adding, Whose mortal lives were busied to that end, And, when desires thus err in their intention, That some under knightly banners were busied to that end is more probable, than that such spirits could afterwards be raised at once so high. With greater justice does the same poet describe such spirits among the members of the suffering Church, to whom these words ars spoken : Because ye point your wishes at a mark, So much propriety of each in good, Increases more, and heighten'd charity, Wraps that fair cloister in a brighter flame.† Among the stains incident to the chivalrous soul in which its whole spirit is now often supposed to consist, was noted that attention to little sensibilities which St. Theresa describes as only toys and plays of children. Here was a source of bitterness which argued no proximity to the first beauteous circle of sweet life, the beatitude of the humble and the poor. The heathen portraits were strongly marked with this dark feature. Medea prepares to murder her children most dear to her, to destroy the whole house of Jason, and to commit, as she admits, a crime of impiety and horror, after which life will be intolerable to her, and all this for what reason? She declares it thus, Οὐ γὰρ γελᾶσθαι τγητὸν ἐξ ἐχθρῶν, φίλαι, the motive that was sufficient to make Sir Walter Raleigh command a number of wretched people to be massacred! Goëthe, in his celebrated drama, entitled Torquato, Tasso, represents his hero as under the same influence. The quarrel with Antonio would be ludicrous, if one did not pity the agony of the poor victim to his own morbid sensibility. It is a quarrel of Germans, which seems noble to the hero who fancies himself injured, and which fills the dispassionate beholder with alternate commiseration and disgust; so true is the saying, that a man who is not perfectly dead in himself is quickly tempted and conquered in little and vile things.§ Now in opposition to this tone of mind, which is supposed to belong to chivalry, they who would hear a blessed voice, inviting them to the Mount, must be ready *Parad. Canto. VI. + Purg. XV. Eurip. Med. 795. § De Imit. Christi, I. 6. to renounce all claim to the honor that waits upon these quick and delicate sensibilities; and as St. Ambrose says, they must be careful never to betray passion by their words, whatever may be the provocation.* Delicacy and nobleness of mind, when well directed, and kept subservient to the ends of piety, were indeed regarded as a great treasure, but it was one which was known to require more than ordinary direction, and which exposed the possessor to a peculiar danger of incurring guilt and misery; guilt in forfeiting divine charity, refusing to forget and forgive little things, from which the heaviest enmities so often arise, and misery, in depriving himself of the friendship of others; for the number of such minds as could comprehend that intensity and delicacy of feeling must have been small, in comparison of those with whom were given a thousand occasions of offence and of saying, "Non irascendum sed insaniendum est." It was in proud silence, the delicate heart received the wound, whereas if there had been humility to leave a free course to the complaint of nature, the coarse dart might have been extracted, and no interruption caused to friendship and peace. The wise Spaniards say "a cheerful look and pardon are the best revenge for an injury ;" and again, they say, "If thou art vexed, thou wilt have two troubles." And if, after all, there had been no disposition to make amends, there would have been then an opportunity to remember St. Theresa's exclamation, and to renounce such vanities, following Christ through sacrifice and mortification. But uncorrected heroes of this noble stamp, who were left merely to nature, were for immediately withdrawing in silence, like Achilles, to sit alone and eat their own heart, under the intolerable pain of outraged feeling and a wounded imagination. Such persons, indeed, were often reminded, that after all, their conduct was only that of the vulgar, of the weakest and basest character; and, on the contrary, that it would be a rare and noble testimony to the qualities of their soul, if it could be always said of them, by men of coarser minds, "I can do this, I can break this engagement, give this sign of indifference, for I know that man to be one who never takes offence, or who is always ready to forgive little, as well as great offences against him." "Grow angry slowly," say the Spaniards, "for, if there be cause, time will not fail thee to become so." In the sphere of morality this morbid sensibility may have been productive of great evils. It is a just remark of a modern writer, with regard to the mind of chivalry, if we suppose it undirected by religion, that is, taking it in the sense in which men now understand chivalry. "The beauty of the virtue itself," he says, "was lost sight of, under the specious coloring of ambitious fancy. It was not truth which obtained the praises of the chevalier, or which he sought to exhibit in his conduct, but the extravagant imitation of her effects." Thus we have the ridiculous spectacle of these admirers of chivalrous honor pretending to have a greater regard for truth and sincerity, than the saints and the Christian doctors *Off. Lib. I. 4. of the school. A great historian of our times, who, in this single instance, seems to have borrowed their language inadvertently, affirms that no defence is available in the case of one who, being innocent and about to suffer the last penalty of an impious law, should, on a review of his own conduct, during the mock trial, persist in maintaining that it was lawful for a man to equivocate, if an inhuman judge endeavored to force him to accuse himself; but, on the contrary, this is an opinion which has been approved of by the whole Church. Saints, like Athanasius, blessed spirits that may not lie, since they ever dwell near the source of primal truth, are expressly recorded to have acted in conformity to it." The Just One said, "non ascendo ad diem festum hunc,"* and he meant "manifeste," for he went in secret. The proud Herculean openness which rushes upon destruction, may be esteemed sinful as well as a sign of ignorance and want of just discipline. We see that there was no direct answer given to the crafty chief priests and elders of the people, who asked by what authority those things were done; but that in reply, a question was addressed to them, which they could not or durst not answer.† Indeed, the sober judgment of the universal reason has sometimes been able to prevail, even over the extravagant fancies which the moderns seem to regard as inseparable from chivalry. Thus De Argentine, in order to save Bruce, when attacked in the hall of the Island-chieftain's castle, is represented by the poet as pretending to claim the prisoners, in his sovereign's name, as vassals who had borne arms against their liege lord, and then we read Such speech, I ween, was but to hide, His care their safety to provide ; For knight more true in thought and deed, Than Argentine ne'er spurr'd a steed.‡ Yet every barbarous Cyclops would exclaim here," This is deceit, not manly force."S The justice, however, of an opposite conclusion was not unknown to the knight. of chivalry. Don Diego Savedra Faxardo did not want to be instructed in honor, and yet he proves, in the very book which is to teach honor, that it may be lawful sometimes to dissemble; appealing to the conduct of David before King Achis, || to Samuel's pretence of sacrifice, ¶ and to the hair applied to the hands of Jacob,** which latter instance, however, is interpreted by St. Augustin as having been a mystery prefigurative of the atonement.†† The conduct of Abraham too might have been added, of whom St. Ambrose says, " Truly, a great man, illustrious, with many virtues, whom philosophy, with all her vows, could never equal."‡‡ But all this is widely different from the spirit ascribed by Homer to Joan. vii, 8. + Matt. xxi. 24. Ibid. xvi. 2. tt Lib. cont. Mendacium. Cap. iv. The Lord of the Isles. § Od. IX. 408. ** Gen. xvii. Christian Prince, I. 452. Lib. de Abraham. Patriarch. his heroes, and even to his divine personages, who are not in error, but in total want as to the principle of truth.* Another danger to which the chivalrous mind may have been exposed, consisted in men affecting to have higher and purer motives of action than belonged to ordinary Christians, so that in fulfilling a real duty, they appeared to obey only their own will. Of this we have an instance, in the custom of bearing those rings of iron, silver, or gold, which signified that the wearer was the slave of his word. They are described by Olivier de la Marche, Monstrelet, Mabillon, and Ducange, and even by Tacitus, whose testimony to the fact might of itself lead us to trace their real origin. In many instances, however, whatever may have been their origin, the use may have been sanctified. But if this extreme delicacy of the chivalrous mind may have sometimes been an evil, in pushing virtue to extravagance, what must it have been when it made a virtue of indulging, even to excess, some of the most vicious passions of the corrupted heart! Yet it is too true, that it sometimes did so; though by pity may the mind be overpowered, when it hears this affirmed of those dames and knights of antique days. It was only the powerful and incessant action of the Catholic religion, which induced them to renounce the sentiment of nature, as expressed by Medea, when she glories in the crime she is about to commit, and declares that she is of this character, to be terrible to her enemies and benevolent to her friends, adding, that this is the most glorious praise,― τῶν γὰρ τοιούτων εὐκλεέστατος βίος. And so it will always be in the judgment of the world; for it is the sentiment of uncorrected nature which Callicles expresses in addressing Socrates,-"It is not the part of a man to suffer injuries, but only of some slave, to whom it is better to die than to live." It was from a far higher source that Socrates drew his maxim, saying, "We must never retaliate by doing evil for evil, and we must never injure any man, though we may suffer ever so great injury from him."§ This is not what is now supposed to be the spirit of chivalry, nor what it really is, if we consider it as self-existing and in its primary state; in man, choleric and bloody, in his partner, reckless, spurring others on maliciously to strife. We can form a more correct estimate of it, by referring to that sad picture of the scene in Tantallon hall : On the earl's cheek, the flush of rage Or even to that hero described in Tasso, who, as a hot brand, flames most ere it goeth out. So he, when blood was lost, with anger wroth * Odyss. I. 179. Eurip. Med. 808. Plat. Gorgias. S Plat. Crito. I XIX. 22. Such may be an Homeric death, or chivalrous, if men will; but theology would teach us to admire other portraits and other modes of spirits' passing. All this acquires additional force, when it is remembered that the soul may continue under the influence of these passions, even to the extreme verge of life; and what an image is then presented by men, like the master who translated into French the history of Gyron le Courtois, who is represented as an old knight in a very advanced age, coming to king Arthur's court to enter the lists with young knights, " et à scavoir lesquels estoient les plus vaillans ou les jeunes ou les vieulx." and who is subsequently described in mortal combat, acquitting himself in such a manner, that "he seemed no longer a knight, but thunder and tempest?" In truth, it cannot be denied that there is a great deal of this blind world in all the affectation of chivalrous sentiment, as it appears in the discourse and writings of the moderns. The very use which is made of terms to express it, proves this; for what Thucydides relates of certain miserable times in Greece, takes place here: the usual worth of names is transferred to other and contrary deeds, for irrational boldness is styled manly courage and good companionship; temperance is called effeminacy, and prudence in every thing, idleness in every thing. Or, as Plutarch says of flatterers, dissipation is called liberality, rashness activity, licentiousness the love of society and warmth of natural affection; and the love of mankind entitles men to the charge of being abject and contemptible. What does all this indicate but the approach to those straits which none have passed and lived? Then, too, the crimes and injuries of unholy men, are sung and extolled in legends and in poetry, although even the heathens would have shown the evil of this. For Pindar says, "Whatever thing is done without God is not the worse of being consigned to silence and oblivion ;❞— * Ανευθε δὲ θεοῦ, σεοιγα- a principle, which, if observed by writers in our time, would leave their splendid histories as meagre as many of the monkish chronicles, which they deem so insipid. And Euripides says, Σιγᾶν ἄμεινον ταἰσχρα· μηδὲ Μοῦσα μοι λένοιτ' ἀοιδός, ἥτις ὑμνήσει κακά. With idle fables, in which "there lurks a still and dumb-discoursive devil, that tempts most cunningly," the mind is ever occupied. Dangerous food For knightly youths, to whom is given So much of eartb, so much of heaven, And such impetuous blood. * L'Hystoire de Gyron le Courtois, f. 1. + Olymp. IX. Troad. 388. |