Note 26 — Chapter X

Note 26. Page 372.

Per bend Ermine and Pean, two lions rampant combatant, counter-changed, armed and langued Gules; surmounted by three bendlets undee Argent, on each three fleurs-de-lis Azure; on a chief Or, three Titmice volant proper; all within a bordure gobonated Argent and Sable.

Crest.—On a cap of maintenance a Titmouse proper, ducally gorged Or, holding in his beak a woodlouse embowed Azure. Motto—"Je le tiens."

Note.—The Author was favored, on the first appearance of this portion of the work, with several complimentary communications on the subject of Sir Gorgeous Tintack's feats in heraldry: and one gentleman eminent in that science, and to whom the author is indebted for the annexed spirited drawing, has requested the author to annex to the separate edition, as he now does, the two following very curious extracts from old heraldic writers:—the first, supporting the author's ridicule of the prevalent folly of devising complicated coats of arms; and the second being a very remarkable specimen of the extent to which an enthusiast in the science was carried on its behalf.

First—"An other thing that is amisse, as I take it, and hath great neede to be reformed, is the quartering of many markes in one shield, coate, or banner; for sithence it is true that such markes serue to no other vse, but for a commander to lead by, or to be known by, it is of necessitie that the same should be apparent, faire, and easie to be understoode: so that the quartering of many of them together, doth hinder the vse for which they are provided.—As how is it possible for a plaine unlearned man to discover and know a sunder, six or eight—sometimes thirty or forty several marks clustered altogether in one shield or banner, nay, though he had as good skill as Robert Glower, late Somerset that dead is, and the eies of an egle, amongst such a confusion of things, yet should he never be able to decipher the errors that are dalie committed in this one point, nor discover or know one banner or standard from an other, be the same neuer so large?"—Treatise on the True Use of Armes—by Mr. Sampson Erdswicke, [a famous antiquary in the reign of Queen Elizabeth.]

[Secondly.—An extract from the Book of St. Alban's, written late in the fifteenth century, by Dame Juliana Berners, Abbess of St. Alban's]—

"Cain and all his offspring became churls both by the curse of God, and his own father. Seth was made a gentleman, through his father and mother's blessing, from whose loins issued Noah, a gentleman by kind and lineage. Of Noah's sons, Chem became a churl by his father's curse, on account of his gross barbarism towards his father. Japhet and Shem, Noah made gentlemen. From the offspring of gentlemanly Japhet came Abraham, Moyses, and the Prophets, and also the King of the right line of Mary, of whom that only absolute gentleman[X] Jesus was borne; perfite God and perfite man according to his manhood, King of the land of Juda, and the Jewes, and gentleman by his Mother Mary, princess of coate Armour."

[X] One of our oldest dramatists speaks of our Saviour in an earnest sense as "the first true gentleman that ever lived."