Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 9.djvu/239

 1 2 s. ix. SEPT. 3, i92i.] NOTES AND QUERIES. 193 legal right to it. The comparatively recent Act imposing licences to use armorial bear- ings silently recognizes this, and rather de- gradingly, I think, allows no distinction be- tween genuine and spurious armigeri to be made in this matter. Such a dictionary as MBS. COPE proposes, if properly carried out, is by no means an easy matter. No student or lover of heraldry still less the author herself would wish it to be a mere compendium of coats of arms. The time has scarcely yet come, I think, for an armorial " Who's Who,," compiled from information furnished mainly by the parties themselves or taken from other easily accessible references. A splendid harvest has undoubtedly been reaped in days gone by and it may be still by those vendors of coat -armour, or " arms- finders," who offered by advertisement to provide arms for practically all persons for a few shillings on the mere receipt of " name and county." Only very recently has a large heraldic library been disposed of by public auction, belonging to one of the oldest members of this class. A certain amount of heraldic knowledge and assiduity in research can do a great deal in this respect, but it can- not give the cachet traceable to an original grant or exemplification of arms which alone is so valuable to the heraldic or genea- logical student. We come across many tions,' but have any such been recorded against any modern applicants to these pseudo -heraldic authorities ? I doubt it. So long, rather, as these applicants bear the name of any armigerous family, especially in that of their own county, so long are arms likely to be found for them, differenced, it may be, to avoid certain or easy detection. Social position was once a recognized fac- tor in the applications for old grants of arms to the proper authorities. It is scarcely to be supposed that much inquiry can be de- voted to this point when the cost and the profits were but a few shillings in each case. It seems to me that the author or editor of any compendium of armorial bearings not recorded by our principal or recognized heraldic authorities must run a considerable risk of including those of many who are anxious to be brought under the aegis of some authority however modern which will take their arms under their protection. This may be good from a publisher's point of view, but can it be equally satisfactory for lovers of heraldry, or for those who in years to come % .may consult its pages as an authority ? That MBS. COPE'S " dictionary " may not become so I most sincerely desire ; and I feel j sure that she will pardon me for having, in j templated work, ventured, with all respect, to give these few notes of warning. I do not quite gather from MBS. COPE'S I note whether her work is to consist entirely . of arms not recorded in the works she men- tions (and other similar ones), but I presume so ; for the work, if it does include those, would be so very voluminous, and would ren- der my caution so much the more necessary. If I may be allowed to speak now of heral- dic matters discussed generally in ' 1ST. & Q.,, I 1 will go so far as to say and I have ad- ! vocated this before that before the editor ! allows any ascription of coat -armour or any I description of arms to any particular name 1 or family to be inserted in its columns, the correspondent should give the authority for such attribution. It is only by such means that the accuracy of his statement can be properly tested. The mere ipse dixit of a correspondent of even such an heraldic authority as ' N. & Q.' undoubtedly is, should not be allowed to have the same value as one of these old authorities, whose accuracy can often be made the subject of investigation. J. S. UDAL, F.S.A. ABMS OF THE SEE OF BBECHIN (12 S. viii. 430). MB. LOVIBOND asks what is the correct field for these arms, the tincture of the original coat (three piles in point) being or, whilst later authorities give it as argent, and suggests the possibility of this change j indicating bastardy. In Woodward's ' Ecclesiastical Heraldry ' (1894) a work rather later than Wood- I ward and Burnett's treatise referred to by j your correspondent the author shows how i the tincture of the field came to be changed to argent, which made the coat identical with that borne by the family of Wishart ; and explains (p. 223) how it was that the Lords of Brechinwere said to be the Wish- arts : " whereas none of that name ever were concerned with the Lordship of Brechin or ever used.. that title." Dr. Woodward further states that the late Bishop Forbes had informed him how he had himself been misled into this error, but that he had for a long time used argent on his episcopal seal and had caused it to be frequently blazoned on stained glass,
 * ' disclaimers " in the old Heralds' ' Visita-
 * the interests of heraldry and of her own con-