The _gentility_ of the great ancestor of our race is stoutly contended for, and, that his claim to that distinction might not want support, Morgan, an enthusiastic armorist of the seventeenth century, has assigned him _two coats of arms_; one as borne in Eden--when he neither used nor needed either _coat_ for covering or _arms_ for defence--and another suited to his condition after the fall. The first was a plain red shield, described in the language of modern heraldry as 'gules,' while the arms of Eve, a shield of white, or 'argent,' were borne upon it as an 'escocheon of pretence,' she being _an heiress_! The arms of Abel were, as a matter of course, those of his father and mother borne 'quarterly,' and ensigned with a crosier, like that of a bishop, to show that he was a 'shepheard'[8] Sir John Ferne, a man of real erudition, was so far carried away by extravagant notions of the great antiquity of heraldric insignia, as seriously to deduce the use of furs in heraldry from the 'coats of skins' which the Creator made for Adam and Eve after their transgression. This, independently of its absurdity, is an unfortunate idea; for coats of arms are as certainly marks of honour as these were badges of disgrace; and as Morgan says, 'innocens was Adam's best gentility.'[9] The second coat of Adam, says this writer, was '_paly tranche_, divided every way and tinctured of every colour.' Cain, also, after _his_ fall, changed his armorials "by ingrailing and _indented_ lines--to show, as the preacher saith, There is a generation whose _teeth_ are as swords, and their jaw-_teeth_ as knives to devour the poor from the earth." He was the first, it is added, who desired to have his arms changed--'So God set a mark upon him!'[10] This ante-diluvian heraldry is expatiated upon by our author in a manner far too prolix for us to follow him through all his grave statements and learned proofs. I shall therefore only observe, _en passant_, that arms are assigned to the following personages, viz.: Jabal, the inventor of tents, _Vert, a tent argent_, (a white tent in a green field!) Jubal, the primeval musician, _Azure, a harp, or, on a chief argent three rests gules_;[11] Tubal-Cain, _Sable, a hammer argent, crowned or_, and Naamah, his sister, the inventress of weaving, _In a lozenge gules, a carding-comb argent_. Noah, according to the Boke of St. Albans, "came a _gentilman_ by kynde ... and had iij sonnys begetyn by kinde ... yet in theys iij sonnys gentilness and ungentilnes was fownde." The sin of Ham degraded him to the condition of a churl; and upon the partition of the world between the three brethren Noah pronounced a malediction against him. "Wycked kaytiff," says he, "I give to thee the north parte of the worlde to draw thyne habitacion, for ther schall it be, where sorow and care, cold and myschef, as a churle thou shalt live in the thirde parte of the worlde wich shall be calde Europe, that is to say, _the contre of churlys_!"