mace-bearer, and in the following year, 1440, that, having been elected, he was awarded the wages of 6s. 8d. from the Corporation, and it was also decided, that he should be found in food and livery by the mayor, and yet at this meeting it appears, that Thomas Halle attended as a member of the Corporation! That Thomas Halle, the Corporator, and Thomas Halle, the third Sergeant, or Mace-bearer, were separate persons is, I think, so evident, that it is indisputable. It is highly improbable, that Thomas Halle, the member of the Corporation, should become so sunk into poverty, and so abject in mind, (however I may be reminded of the adage “necessitus non habet legem") as to seek and accept so inferior an office from his fellowcorporators, or that the members of the corporation should elect one of their own body to serve them in such a capacity, and he himself be present as a corporator at his own election ! For these valid reasons we may, I repeat again, consider it, gentle reader, as most conclusive, that Thomas Halle, the Corporator, and Thomas Halle, the third Sergeant, or Mace-bearer, were indeed distinct persons; but (admitting this) the question then arises, whether Thomas Halle, the member of the Corporation, was not of the family of John Halle, and this, I think, he was, that he was indeed-his father. It is impossible to ascertain this point, or the births, marriages, and deaths, of any of this family from a reference to parochial registers, as they were not instituted before the 30th year of Henry, the Eighth, 1538, a period, when in all

probability the family of Halle of Salisbury was in name extinct. That Thomas Halle, the Corporator, was the father of John Halle is at least by a comparison of dates extremely probable; his name does not appear in the Leger after the 19th year of Henry, the Sixth, 1440, nor is that of John Halle to be found there before that date, as his name first appears in the 22nd year of that monarch, 1443, and he was probably elected a member of the Corporation on the death of his father, Thomas Halle, or on the occasion of some other early vacancy, as only three years elapse between the last entry of the one and the first entry of the other name, and, it is probable, an earlier occasion may not have occurred after his admission for the mention of the name of the son. I cannot however on this probable, yet problematical, testimony admit Thomas Halle, the Corporator, into the pedigree of John Halle, a question, you will say, gentle reader, "de land caprina," yet I think otherwise. As the humble historian of the family of Halle, and of their ancient halle, it is my duty to yield every possible, every probable, elucidation, but not to state as fact that, which cannot be proved.

I must now close this general mention of the family of John Halle, as I reserve its ascertained members, John, William, Chrystian, and Joan to be severally spoken of in my subsequent Essays.

Origin and Progress of Heraldry.
Arms of John Halle.

It is truly very difficult to dissipate the mist, with which the Origin of Heraldry is enveloped. I, gentle reader, cannot hope to do so. Whilst some limit the science to the origin of personal arms as the distinguishing mark of the individual, others extend their view to the first rise of standards as the insignia of nations, and tribes. There can however be no doubt, that the adoption of personal arms was much posterior to that of the national, or general, ensign; but, admitting this, we must, I think, also grant, that the one was both the precursor, and the introducer, of the other.

In this essay therefore I shall endeavour to trace the Origin of Heraldry from the adoption of the national, or general, standard to the appropriation of personal, and hereditary, coat= armour.

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As the prototype again of national insignia we may perhaps with propriety refer back to the more early ages of the Jews. I allude to the blessing pronounced by Jacob on his twelve sons, who became the heads of the twelve tribes of Israel, and who from that time probably took distinctive insignia. He seems to point out the lion as the characteristic of Judah. He thus says, "Judah is a lion's whelp from the prey, my son, thou art gone up: he stooped down, he couched as a lion, and as an old lion; who shall raise him up?"* Some may think these remarks to be very vague, but, that the twelve tribes did use distinctive standards appears yet more clearly: "And the Lord spake unto Moses, and unto Aaron, saying, every man of the children of Israel shall pitch by their own standard, with the ensign of their father's house: far off about the tabernacle of the congregation shall they pitch." +

Although the progressive use of the national standard cannot be precisely ascertained from the lapse of ages, and the want of the means of definite record, yet it seems to be generally admitted, that the following nations took their distinguishing characteristics: viz.

Of these the Romans used the eagle alone, until the taking of Byzantium (Constantinople,) after which the sovereigns of the lower empire assumed also the use of the (1) Labarum; this was a standard with a cross-bearer, to which was appended a small banner of silk, usually having on it the famous monogram, which expresses at once the figure of the cross, and the initials of the name of our Saviour. In the New Testament we find a more definite appropriation of an ensign, although it be assigned to a ship, as we thus read in Acts xxviii. 11:

Μετὰ δὲ τρεῖς μῆνας ἀνήχθημεν ἐν πλοίῳ παρακεχει μακότι ἐν τῇ νήσῳ, ̓Αλεξανδρίνῳ, παρασήμῳ Διοσκούροις.

"And after three months we departed in a ship of Alexandria, which had wintered in this isle, whose sign was Castor and Pollux."

Thus then we have an appropriate ensign of an individual ship.

That the Saxons on their landing in this country bore before them their ensign with the (2) Horse is generally believed, and such standards imparted personal names to the two first Saxon Leaders, if we may credit Nicholson as cited by Wise: "No one," says the latter, "can be ignorant, that the horse was the standard, which the Saxons used, both before and after their coming hither. This is so well known and allowed, that the very names of the two first Saxon Leaders are supposed by Bp. Nicholson* not to be proper, but typical and emblematical only: and that as the Emperor of Germany is sometimes stiled The Eagle, and English Atlas, Vol. 2, Tom. 1, p. 52.