Page:The Ancestor Number 1.djvu/83

 THE ANCESTOR 43 ^ tinctured of the principal colour and metal of the arms,' and the little ' crest-wreath ' of the same, balanced like a Frankfort sausage on a helmet's cockscomb, having long since forgotten that it once turbaned round about the great helm. Round this same crest-wreath and its helm the rules buzz like flies. It seems that the wreath must have but six twists and no more of the metal and colour alternately, the laws of heraldry for- bidding five twists or seven, and the helm must be ' a helmet of degree.' Truly the herald who devised the thrice ridiculous ' helmet of degree ' struck a shrewder blow at common sense than any one of his fellow augurs, for his ingenious conceit has made foolscaps of all our crests. We may draw the helms of the Peer and the Squire sidelong, a convenient position for the display of most English crests, but it is doomed that the helms of the King and the Knight must ever be painted as full front to the artist. And now for the application of this rule to the depicting of the crest, which, built up in painted leather, wood or parchment, sat aloft upon the helm in old days. The Book of the Rules teaches us that, with the exception of some dozen crests set apart to be blazoned as ' affrontee^ the crest, whether it be beast or bird, or Saracen's head, must always be drawn sidelong. In this the Peer and the Squire may find no cause for complaint, but the King and the Knight, whose helms must be thus topped with a sidelong crest, are in pitiful case. A familiar example of this is always before us. Our sovereign lord the King is provided by the Book of the Rules with a full-faced helm, and on this the crest of England, the crowned leopard, ill balanced on the arch ridge of a closed crown, must range from left to right, a position which gives the royal beast the air of one uneasily determined to jump off over the right ear of the helm. It may be added that a rule thus laying down that one side only of the crest may be shown has ended in our crests being treated as though they were plane surfaces or silhouettes having but one presentable side. This curious mis- conception of the meaning of the crest is especially to be noted in the modern grants of arms from the College of Heralds. The absurdity is sometimes too much even for the ' heraldic stationer,' and the crest see-sawing on the little striped baton of ' wreath ' is often drawn as clear altogether of the helm. Having parted with so much that was thrust upon us by the old heraldic writers, having rejected their art as a debased making of diagrams, their archaeology as childish speculations,