vegetable ashes, but the plants in this case grow near the sea. Thus, from flint or sand, and ashes, arises the material, which, in the form of the Portland vase, the telescopic lens, or luxurious mirrors, contributes in There are five varieties of glass, each differing much from the other, and requiring distinct operations for its production: these are-flint glass-plate glass-brown glass-broad glass-and bottle glass.

such various modes to the refinement of life.

1. Flint glass.-This was originally named from the flint formerly used in its manufacture, but which is now superseded by fine sand, selected with care from various districts Sand, pearlash, and litharge, are the materials generally employed for the production of flint glass; but different manufacturers use various proportions of these substances, as their scientific knowledge or experience may suggest. Some skilful glass makers fuse together one hundred parts of Lynn sand, sixty parts of litharge, and thirty of purified pearlash. The reader may here ask whether the sand required is of a peculiar nature, and whether Lynn alone supplies the necessary quantities. The sand must contain flint in some form, consequently none but silicious sand will suit the manufacturer's purpose; he is therefore compelled to draw supplies for his furnaces from those districts which yield such a material.

The principal sources in England, are Alum Bay, in the Isle of Wight, and Lynn, in Norfolk. That from Lynn is remarkably fine and white; and its exportation forms an important branch of the trade from that port. In Alum Bay the bed of sand is from thirty to fifty feet in thickness, and under this are the singular marine and fresh-water formations revealed to view in Headon Hill. But neither Lynn nor Alum Bay can yield a sufficiency of pure sand to satisfy the glass manufacturers, who have sometimes entertained apprehensions of a failure in the precious silicious deposits. Here we have another illustration of the value imparted to the simplest objects by the labours of civilized man. Of how little worth in the eyes of an ancient Briton, in the time of Cæsar, would the sands of Alum Bay or Lynn have appeared? Would Cæsar himself have seen ought in these worthy of a statesman's notice? probably not: yet such apparently barren wastes are to some more precious than a mine of gold and silver, and present the resources whence fortunes are to be extracted by a species of refined alchemy, supplied not by ignorant enthusiasm, but by sober knowledge. Were some persons to see a large ship enter the docks at Liverpool laden with sand, they might be puzzled to comprehend the use of such a cargo; but the glass manufacturer regards the vessel with pleasure, for she contains the elements of tons of finest glass, which may hereafter contribute to the pleasures of a palace, or the innocent enjoyment of a cottage. The distant shores of New Holland have been searched for this glass-sand, and vessels have crossed the Pacific laden with the singular cargo. The fears of a decline in the supply of sand entertained by some glass manufacturers, may however be as groundless as the alarms raised some years back respecting the duration of our coal fields.

THE RISE AND DECLINE OF CHIVALRY IN
ENGLAND.
PART I.

"Then life was a wild and gorgeous dream,
A meteor glancing with fitful beam;

And the knight pricked forth with his lance in rest, To far distant lands at his ladye's behest; And the Templar rushed to the Holy Land; And the Troubadour wandered with harp in hand." CHIVALRY, in the full and romantic sense of the term, as it is now understood, was not prevalent in England until some time after the establishment of the Norman

dynasty, nor indeed till the devotion of all Europe towards the East for the recovery of the Holy Land from the grasp of unbelievers, had imbued the whole system with that pervading feeling of religion which the earnest participation of the Hierarchy in the purposes of the Crusades had communicated to it. Nevertheless, the honour and order of knighthood had long existed, even amongst the paladins of Charlemagne, even in the dreary woods of Germany; and in England details were at that time imbued with a religious chait was in operation in the days of the Saxons, and its racter which the Normans, at first, contemned.

Knighthood was never a birthright, though it became a necessary obligation to those of gentle birth after the Council of Clermont; for at this Council it was decreed, that even so early as twelve years old the nobly-born boy should take an oath before his Bishop to defend the oppressed, the widow, and the orphan; to exert himself to render travelling safe, and to destroy tyranny. Thus, says the historian of chivalry, all its humanities were sanctioned by legal and ecclesiastical power.

When from various circumstances it became an onerous and expensive duty, laws were ordained compelling the owners of adequate portions of land to assume the dignity, and these laws were fully repealed only in the reign of Charles I. Before the establishment of a standing army, knights and their followers were the only military defenders of the country. Thus we find that the all-important Castle of Dover was committed to John de Fiennes, who, with the means provided for the purpose, appropriated to its defence the services of eight other knights and their followers by turns. And thus it was elsewhere. All estates and property were held under the feudal obligation of providing knights at the call of the sovereign, in number proportionate to its value. The "legal service of a knight, for the land which he held by military tenure, was, to serve forty days at his own costs, when the king went against his enemies." This obligation was equally attached to ecclesiastical property; and it is owing to this circumstance that we frequently read of the knights attached to ecclesiastical foundations: and, as state and pomp increased, a domestic array-so to term it-of knights, became a necessary item of baronial state. Thomas à Becket had no less than seven hundred knights as part of his household; and William Longchamp, Bishop of Ely, Chancellor and Lord Chief Justice in Richard the First's time, travelled with fifteen hundred horsemen in his suite.

Though gentle birth was usually considered a necessary requisite for a knight, inferior birth, so that it were honest, was not an insurmountable obstacle to the investment of one of approved valour. But to the higher grades of the order a pure origin was indispensable. No bastard, even of a king, could be a templar or a knight of St. John. Perhaps the most remarkable instance on record of the clevation of a man of low birth to knighthood, fame, wealth, and honour, is that of Sir John Hawkwood, better known as "John of the Needle," a tailor's apprentice, and the son of a tanner of Sible Hedingham, Essex, who was pressed into the service of Edward III. Turning, as Fuller says, "his needle into a sword, and his thimble into a shield," he went to the French wars, stood like a valorous knight the hottest of the brunt at the battle of Poictiers; flying, like his own needle, at the back of his general, the Black Prince; hewing down the obdurate with his sword as smoothly as erst he had a crooked seam with his goose; winning his knighthood by valour alone-he made all Europe resound with his fame. He married

(1) Hawkwood-i. e. Falcon of the wood: derived, it is said, from the circumstance of his mother, when in labour and in dangerous circumstances, causing herself to be conveyed to a neighbouring wood, where, from some magical influence, her celebrated son was born with safety to herself.

the Duke of Milan's niece, and when he died (as even a | tailor must, though he have as many lives as a cat) he had the whole city of Florence as mourners.

The mode of investiture of a knight was anciently very simple. Charles the Great merely girded a sword on his son Louis the Good, and in ancient Germany the handing of a shield or javelin to the ardent and eager aspirant conferred on him on the instant the dignity of manhood, and the honour of a defender of his country. But gradually pomp and circumstance accumulated on the ceremony. Edward the Elder, our Saxon king, had Athelstan arrayed in a scarlet robe ere he girt him with a belt ornamented with precious stones, bearing a sword in a sheath of gold. Shortly after this we hear of absolution and confession as necessary preliminaries to the ceremony, and of religious offices accompanying the ceremonial itself, of the sword being blessed, and of the Eucharist being administered to the new-made knight: and, though, as we before remarked, the Normans at first despised these religious accompaniments, it seems as though it might be only the iron-hearted Conqueror who set them at nought; for we find that his rude and licentious son, the Redhaired, was consecrated knight by Archbishop Lanfranc.

Still chivalry, which ever took its hue from the general aspect of the times, was now in its very rudest state. The feudal system was in many respects productive of anarchy and misrule; each baron was omnipotent in his own domain, the extent of which was limited only by his power and strength, and, at a period when "might made right," it is easily to be supposed that no domestic or personal virtue would secure the possession of an estate to any one more remarkable for these qualities than for the more potent consideration of military force, or the wealth to purchase it. In fact, any occupant of a domain was at the mercy of another who could muster a greater number of armed retainers. The numerous forests were occupied by banditti, who bribed the neutrality if not the connivance of those neighbouring barons who might, had they been so disposed, have somewhat assisted the feeble laws in their feebler enforcement. The abduction of females of wealth and rank was an every-day occurrence; and they were kept in rigid confinement, and oftentimes subjected to cruel usage as a means of forcing them into a marriage which should give their brutal ravishers a legal claim to their possessions. Even the royal dignity was not exempted from this degrading and abhorrent risk, for Matilda of Scotland, afterwards wife of Henry I., was obliged to assume the veil in Rumsey Abbey to avoid the risk of a forced marriage.

The cruelties practised by these lawless marauders are abhorrent even to mention. The following description from an old author refers to the period of the reign of Stephen.

"They grievously oppressed the poor people with building castles; and, when they were built, they filled them with wicked men, or rather devils, who seized both men and women who they imagined had any money, threw them into prison, and put them to more cruel tortures than the martyrs ever endured. They suffocated some in mud, and suspended others by the feet, or the head or the thumbs; kindling fire below them. They squeezed the heads of some with knotted cords, till they pierced their brains, while they threw others into dungeons swarming with serpents, snakes, and toads."

Perhaps we may venture to hope that this picture, if not exaggerated, is but of partial application, and may refer more especially to the lawless and foreign bands which the turmoils of Stephen's reign were the cause of introducing into the kingdom; for most certainly the habitudes of chivalry were then fast progressing towards their high and refined character. Rufus, notwithstanding his personal vices, is said to have conduced towards this result; for, unchivalric as he himself was, he could

admire knightly virtues in others, was an enthusiastic admirer of bravery, and courted the chivalrous of all countries to his society. In the reign of his successor, Henry I., an instance occurred as decidedly chivalrous as any recorded in later times. This was in the field of Audelay, when he was opposed to the French king, who took arms in behalf of Duke Robert. By tacit consent a number of each army detached themselves from the mass, in order to decide, by their individual warfare, the fate of the whole.

Although Henry the Second's reign was marked by no chivalrous displays, its prevailing characteristic had a general influence on society, which conduced (secondarily only to the religious influence of the clergy) to the production of those qualities which were the refining marks of the chivalry which distinguished the reign of Edward III., the culminating period of the Sun of Knighthood. This was the love of letters both of Beauclerc and his gay and beautiful wife. For now the Troubadour warbled his changos at the feet of the graceful queen, or his sirventes in the appreciating ear of the kingly scholar. Now was it that Master Wace garbed in a familiar tongue the Latin Chronicle of Jeffrey of Monmouth, and garnished it with many a delightful legend, decorated it with many a foreign wreath, culled in the romantic plains of Brittany, and flowing with melody and music. Now it was that the knight strung his harp as he doffed his mail, and threw aside the bay-encircled helmet in order to wreathe his brow with the perfumed myrtle. Now was that taste for literature awakened, which found for centuries its chief, indeed its only food, in the warlike achievements of Charlemagne and his Paladins ; in the marvellous actions of Alexander; in the gigantic prowess of Hercules; and far and above all, in the soulinspiring details of the "gestes" of Arthur and his knights of the Table Ronde," whether recording their feats of arms against whole continents of "Saracens ;" their loyalty and devotion to the idolized beings from whom all inspiration was derived, those fair and gentle dames by whom, if these tales be true, Eve in Paradise must have looked homely; or, more than all, their holy quest, their painful toil, in all humbleness and devotion of heart, in search of the blessed Sangreal.

Chivalry thus regulated by religious precept, and ornamented by a taste for literature and music, and tinctured strongly with romantic feeling-the fruit of these tastes-was an elevating code, and certainly tended to ennoble the human race, to humanize their untamed passions, to regulate their uncurbed wills, in an æra of heretofore lawless turbulence. The zeal of its votaries may have bordered on, or, indeed, may at times have reached extravagance, but it was a zeal ever unselfish and generous; and there was no country, says M. de Palaye, where chivalry did not "exert its influence to promote public and private good." It cannot be denied, says Henry, that the spirit of the laws of chivalry was friendly to the cause of virtue.

Its characteristics, or rather, its avowed precepts and principles, those to which the newly initiated knight solemnly pledged and vowed himself, were of the highest order, and formed the great, the redeeming quality of that which we may term the modern chivalry, as distinguished from the mere heroic valour of the ancients, or that which pervaded the forests of Germany.

Not the forms merely, but the great truths and precepts of religion, were engrafted on the mind, and enforced in the practice of the candidate for knighthood. To be obedient, to be temperate, to be humble, sincere, to be active and obliging, to perform humble offices with cheerfulness and grace, and to look up to elders and superiors with reverence and affectionate devotion, were the qualities daily and hourly inculcated in the domains of the chief barons and nobles, whither resorted the youth of both sexes of the inferior nobility around, to be trained in the usages and virtues of that aristocratic circle which they were afterwards to ornament and uphold.

How beautiful were the parting words of the mother, of the Chevalier Bayard-the knight sans peur et sans reproche to him on his quitting his paternal home to mingle in the turmoil of life!

"As far as a mother can command her child, I command you to observe three things, and, if you fulfil them, be assured that you will live with honour in this world, and that God will bless you. The first is, that you fear God, serve him, and love him, without ever offending him, if that be possible. Be particular to pray to him every day, both morning and evening, and he will assist you. The second is, that you be gentle and courteous toward the nobility; that you evince neither hauteur nor pride towards any person; that you be ready always to oblige every person; that you avoid deceit, falsehood, and envy; that you be sober and faithful to your word. Console widows and orphans as much as in your power; avoid flatterers, and take care that you never become one. The third thing which I recommend to you is, again, charity. Neither your father nor I have a long time to live: God grant that before we die we may hear news of you which may bring honour upon ourselves and upon you! I commend you to the Divine goodness."

This advice was entirely in accordance with the general rules of chivalry.

The duties required from a knight were very arduous, and the system of training was proportionably severe. It began, at seven years old, with such athletic exercises as were suited to the age of the pupil, these gradually increasing in extent, in number, in severity, according to the increasing strength and advancing years of the novice. We shall at once understand the peremptory necessity for this early initiation, if we call to mind the dreadful and overwhelming fatigue which those persons undergo, who now occasionally, at a coronation, or a lord mayor's show, wear for a few hours an ancient suit of armour, and compare their labours with those required formerly, when a person was not thought qualified for knighthood, unless he could perform with ease the most athletic, laborious, and fatiguing exercises in full armour, for many hours together, and without showing fatigue. They were even trained to use the maule or the sword, to leap, to jump, &c., for a certain time, without taking breath. Doubtless many died in the training.

Falconry in all its branches, the harp, and dancing, were regularly taught as ornamental adjuncts to the more severe occupations of the youth; and "the strongest passion of the human breast was made subservient to the cause of virtue," by each youth being not merely permitted, but encouraged, to choose from the beauties of the baronial court, the fair one most suited to his fancy, whose future grace was to be won by a long series of knightly and honourable achievements.

The period of probation passed, and the novice having gradually risen through, and efficiently performed, the offices of page and esquire-with fasting, and vigil, and prayer; with earnest religious exhortation, and solemn and affectionate benediction-the youthful knight was girt with that sword, on receiving which he solemnly vowed to defend the Church; attack the wicked; respect the priesthood; protect women and the poor; to be merciful, to be courteous; to preserve the country in tranquillity; and to shed his last drop of blood in behalf of his brethren.

Every extraneous aid was afforded, which could add to the solemnity and interest of such a scene, and engage the feelings more deeply in it. The pomp and magnificence of the baronial hall, with its courtly complement of state and equipage; the unwonted honour paid to him by all around, the most distinguished knights and the most beautiful ladies vying with each other in their personal attentions to him; the white dress thrown over him, symbolical of his new character, the scarlet one, as emblematical of his resolution to shed his blood in the cause of heaven; the shaving of

his head,' ever a symbol of servitude to God; the sword, with the semblance of a cross, to signify the death of Christ; the spear, on account of its straightness, the emblem of truth; the spurs of diligence; the helmet of modesty;-all these, and many other then wellunderstood symbols of faith, and honour, and duty, were conferred on the youth on his first solemn equipment as a knight, and the various duties which they intimated were impressed on his mind by every cir cumstance most likely to influence it.

August assemblies were often collected to witness the investiture of some person of rank, and sometimes even national hostilities were suspended for it. When Charles VI. of France knighted the sons of the Duc d'Anjou at St. Denis, the knights and ladies of England were invited to the feast by couriers sent expressly, though the two countries were then at war.

But, perhaps, the most splendid inauguration the world ever witnessed was that which was celebrated in the abbey of Westminster, in the year 1306, when the Prince of Wales, son of Edward I., received his spurs. Three hundred youths, the hope and pride of the kingdom, the scions of its noblest aristocracy, were at the same period invested with the knightly order. Many of them, with the prince, performed their vigil in Westminster Abbey; but even this lordly precinct was not sufficiently spacious to accommodate all, and many adjourned to the Temple. But, at the time of the solemn investment, the whole three hundred youths, then in the very pride of their years, were robed in purple mantles broidered with gold, the gift of the king, and many of them decorated with furs more valuable in that day than gold.

We may fancy the pride with which the ambitious, but brave monarch, would look upon this hopeful assemblage; we may imagine the hearts swelling almost to bursting of the youths themselves; the manly exultation of their brave fathers and sponsors; the proud, yet somewhat tearful, admiration of the matrons who witnessed the son of many tears, of many hopes, thus introduced to the rough highway of the world; the intense earnestness with which the gentle and high-born maidens observed the whole, here and there one endeavouring, all vainly, to conceal her own especial interest therein.

Around, as far as the eye could reach, amid the dim arches and cloistered gloom, the space was thronged with eager beholders, heralds, pursuivants, esquires, minstrels, varlets, pages, their brilliant and partycoloured vestments contrasted with the dark cowls of the lay brothers of the monastery, or of other members who were not privileged to press nearer to the scene of action. Immense multitudes thronged the sanctuary without the walls, and every avenue leading therefrom.

Each happy candidate for the honour of knighthood was attended by two or three experienced knights; and so dense, so fearful, was the throng in that part of the Abbey near the scene of the ceremony, that, it is said, two knights were crushed to death, and many fainted.

No such catastrophe, however, had taken place, or was anticipated, when the jubilant tones of the organ, and a bustle at the further end of the church, announced to the eager multitude that the great personages were arrived, and that the ceremonies were about to com

mence.

Dense and unbroken as had appeared the mass, a way was insensibly opened, and first came those bearing the banners of the Abbey, which were disposed in convenient resting-places near the head of the choir. Then came the choristers in white robes, chaunting as they passed along. Acolytes, with their golden censers, flinging steams of rich incense around, which curled aloft, and melted away amid the rich tracery of the roof, were followed by various members of the Abbey, in robes of

(1) By this we must understand, generally, the actual removal only of a lock of hair.

(2) Turner and Mills: some authors say two hundred only.