strated
something universal, whereas the device was peculiarly appropriate to
the person who wore it. The old writers glory in its antiquity, citing
many instances of its having been known and used by both Greeks and
Romans. Even during the dark ages it was not entirely lost; it merely
slumbered until the _renaissance_, and the invasions of Italy under
Charles VIII. and Louis XII., when it awoke to a vigorous existence.
Thus, though of much greater antiquity than heraldic blazonry, which
only dates from the time of the Crusades, it was not hereditary, could
be adopted or changed at pleasure, and did not define the rank of the
wearer. Shakspeare, who well understood the nature of the device,
distinguishes between it and armorial bearings in the passage where
Bolingbroke recounts his injuries:

'Disparked my parks, and felled my forest woods;
From my own windows torn my household coat,[4]
Razed out my impress'----

The old heralds, however, looked upon the device with but little
favour. Camden sneeringly says, that 'Armes were most usual among the
nobility in wars till about some hundred years since, when the French
and Italians, in the expedition of Naples, beganne to leave armes,
haply for that many of them had none, and to bear the curtaines of
their mistresses' beddes, their mistresses' colours, as impresses in
their banners, shields, and caparisons.' Daniel, one of our earliest
English writers on the subject, is worth quoting for a definition of
the impress, and to shew the exclusive spirit of the age. He says:
'_Impresa_, used of the Italians for an enterprise taken in hand, with
a firm and constant intent to bring the same to effect. As if a prince
or captaine taking in hand some enterprise of war, or any other
perticulaire affaire, desirous by some figure and motto to manifest to
the world his intent, this figure and motto together is called an
impress, made to signify an enterprise, whereat a noble mind levelling
with the aime of a deep desire, strives with a steely intent to game
the prize of his purpose. For the valiant and hautie gentlemen,
disdayning to conjoine with the vile and base plebeians in any
rustique invention, have procured to themselves this one most
singulare.'

Paul Jovius, a celebrated Italian historian and bishop, in his
treatise on devices, says, that the figure or emblem, which he terms
the _body_ of the device, must be exactly fitted to the motto, which
he terms its _soul_;