BLAZONRY. 311 



Soon after, man, fruitful in vanities, 

 Did blazoning and armory devife. 



OLDHAM. 



Others, on the contrary, have fet too high a value 

 on this art, and pretend to find fomething mar- 

 vellous in it. F. Bouhours, the Jefuit, feri- 

 oufly afierts, that the motto to a coat of arms is 

 alone an abridgement of perfection ; and Sco- 

 hier allures us, that the ftudy of blazonry is aa 

 abyfs of knowledge, and that he who mall ap- 

 ply himftlf to it for thirty or forty years, will 

 ilill find that he has fome thing to learn. F. 

 Meneftrier, a Jefuit, has not only formed the 

 bed treatife that we have on heraldry, but has 

 alfo given an account of all the writers on this 

 fciencc, as well as on blazonry and genealogy, in 

 different languages , and he makes their num- 

 ber amount to 300. Every author is poflcflcd 

 with a good opinion of the fcience on which he 

 treats, or elie it is likely he would have chofen 

 fome other : there are confequently three hund- 

 red vouchers that blazonry is an important fci- 

 ence. But they who are difinterefted and im- 

 partial take the mid way between thefe extremes, 

 and fuppofe, that if blazonry even does not con- 

 cur to the emolument of mankind, there arc 

 many other fcienccs that are in the fame circum- 

 ftance, and that it is at lead interefling to one or- 

 der of inhabitan- nobility, that the efta- 

 blifhment of different ranks in ibcicty is i 

 fary in a ftate, and that the knowledge of the 



or 



