Literature.

The first sort of information is only the grammar of the science , aud it will perhaps surprise some one , or more , of our readers , who have heard thc confident manner in which people talk ofthe difficulties they have encountered in heraldry , when wc assure them that with a decent memory , a week ' s study under a master , or two or three weeks' evening study of a good , grammar , will render them superior to all those difficulties . In the middle ages thc

Masons must have been mi fail of all the technical heraldic knowledge of their time , and of much more besides of that class of information . AVhen any person has thus learnt to express accurately , in ivords , or as the herald say "in blazon , " any coat of arms of which he wishes to know something , he is fully qualified to form such indexes , as those which stand at the head of this notice , for himself , or to consult any existing index .

Of these sources of information there are two kinds , one is the alphabetical list of family names , followed by the technical description of the coat of arms belonging to each family , and of such books there have been several , the latest being Burke ' s General-Armory : the other is the collection of all coats that have any similarity , e . g . on one page "lions , " on another " eagles , " and of such a list there are several instances in MS . consequentldifficult of

, y access , and two in print , these two last mentioned are , respectively , one of the time of Edward III ., and contains only six hundred coats , while the other , comprising about ten thousand coats , was compiled , under Elizabeth , by the celebrated Eobert Glover , Somerset Herald . It is scarcely credible that such a lapse of time as three hundred years should have been allowed to pass without some better attempt than this scanty and unmethodical one of

Glover ' s , which refers to England only , and which , but slightly improved in arrangement , is only to be found , in a printed form , as an appendix to the expensive works by Edmondson and b y Berry , which , reprinting one from the other , have perpetuated to a frightful extent the errors , omissions , and additions of the person who first put Glover ' s MS . in order for the press .

Mr . Papworth has come forward at a time ivhich is energetical-jr devoted to mediaeval inquiries , with a proposal to fill the place ivhich Glover ( if now- living ) might have occupied ; he offers the student a classified index to shields belonging to families in Great Britain and Ireland , and asserts that instead of Glover ' s ten thousand , he includes about fifty thousand such pieces of information . Let , us see what he has to say for himself .

The first condition of success in such an attempt at an index of this kind is , the goodness ofthe plan on which thc classification is based ; the second is the authoritative character of thc materials to be classified ; and the third is the care with which the materials are put into their places . AVith regard to this last point we observe that there is a possibility of finding fault with Mr . Papworthon the ground of there being some entries a little out of

, order , too high or too low , e . g . p . 53 , after " harry of six erm . gm and az . " is " barry of six vairy , " & c , and another article , which are not only out of their right place , but are not quite correctl y stated , as is evident from the following page where they occur again in their proper places , and arc not only accurate but have fuller information than in their erroneous first entries . AA '" e

are quite ready to excuse such inadvertencies in a first attempt of «) much difficulty and labour , for we find no faults of any other descri ption beyond a few typographical inaccuracies here and there ivhich are so few , that the work , as far as it has gone , reflects great credit both on the author and the printer . Having got the materials into their places , we reverse Mr . Papworth ' s process and inquire into the air of authority which they

possess ; and here we are induced to notice the startling list of original documents ivith which he prefaces his book . Out of twent y of these lists of coats of arms , dating from the year 1200 to 1550 or 1600 , ten only have been previously printed , and nine out of these ten must not only have been transcribed afresh from some original MS . for the purpose of the book , but collated with other duplicate MSBesides these there are Glover ' printed

. s fc " , thousand ivhich have been compared and corrected , and in addition we have Mr . Papworth ' s assurance that all the coats for which no authorities are cited , have been derived from heraldic works of repute and other trustworthy sources . Taking pp . 100 and 101 as a specimen , ive find seventy-two entries , and among them on ty twelve or thirteen of these are citations , so that it will jie seen the of the work has been iled from these

mass comp heraldic works of repute ; " and we maj' suppose about forty thousand descriptions must have been copied and entered in their proper places for thc work . Many of these must necessarily have > een duplicates , and the labour of comparison and research could » ot haye been achieved without such an application us extorts W admiration at the assiduity which has been bestowed , and

which ive arc inclined to reckon at- five years of unremitting work of both head and hand for ten hours daily ! It is a relief to turn from this to thc Blazon of Episcopacy , by the Eev . Bro . Bedford , ( Prov . G . Chaplain for Warwickshire we believe ) which we hope is included in the other sources so cursorily noticed by Mr . Papworth . The author modestly calls it " an instalment of information upon a subject hitherto neglected , viz .,

the coats of arms belonging to the ' English bishops since the conquest . " These prelates were , until the reformation at least , great builders , and if not always themselves the designers , architects , clerks of the works , or head builders , it is to their connection with the Masonry of the period that we owe some of our finest structures . It is a pity that our author is obliged to own his list incomplete and to complain of thc present uncertainty of heraldic

information on the coats of arms belonging to some ofthe bishops . Slight inaccuracies , no doubt printers' errors , have caught , our attention , but are remedied , in most cases , by their context ; e . g ., p . 18 , lGi ! 7 for 1 G 07 , as the date of Bishop Parry ' s inthronizatioii at Gloucester ; p . 59 , 1 GGQ for 1 CG 0 , when Accepted Frewen was collated to the Archicpiscopal see of York , and 1 U 50 for 1 GG 0 , the death of his predecessor : but perhaps the most curious of these

little discrepancies is at p . 44 , where the arms of Bishop Walter Stapleton are given in type , or blazon , as " two bars wavy , " while the plate shows two bends wavy , both being arms appropriate to the name , certainly , hut provocative of a hesitation which is only to be cleared up by searching a number of works in a public library . , " ) Bro . Bedford ' s lan is . to ive the list of the bishops of each

p , g see , in chronological order , with a description of their arms , and opposite to them an illustration of each coat . We are not ourselves of opinion that these outlines make any addition to the value of Bro . Bedford ' s labours , or of most others upon heraldry in general ; and it is evident that Mr . Papworth shares this conviction , as be neither gives any " pictures , " nor any promise of them .

Ihe Egyptian titles , & c , to which allusion has been previously made , do indeed require some pictorial aid in any list of them , such as is given in Murray ' s Jfaiidbook of Egypt , " where , unfortunately the banners arc omitted , and it would be interesting to know the reason why the rectangular figure , in which a royal title is enclosed , always has a separate pattern of fringe , if it maybe so termed , for each monarch ( our readers must not suppose that we

have forgotten that these frames , or enclosures , are supposed by some authorities to represent the front of an edifice ) ; but in order to use any such list of pictures , or of descriptions , with facility , thc list must cither be very short , or the system of reference very simple . Ave have called tlie printed Glover ' s Ordinary ( for Ordinary is the technical name for such a dictionary as Mr . Papworth ' s ) '

unmethodical , but thc fitter adjective would be illogical , for example , if any one will draw a shield , and therein a cross , and put four lions , or four eagles , in the corners , he will sec that thc cross is the principal feature of the shield ; that cross can be omitted -, butt-hat is the only great change to be made , whereas the lions may he displaced for any other objects that heraldic ingenuity may devise , yet in thc printed Glover ' s Ordinary ( and the " origiuid MS . is worse in this respect ) , a cross between four lions is to be sought

under the heading four lions , a cross between four eagles is supposed to be under thc title four eagles . Mr . Papworth ' s plan appears to be much more simple , for the important charge , such as a cross , is the key to the dictionary in this case , and in his work wc shall find a list of crosses simply , —of crosses with two objects , as birds , beasts , castles , crescents , hands , & c , —of crosses between four objects , —of crosses with something placed on them , —and lastlof

y , crosses charged with similar divisions . In fact Mr . Papworth ' s Alphabetical Dictionary of Coats of Arms , has rendered heraldry a science by giving it a system ' of families , orders , genera , species , divisions , and subdivisions , that renders it casy to find a coat if it be in the book at all , whereas , hitherto , if a eo . it of arms he seen or described , ancl thc owner ' s name he asked , there is no other printed book adapted to supply , in such a ready '

manner , thc answer sought , but search must bemade in a variety of works , and over very many pages , mostly devoid of any method to aid the inquirer , yet often without success , though the work may contain the precise information wanted . Mr . Papworth may be fairly considered as the Linnams , or rather the Jussieu , of Heraldry , and is doing for it the inappreciable benefit of making it useful to the local historianthe biographerand indeed not

, , only to the arclneologist , but to every intelligent man who make . a tour , even round the nearest cemetery . We shall only make one other observation on both the works standing at the head of this notice , viz . that the authorities for