pedia Britannica " also says that he may legally use the description. Probably the dis tinction alluded to above furnishes the key to these diverging views, the result being that, though not esquires, they are entitled to use the title, perhaps much in the same way that the bachelors in certain university faculties are by courtesy permitted to be called doctors. It is believed that in the United States the expression esquire is used only in reference to the Legal Profession and certain Government officials. In concluding these remarks upon this branch of our subject, it may be usefully remarked that there is a popular fancy, more especially in the prov inces, that persons enjoying a substantial in come from landed property, or whose lineage is ancient, are entitled to this style. This probably takes origin from yeoman being owner of " free land of forty shillings by the year" and being zprobus сt Icgalis homo. It is clear that such persons may belong to the class of gentleman. Not all the latter are esquires, though every esquire is a gen tleman, the whole being greater than the part. The term "gentleman " was only used as a legal expression about the reign of Henry V. It seems extremely elastic in its definition, but denoted originally every person of noble descent — i.e., generosas. It seems, accord ing to a dictum of Sir Thomas Smith, to in clude any one studying the laws of the realm, every university student, every member of a liberal profession — in short, every person "who can live idly and without manual labor." There is a quaint old book in the Inner Tem ple Library (bearing on its cover an indorse ment that it belonged in the reign of Elizabeth to one Johnson). In this work on the "Blazon of Gentry," by Sir John ferne, it is held, at page 89, that the following com prise in heraldry the class of gentleman, viz., gentlemen of ancestry whose ancestors have borne coat armor for five generations; gen tlemen whose coat armor department is un impeachable, but of ancestry doubtful, having, however, an ancestor in the fifth degree who
slew a Saracen or who won a standard or coat of armor from a Christian gentleman; again, a person whose Sovereign has given him arms, or a person who has bought an estate to which arms appertained. There are included in this section yeomen worthily holding arms and knighthood and yeomen being doctors of laws and possessing coats of arms. Then there come the younger mem bers of a house of which the elder line has failed after a lineal succession of five genera tions, gentlemen whose blood and coat of arms are alike imperfect, natural sons of gen tlemen thus perfect, gentlemen who have slain infidel gentlemen, and, lastly, gentlemen who have neither blood nor coat armor. These individuals comprise students of common law, churls made priests and canons, persons brought up in the service of a bishop, abbot, or baron, and he that, having received a de gree or borne some city office, is entitled to be saluted as master. Thus might one ex tend indefinitely the coils of infinite complex ity and humbug in which the question of squiredom and gentlemandom have been in volved by time and heraldry. The motto of Villiam of Wykeham, the motto of Win chester and New College, is simpler and truer : " Manners makyth man." We might also refer to another quaint work upon which we stumbled in the same library. It is entitled " Heraldic Anomalies," by " It Matters not Who," and was published in 1823. The writer here recalls some lines upon the Winged Horse and the Lamb, the respective insignia of the Inner and Middle Temple, which are said to have been chalked up by some wag upon one of the public gates. They ran as follows : As by the Templars' holds you go. The Horse and Lamb displayed, In emblematic figures show The merits of the trade. That clients may infer from thence How just is their profession, The Lamb sets forth their innocence The Horse their expedition.
