LOCAL HERALDRY. 
77 
darkened by the hand of death. Or we meet the forms of strength 
and beauty at the marriage altar, and we see them depart for the 
mingled joys and sorrows that are the inevitable portion of human 
life ; while perhaps the next page of the record will tell us that 
the ground has closed over one or the other, thus cutting short the 
union, and further on that the survivor has found another to take 
the place of the departed. Thus we may follow a man through 
his life until he rests from all earthly cares, after prospering in 
business, and filling honourable offices among his fellow-men. All 
this might be enlarged on until we could almost see them breathing 
and moving amidst their quaint surroundings. But this would 
needlessly take up both time and space ; therefore, if not so inter- 
esting as the whole story if well told, it is necessary that this 
paper should be confined to the dry bones of recorded facts, which 
those who will may clothe at pleasure in the details of circum- 
stance. 
Before proceeding with a description of the shields in the gallery 
of your Museum, it may be well to state that every effort has been 
made to secure correctness. Whenever possible, in any doubtful 
cases, application has been made to the representatives of the 
families ; but the lecturer cannot hold himself responsible for 
statements when unsupported by evidence, and in some instances 
persons have been omitted who otherwise would have been men- 
tioned simply because no arms could be satisfactorily assigned to 
them. In the arrangement of the shields they have been divided 
into two parts — (1) historical personages, and (2) prominent mem- 
bers of the Plymouth Institution. The first of these divisions has 
been grouped — (a) the great seamen of the Elizabethan period who 
were connected with Plymouth or its neighbourhood ; (b) families 
territorially and historically prominent in connection with the 
neighbourhood, and (c) representatives of mercantile families which 
have flourished in the town, which will be found chiefly of the 
Stuart period. In the second division I have included those deceased 
members of the Plymouth Institution who were either specially 
noted for literary or scientific acquirements, or who have taken an 
active part in the advancement of the interests of our society. It 
is to be hoped that this latter section especially will be from time 
to time extended, and that as the commemoration of worthy actions 
and well-spent lives these shields may become an incentive to those 
who come after to emulate those whose memory is thus per- 
