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A System of Heraldry - Clan Strachan Society

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SYSTEM<br />

OF<br />

HERALDRY,<br />

SPECULATIVE AND PRACTICAL:<br />

WITH THE TRUE ART OF BLAZON.<br />

P ART SECOND.<br />

CHAP. L<br />

OF NATURAL AND ARTIFICIAL FIGURES.<br />

THE COMMON CHARGES.<br />

HAVING treated <strong>of</strong> the proper figures in armories, I shall now give some<br />

general rules and observations relative to natural and artificial figures, called<br />

the common charges, with their attributes, which make the second part <strong>of</strong> this<br />

and armo-<br />

system ; in which I am to describe and blazon them in their proper<br />

rial terms, according to their position, disposition, situation, and number in ar-<br />

morial bearings.<br />

These, then, are the representations <strong>of</strong> all things, natural and artificial, animate<br />

and inanimate, which retain their own proper names and colours in this science, as<br />

they do in others, on which account they are called the common charges.<br />

Of old, only hieroglyphics, emblems, and devices, the early seed <strong>of</strong> armories,<br />

were composed <strong>of</strong> such figures ; for the ancientest arms in Europe are but old<br />

emblems and devices regulate into a form, and used as fixed hereditary marks <strong>of</strong><br />

honour, to distinguish the noble from the ignoble.<br />

We are not here to consider those figures either as hieroglyphical or symbolical,<br />

nor as devices ; for then they would be but arbitrary and temporary, and might<br />

be used or laid aside by any person at pleasure, as serving only to show their incli-<br />

nations or intentions, and to represent their present conditions or future designs :<br />

But we are here to consider these figures as armorial ones, representing something<br />

3L<br />

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