scrope and Grosvenor controversy, in the reign of Richard the Second, is familiar to most readers; and the duel between Katrington and Annesley, fought at Westminster, in the same reign, brought together more spectators than the king's coronation. Ferne relates a droll controversy of this kind between a

Frenchman and an Italian; but the story is better told by a still older writer.

"There was one amonge the Janwayes (Genoese) that the Frenche kyng hyred to make warre agaynst the Englysshe men, which bare an oxe head peynted in his shelde: the which shelde a noble man of France challenged : and so longe they strove that they must nedes fyght for it. So at a day and place appointed, the Frenche gallaunt came into the felde, rychely armed at all peces. The Janwaye, all unarmed, came also in to the felde, and said to the Frenche man, wherefore shall we this day fight? Mary, said the Frenche man, I wyll make good with my body that these armes were myne auncestours before thyne. What were your auncestours armes ? quod the Janwaye. An oxe heed, sayd the Frenche man. Then sayde the Janwaye, here nedeth no batayle; for this that I beare is a cowes heed!"*

The second portion of Ferne's work, entitled 'Lacie's Nobilitie,' is a colloquy, maintained by the same interlocutors, upon the genealogy of the family of Lacy, in disproof of the claim of affinity to it set up by Albert à Lasko, count palatine of Syradia, which is boldly denied and refuted. We cannot pursue the train of the discussion, which is even more roundabout and desultory than the preceding, but must content ourselves with an extract or two. After a tedious discourse upon an "eagle displayed," the pretended arms of Edwine, earl of Mercia, Columel, the ploughman, losing patience, interrupts his worshipful companions thus:

"Columel. What a longe matter hath beene made heere, about an olde smokye coate? Me thinketh it scarcely worth the taking up, it is so rotten and full of holes. Call you this a signe of honour? Jesu! who would thinke that men should make such a speach about an eagle: you have made her a thing of great worship. By my vay, shee looketh lyke a foule kite that haunteth our yarde at home, and killeth everye yeare some of my wyves chekins! I marvaile that men shoulden delight in such ravinous thinges. I pray God that such noble men, which would have such things for their signes or badges (cal them what you wil), that they be not as greedy themselves. I would wishe rather that our great ones wold desire to bear the badges of a silly sheep, a dove, or a calfe, vor those be hurt-les beastes, and will deale plainly; but I perceave they think it better to borrow the clawes of such cormorant thinges, for then they may pricke when they will."

Few things in the book of the old armorists are more amusing than the wonderful qualities that they ascribe to the various animals which are admitted into the heraldric shield. Here, for instance, is a remarkable fact, unknown we are sure, to most members of the Zoological Society.

"Nature hath implanted so inveterate an hatred atweene the wolfe and the sheepe, that being dead, yet, in the secret operation of Nature, appeareth

'

* Tales and Quicke Answeres, very mery and pleasant to rede,'-a quaint production, supposed to be the 'Hundred Merry Tales' alluded to by Shakespeare.

there a sufficient trial of their discording natures, so that the enmity betweene them seemeth not to dye with their bodies: for if there be put upon a harpe, or any such like instrument, strings made of the intralles of a sheep, and amongst them but only one made of the intralles of a wolfe, be the musitian never so cunning in his skil, yet can he not reconcile them to an unity and concord of sounds: so discording alwayes is that string of the wolfe!'

A rather curious parallel to this strange fancy is found in the East at the present day. A friend recently returned from India, informs us that, a year or two ago, his brother, a young gentleman in the Ninth Lancers, having shot a wolf, took off its skin and stretched it upon the door of an outhouse to dry. One night shortly afterwards, the skin disappeared, and on inquiry it was discovered that a Hindoo had stolen it, for the purpose of converting it into the head of a tom-tom or native drum. The generality of those instruments are covered with sheepskin parchment, and the rascal was firmly persuaded, that the sound of his drum thus prepared would have the effect of breaking the heads of all the tom-toms in the neighbourhood! We think something similar is also recorded by Pliny.

Peacham, in his 'Compleat Gentleman,' written two centuries ago, highly commends the 'Blazon of Gentry,' as "very rare, and sought after as a jewell." It is still rarer now, and is considered a good acquisition by the heraldric collector. It is certainly the most curious book upon the subject, as well as one of the most singular productions of the Elizabethan age.

ART. III. Russia in the earlier part of the Sixteenth Century.

Rerum Moscoviticarum Commentarii Sigismundi Liberi Baronis in Herberstain, Neyperg, Guettenhag. Cum Cæs. & Regia Maiest. gratia &priuilegio ad decennium. Basilea, per Ioannem Oporinum. (Folio, 1556.) Notes upon Russia: being a translation of the Earliest Account of that Country, entitled Rerum Moscoviticarum Commentarii, by the Baron Sigismund von Herberstein, Ambassador from the Court of Germany to the Grand Prince Vasiley Ivanovich, in the years 1517 and 1526. Translated and edited, with Notes and an Introduction, by R. H. MAJOR, of the British Museum. London: printed for the Hakluyt Society. (8vo, vol. 1, 1851; vol. 2, 1852.) T the commencement of the sixteenth century, Europe was in a period of transition from its old medieval divisions to the system of powers which divide it in modern times. Austria and Spain, joined under Charles V, formed the most important power in

ᎪᎢ