English heraldry / [Charles Boutell].

  • Charles Boutell
Date:
1889
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: English heraldry / [Charles Boutell]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    faithful guide. They may trust to my accuracy. I have made no statement, have adduced no example, nor have I exhibited any illustration, except upon authority. I myself like and admire what is real and true in Heraldry; and it is by the attractiveness of truth and reality that I desire to win for Heraldry fresh friends, and to secure for it firm friendships. It will be understood that from the authority, the practice, and the associations of the early Heraldry of the best and most artistic eras, I seek to derive a Heraldry which we may rightly consider to be our own, and which we may transmit with honour to our successors. I do not suggest the adoption, for present use, of an obsolete system. Tut, while I earnestly repudiate the acceptance and the maintenance amongst ourselves of a most degenerate substitute for a noble Science, I do aspire to aid in restoring Heraldry to its becoming rank, and conse- quently to its early popularity, now in orr own times. This is to revive the fine old Heraldry of the past, to give to it a fresh animation, and to apply it under existing conditions to existing uses and requirements : not, to adjust ourselves to the circumstances of its first development, and to reproduce as copyists its original expressions. It is not by any means a necessary condition of a consistent revival of early Heraldry, that our revived Heraldry should admit no deviation from original usage or precedent. So long as we are thoroughly animated by the spirit of the early Heralds, we may lead our Heraldry onwards with the advance of time. It is for us, indeed, to prepare a Heraldry for the future, no less than to revive true Heraldry in the time now present. We may rightly modify, therefore, and adapt h
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