FRANCIS SANDFORD, Esq., Lancaster, published, besides several other works of great value, 'A Genealogical History of the Kings of England,' one of the most lordly tomes that ever appeared in connexion with our subject. It was originally published in 1677, and was reprinted in 1707. It is well executed, and Charles II pronounced it "a very useful book." The fine plates, by Hollar and others, of the royal arms, seals, and monuments, with which it is embellished, give it charms to a larger circle than that which includes the mere students of heraldry. In 1688 appeared decidedly the most curious heraldric treatise ever printed. I mean Randle Holme's 'Academie of Armory, or a Storehouse of Armory and Blazon.' Mr. Moule characterizes it as "a most heterogeneous and extraordinary composition, which may be well denominated a Pantalogia. The author was not a learned man, nor has he adopted any systematic arrangement of its multifarious contents, but he has contrived to amass in this _storehouse_ a vast fund of curious information upon every branch of human knowledge, such as is not to be found in any other work, and of a nature peculiarly adapted to the illustration of the manners and customs of our predecessors, from the highest rank to the lowest menial." It is one of the scarcest of books, there being, according to Mr. Moule, not more than fifty copies in the kingdom. It will be interesting to the general reader to know that "Dr. Johnson confessed, with much candour, that the Address to the Reader at the end of this book suggested the idea of his own inimitable preface to his Dictionary."[299] The volume, a large folio, is illustrated by numerous plates of objects borne as charges in arms, as well as many that never entered the field of heraldry. "The author's object," says Mr. Ormerod, "appears to have been the formation of a kind of encyclopædia in an heraldic form."[300] To give the merest outline of the subjects treated would occupy many pages; suffice it to say that every imaginable created being, spiritual and corporeal; every science and pseudo-science; every gradation of rank, from the 'emperour' with the ceremonies of his coronation, to the butcher and barber, with the implements of their trades; hunters' terms and the seven deadly sins; palmistry and the seven cardinal virtues; grammar and cockfighting; poverty and the sybils; an essay on time, and bricklayers' tools; glass-painting and billiards; architecture and wrestling; languages and surgery; tennis and theology, all find a place in this compendium, and are all adorned with "very proper cuts," in copper. I have had the good fortune to procure a copy of this amusing work. It has, opposite the title, an engraving containing the external ornaments of a coat of arms, the coat and crest being neatly inserted in pen-drawing. Beneath is the following in letter-press, except the line in italics, which is MS.: "The Coat and Crest of The ever Honoured and Highly Esteemed