But I am violating the laws of precedence in noticing yeomen before gentlemen. The term _gentleman_ is, perhaps, one of the most indefinite in the English language. George IV prided himself in being the finest gentleman in Europe; every peer of the realm is a _gentleman_; every judge, member of parliament, and magistrate is a _gentleman_; every clergyman, lawyer, and doctor is a _gentleman_; every merchant and tradesman is a _gentleman_; every farmer and mechanic is a _gentleman_; every draper's errand-boy and tailor's apprentice is a _gentleman_; and every ostler who, "in the worst inn's worst room," treats the stable-boy with a pot of ale is thereupon declared to be a _gentleman_. So say the courtesies of society; but there is the legal and heraldric, as well as the social, gentleman. "As for GENTLEMEN (says Sir Thomas Smith[247]) they be made good cheape in this kingdom: for whosoever studieth the laws of the realm, who studieth in the universities, who professeth liberal sciences, and (to be short) who can live idly and without manual labour, and will bear the port, charge, and countenance of a gentleman, he shall be called master, and taken for a gentleman." This is the legal definition; but the heralds of former days recognized several different classes of gentlemen; Sir John Ferne, in his 'Blazon of Gentry,'[248] enumerates the following: 1. Gentlemen of ancestry, with blood and coat-armour perfect; namely, those whose ancestors, on both sides, have, for five generations at least, borne coat-armour. 2. Gentlemen of blood and coat-armour perfect, but not of ancestry; being those descended in the fifth degree from him 'that slewe a Saracen or Heathen Gentle-man;' from him that won the standard, guidon, or coat-armour of a Christian gentleman, and so bare his arms; from him that obtained arms by gift from his sovereign; or from him that purchased an estate to which arms appertained. To this order likewise belong a yeoman who has worthily obtained arms and knighthood; and a yeoman who has been made a doctor of laws and has obtained a coat of arms. 3. Gentlemen of blood perfect, and coat armour imperfect; the 'yonger blouds' of a house, of which the elder line has failed after a lineal succession of five generations. 4. Gentlemen of blood and coat-armour imperfect; the _third_ in lineal descent from him who slew a Saracen gentleman, &c. &c. &c., as under the third description; also the natural son of a gentleman of blood and coat-armour perfect, and the legitimate son of a yeoman, by a gentlewoman of blood, &c., being an inheritrix. 5. Gentlemen of coat-armour imperfect: those who have slain an infidel gentleman, &c., _ut supra_; also gentlemen of _paper and wax_.