HERALDRY On the Origin of Armories.
2. No subject has given rise to greater diversity of opi nion among antiquarians, than the origin of armorial en signs. The writers of the 16th and 17th centuries, who still continue to be the chief authorities on this subject, seem in general to have been infected with the desire of adding new consideration to their favourite pursuit, by maintaining that the art of blazon, so far from being the production of the middle ages, had been framed by the first masters of science among mankind, and practised in a manner little different from that of their own times, by the most polished nations of antiquity. The disquisitions of several great French and English heralds, indeed, and par ticularly those of Father Menestrier, had gradually brought into contempt the dreams of their more enthusiastic prede cessors; and it appeared, that such fanciful opinions Were wholly exploded among men of sound understanding, till of late years some of the most ridiculous of them have been revived in all their original extent, and defended with a show or learning more imposing than had ever before been called into their service, by a French writer of eminence, M. Court de Gebclin, in the 8th volume of his Monde Fri mitif. This ingenious author does not, indeed, after the example of Mr Sylvanus Morgan, commence his treatise with a description of the armorial bearings of the first pa rents of our race. He does not affirm, that " Abel quarter ed with his paternal escutcheon, argent an apple vert, for his mother Eve, who was an inheritrix ;" nor mention Jo seph, as receiving " an honourable augmentation to his coat, in consequence of his being invested with the family order of Pharaoh king of Egypt." But he is seduced, by his fondness for a very untenable theory, into absurdities scarcely less glaring than these, when he talks seriously of the word ingenuus, as equivalent to " a person who has a right to armorial bearings ;" and refuses to perceive any difference between the personal or political emblems of the Greeks and Romans, and the systematic heraldry of the modern nations of Europe.
3. Since, however, the subject has so lately been agi tated by a writer of such learning and reputation, it may not be amiss to examine somewhat more at large into the me rits of the case, by investigating not his opinion alone, but the more probable of all those theories which have been supported by the most eminent of the heraldic authors. Ac cording to many of thise writers, the use of armorial bear ings was the invention of the ancient Egyptians ; and in support of this opinion two passages from Diodorus Sicu lus are alleged ; in the first of which it is said, that " Anu bis and Macedon, the sons of Osiris, were the first who carried in war marks of distinction, taken from certain ani mals, symbolic of their valour," (Bib. Hiat. lib. i.) ; and in the second, that " the Egyptians, observing that their troops were liable to be scattered in battle, invented certain signs, by which they might be able to recognize each other. And that making use of the figures of animals for this purpose, such a veneration was by degrees conceived for these images, that the animals themselves came to be considered as sacred and inviolable beings." A second set of writers assert that this art took its rise among the Hebrews ; and the Rabbins of later times have been at pains to lend all their learning to the defence of this opinion, by blazoning, in the most scientific manner, the coats-of-arms of all the principal personages mentioned in holy writ.* The only passage of Scripture which they seem to quote with confidence in support of their theory, is Numbers ii. 2. " Every man of the children of Israel shall encamp by his own standard, with the ensign of his father's house." But the weakness of any argument derived from this text will be sufficiently manifest in the sequel.
The third opinion is that of those who ascribe the first practice of heraldry to the ancient Greeks. And the de fenders of this doctrine never fail to cite with great exulta tion those verses of the VITA EIII OHBAIZ, in which ./Es chylus describes the buckler's of the seven Captains of the assailing army.