a Philosophy of Heraldry that has yet to be written.[1] Like Philology, Zoology, Ethnology, and other sciences, it illustrates the sublime law of Development. Investigated in the spirit of Geology, combining the discovery of isolated facts with speculations as to their relation and common origin, it will render no small service in contributing to prove the connection of families and races up to remote and obscure periods, and thus throw a light on the history of mankind that might be obtained from no other source. The studies and tastes of the age happily tend to advance this kind of knowledge, and they could have received no grander homage than is presented in that magnificent temple of heraldry, the New Palace of Westminster.
Many of the arms blazoned have not the colours given, for authorities differ about many of them so much, that it would be very difficult to give them accurately ; and in the derivation of arms it is the charges and not the tinctures which prove the affinity.
- ↑ The excellent work of our valued member, Mr. M. A. Lower, 'The Curiosities of Heraldry,' which enters more into the philosophy of the subject than any other, contains a very interesting appendix, illustrating the causes and modes of change in coat armour at early periods. But unfortunately for the doctrines enunciated in the body of the work, the heraldic genealogy of the Cobham family there given, completely contradicts them, and supports the views advanced in this paper. The arms there given were borne (though not so stated), it will appear, from critical examination of the document, assisted by a reference to the Kentish historians, at the time of the Conquest, and for several generations afterwards unchanged. If not, the same singular coincidence will appear, or the same wonderful ingenuity of the heralds must have been at work, as we have seen must characterise the whole ancient blazonry of England and Normandy.
