2o8 THE ANCESTOR Mr. Foster's reasons for this book. These would seem to be an honourable rivalry with another popular heraldry book com- piler, the editor of Armorial Families^ and a desire to save the postulant of arms from the necessity of consulting the heralds, who, ' having sold practically all their ancient manuscripts or copies of them,' can hardly hope that their effete institution will keep pace with Mr. Foster. For Mr. Foster has access to the public libraries, and is prepared to publish beautiful pictures of the arms of those ' Men of Family ' whose modest claim to arms is bounded by 'a user of three generations,' which is comforting reading for the fortunate ' Man of Family' whose grandfather used a crest upon his teaspoons. It is before this Man of Family and before the Student that this large book described as the first instalment of its author's
- labours in the domain of heraldry ' is placed. The Man of
Family, elate at the near prospect of publishing to the world the proud blazon which has descended to him in a right line from his grandfather, will be uninfluenced by such criticism as we have to offer, but to the Student who might be tempted to rank ^ome Feudal Coats of Arms with Mr. Foster's earlier works of reference some words of caution may not come amiss. After the preface Mr. Foster's ' Heraldic Introduction,* ushered in with flowery periods concerning the nature- worshipper and the vases of the Greeks. ' Surely in the nature-worshipper we detect the heraldic protoplasm. . . . Further down the ages it may well have been the bards of every clime who handed down in turn these mystic emblems in their own weird way, inventing as they went the almost forgotten chimera and other monstrosities which were to strike terror into the hearts of the adversary.' Passing the Greek vases, five illustrations of which are allowed to assist us in our study of feudal coats of arms, and ' the totems and other per- sonal distinctions so commonly employed amongst nations of imperfect civilization,' Mr. Foster is soon quoting Mr. Fowke on the Bayeux "Tapestry^ illustrations of which run in instalments along the tops of the pages. Heraldry proper is at length introduced : — With the spread of feudalism, then, came the introduction of the linear or geometrical, and from the imaginary per pale, per fess, per chevron, per saltire, etc., would naturally be evolved, the pale, the fess, the chevron, the saltire. Out of this fortuitous combination of some of the elements of Euclid with the objects of the nature-worshipper sprang that system we call heraldry.
