260 



The Correct Arms of the State of Netu York. 



the Arms of the United States till June 20, 1782, more than four years 

 after its adoption by the State of New York, as its crest.* It had not 

 been upon any arms or seals previously used in the State.f There is 

 reasonable ground for the conviction that the crest of New York, an 

 eagle facing to the west, with wings spread, was the device of those 

 who were familiar with the idea of western development, rendered 

 popular by the prophetic verses of Bishop George Berkeley (of whom 

 Pope said he had every virtue under heaven"), at the time of his 

 enthusiasm for education in America. They were written by him just 

 half a century before the Revolution, and were entitled The prospect 

 of planting the Arts and Learning in America." He afterward 

 passed more than two years (1729-1731), at Newport, in Rhode- 

 Island. The device was intended to shadow forth, as in a picture, the 

 concluding lines of those verses : 



' ' Westward the course of Empire takes its waj ; 

 The four first acts already past, 

 A fifth shall close the drama with the day ; 

 Time's noblest offspring is the last." 



The eagle's head and front, and its liiglit are m the direction of the 

 dexter of the shield, from east to west, from the old world to the new. 

 The succeeding artist who painted the canvas for St. Paul's Chapel, 

 aware we may suppose of the original intention of the design, and 

 thinking that the emblem was not sufficiently understood, endeavors 

 to make it more clear, by boldly painting upon the western continent 

 of the demi-globe the word America, and draws the eagle, instead of 

 standing upon the globe, as hovering over it in actual flight to the 

 west. 



Massachusetts in the midst of the revolution, in 1775, adopted the 

 motto of her Arms from a couplet of Algernon Sydney, It would 

 not be surprising that New York should have been inspired in a simi- 

 lar manner by such memorable verses from Bishop Berkeley. AYe 

 know not what further revelations are yet in store for us from other 

 sources regarding the early history of this ensign of our common- 

 wealth. We know however that in 1776, Gov. Pownall had pub- 

 lish^ in London his folio volume on the geography of the Colonies. J 

 In this work h<» gives the greatest prominence to the position of New 

 York, as constituting the line of division between all the other colo- 

 nies, owing to the marvelous chasm " as he calls it of the Hud- 



* Preble, History of the Flag, Albany, 1874, p. 479. 

 f Lossing in Harper's Monthly, v. 13, p. 178. 



X Pownall, T. X topographical description ... of the middle Colonies of 

 America. Lond., 1776, fo. 



