any meaning, signifies moistened or wetted, and we discover at the last that humettée when applied to a bar is nothing but a misspelt misapprehension of the old French word hamede—the barrier which such a trunked bar represented. Once hamede has become humettée its sphere of usefulness enlarges beyond the qualifying of bars or barrier. Thus nothing lets but our good Mr. Boutell shall apply it even to crosses. 'A Cross having its four extremities cut off square, so that it does not extend in any direction to the border-lines of the shield, is couped or humettée.' And in his glossary of heraldic terms the same author translates humettée as 'cut short at the extremities.'
This is but one of the score of instances of misapplied verbiage which meet us at an opening of the handbook. Everywhere we see that the deliberate exchange of good English for obscurity was effected as much at the cost of philology as of common sense by enthusiasts who believed that the science of armory, like a child's kite, mounted the better for the long string of wastepaper tags which they fastened to its tail.
How many of these may be cast into the wastepaper basket which yawns for them will be seen as we take the handbook again and turn its leaves.
The figure of the shield meets us. To the basket at once with the points—honour point, nombril point, dexter chief point and their fellows. Honour point and nombril point are imaginings of the pedant's day. A charge in the first quarter of the shield was in old time said to be 'in the quarter' or 'in the cantel,' so the clumsy phrase of dexter chief point may take its dismissal.
The colours come next. Sable, azure, vert and purpure, although like many other words we shall keep in use, reminding us of the French root of much of the language of our armory, may serve our turn, having become a part of our own tongue; and gules must stay, if only for its ancient standing and curious descent. But or and argent may surely be jettisoned as base currency because they are strangers in English blazon until the Elizabethan heralds deliberately cast off gold and silver as clownish Anglicisms and unmeet ingredients in their new euphuistic patter. Here let us note that the handbooks warn us that once a colour, be it azure or gules, has been said in a blazon it must be azure or gules
