ON THE INFUBKCK OF FKODAUsM. 47 



tnattersof coat armour, precedency, and other distinctions of families. 

 As a court of honour it has long fallen into disuse, as it possessed 

 no power of enforcing its decrees, but to which in the palmiest days 

 of chivalry, (and in those days only) obedience would be rendered 

 by the spirit of the age ; and its heraldric business, according to Sir 

 Mathew Hale, was " to adjust the right of armorial ensigns, bearings, 

 crests, supporters, pennons, &c., and also the right of place and pre- 

 cedence when the king's patent or act of parliament had not already 

 determined it." This portion of its jurisdiction has also declined and 

 is transacted entirely in the Herald's Office of ihe College of Heialds 

 of the present day, which (in his time) was thus sarcastically 

 described by the antiquarian Pennant, (in his "Some account of 

 London" p. 530) " in which the records are kept of all the old blood 

 in the kingdom. In the warlike times of our Henries and Edwards, 

 the heralds were in full employ, and often sent upon most dangerous 

 services to hurl defiance into the teeth of infuriated enemies, or to bring 

 to their duty profligate rebels. Sometimes it has cost them their 

 nose and ears, and sometimes their heads. At present they rest 

 from all harm, are often of gi'eat use in proving consanguinity, and 

 helping people to supply legal claims to estates ; and still more 

 frequently are of infinite service to our numerous children of fortune 

 by furnishing them with a quantum sufficient of good blood and en- 

 nobling them to strut in the motlsy procession of quality" The 

 latter observations shew clearly the influence of feudal institutions 

 even in the present age. Men may aflect to despise the distinctions 

 of blood and of family honours as much as they like ; but let them 

 once be placed in a position to derive credit from an alliance or con- 

 nection with them, they begin suddenly to perceive the influence of 

 a new light, and they may perhaps bring themselves to agree with 

 Burke, that there is a solid satisfaction in being able to deduce 

 a genealogy from those who long ago have been of distinguished or 

 elevated character, nay, less, pride themselves, on their intimacy 

 or acquaintance with those, whose only famih honour is their descent 

 from some great noble, whose character, perhaps if exposed, might 

 exhibit some of the worst vices of our nature. The feeling of 

 Englishmen in this respect is truly aristocratic ; in a political view. 



