fair. Granting that romance writers, in their ideal heroes, held up fairer models of heroic virtue than were to be found in real life;' still it is clear that in consequence of this beau ideal of knighthood, villany, treachery, and other base delinquencies were branded with infamy and scorn. A knight could indeed be as brutal and profligate as any ancient hero, but he could not boast of his brutality any more than of his skill in lying in ambush; a feat on which HOMER's heroes prided themselves as much as on their carrying off ladies by force into slavery. The manners of the times may be said to have been the disease, and the chivalrous spirit the remedy; a remedy springing out of the disease, and somewhat of an aftergrowth. The principles of chivalry were in this sense favourable to the civilization of mankind. The knight who vowed to protect innocence, to be loyal, and never to be guilty of murder or falsehood, might possibly break his oath; yet in so doing he would feel the consciousness of crime. Deep indeed must have been his profligacy could he without remorse have committed an act which b Brehus sans pitiè was both a traitor and a coward. In the Amadis de Gaula, lib. i. ch. v. we are told that 'En parte donde las mugeres son mal tratadas, no puede aver hombre que nada valga.' 'Return to thy masters,' says Florice to a messenger from two strange knights, and say that the courtesy and gallantry which reign in this court are the best pledges of the courage and honour of its knights.' Florice and Blancheflour in ELLIS's Specimens of early English metrical Romances, vol. iii. p. 117. • SOUTHEY, Preface to Morte d'Arthur. § 19. from infancy he had been taught to regard with aversion or contempt.d In such a state of society even the practice of duelling was a blessing: for it was much better that an offender should be called to account in fair and open combat, than that he should either be secure of impunity, or be punished by some vile or treacherous means. Thus were some of the evils, arising from a state of society, which made arms the only profession of a person of rank, considerably diminished. Prisoners of war were not put to death, nor even reduced to slavery; and so entire was the confidence placed in the knightly word, that a prisoner was permitted to fix his own ransom (which a noble pride and sense of his own dignity prevented him from fixing too low), and having done so, was allowed to go at large on his parole, in order to seek the means of paying it. The constitution of the earliest states of society was aristocratical and feudal; and valiant warriors who undertook the defence of the weak and helpless, against the strong and powerful, were the earliest knights errant. Hercules and Theseus were fancied by ancient poets, what Orlando and Rinaldo have been imagined by modern romancers : and we must be cautious how we attribute to chivalry the evils necessarily connected with d Sir Lancelot, on being urged to commit some infidelity on the plea that no one would know it, is made to give the following noble answer: 'Mon cueur, le scauroit bien qu est en son lieu.' Lancelot du Lac, part ii. p. 7. : feudalism. Two prominent features, however, of modern chivalry distinguish it from that of the heroic days the utter abhorrence of any thing like treachery or unfairness, and the implicit loyalty which the knights theoretically professed for the fair. That to the bravest the fairest should belong, as if by right, was quite consistent with the notions prevalent at a period when the strongest was entitled to retain whatever he chose to seize.f e The female captives are, to uncivilized victors, the most valuable part of the booty. "The wealthy are slaughtered, the lovely are spared." We need not refer to the rape of the Sabines, or to a similar instance of the book of Judges, for evidence that such deeds of violence have been committed on a large scale. ... The annals of Ireland as well as those of Scotland, prove the crime to have been common in the most lawless parts of both countries; and any woman who happened to please a man of spirit, who came of a good house and possessed a few chosen friends and a retreat in the mountains, was not permitted the alternative of saying him "Nay."-Sir W. SCOTT, Introduction to Rob Roy. See further on, a nice distinction drawn between a freebooter and a thief. Sir W. SCOTT in his Introduction to the Border Minstrelsy, an Essay every way worthy of that extraordinary man, has given a translation by Mr. LEYDEN, of some verses of HYBRIAS. It is as follows: My sword, my spear, my shaggy shield, The only wealth that God bestow. But the cavalier professed only to win the lady's heart, not to have a right of carrying off her person according to the practice of the ancient heroes. On the other hand dexterity and valour, openly and fairly employed, being the only means of warfare, it was natural that public trials should be made, in the presence of the fair sex, of those who excelled in such knightly qualities. Thus the ladies were indirectly conquered by the bravest knight, not by his seizing and bearing them away, but by his winning their affection through feats of 'nobleness and chivalrie.' Not to mention the flattering nature of the homage paid by him. who was superior to all, nor the enthusiasm which personal bravery must excite as being generally united to a noble, warm, and generous disposition, it must be kept in mind that at this period a lady felt the vital importance of being able to dispose of the sword of a victorious My sword, my spear, my shaggy shield, Before my shaggy shield must bow : His lands, his vineyards must resign, And all that cowards have is mine.' Sir Wm. JONES, after quoting the original of HYBRIAS, gives the following translation of some Arabian verses. Non sunt mihi opes præter loricam et cassidem, Et ensem album, ferreum, politum, Hastamque fuscam, Indicam, rigidam Laevemque gladium, nudam habentem aciem, procerum. Poes. Asiat. Comment. cap. 15. knight. It appears, therefore, that tournaments necessarily arose out of the chivalrous spirit, modified as here described.h It hath bene through all ages even seene, For either doth on other much relie; For He me seemes most fit the Faire to serve, That can her best defend from villenie; And She most fit his service doth deserve, That fairest is, and from her faith will never swerve. SPENSER, Faery Queene, iv. v. 1. h The earliest record of a tournament is, I think, to be found in NITHARD under the year 842. Some kind of game among the Germans, which consisted in displaying their dexterity in arms, is mentioned by TACITUS, de Mor. Germ. § 24. In an Introductory Discourse to the Poem of Conloch, by SILVESTER O'HALLORAN, Esq. prefixed to the translation of that poem in Miss BROOKE'S Reliques of Irish Poetry, we are assured that, chivalry flourished among the Celtae in those days of politeness and erudition, which long preceded the conquests in Gaul, and were always in force in Ireland.' The learned writer proceeds to give a very minute account of that chivalry which flourished in Ireland from the remotest antiquity.' It is to be wished that some evidence were given in support of those assertions, which, if correct, would certainly prove undeniably that the earliest knights on record were from Ireland. There is reason to suspect that such was the fact when we reflect that knights were often saints, as we shall see hereafter. The same gentleman informs us likewise in a note to the poem the Chase, ibid. p. 75, that⚫ The heroes of ancient Ireland were sworn never to attack an enemy at any disadvantage.' I would dubb them all knights immediately if this were proved by unexceptionable authority. In a note to the same poem, p. 100, we read, 'It has been already |