Page:Architectural Review and American Builders' Journal, Volume 1, 1869.djvu/165

 1868.] Heraldry. 137 should be well filled with material on which the atmosphere will have no effect, care being taken not to get the wood too dark, by the ignorant use of oil. A relief of polished ebony ornaments and mouldings, or gold-leaf inlaid in en- graved lines, adds greatly to the effect of the wood, when kept light in color. As walnut is used at present for doors, window-frames, and window- sashes, it gives a gloomy appearance to our light and graceful style of interior architec- ture, heightened with light-papered walls and white ceilings. It looks much more appropriate with heavy wainscotings, massive groinings in panelled ceilings and dark-painted walls. Having the wood of a light color adds much to the happiness of the inmates, by increasing the cheerfulness of a room. HERALDRY. The Shape of the Shield. A COAT of Arms being invariably depicted upon the surface or super- ficies of a shield, called in heraldry, an escutcheon, it now becomes necessary to ascertain the heraldic rules concern- ing the proper shape and disposition of the escutcheon. Heraldry having arisen long after the classic ages, and being originally an invention rather of the camp than the cloister, assimilated that which lay immediately around. Hence the Greek and the Roman bucklers are not found here, except occasionally as 'charges, or perhaps in the accoutrements of supporters. The targe or target, tarian or clasher of the Scotch Highlanders, round, small and full of metal knobs or bosses, to be managed either in the ordinary and most natural way — braced upon the left arm — by the motion of the elbow and the shoulder, or, if of the minimum size, at arm's length, in a single hand, is excluded from heraldry by its dome-like centre. For the chief material of this shield we have, in Scott's Lady of the Lake, suf- ficient authority, not near so dry as most of that we present : "111 fared it, then, with Roderick Dhn, That on the ground his targe he threw — Whose brazen studs and tough hull-hide Had death so often turned aside." The mere outline of this picturesque Gaelic shield, as a circular disc, is of course admissible, under the rule that escutcheons, unless designed for women, may be of any external shape whatever. The shield of the present American In- dian of the plains — for the aborigines of the coast did not use any — seems to have been an adaptation, by way of the south, of that portion of the armor of the early Spaniards in Mexico, under Cortez, just as they ultimately obtained the Ameri- can wild horse, from the offspring of the discarded or stray steeds of the His- panian conquerors. George Catlin, in his " Letters and Notes on the North American Indians," Vol. I., pp. 33, 34, speaking of these cavaliers of the prairie, says : " Many of them also ride with a lance of twelve or fourteen feet in length with a blade of polished steel ; and all of them (as a protection to their vital parts) with a shield or arrow-fender made of the skin of the buffalo's neck, which has been smoked and hardened with glue extracted from the hoofs. These shields are arrow- proof, and will glance off a rifle shot with perfect effect by being turned ob- liquely, which they do with great skill. This shield or arrow-fender is, in my opinion, made of similar materials, and used in the same way and for the same purpose, as was the clypeus or small shield in the Roman and Grecian cav- alry. They were used, in those days,