Page:The Ancestor Number 1.djvu/275

 THE ANCESTOR 215 arms of the merchants of the Staple should be well known to an amateur of heraldry. We find them here as a shield borne by a knight called Le Staple at the siege of Rouen ! Benstede at Falkirk bore the curious cross of the lords of Toulouse, but Mr. Foster's picture is purely imaginary and an impossible interpretation of the blazon. The eight or nine chart pedigrees which go to the making up of this book do not call for comment, as they are for the most part only skeleton pedigrees. The pedigree of Hunter- Weston has for a suggested ancestor at the top of its page Norman the Hunter^ circa 1080—1165, an ancestor who should in this case have been omitted by a sworn foe of ' unscrupu- lous genealogy,* for a claim to descend from Nimrod would have been equally convincing and more difficult to challenge. Norman is followed by two other ' suggested ' ancestors, the third being William Hunter of Ardneil who died 'about 1436.' Sixty-two years before he is recorded as obtaining by charter from the Crown the land 'which had been held by "Andre Cambell militis"! ' a phrase which argues small Latinity in either the Crown or Mr. Foster. There remains of this big book the side which doubtless has secured popularity for it. The public loves a big picture- book and here we have a very big one. Our Student how- ever may be warned of the illustrations as of the text. The series of seals from the baron's letter, although the originals are open to the public, are reproduced from the vile and inade- quate eighteenth century engravings of them, which convey no idea of their beauty nor any picture of their details, the very forms of the charges being of the period of the en- graving. The litde shields which surround the page are referred to in the text by the letter ' F.' for ' facsimile.' What sense Mr. Foster prefers to attach to this word is doubtful, but if it can mean that they are in the bulk facsimiles of ancient drawings or paintings of arms the term is highly misleading. Some may have been drawn from ancient sources, many more from the heralds' tricks in post-medieval MSS. such as the well known Harleian MS. 6137, but many others have as little authority as the Wardour Street handwriting, in which the bearer's name is written under each shield. This last class show great miscon- ception of the miedieval art which they essay to counterfeit, and should prove pitfalls for the unwary artist or antiquary who