important that can be made the subject of their study; and that they can be happy and honourable, can obtain the blessing of God Almighty for themselves, for their country, and for mankind, only in proportion as they adhere to them. It is reported, that a Duke of Burgundy "had like to have died of fear at the sight of the nine worthies which a magician shewed him ;" and a sage was said to have brought before Charlemagne the spectres of Dietrich and his northern companions, armed, sitting on their warhorses, when Dietrich, the most gigantic of the number, leaped from his horse, and was followed by the others, who seated themselves round the emperor's throne. We do not want a magician's skill to bring these heroes before us; nor ought their presence to displease or terrify the brave; it should rather be sought after as an heroic_vision, which would shed a lustre over our souls. The Lacedemonian youth, who resembled the great Hector, was crushed to death by the multitude who rushed to see him upon hearing of the resemblance. So should the generous youth of our times hasten to survey the majesty of their heroic ancestors, and to hear those precepts that would make invincible the hearts that conned them. Moreover, as he who beholds a beautiful picture gazes till he ardently wishes to see it move, and exercise the functions with which it seems endowed, so every one who contemplates the noble images of reproachless chivalry must feel anxious that they should be revived in the deeds of men, and participate in the sentiments of the poetic sage, who was not satisfied after having described his republic, until he could behold in what way it would engage with other states, and how it would shew itself worthy of its education and discipline, in war and peace, as well in utterance as in action.2

The study of these heroic pages enables the mind to behold the sons of ancient chivalry, even as if Arthur were, indeed, already come

Once more in old heroic pride,
His barbed courser to bestride,
His knightly table to restore,

And brave the tournaments of yore.3

1 P. Mathieu Heroik's Life and deplorable Death of Henry IV.

2 Plat. Timæus.

3 Warton's Grave of King Arthur.

We converse with them, we hear them, we follow them to danger and to victory, as

in a season of calm weather,

Though inland far we be,

Our souls have sight of that immortal sea
Which brought us hither,

Can in a moment travel thither,

And see the children sport upon the shore,
And hear the mighty waters rolling evermore.

Disputations, therefore, which are framed with such views, are not prosecuted for the sake of a theory; for we are invited to engage in them, not to discover what is honourable and good, but, as the greatest of the ancients said, iv' ȧyafoì yerwμe0a. The object in view is not knowledge, but practice. "Vosque adolescentes," said the Roman orator, "et qui nobiles estis, ad majorum vestrum imitationem excitabo, et qui ingenio et virtute nobilitatem potestis consequi, ad eam rationem, in qua multi homines novi et honore et gloria floruerunt cohortabor."2

I know, indeed, as an old German historian says of a later prince, who professed to take Charlemagne for his model, it often happens with men who pretend to follow the example of the excellent worthies of times past, that they sooner learn to cast their shadows than to scatter the lustre of their bright deeds; therefore is there always need of judgment in receiving instruction by example. As in the case of orators, Cicero was obliged to point out, in speaking of the Attic Lysias, that what was Attic in Lysias was not his being slight and unadorned, but his exhibiting nothing dull or extravagant.3 So should we mark well that the chivalry of our knights did not consist in the hasty violence of their passions, or in their over-eager propensity to war, but in their gentleness and self-devotion. Turenne in his youth, and Alexander in the midst of his glory, both professed to imitate a hero of the ancient world; but with what a different spirit and effect! Turenne mounted and tamed a furious horse to prove himself like Alexander; but Alexander thought to imitate

1 Aristot. Ethic. Nicomach. ii. 2.

2 Cic. pro P. Sextio.

3 Orator. ix.

4 Hist. du Viscomte de Turenne, par Ramsay, vi.

Achilles by dragging the governor of a conquered town tied to the wheels of his chariot.

It was no doubt with a high object that most of the writings connected with chivalry were composed. Practice and virtue were the end proposed by Sir Thomas Malory, who concludes his preface, "humbly bysechying all noble lordes and ladyes, wyth al other estates, of what estate or degree they been of, that shall see and rede in this book, that they take the good and honest actes in their remembraunce, and to folowe the same. Wherin they shall fynde many joyous and playsaunt hystories, and noble and renouned actes of humanyte, gentylnesse, and chyvalryes. For herein may be seen noble chyvalrye, curtosye, humanyte, friendlynesse, hardynesse, love, friendshyp, cowardyses, murdre, hate, vertue, and synne. Doo after the good, and leve the evyl, and it shal brynge you to good fame and renomme. Al is wryten for our doctryne, and for to beware that we falle not to vyce ne synne, but to exercise and folowe vertue, by the whyche we may come and atteyne to good fame and renomme in thys lyf, and after thys shorte and transytorye lyf to come unto everlastynge blysse in heven, the whyche he graunt us that reygneth in heven, the blessed Trynyte. Amen."

V. In collecting and disposing examples and doctrines from divers noble volumes, I have not confined myself to the records of English history; for, although these alone would no doubt have furnished ample matter for a far more complete survey than the present, such a restraint would in some measure have been at variance with the object of my enterprise, since it has always been the spirit of chivalry, as it was in ancient times of Pythagoras, "ut unus fiat ex pluribus,” — insomuch that it should ever be the desire of those who admire it, to connect, by ties of mutual affection and respect, the virtuous of every country.

Polybius, that illustrious soldier and historian, has furnished me with a similar lesson touching the duties of my ministerial office; for he affirms that we must often praise our enemies, and dress up their actions to be the objects of the highest admiration; and that, on the other hand,

Preface to the Mort d'Arthur.

there may be occasions when we shall have to censure and loudly condemn our friends and those who are upon our side.

England was at one time the very land of chivalry and of all its heroic exercises. La Colembiere has remarked, that the greatest number of the old romances have been more particularly employed in celebrating the valour of the knights of this kingdom than that of any other, because, in fact, they have always, in an especial manner, loved such exercises. The early French romances were written for the amusement not of the French, but of the English nation. The romances of Perceforest, Merlin, Launcelot, Gauvain, Meliadus, Tristan de Leonnois, Giron le Courtois, Isaïe le Triste, Galand, the Palmerin of England, and many others, are quite filled with their prowess.2 "Moult ay ouy parler de ceste isle de Bretaigne et l'ay ouy tenir a grant chose, et fort estimer a cause de sa bonne chevalerie:" this is what a knight says in Perceforest.3 "The city of London," says the author of the Palmerin of England, "contained in those days all, or the greater part of the chivalry of the world." Again, in Perceforest, when Soras said he was a native of Great Britain, the young Demoiselle Lugerne said, "Sire chevalier, je parle volontiers a vous pour ce que vous estes de la grant Bretaigne: car c'est ung pays que j'ayme bien pour ce qu'il y a coustumierement la meilleure chevalerie du monde; c'est le pays au monde, si comme je croy, le plus remply des bas et joyeulx passetemps pour toutes gentilles pucelles et jeunes bacheliers qui pretendent a honneur de chevalerie."4

Perhaps this character will account for the fact reported by Diodorus, that against the British isles not one of the ancient heroes, neither Bacchus nor Hercules, ever made war.5 Our Christian chivalry recollected with greater pleasure, that the first Christian king and the first Christian emperor were natives of England; the first the very emblem of the highest chivalry, adorned with its crown of majesty, and devoting himself to religion; for Lucius

1 Dunlop, Hist. of Fiction.

2 Theatre d'Honneur et de Chevalerie, i. 223.

Tom. i. c. 21.

5 Lib. xxi.

4 Perceforest, vol. vi.

is said, by the German historians, to have gone abroad a little before his death, and to have preached the gospel in Bavaria and the Grisons. Notwithstanding so many titles to pre-eminence in the lists of chivalry, it will perhaps be found that the examples and sources of honour held forth in these disputations will be oftener derived from foreign lands than from our own.

This may partly be accounted for by stating the fact, which it would be vain to deny, that it is more difficult to collect instances of the kind required from our English histories than from those of the Catholic nations of Europe.

In the barbarous dissolution of the religious houses, which led to such a destruction of libraries, that part of the literature of chivalry, which was chiefly interesting to religion from its being concerned with the devotion of our national heroes, was almost wholly lost; for in England, as in every other Catholic country, each monastery had registers, from the date of its foundation, recording the lives of all the eminent men who had become celebrated in the particular province where it was situated; and it is from these sources that men compiled those admirable biographical memoirs which form so interesting a part of the literature of other nations.' The later writers of England, having embraced the new opinions, had no desire to preserve examples of the ancient piety, which they either omitted altogether, or disfigured through the prejudices of their sect; while Catholic writers, the Hardings, Sanders, Stapletons, Allens, Bristowes, Reynolds, Persons, Walsinghams, and Pattisons, were too much occupied in defending religion to have leisure to write the lives of heroes.

England, bound in with the triumphant sea,

Whose rocky shore beats back the envious siege
Of watery Neptune,

is always to be spoken of with affection and reverence, and treated as a mother; for, though many of us have two countries, that which gave us birth, and that which has become the ruling state to which we are subject, yet, in some respects, it is necessary, as Cicero says, "caritate eam præstare qua reipublicæ nomen universæ civitatis est."2

1 Rubichon de l'Action du Clergé, p. 257.

2 De Legibus, ii. 2.