Notices of the Ellises of England, Scotland, and Ireland, from the conquest to the present time

A PLEA
ANTIQUITY OF HERALDRY.
Hereditary family arms prevalent in all ages and countries — The colours and
devices painted on the bodies and shields of savages, distinctions of tribes and
clans, originally the personal adoption of chieftains, transmitted from
father to son, and to succeeding tribes, the origin, for the most part, of all
subsequent national and family arms — The "parti- coloured shields" of
the ancient Germans, mentioned by Tacitus, of this character, and all such,
and simdar modern armorial bearings, an unbroken inheritance from the
Teutonic chiefs — Modern European blazonry, being these alone, or in com-
position with other devices of subsequent adoption, or of ancient inheritance
from the nations of antiquity, the whole varied infinitely by colour, form,
number, and modes of display — National arms, in general, originally
personal — -Testimonies to the existence of family heraldry among the
ancients, with instances ; its hereditary character — Many Welch coats of
arms probably of Koman-British origin — The scanty notices to be met
in the remains of ancient and medireval literature, as numerous relatively as
those to be found in the literature of the present day — Prevalent erroneous
notions of modern heraldry refuted — Arms borne at the Conquest proved by
a reductio ad absurdum — as a rule hereditary — changed only on marrying a
heiress, or a wife of superior rank— "Differences" not arbitrarily assumed,
but taken from the maternal or uxorial coat — The family and national
ensigns of subjugated nations, except in few cases, discontinued or pro-
hibited, and now unknown.— The horse prevalent in Anglo-Saxon blazonry,
in Anglo-Norman arms very rare, an indirect proof of the existence of the
former — Canting arms generally taken by novi homines — Family rela-
tionship alone, and not the feudal connexion (which was a coincidence not
the cause) the source of new coats of arms.
Recent archaeological research and discovery have done
little, if anything, to elucidate the obscurity of the origin of
modern family heraldry ; and as conjecture seems exhausted,
the settled judgment of the day admits the science to have
originated at no earlier period than when the amplest positive
evidence commences. To use the words of one of the