The mode of differencing by alterations, or the addition of new charges, however commended by Dugdale and other great names, is certainly exposed to the same objection as the use of the label, crescent, mullet, &c., as tending equally to confusion; for, with the addition of cross-crosslets, billets, &c., to the primary charge of the Beauchamps, no herald will dare assert that the original arms are preserved. It is a canon of heraldry that "Omnia arma arithmeticis figuris sunt simillima, quibus si quid addas vel subtrahas non remanet eadem species." Every alteration, however slight, produces a new coat, and thus the principal advantage of coat armour--its hereditary character--is sacrificed. In fact, a coat of arms is the symbol of a generic, or family, name, and it is not within the compass of the heraldric art to particularize individual branches and members of a family by any additions or changes whatever, at least to any great extent.[82] "The numerous class of men who were termed =Armigeri=, or gentry of coat-armour," observes Dallaway, "very generally took, with a small variation, the escocheon of that feudal lord whose property and influence extended over that province which they inhabited," and Camden, in his 'Remaines,' says, "Whereas the earles of Chester bare garbes or wheat-sheafes, many gentlemen of that countrey took wheatsheafes. Whereas the old earles of Warwicke bare chequy or and azure, a cheueron ermin, many thereabout tooke ermine and chequy. In Leicestershire and the countrey confining diuers bare cinquefoyles, for that the ancient earles of Leicester bare geules, a cinquefoyle ermine, &c." This was a fertile source of new bearings. Sometimes, in the absence of other evidence of one family's having been feudally dependent upon another, presumptive proof is furnished by a similarity between the arms. I subjoin an instance. The coat of the baronial family of Echingham of Echingham, co. Sussex, was 'AZURE A FRET ARGENT,' and the crest, 'A DEMI-LION RAMPANT ARGENT.' [Illustration] The arms of Jefferay, of Chiddingly, in the same county, were '_Azure fretty or_' (with the addition of a lion passant-guardant, gules, on a chief argent), and the crest, _A lion's head_ erased _argent_, ducally crowned azure. The first settlement of the Jefferays was at Betchington, co. Sussex, an estate which had previously belonged to the lords Echingham, but there is no proof of the feudal connexion except that which is furnished by a comparison of the arms.