heraldryofyorkmi01custuoft

INTRODUCTION. 5 1
And lastly, Edmund Lodge, Lancaster Herald, whose name will ever be
associated in our minds with the most beautiful and interesting series of
Portraits of Illustrious British Personages ever published.
One of the fraternity, William Oldys, Norroy King of Arms, temp.
George II., was author of the life
of Sir Walter Raleigh, and several others,
in the Biographia Britannica ;
but he was also the author of a pretty
Anacreontic, very familiar to us all, which he wrote on a fly drinking out
of his cup (I
am afraid I must not say of tea, for he was anything but
a teetotaller)
:
" " Busy, curious, thirsty fly,
Both alike are mine and thine,
Drink with me, and drink as I :
Hastening quick to their decline :
Freely welcome to my cup,
Thine's a summer, mine's no more,
Couldst thou sip and sip it
up.
Though repeated to three score.
Make the most of life
you may Three score summers, when :
they're gone,
Life is short, and wears away. Will appear as short as one."
Old and New London, Walter Thornbury.
But I am not going to dwell on the more prosaic side of our subject,
though, perhaps, in this matter-of-fact age
it would be deemed the more
practical and useful.
There are some who treat with lofty contempt the idea of any hereditary
transmission of intellectual riches, but I never heard of any scepticism
as to a similar succession to earthly wealth ;
and if
any time you should
notice your own surname in some published list of those who have died
intestate, and for whose estate the next-of-kin is invited to apply, you may
be seized with a greater genealogical interest in your own progenitors than
you have yet experienced and should you be fired with a commendable
;
enthusiasm to prove your descent to the illustrious deceased, let me advise
you to pay a visit to Heralds' College, now situated in Queen Victoria
Street, London, where you will find every assistance from the present York
Herald, Alfred Scott Gatty, Esq., the able and genial son of the present
Sub-Dean of York Minster.
But I would rather dwell upon the more visionary, perhaps, but more
elevating side of the subject upon the primitive Heraldry, the Heraldry
begotten by, and expressing grand, true, noble aspirations for goodness,
purity, courage the Heraldry of York Minster. For that is indeed the
Heraldry which adorns its walls and glistens in its windows and in the
;
varied beauty of its colouring, and the quaint medievalism of its devices,
seems to me at least to speak with a thousand tongues, and to say :
" Whatever thy age, whatever thy surroundings, strive to keep thyself
"unspotted from the world. Be brave, true, noble, loving, pure, humble; fear
" NOTHING but dishonour, and no one but GOD ;
and let death find thee
" striving against wrong, in whatever shape it may be around thee, and so
" a faithful Soldier of the Cross."