Richard III greatly promoted the cause of Heraldry in England by the erection of the heralds into the corporate body which still exists under the designation of the =College of Arms=. This epoch may be considered the noonday of the history of armory in England; and as two subsequent chapters of this volume, devoted respectively to the history of that institution, and to notices of celebrated writers on heraldry, will bring down the annals of the science to our own times, "I here make an end" of a chapter which I trust may not have been found totally devoid of interest to any reader who loves to trace the records of the past. [Illustration] CHAPTER III. Rationale of Heraldic Charges, etc. [Illustration: (Arms of the See of Chichester)] "The Formes of the pure celestiall bodies mixt with grosse terrestrials; earthly animals with watery; sauage beasts with tame; whole-footed beasts with diuided; reptiles with things gressible; fowles of prey with home-bred; these again with riuer fowles; aery insecta with earthly; also things naturall with artificiall; arts liberall with mechanicall; military with rusticall; and rusticall with ciuil. Which confused mixture hath not a little discouraged many persons--otherwise well affected to the study of Armory--and impaired the estimation of the profession." _Guillim._ Dictionaries of the technical terms employed in heraldry are so common, and the elements of the science so well explained in various popular treatises,[83] that it would be impertinent in an essay like the present to go into all the details usually comprised in those useful books of reference. Still it may interest the general reader, and will, I trust, give no offence to adepts in the science, if I offer a few observations on this subject, with illustrations from our old writers, adding some etymological conjectures of my own. The origin of the expression 'a coat of arms' we have already seen, as also the cause why heraldric ensigns are borne upon a shield. Shields have been made of every imaginable shape according to the taste of the age or the fancy of the bearer, with these two restrictions, that the shields of knights-bannerets must be square, and those of ladies in the form of a lozenge. The most usual, because the most convenient, shape is that which is technically called the _heater_-shield--from its resemblance to the heater of an iron--with some slight variations. Our friend Sylvanus Morgan, whose ingenuity all must admire, in defiance of the oft-quoted proverb: "=When Adam digged and Eve span, Who was then the Gentleman?=" deduces this shape for men, and that of the lozenge for women, from the _spade_ of Adam, and the _spindle_ of Eve! [Illustration]