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HERALDRY.

nologers have derived considerable assistance; they havelikewise tended to the detection of forgeries, frauds, andother impostures; established titles by marriage, as well asconsanguinity; defended legitimacy of blood; ascertainedfamily alliances; proved and maintained affinity, and vindi-cated and corroborated titles of lands to the possessors;furnished effectual evidence for settling claims and rights ofinheritance.

Originallv, i. e. in the vear 1483, in the reign of Richard111. letters patent passed for incorporating the heralds intoa College of Arms , upon its present foundation; with direc-tions to the officers thereof, and vesting them with fullpowers to summon all such as claimed or assumed arms,to appear in the court of the Earl Marshal, and establishtheir claim : which establishment, then created, had powersdeputed to them to grant arms to new families. This pri-vilege multiplied the figures used in heraldic bearings, ofcourse few before the creation thereof, and chiefly natural.Rut, upon this occasion, the entire natural world was ran-sacked, and the regions of fancy and poetry almost entirelyexplored to furnish varieties, for all who then obtained thisancient and honourable distinction.

None but the nobility had at first the privilege of bearingarms. Charles V. of Frauce, by charter of 1371, permittedthe citizens of Paris that privilege, from whence the exam-ple was aspired to by other cities, anciently eminent in mostEuropean countries, and conceded to them by their severalrespective sovereigns.

After the practice of including the arms of every femaleheir, intermarrying with a family, the art of the herald be-came highly essential to ascertain the distinctions necessaryto be observed upon these occasions; requiring much pro-fessional ability and very consummate skill.

Henry V. appears to have entertained a proper opinion ofthe necessity of ascertaining those appointed to this privi-lege, from his edict in the seventh year of his reign.

Heraldic visitations were originally appointed to inquireinto family arms. A recent learned lawyer, Mr. .1 ustice Black-stone, appears to regret that such institutions are not nowoccasionally attended to; for the failure of inquisitions, postmortem, by the abolition of military tenures, combined withthe negligence of heralds in omitting their usual progresses,has rendered the proofs of modern descent, for the recoveryof estates, or succession to titles of honour, more difficultthan they anciently were. This will be, indeed, remediedfor the future, with respect to claims of peerage, by a late