While it presents opportunities for the highest efforts of art in the treatment of its figure, as is evidenced by Mr. Alfred Gilbert’s beautiful harp on the tomb of the Duke of Clarence at Windsor, in the majority of instances it is altogether without the grace which is its reason for existence, even when it does not quite descend to the unlovely lumpiness of Georgian and later times. The possible advantages of its greater weight in the design as compared with the slighter form, a weight which tends to effect satisfactory balance with the other quarters, are counterbalanced by its disadvantages, while the addition of Celtic tracery to the minstrel’s harp makes it more completely allusive and helps the composition at the same time. Nevertheless the figure harp may be very beautiful. The simpler form is now very generally reverted to, and when artistic reasons direct the choice, there are no heraldic considerations that need fetter it. The Arms of Ireland are blazoned: Az. a harp Or stringed Arg. [Illustration: FIG. 139.--The Great Seal of Charles II for Ireland.] Before leaving for a time the further consideration of the shield it will be convenient to refer to the very beautiful method of relieving and enriching surfaces which is called Diapering, and is a notable feature of the more elaborate kinds of heraldry. Numerous and excellent examples of its use may be found on the sculptured shields of the monuments and chantries, as well as on incised brasses, in enamels and in stained glass. Coming into heraldic use in the thirteenth century, it was soon extensively applied to the decoration of armorial shields and especially of their fields and ordinaries. In some instances charges also were diapered, but only when they were flat in character and when the general treatment and material lent themselves to the method. In most cases it was confined to plain surfaces. The patterns were in many instances derived from those that had been employed from ancient times in textile decoration. Whenever diapering is applied to a shield it is purely ornamental in character, and in many instances is geometrical in plan, having no forms that could possibly be mistaken for charges, and so be likely to interfere with the clear statement of the arms. The example is one of the many beautifully diapered shields that decorate the shrine of the Percies in Beverley Minster. In sculpture proper, when the design was cut out of the surface, a pattern such as that of Fig. 140 was found very suitable to the material and to the method of working it; when, however, the diaper was modelled up, as in the gesso decoration of ceremonial shields, or was incised in reverse, as in a seal, the design frequently took the form of flowing lines as the readiest means of getting the ornate effect that was required. An example of this latter method may be referred to in the Great Seal of Henry IV at p. 18, Fig. 2.