bearing the same. In witnesse and perpetuall remembrance hereof I have hereunto subscribed my name, and fastened the seale of my office endorzed with the signett of my armes, At the Office of Armes, London, the xx. daye of October, the xxxviij. yeare of the reigne of our Soveraigne Lady Elizabeth, by the grace of God Quene of England, France, and Ireland, Defender of the Faythe, etc. 1596. [Footnote 10: Above the word _antecessors_ is written _Grandfather_.] [Footnote 11: _Gent._ was first written, and it is altered to _esquire_.] Like other documents of its class, in this Grant the language is framed after certain regular forms; so that it is to be read without that exact observance of particular expressions, which is rightly bestowed upon legal and historical records. The interest inseparable from this Grant is enhanced in no slight degree by the strong probability that John Shakespere made his application to the College of Arms by the advice and in consequence of the request of his son. Had the worthy Garter been able to divine the “dignities and desertes” of the son, he might possibly have employed formal language of a still more complimentary character, when drawing up a Grant of Arms for the father. A much more curious specimen of the heraldic style and form of expression (and also of the spelling) of the earlier days of the Queen ELIZABETH era, is a Grant of Augmentation and Crest, by LAWRENCE DALTON, Norroy King of Arms, to JOHN BENNETT, of Newcastle-on-Tyne, Gentleman, A.D. 1560. The Preamble to this Grant, which is printed in full in _Miscellanea Genealogica et Heraldica_ (p. 48), is thus written:--