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grants since Berry's time I am a bit doubtful that I have them all. I have written broadcast to every public body that 1 knew was using arms, or thought likely to be, and I cheerfully acknowledge the fact that very few of my letters have remained unanswered. There is none of the disinclination to give me full details with regard to impersonal arms that I met with in the editin of my book " Armorial Families" and in the editing of " Burke's Landed Gentry," and I have nearly always been supplied at my request with full particulars and with the dates of grant. These details have all been checked at the College of Arms, and the information I print may be relied upon as far as it is humanly possible to guarantee work of mind and pen, both liable always to unintentional lapse into error. If the English impersonal coats in this book are not complete, I feel confident they are not far short of being so, and I am fairly confident that my book may also be entirely relied upon on the point of whether any given coat of arms is genuine or otherwise. I think I have every genuine impersonal coat of arms. I think I have, but I am not sure. At any rate I have done my best. Of the bogus impersonal coats I can only say I have included every one of which I have had knowledge, if it had serious claim to consideration. Bogus arms one can only deal with if one comes across them. Naturally there must be many of which I have never heard.

There is, however, one class of impersonal arms which I have entirely ignored. I refer to the arms of the ancient abbeys and other monastic establishments. They are all long since extinct, and any interest in them, if there be any, can be only of an entirely antiquarian character. Scores of them are recorded in some form or another in the College of Arms, but I know of no official formal record of a grant or confirmation to any such body as an existing corporation. Such records as exist are incidental records of extinct bodies. There is scarcely a religious foundation to which there are not several coats of arms attributed. The whole subject is confusion, resulting from the painstaking attempts of bygone antiquaries to convert into coats of arms devices from seals. Some, of course, were used as and intended to be coats ofarms. Some were purely personal to a particular individual. The bulk, I strongly believe, were never intended to be regarded as more than mere seal devices. It is impossible to get at the truth, and the truth, if it could be ascertained, matters so little that I have thought it wisest to leave the whole category alone. The information is seldom wanted, and the bulk of it is already in print for the use of students and inquirers.

In addition to the British coats to which I have alluded, this volume will be found to include many foreign coats of arms. As to these I do not pretend to the slightest knowledge whether they are genuine or bogus. 1 have made no attempt to verify them, and I accept no responsibility for them. I have tried to obtain correct information, and I have done the best I could to obtain the arms of all Foreign Countries, and of the Principal Foreign Cities. For foreign arms in the volume I make no higher claim. They are merely included in the hope that they may be useful to my readers, but I do not pretend that the information I give concerning them cven approximates in value to the information I give as to British arms. As to these I hope and believe the details may be