From the earliest times, Crests have occasionally been identical with the principal charge in the Shield of Arms, or they have repeated the principal charge with some slight modification of attitude or accessory: but, more generally, Crests have been altogether distinct. The Dragon and the Wyvern, the latter well exemplified in No. 315, are amongst the earliest figures that were borne as Crests in England. Other early Figure-Crests are the Lion, crowned and assumed for the first time by an English Sovereign by EDWARD III.; and the Eagle, borne by the same Prince. Various devices and figures are found gradually to have been added to these earliest Crests. The graceful and peculiarly appropriate _Panache_ soon joined them, with the heads of various animals and other creatures: and, as the fourteenth century advances, the _Crest-Coronet_, No. 232, the _Crest-Wreath_, No. 233, and the _Chapeau_, No. 224, assume their places in connection with Crests; and the _Mantling_ falls in rich folds from them, covering the back of the Helm. In the succeeding century, with Helms less dignified in form, but more elaborately enriched, and with strangely fantastic Mantlings, Crests become considerably larger in their proportions; and they often are extravagant in their character, devices constantly being assumed and borne as Crests, which are no less inconsistent with true heraldic feeling, than with the peculiar conditions and the proper qualities of true heraldic Crests. The Crest of the Duke of HAMILTON, No. 301, is far from being one of the most inconsistent devices that were intended to be worn upon helms. And, as it is scarcely necessary for me to add, every really consistent Crest should be such a figure or device as might be actually worn upon his helm, by a mediæval knight, with dignity and with a happy effect. [Illustration: No. 382.--Seal of William de Wyndesor.]