spray. Supporters were allowed only to chiefs of the principal families in Scotland.

The scroll-work at the sides of the shield is called "Mantling." A "Crest" is some figure above the top of the shield. Crests were marks of honor, worn only by heroes of great valor or those who had been advanced to high military command, though later every one with a coat of arms appears to have thought himself entitled to use a crest with it. The crest in the accompanying copy is a military arm with a drawn sword ready to strike. Different branches of the family sometimes had different crests, though the same crest has answered for many different arms in the family. A wyvern issuing out of a ducal coronet was, perhaps, the greatest favorite for a crest in our family at an early date.

The "Slogan," or war-cry, usually accompanied the crest, either surmounting it or being placed at the sides. The Seaton slogan is given by Scott as follows: "A Seyton! A Seyton! Set on! Set on! Bear the knaves down!" Others give only "Set on! Set on!" and I have seen it given "St. Bennet and set on!" Saint Bennet, or Benedict, it appears was the patron saint of the family. The slogan was the battle-cry, shouted aloud upon making a charge upon the enemy.

"Scrolls" were placed below the painted shields, for the family name or motto. Our motto was and is, "Hazerd zet Forward." This is presumed to signify, at whatever hazard yet go forward. This motto appears in some of the arms of the family, and it was carved over the castle gateway and over doors, and was also used in interior decorations.

The "Fitché" on the shield is the cross with the sharp point downward. It is said by G. T. Clark, in his work on Heraldry, to have been added by the eldest son, who used his father's arms with the fitché added, to distinguish between them, or as a mark. of cadency, or difference.

The "Crescents" in the upper part of the shield are said by Monsignor Seton to have been used as emblematical of the three crescent-shaped bays into which the lands of Lord Seton divided the southern portion of the silvery Frith of Forth, but Mr. Clark, just quoted, says they were used to distinguish between the arms

of the father and those of the second son when he was allowed to support that honor, as the fleur-de-luce, commonly called the fleur-de-lis, denotes that a sixth son had used the same arms as his father and first and second sons.

"The fleur-de-lis, that lost her right,

Is queen again for a' that!"-Scott.

The markings on the coat of arms that precedes this article denote that the upper part of the shield was gules, or red, and the sides, between the mantling and the body of the shield, were murrey, or blood-red, both of which colors were supposed to indicate valor, magnanimity, and the like, and are regarded as the most honorable colors, according to Chambers, Vol. V, p. 144.

Mr. John Seaton, of Greenup, Kentucky, has a print of a coat of arms printed from a copper plate that was brought to this country by John Seaton, the Irish emigrant, from which the writer had photographs taken. And there are other prints in possession of some other members of the family in America.

James Seaton, of the Charlestown Navy Yard, had a copper plate from which copies were printed in Boston, Massachusetts, as late as A. D. 1830.

Some well-posted members of the family doubt this being a genuine coat of arms of our family, but, after noting their reasons, the writer is inclined to accept it as all right.

In his article on Heraldry in the Encyclopædia Britannica, C. F. Clark mentions Seton as a writer on the subject; also, that in Scotland an early Lord Seton had a concession from King Robert Bruce of a sword supporting a crown, and that his descendant in 1601 received as an augmentation, "azure, a blazing star of eight points within a double tressure.”

"The tressured fleur-de-lis he claims

To wreath his shield."-Scott.

The arms of Governor Gordon, of Pennsylvania, show the tressure and three crescents of the Setons in one of its quarters. And in the volume quoted above, Seton is mentioned as one of the critical writers on the subject; and in another place there is a quotation from Seton's "Law and Practice of Heraldry."

CHAPTER II.

THE SCOTCH TARTAN.

THE Scotch Tartan was a worsted, or linsey-woolsey, cloth woven with alternate stripes or bands of colored warp and weft, or woof, so as to form a checkered pattern in which the colors alternated in sets of definite sequence. The tartan was worn like a shawl, or an Indian's blanket, and great antiquity is claimed for it. It has been asserted that the numerous clans into which the Highland population of Scotland were divided had each a special pattern by which their clan could be distinguished from others.

After the rebellion of 1745 various Acts of Parliament were passed disarming the Scottish Highlanders, and prohibiting the use of Highland dress in Scotland under heavy penalties. But those Acts were repealed in 1782 and the tartans were again permitted to be worn. Macaulay says that the sight of a Scotch tartan in London would inflame the populace of that city with hatred.

The Seaton tartan in Scotland is said to have been principally of a red color with small lines, or stripes, of green, purple, and white. It is more than likely that a "top-coat" has now taken the place of the tartan with nearly every one, being much handier for working-people and of a considerably later style in polite society; though the same plaids, made of different materials, have frequently been used for lining ulsters and other overcoats.