Of all emblems, a Flag is the one which is universally accepted among men as the incarnation of their intensest sentiment, and when uplifted above them, concentrates in itself the annals of a nation and all the traditions of an empire. A country's flag becomes, therefore, of additional value to its people in proportion as its symbolism is better understood and its story is more fully known. Its combinations should be studied, its story unfolded--for in itself a flag is nothing, but in its meaning it is everything. "What is a riband worth? Its glory is priceless!"[2] [2] Bulwer Lytton. So long, then, as pride of race and nation exists among men, so long will a waving flag command all that is strongest within them, and stir their national instincts to their utmost heights. CHAPTER II. _THE ORIGINS OF NATIONAL FLAGS._ With such natural emotions stirring within the breasts of its people, one can appreciate the fervid interest taken by each nation in its own national flag, and understand how it comes that the associations which cluster about its folds are so ardently treasured up. Flags would at first sight appear to be but gaudy things, displaying contrasts of colour or variations of shape or design, according to the mood or the fancy of some enterprising flagmaker. This, no doubt, is the case with many signalling or mercantile flags. On the other hand, there is, in not a few of the flags known as "national flags," some particular combination of form or of colourings which, if they were but known, indicates the reason for their origin, or which marks some historic memory. There has been, perhaps, some notable occasion on which they were first displayed, or they may have been formed by the joining together of separate designs united at some eventful epoch, to signalize a victorious cause, or to perpetuate the memory of a great event. These great stories of the past are thus brought to mind and told anew by the coloured folds each time they are spread open by the breeze; for of most national flags it can be said, as was said by an American orator[3] of his own, "It is a piece of bunting lifted in the air, but it speaks sublimity, and every part has a voice." It is to see these colours and hear these voices in the British national flags that is our present undertaking. [3] Sumner. Before tracing the history of our British Union Jack, some instances may be briefly mentioned in which associations connected with the history of some other nations are displayed in the designs of their national flags.