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Wf.

YALE UNIVERSITY
LIBRARY

Bought with the income
of the
PRESIDENT NAPHTALI DAGGETT
FUND

iBroatr ^tone of l^xmour ;
In Four Parts :
GODEFEIDUS; TANCBEDTJS; MOEUS; OELANDUS.

WTMAN AND BONSj PEINTEES,
GREAT QTTEEN STEEET, LINCOLN'S-INN FIELDS,
LONDON, W.C.

THE

ntoKts Stem of Honottt:

OB,

THE TRUE SENSE AND PRACTICE OF CHIVALRY.

3rf)e JFhst IBooh.
GODEFEIDUS

KENELM HENRY DIGBY, ESQ.

LONDON:
BERNARD QUARITCH, 15 PICCADILLY.
MDCCCLXXVir,

This impression of the "Beoad Stone of Honour" is
limited to

500 copies .
50 „ .

. Small paper.
. Large paper, numbered.

Ubcu I

SEMPER FUIT IDEM

THB ARGUMENT.

Pahb.
I. Introdnction, stating in what sense a traly philosophic
history of Chivalry might be undertaken. The occasion
which gave rise to this work ...... 1
II. That there was a deficiency, which it might be made to
remove. Its title explained ...... 4
III. In what way divided . . . . . . .11
IV. The advantage and enjoyment which may be derived
from such studies ........ 12
V. Why examples of foreign Chivalry seem to have been
preferred. EnglSnd formerly renowned for its peculiar
love of Chivalry. What general principles may have
dictated this preference of foieign examples ; what par
ticular circumstances may have required it . . .20
VI. The importance of the imagination in the eondnot of
life. The application of poetry. How poetry is em.
ployed in these bool. s . . . . . . .25

viii THE ARGUMENT.
VII. A respect for past times characteristic of Chivalry ;
the opinion of the ancients on this point. Why the same
shonld peculiarly belong to our age. Eemarks upon its
general character .... ... 30
VIII. Eemarks upon the old literature of heroic times ; that
a taste for it has revived. How ancient words and
forms will be employed in these books . . .47
IX. In what manner history is employed, and what kind of
histories are used ........ 54
X. How far a regular plan will be observed. That the
Catholic faith secures men from inconsistency. How
the course will correspond with the symbolical wander
ings of the ancient knights ; the advantages and pleasure
of such a course .... ... 61
XI . For what persons such a work may be designed ; that
youth requires studies of this nature ; that they can only
be of use when in perfect harmony with religion . . 69
XII. On what ground the employment of the chivalrous
romances can be defended . . ... 77
XIII. The propriety of classical allusions shewn from the
custom of our old writers. That the old world must
have had its Chivalry ; examples to prove this. How
far such Chivalry must have been inferior to the Chris
tian . . ... . . 95
XIV. Chivalry defined. That its age oan never be said to
have passed. Youth essentially chivalrous. A view of
its character. That only what is accidental to Chivalry
can become obsolete and lifeless .... 107
XV. The features of Chivalry which seem to have an
especial reference to the Christian religion : its ardour,
and freedom from human respeft ; its perfect fildelity ;
its humility ; its generous spirit ; its need of a divine
object; its sense of the real dignity of the soul; its
piety ; its sense of beauty ; its constant readiness and
promptitude ; its courage ; its loyalty ; its disposition
to admire all the circumstances of piety ; ita willingness
to serve ; its admitting religious motives in preference
to all others ; its hatred of selfishness and calculation ;
its spirit of obedience; its delicate aifecdons ; its sim
plicity and gentleness ; its liberal aud comprehensive

THEAEGUMENT. ix
PAGE.
spirit ; its spirit of sacrifice ; its temperance and con
sistency; its sincerity; its susceptibility of love and
reverence ; its desire of union and fellowship ; its
charity ; its heroism ; its disposition to receive instruc
tion from the teachers of truth, and to revere the priest
hood and all sanctity and innocence ; its predisposition
to admit authority. That it was the unity of faith
which, in the middle ages, united all hearts in noble
Chivalry  122
XVI. The symbolical character of the Christian Chivalry ;
arising from the disposition of youth ; from the nature
of all noble arts ; from the character of the Christian
state ; from the sanction of religion in the disciple of
the Church. The sentiments of the ancients respecting
symbolical instruction. How general the usage adopted
by the first Christians ; hence the employment of fiction
in our romantic literature ; hence the symbolical
character of our Chivalry. Examples .... 179
XVII. On the philosophy which belongs to Chivalry. How
it is opposed to the spirit of ridicule ; the character of
this spirit. Eemarks upon Don Quixote. Aristophanes
the Cervantes of Greece ; these two writers compared.
That the philosophy which belongs to Chivalry must be
opposed to the whole system of Epicurus ; to the opinion
that the senses are the only source of ideas ; to the
doctrine of expediency and of refined selfishness; to that
of pleasure being the best object of life ; to that which
removes the importance of motives ; to the system of
the Manichseans ; to that ofthe modem political sophists ;
to all schemes which contradict positive law ; to the caba
listic philosophy of those who make unintelligibility the
criterion of truth ; to the views of those who retnrn to
the doubts and argumentations of the heathen philoso
phers ; to the mind of those who do not believe in an
especial providence. That it must be religions, mindful
of death, and opposed to the arguments of sceptics and
infidels. That heroic men may possess thia philosophy
without being conscious of it. That the philosophy op
posed, to that of Chivalry is destructive of the qualities
of youth ..... • ly"

/

X THE AEGUMENT. I
PAGE.
XVIII. That Chivalry is not dependent upon political no
bility. The character of this nobility; how it was
regarded by the ancients ; by the first Christians ; how
it has appeared in later ages. That Chivalry may exist ,
arhong the peasants of a Catholic land. Examples. That
it was Chivalry wliich aflforded the grandest distinction 251 /
XIX. On the origin and laws of nobility . . . . 276 V
XX. On the advantages arising from nobility, according to_
the sentiments of tbe ancient and of the Christian
Chivalry, and the character of the Christian nobility . 290
XXI. On government, as connected with the spirit and in
stitutions of Chivalry. The necessity and power of
government; the disposition of Chivalry to obey it.
That the form may vary. On the principles of a
Christian government iu the middle, ages ; the kingdom
of Jerusalem; the election of Godfrey. On the relation
of the temporal and spiritual powers. On the freedom
of men under the ancient kings of Christendom. That
¦Chivalry may be no longer admitted to co-operate with
the civil govemment ; that it may exist under every
state but that of despotism and anarchy . . . 304 .
XXII. That the ideal form of perfect Chivalry is to be sought
for in the mind ; that all objects symbolical of this
knighthood are beheld with interest ; hence the pleasure
with which we visit the ancient castles of Chivalry ;
that the ohivakous mind cannot be affected by age . 341

(HotrefriJjusf,

' Ista studia, si ad imitandos summos viros speotant, ingeniosnrum
sunt; sin tantummodo ad indicia veteris memoria cognoscenda,
ouriosornm : te autem hortamur omnes, ourrentem quidem, ut
spero, ut eos, quos novisse vis, etiam imitari veils." '

It used to form a subject of surprise to a great
orator, when treating upon history, that while there
are so many works which describe the institutions
and laws of knighthood, and so many memorials of
its past greatness in all the records and institutions
of Europe, there should not be one book composed
with a view of giving a philosophic history of
chivalry. Such a title, it must be confessed, has a
very doubtful sound to those who are reminded of
the compositions professedly philosophic in every
branch of literature, which were so industriously
circulated during the last century : but they who
had ever the happiness of hearing the admirable
man of whom I speak, whose dissertations were so
full of eloquence and poetry, so accommodated to
the common sense of all, and to the sweetest har
mony of nature, that each of them, like a book of
Herodotus, might have been offered under the aus
pices of a Muse, wiU feel no hesitation to admit
that there is a deficiency in the republic of letters,
which may be thus expressed, and which it might
be the desire of a real philosopher to remove. It
is true, no subject can, at first view, assume an
' Cicero de Finibus, lib. V, 2.
• Oodefridus. B

2 GODEFEIDUS.
aspect of less gravity, or appear farther removed
from investigations concerning the intellectual his
tory of man, than that of chivalry ; and yet this
impression will be found unsupported by any
ground of justice. Not to speak at present of the
many questions of deep importance to which it may
give rise, there is always reason to suppose that a
very high degree of interest will be awakened by
every inquiry which recalls to the minds of men
the manners and the discipline which were be
queathed to them by their ancestors : it might be
concluded, that this consideration of itself would
be sufficient to bespeak attention, especially when
we observe with what delight,' men visit the scenes
which bring back the images of our chivalrous age,
even at times when there is no voice to awaken it
but the silent eloquence of some ruined tower or of
some deserted courtj shadowed by the mossed trees
that have outlived the eagle. Perhaps, indeed, in
the first instance, the presence of such objects may
be required to create that degree of attention
upon which the success of attempts like the pre
sent must depend; and therefore I would invite
all persons who propose to follow me in this re
search, to begin by visiting them, in order that
they may gain a vantage-ground, as it were to make
silence, and to have the disposition of their minds
undisturbed by the objections of the sophists which
now infest everything, so that they may engage in
youthful meditation fancy free.
" Where do you wish that we should sit down
and read this tale of ancient chivalry ?" said one of
our company, as we walked on a spring morning
through the delicious groves that clothe those
mountains of Dauphine which surround the old
castle of the family of Bayard. We proposed to
turn aside along the banks of the stream, and there
sit down in peace. We were aU familiar with

GODEFEIDUS. 3
Plato, and this spot reminded us forcibly of that
charming episode where Pheedrus and Socrates are
described as congratulating each other on being
bare-footed, that they may walk through the water;
and our light and careless livery was no impedi
ment to our march to the opposite shore, though
the stream was rapid and of considerable depth.
Upon the opposite bank we found a lofty chestnut
with wide-spreading branches, and beneath it was
soft grass and a gentle breeze ; and there we sat
down : near it were shrubs which formed a dense
and lovely thicket ; and many of them bearing now
a full blossom, the whole place was most fragrant ;
there was a fountain also under the chestnut, clear
and cold, as our feet bore witness ; and that no
thing might be wanting to remind us of those
banks of the Ilissus described by Plato, there were
some statues, from which the ancients would have
supposed that here too was a spot sacred to the
Nymphs and to Achelous. But our Ilissus pos
sessed objects of a higher interest than the memo
rials of Boreas and Orithyia; for within a few
hundred yards of the spot where we sat, lower down
the bank, there was an altar and a rustic chapel,
embowered in arbutus, where, in the summer
season, a priest from the neighbouring monastery
used to repair to say the holy mass, and to instruct
the shepherd youth who had to watch the flocks
during these months in places remote from any
habitation of men. Who could describe with what
refreshing and delicious sweetness the gentle breeze
cooled our temples ! The summer song of the
cicadge had already begun to resound in sweet
chorus ; the grass was most beautiful and rich with
varied flowers. Chaucer used to say, at dawn of
day walking in the meadow to see these blossoms
spread against the sun was a blissful sight, which
softened all his sorrow. Prom this enamelled bank,
B 2

4 GODEFEIDUS,
promising to receive so gently the reclining head,
we could discern across the river the grey ruins of
that majestic castle which recalled so many images
of the olden time, and which was distinguished by
a name so peculiarly dear to chivalry that it seemed
symbolical of the very bent of honour. It was here,
then, that we began to read aloud from a certain
romantic volume which first inspired me with the
desire to study the counsels and to retrace the deeds
of chivalry.
II. It is well known, that in times past it was
the custom of our ancestors to frame and set forth
certain books of examples and doctrines suitable to
the various duties of men in the different ranks of
life; books which, as St. Gregory says, "while
they were to be formed to agree with the quality of
particular persons, were yet never to be removed
from the art of common edification.^^ The castle
had its school as well as the cloister, in which youth
was to be instructed • in letters, arms,

Fair mien, discourses, civil exercises.
And all the blazon of a gentleman ;
wherein it should be trained to piety, heroism,
loyalty, generosity, and honour ; that men might
learn to emulate the virtues of their famous ances
tors, and as Christian gentlemen, to whom Chris
tendom was a common country, to follow the
example of those ancient worthies who were the
defenders of the Church, the patrons of the poor,
and the glory of their times. It would be idle and
presumptuous to remind men that they already
possess for tl^ir instruction in gentleness and chi
valry the deeds of King Arthur and of his knights
ofthe Round Table; of Sir Bevysof Southampton,
and Guy of Warwick ; the histories of Sir Tristram
(no longer the only good knight out of Cornwall),

GODEFEIDUS. 5
of Charlemagne and Godfrey of Bouillon; and
many other similar volumes in French and English.
High stories these; yet, sooth to say, no longer
calculated fully to answer the purpose for which
they were designed : though the delight of our
ancestors, and deemed by them favourable to the
increase of virtue, they are but little read by the
present race of men, seeing that the language is
often hard to be understood — for what they said.
Thai sayd it in so quaint Inglis,
That many wote not what it is ;
that in some respects chivalry has adopted a dif
ferent form and imposed new obligations ; and that,
at all events, the truth of these renowned stories is
questioned, albeit that most ingenious printer, who
lived m the reign of King Henry the Seventh, was
convinced, by many evidences, that "there was a
kyng of thys lande named Arthur, and that in all
places, Crysten and Hethen, he was reputed and
taken for one of the ix worthy and fyrst and chyef
of the Cristen men whose deeds may be found in
the book' which treats upon that noble fellowship";
and Holinshed testifies that " surely such one there
was of that name, hardie, and valiaunt in arms, who
slew in syngular combats certayne gyaunts that
were of passyng force and hugeness of stature."
But this will not content men, even though they
could see " his sepulture in the Monasterye of
Glastyngburye," or "the prynte of his seal at
Saynt Edwardes shryne at Westmestre," or even
" the round table at Wynchester," or " Sir Gay-
wayn's sckull in the Castel of Dover." And there
fore it might seem a great pity, that, for want of
some person to collect what was credible and suit
able to the good in the present age, and worthy of
' Les neuf Preux : Abbeville, 1487.

6 GODEFEIDUS.
acceptance, out of these and other noble histories,
and to collect in like manner ensamples and doc
trines out of later history, the gentle and heroic
deeds of honourable men should be forgotten, their
memories sink into the depth and darkness of the
earth, and the precious advantage of learning to
admire and to emulate such glory, that rich in
heritance of a virtuous example, should be lost to
ourselves and to our posterity. Wherefore, under
the favour and correction of all ingenuous persons,
these four books of ensamples and doctrines, form
ing, as it were, a moral history of the heroic age of
Christendom, have been undertaken; and it seemed,
that in accordance with the symbolic character
which should distinguish all works connected with
chivalry, the whole collection might be named
" STfte ISroatr Sitone of ?l?onour," seeing that
it would be a fortress like that rock upon the Rhine
which appears to represent, as it were, knightly
perfection, being lofty and free from the infection
of a base world. This, indeed, would be lofty, not
to represent the height of an arrogant mind, but
what St. Bernard calls "the holy and humble eleva
tion of the heart " : it would be broad, not in
regard to the way that leadeth to it, which, like
that of all divine virtue, is known to be so narrow
that few can go in thereat, being the narrow way
of those who are called to sufi'ering ; it is not the
broad road of the world, nor the wide gate that
leadeth to its false enchantments ; this is strait and
narrow, rough and craggy, and hard to climb ; they
who entered it in times past gave but one counseJ,
" intrate per angustam portam," — ^but it is broad
in respect to its principles and to its law, " latum
mandatum tuum nimis "; ^ broad in acknowledging
distinctly and broadly the eternal truths of religion,
' Ps. 118.

GODEFEIDUS. 7
that all men are equal before God; broad in its
words, those of plain and holy innocence, and in
its sentiments Whole as the marble, founded as the rook.
As broad and general as the casing air ;
Not cabin'd cribb'd, confin'd, bound in
To doubts and fears.
¦ velut rupes, vastum quae prodit in £equor,

Obvia ventorum furiis, expostaque ponto.
Vim cunctam atque minas perferfe coelique marisque,
Ipsa immota maneus.
Have we not reason, then, to compare it to a
majestic and impregnable fortress ? In league
with God and with the universe, must it not be for
ever triumphant ? Strong it is in the force of
those who protect it ; for even the Greek had
learned to say, Setvbg og Qtovg (tj/3ei : but a nobler
voice proclaims it in a higher strain — " If God be
for us, who is against us ? " God sends his blessed
angels to encamp about them that fear Him ; and
how secure are they who are under the conduct and
protection of those mighty spirits ! They may sit
down in peace and sing, " Qui habitat in ab-
scondito." Nor is it upon a narrow and barren
rock, without means of delight and refreshment,
that we are invited to take our stand, to resist the
arms of the world. When the wide fields of litera
ture are made the domains of religion, there can
be no feeling of confinement; for religion can
sanctify all pursuits, and appropriate all beauty to
itself. " 0 quam magna est domus Dei, et ingens
locus possessionis ejus ! magnus est, et non ha,bet
finem, excelsus et immensus." * Here are scenes
of sylvan beauty, of loveliness and grandeur.
The gleam, the shadow, and the peace supreme,

OflSoe for Holy Saturday.

8 GODEFEIDUS.
the coolness of the grove, the fragrance of the violet-
bed, the purity of the limpid wave, the divine ex
cellence of all the innocent creatures of God.
Hic ver pnrpureum, varios hic flnmina circnm
Fundit humus flores, hic Candida populus antro
Itnminet, et lentae texunt nmbraoula vites :
Hue ades ; insani feriant sine litora fiuctus 
Hic gelidi fontes, hic moUia prata, virensque
Hic nemus, hic ipso tecum consumerer uevo.
There are, indeed, two ways marked out in life —
the one dark and rugged, in which the wretched
Ulysses walked, the other more inviting, which
Nestor followed — and Pythagoras was right in
saying, that " both may be allotted for virtue." ^
Yet they who enter through this gate will assuredly
arrive in the end at the most beautiful regions :
generally they pass at once into a life of paradisiacal
innocence, and playfulness, and freedom, and joy.
The rock is so perfect that it will suffer no one
to enter upon it who is not in perfect belief — it
breathes an air like that sweetness which awakened
Sir Lancelot, when "he was fulfylled with all
thynges that he thought on or desyred, and said,
' I wote not in what joye I am, for this joye passeth
all erthely joyes that ever I was in.'' " ^ They who
ascend ' with persevering ardour, and who mount
the summit of this rocky nest, after toiling up the
steep and narrow way through which aU who have
won the prize of excellency and honour, passed
in times of old, will at length find themselves in
security ; they will be received into habitations,
which will lead to the accomplishment of all the
wishes of the human heart, and to something more;
that name which belonged to the Castle of Montiel
in the Sierra Morena, which was called the Tower
of Stars, might be engraven also over the portal
' Stob^i Florileg.. I, 38. " Morte d' Arthur, II, 297.

GODEFEIDUS. 9
here with a high symbolic meaning ; for there will
be found within this fortress an assembly corre
sponding with the brightness of those stars which
seem to crown its lofty battlements — a procession
of angelic spirits, of which an exquisite and perfect
emblem may be found in " that host of white-robed
pilgrims which travel along the vault of the nightly
sky, than whom," as an admirable writer says,
" the imagination is unable to conceive anything
more quiet, and calm, and unassuming." ' More
over, like the enchanted palace of a chivalrous tale,
we have only to seek this fortress with purity and
faith, and we shaU not fail to achieve the high ad
venture. How must Stephen of Colonna, whom
Petrarch loved and reverenced for his heroic spirit,
"ex cineribus veterum renatus phoenix," have
struck dumb with astonishment the base and im
potent assailants who thought indeed that he was
at length in their power, and so demanded, with an
air of triumph, "Where is now your fortress ? "
when he laid his hand on his heart and answered,
" Here ; and one whose strength will laugh a siege
to scorn." Similar was the reply of Bias to those
who asked him why he did not, like others of his
countrymen, load himself with part of his property
when all were obliged to fly : " Your wonder is
without reason; I am carrying all my treasures
with me.'^
The security and excellence which are found here
arise from the possession being unconnected with
all that is subject to the rapid course of time: death
only translates its guardians, as it were, to that
higher capital, upon which this is an humble de
pendant. Even the ancients felt the need of such
an asylum. When Crates the Theban saw men
busily employed in rebuilding Thebes, he said,
' J. C. Hare.

10 GODEFEIDUS.
" For my part, from this time forth, I want a city
which no future Alexander can overthrow." ^
"Vanitas est diligere quod cum omni celeritate
transit; et illuc non festinare, ubi sempiternum
gaudiam manet.'' ^ But no doubt all this is fanciful
and romantic extravagance, or, at best, but jsv-
vaiav tvnOetav, smelling of the age of Saturn, to
infidel philosophists and men of the new wisdom,
who know of nothing
Beyond the senses and their little reign ;
and who despise the ancient sentences.
That virtue and the faculties within
Are vital, — and that riches are akin
To fear, to change, to cowardice, and death !
Yet assuredly the object of these books will not
be to induce men to follow the mere visions of a
romantic imagination, and to desire a strange and
enchanted world which exists but in a dream of
fancy. No ; as Malebranche declares,^ "" It is not
into a strange country that such guides conduct
you ; but it is into your own, in which, very pos
sibly, you may be a stranger." To you perhaps
the words of the divine Scripture are addressed —
" Inveterasti in terra aliena, coinquinatus es cum
mortuis, deputatus es cum descendentibus in in-
fernum. Dereliquisti fontem sapientiae. Nam si
in via Dei ambulasses, habitasses utique in pace
super terram. Disce ubi sit sapientia, ubi sit
virtus, ubi sit intellectus : ut scias simul ubi sit
longiturnitas vitae et victus, ubi sit lumen ocu-
lorum et pax."* These images as symbols have
a real existence, and are the only objects sub
stantial and unchangeable; whereas, respecting the
forms of the material world, independent of these
images, that is, of the spirit which vivifies them,
' -^Elian. Var. Hist. lib. Ill, c. 6. = De Imitat. Christi, I..
" Entret. sur la Metaphys. * Barach III, 9.

GODEFEIDUS. 11
the most knowing of the philosophers are in truth
ignorant. III. In this first book I shall endeavour to give
a general idea of the views and principles respect
ing chivalry which have guided me in the composi
tion of the whole work. And as there will be some
express mention of degree and of Christian govern
ment, it will be presented under the name of that
illustrious hero, Godfrey, whose kingly rule seems
to have corresponded with the' very ideal of per
fection in the social order, and whose personal
qualities were so heroic, that, according to an
ancient chronicle, an infidel king was heard to say,
" Quand tout I'honneur du monde seroit failly et
assorbe, que le due Godefroy est suffisant pour le
recouvrer et mettre dessus." ^ The ground being
thus prepared, the foundation will be laid in the
second book, which will contain a view of the
religion and the discipline which belonged to
chivalry in the heroic age of Christianity, and the
name of Tancred suggests itself as a representative
of that spirit. This will unavoidably lead to a con
sideration of the objections which have been urged
by various sects of innovators against the principles
and practice of the Christian chivalry ; and in ihe
third book, which shall be called Morus, after the
great Chancellor of England who laid down his life
to defend its glorious standard, these objections
will be examined. In the fourth book the main
subject ¦will be resumed, by giving a more detailed
view of the virtues of the chivalrous character,
when it was submitted to the genuine and all-
powerful influence of the Catholic faith; and Or
lando may be symbolical of this more generous
chivalry. The whole, therefore, may be considered
' Les Faitz et Gestes du preux Godefroy de Bouillon et de ses
chevaleureux Freres, f. 53.

12 GODEFEIDUS.
in the light of a history of heroic times, arranged
chiefly with a view to convey lessons of surviving
and perpetual interest to the generous part of man
kind, and occasionally made subservient to con
siderations of a higher nature than might atfirst
have been expected from the professed object:
" sunt enim haec majora, quae aliorum causa fortasse
complecteris, quam ipsa ilia, quorum haec causa
praeparantur." ^
IV. With respect to the advantages to be derived
from a work of this nature, it may be well to offer
some preliminary remarks. I know, indeed, as
Dion Halicarnassus observes in his criticisni upon
Thucydides, it is a common disposition with men
to affirm, that the object of their admiration pos
sesses all the qualities which they wish it to have ;
but he would greatly err who should imagine that
a similar observation could be sufficient to explain
the high degree of interest with which many men
pursue researches into the history and literature of
chivalry. Prom such studies, even with reference
to their immediate and, as it were, external object,
they justly expect to derive both pleasure and
benefit. In the first place, they serve their country
by adorning its peculiar traditions and recollections;
preser-ving alive in the memories of men the mag
nanimity and greatness of ages that are departed,
and cherishing that poetry which lives in every
people, until it is stifled by the various and factitious
interests of a life devoted to luxury and avarice.
As Friedrich Schlegel says, " such national recollec
tions, the noblest inheritance which a people can
possess, bestow an advantage which no other riches
can supply ; for when a people are exalted in their
feelings, and ennobled in their own estimation by
the consciousness that they have been illustrious in
' Cicero de Legibus, I, 10.

GODEFEIDUS. 13
ages that are gone by — that these recollections have
come down to them from a remote and heroic
ancestry; — in a word, that they have a national
poetry of their own, we are willing to acknowledge,
that their pride is reasonable, and they are raised
in our eyes by the same circumstance which gives
them elevation in their own." ^
Such students promote their own advancement
in honour by adopting the practice which Scipio
said was the characteristic of a great mind, " ut se
non cum pr^sentibus modo, sed cum omnis asvi
Claris viris comparent," ^ which preserves them too
from being ensnared by a general error of language,
" id enim licere dicimus, quod cuique conceditur." *
It is no small advantage, that by such a study men
become acquainted "with the character of their an
cestors, and of their country itseU ; for the historical
personages, who are made thus to pass in review,
are the only real representatives of a nation as of
an age ; not in consequence of their having obtained
any political election or post in peace or war, but
like Scipio and Cato, when they held no office and
lived in exile, on account of their representing the
general mind of their countrymen. In some re
spects, too, even single examples of this kind are a
history of a whole race of men, as Cicero says of
Regulus, when he returned to Carthage : " ista laus
non est hominis sed temporum." * As for the
pleasure which is derived from such studies, it may
be sufficient to appeal to the common feelings of
ingenuous men in every age. "Who is there,"
cries Cicero, "that does not experience a delight
when he hears of the deeds, and sayings, and
councils of our ancestors, of the Africani, and of
the other brave men who were excellent in every
1 Hist, of Lit. I, 15. ' Liv. lib. XXVIII, 43.
' Cicero, Tuscul. V. '' Cio. de Ofliciis, III, 31.

14 GODEFEIDUS.
virtue ? " ^ With what high feelings did the heroes
of Spain look back to Count Fernan Gonzalez of
Castile, to the Cid of Valencia, to Gonzalo Fernandez
of Andaluzia, to Diego Garcia de Paredes of Estre-
madura, to Garcia Perez de Vargas of Xeres, to
Garcilaso of Toledo, to Don Manuel de Leon of
Seville; the reading of whose brave actions instructs
and animates the most judicious reader : these are
the themes which should be familiar to the heroic
men of all ages ; as Menelaus says to the young
strangers Telemachus and Pisistratus, after alluding
to his own history,
Kal vaTspwv raSt /teWfr' aKovifitv, o'i nvsg Vfiiv

CLUIV. '

The wise ancients, who resembled the mild old
Nestor, iraKai, ¦jcoKijiiiiv tv iiSiie,^
were of opinion that this personal application of
past events, as an extension of private experience,
constituted the great end of history, whereby the
¦virtuous might be excited by the prospect of endless
renown, and the base (for even their base men had
regard to the judgment of posterity) restrained, by
fear of incurring the detestation of all future ages." ¦*
Plutarch observed, that young men were more ex
cited by instructions which had not the austere and
laboured tone of the philosophers, but which were
conveyed in the way of fables and poetry.^ Plato
said, that he would correct Speusippus by the ex
ample of his own life ; and Polemon ha^ving only
beheld Xenocrates in the school, was induced to
follow another course of life. Yet heroes were

De Finibus, lib. Ill, 11. ' Od. IV, 93.
II. IV. * Diodor. Sicul. Ub. I, 2.
' De Audiendis Poetis.

.GODEFEIDUS. 15
^not to teach others by implying that they were them
selves perfect, but, rather, after this manner :
TvSdSti, ri TraQojTf XeXafffiefla 9ovpi5oe dXicijc;
thus Socrates corrected young men, not pretending
that he did not himself need correction. It may
be objected to me hereafter, that I present such a
multitude of examples. True ; " exemplis abundo,
sed illustribuSj sed veris, et quibus, nisi fallor, cum
delectatione insit auctoritas." As ^schylus says
of his own tragedy, " the Seven against Thebes,"
that whoever beheld it must needs become a hero,
6 QiaaAfitvoQ ttoj av rig avijp rtpduBr] Saiog etvai,^
so, it may be hoped, that the once beholding such
examples as shall be here exhibited, will be suffi
cient to strike some shew of fire from the most
insensible, and to kindle the spark of ancient
honour in every ingenuous breast. For honour is
the subject of my story ;
ovTiD Kai Tuiv TrpooBtv littvQo^itda xXka avSpuiv
rjpoiwv.^
There are examples, as the Roman orator would
say, " ex vetere memoria et monumentis ac litteris,
plena dignitatis, plena antiquitatis. Haec enim
plurimum solent et auctoritatis habere ad proban-
dum, et jucunditatis ad audiendum." ^ " Haec
imitamini qui dignitatem, qui laudem, qui gloriam
queeritis : hsec ampla sunt, haec divina, haec immor-
taUa : h^c f ama celebrantur, monumentis annalium
mandantur, posteritati propagantur." He then
adds, " Est labor ; non nego : pericula magna;
fateor."* The Christian view is expressed with
' Aristoph. Eause. ° II. IX, 524.
» Cicero in Verrem, II, m, 90. * Cicero pro P. Sextio.

16 GODEFEIDUS.
admirable simplicity by Sir Thomas Malory, in the
preface to his own History : " Me thynketh this
present boke is ryght necessary often to be redde.
For in it shall ye fynde the gracious, knyghtly, and
virtuous werre of moost noble knyghtes of the
worlde, whereby they gate praysing contynuall.
Also me semyth by the oft redying thereof, ye shal
gretely desyre to custome yourseK in foUo-wynge
those gracyous knyghtly dedes ; that is to saye, to
drede Gode, and love ryghtwiseness, feythf uUy and
courageously to serve your soverayne prynce. And
the more that God hath geven you the tryumphall
honour, the meker ye^ oughte to be : ever ferying
the unstablyness of this dysceyvable worlde."
" The love of imitation," says Aristotle, " is in
man's nature from his infancy ; and herein he differs
from other animals, on jui/xrjrtKwrarov iart." Lord
Bacon has pronounced of examples, such as are here
submitted to the reader, that they may be of great
service "to quicken and strengthen the opinions
and persuasions which are true. For reasons," he
observes, "plainly delivered, and always after one
manner, especially with fine and fastidious minjls,
enter but heavily and dully; whereas, if they be
varied, and have more life and vigour put into
them by these forms and insinuations, they cause a
stronger apprehension, and many times suddenly
win the mind to a resolution." Nay, the manner
of conveying knowledge, broken, and not arranged
into a system, leaving men often to draw their own
reflections, and presenting them only -with detached
facts, has been approved of by a great philosopher.
Certainly, the most complete treatises are not always
those which leave on the mind the most just idea
of a subject. A rough unfinished sketch has often
more spirit and resemblance to the original than
the highly wrought painting ; a few words often
suffice to remind men of the whole truth, — as a lon^

GODEFEIDUS. 17
spear, when shaken from the rest, vibrates to the
extreme point, the motion being instantly com
municated to the entire wood. It will need but a
careless glance upon the scenes which we shall visit
to justify our applying to them the words of Manlius
Torquatus : " si tot exempla virtutis non movent,
nihil umquam movebit." Certainly, the more men
reflect upon the noble and joyous images presented
in heroic history, the more they wiU feel themselves
confirmed in all those holy feelings which alone can
give them dignity and security ; the more they will
become persuaded that the principles which they
illustrate and recommend are the most 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
war-horses, when Dietrich, the most gigantic of the
number, leaped from his horse, and was foUowed by
the others, who seated themselves round the em
peror's throne. We do not want a magician's skill
to bring those 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 Lacede
monian 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
' P'. Mathieu, Heroik Life and deplorable Death of Henry IV.
Oodefridus. C

18 GODEFEIDUS.
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 con
templates the noble images of reproachless chivalry
must feel anxious that they should be re'vived
in the deeds of men, and must 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.^
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.^
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 roUing 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 one of
the greatest of the ancients said, 'iv 070601 jtvwfiSa.^
' Plat. Timsens. ^ Warton'a Grave of King Arthur.
^ Aristot. Ethic. Nioomach. II, 2.

GODEFEIDUS. 19
The object in -view is not knowledge, but practice.
"Vosque adolescen,tes," said the Roman Orator,
" et qui nobiles estis, ad majorum vestrum imita-
tionem excitabo, et qui ingenio et virtute nobilitatem
potestis consequi, ad eam rationem, in qua multi
homines novi et honore et gloria floruerunt cohor-
tabor." 1
I know, indeed, as an old German historian says
of a later prince, who professed to take Charle
magne 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.^ 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 Alex
ander 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
AchiUes 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 com
posed. Practice and virtue were the end proposed
by Sir Thomas Malory, who concludes his preface,
¦ Cio. pro P. Sextio. ' Orator. IX.
' Hist, du Viscomte de Turenne, par Eamsay, VI.
C 2

20 GODEFEIDUS.
" humbly bysechying all noble lordes and ladyes,
wyth al other estates, of what es.tate or degree they
been of, that shall see and rede in this book, that
they take the good and honest actes in their re
membraunce, and to folowe the same. Wherin
they shall fynde many joyous and playsaunt hys-
tories, and noble and renomed actes of humanyte,
gentylnesse, and chy valry es. For herein may be
seen noble ohyvalrye, curtosye, humanyte, friend-
lynesse, hardynesse, love, frendshyp, cowardyse,
murdre, hate, vertue, and synne. Doo after the
good, and leve the evyl, and it shal bryne you to
good fame and renommee. Al is wryten for our
doctryne, and for to beware that we faile not to
vyce ne synne, but to exercise and folowe vertu,
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 everlast-
ynge 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 ob
ject 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
' Preface to Mort d' Arthur.

GODEFEIDUS. 21
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, 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 chi
valry and of all its heroic exercises. La Colom-
biere has remarked, that the greatest number of
the old romances have been more particularly em
plpyed 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 Perce
forest, Merlin, Lancelot, Gawain, Meliadus,
Tristan de Leonnois, Giron le Courtois, Isa'ie le
Triste, the Palmerin of England, and many others
are quite filled ¦with their prowess.^ "Moult ay
ouy parler de ceste isle de Bretaigne et I'ay ouy
tenir a grant chose, et fort estimer a cause de sa
bonne chevalerie ;" this is what a knight says in
Perceforest.^ "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 Sorus
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 d' esbas et joyeulx
passetemps pour toutes gentilles pucelles et jeunes
• Dunlop,' Hist, of Fiction.
" Theatre d'Hpnnenr et de Chevalerie, I, 223.
' Tom. I, u. 21.

22 GODEFEIDUS.
bachehers qui pretendent a honneur de cheva
lerie." ^
Perhaps this character will account for the state
ment advanced by Diodorus, that against the British
isles not one of the ancient heroes, neither Bacchus
nor Hercules, ever made war.^ Our Christian chi-
valry recollected with greater pleasure, that the
first Christian king a.nd the first Christian emperor
were natives of England ; the first the very em
blem of the highest chivalry, adorned with its
cro'wn of majesty, and devoting himself to religion;
for Lucius 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. Not'withstanding so many titles to pre
eminence in the list 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 re
quired 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 con
cerned 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
' Perceforest, vol. 'VI. = j,il). XXI.

GODEFEIDUS. 23
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, Aliens, 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 reve
rence, 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 praestare
qua reipublicae nomen universas ci'vitatis est." ^
Nevertheless, thereare many persons who need not
be reminded, that times were when we might say
in England, referring to other facts besides our
geographical place,
oiKEo^tv S' airdvtvQi, iroXyKXiiffT^i hd irovrt^.^
" Alas ! poor country ! almost afraid to know
itself, where nothing but who knew nothing was
once seen to smile ! " Oh, what a ruin was here of
all that could support and guide chivalry ! Out
raged by a barbarous tyrant, betrayed by some of
her powerful nobles, enticed and deceived by a
few daring innovators, exposed to the multiplied
dangers which, by a concourse of unparalleled
' Eubichon de VAction du Clerge, p. 2.'^7.
» De Legibus, II, 2. " Od. VI, 204.

24 GODEFEIDUS.
events, were made to result from a state in which
the mass of the people were prepared to love and
believe, rather than to dispute and defend their
faith, — this knightly, this illustrious island fell into
that schism which separated her from the body of
the faithful, and lost that most precious gift which
any people can possess — the Catholic faith.
Since that time, agitated by a thousand factions,
divided amongst all sects, she has looked for happi
ness, and found riches and commercial prosperity,
in neither of which does chivalry any more than
religion take any great interest. Therefore, either
the ancient spirit of England was to be abandoned,
and -with it the whole object of these books, or else
it was necessary to take quite a different course
from that of the later philosophers of this country,
with whom, as Friedrich Schlegel says, " national
welfare is the ruling and central principle of
thought ; " a principle excellent and praiseworthy
in its due situation, but quite unfitted for being the
centre and oracle of all knowledge and s'cience, of
all honour and chivalry.
But besides this circumstance, there is a general
principle which might have required a preponder
ance of foreign examples, from whose influence it
would have been difficult to escape.
The " major e longinquo reverentia," is an obser
vation well known to the most humble follower of
the Muse; it is deeply founded in nature, and
peculiarly congenial to the disposition of chivalry.
Of all the Grecian princes who went to Troy,
Ulysses was from the country most remote fi'om
the land of Homer. The heroes of the Athenian
tragic drama, the Pelopidae and the Labdacidae,
were all foreigners. Pausanias remarks that the
Greeks must always have more admired the wonders
of foreign countries than of their own ; since their
most celebrated historians have described the-pyra-

GODEFEIDUS. 25
mids of Egypt ¦with the greatest exactness, and
have said nothing of the royal Treasury of Minyas,
nor of the walls of Tiryns, no less admirable
than the pyramids. -"^ The same remark is applic
able to later poets ; Shakespeare shews a decided
predilection for foreign lands and names.
VI. It is one of the old sayings ascribed to
Pythagoras, that he who exclusively exercises his
mind from youth in mathematical reasoning and in
the exact sciences ¦will be deficient in ¦wisdom.-
Friedrich Schlegel treats, in an admirable manner,
upon the power of the imagination, in conducing to
good as well as evil. " This beautiful sentiment of
desire in. youth, a fruitful imagination, a soul full
of love, are the highest gifts of aU-loving bountiful
nature, or rather of the wonderful spirit which
moves in it. They form, in a manner, a flowery
garden of a hidden hfe in the interior of men ; but,
as in the case of the first man, who was placed in
the garden of the earth not merely for idle enjoy
ment, but in order that he might tiU and plant it,
so it is ¦with this spiritual garden ; and when this
duty is neglected, the interior of men, which ought
to be admirable and enriched ¦with the choicest
gifts of nature, becomes only a ¦wild paradise."^
" The harmony of the soul," he says elsewhere,
" is produced by the union and co-operation of the
ordaining and comparing reason "with the endless
anticipating fancy. Fancy is the peculiar charac
teristic of man, in distinction to all other spiritual
natures ; for reason, as a naked negative power,
can onlv furnish a negative sign of the difference
between Tiim and irrational brutes." * These are
principles which were not unknown to the wise
ancients. Plato finds in the chorus of Muses the

• Lib. rX, 36. ' Stobaei Florileg. 1, 108.
' PMlosophie des Leliens, p. 48. * Id. p. 159.

26 GODEFEIDUS.
proper education for boys ; he refers all under
thirty to the paean, and says that from that age
until sixty men should continue to be familiar with
song, but that after this date they are no longer able
to hear the ode, and must therefore take refuge in
other sources.' The nature of all youth being im
patient of rest in body and mind, rhythm must
regulate the motions of the limbs, and harmony the
voice. Plato would have the poets employed by
legislators to lead men by their poetry to follow
justice. As the sick are cured by remedies which
are purposely rendered sweet to the palate, so
should the "wise framer of laws persuade and com
pel the poets to announce rightly, in Aythms and
melodious accents, the forms of justice and valour
and whatever belongs to good men ; and he ought
to take care that no poet should teach that there
are any wicked men who live pleasantly, and that
profit and gain are one thing, but justice is another;
for I maintain, that the things which are called
evils are benefits to evil men, though e^vil to the
good; whereas good things, though good to the
good, are evil to e^vil men ; for to e^vil men all
things are evil, beginning with health : and this
identity of the sweets of life ¦with virtue should he
continually repeated and proclaimed by all people,
in odes and symbols and fables.^ Plutarch there
fore recommends poems tp all who would study
philosophy, adding ev itoirifiatii Trpoo-^tXoffo^riTEOV.'
This principle seems to form the grand distinc
tion in all ages, between men who follow wisdom,
and the reasoning sophists who in ancient times
would have brought Homer into forgetfulness, if
their opinions had prevailed over those of Solon and
the Pisistratidffi, the preservers of Homer, as they
had already done every thing that lay in their
' Leges, II. '' Ib. II. ' De Audiendis Poetis.

GODEFEIDUS. 27
power to bring him into contempt ; and who ob
jected to Plato, that he was unintelligible and too
poetical in his prose ; ^ and who have been seen
anxiously employed in a later period in endeavour
ing to kill, by their poison of impurity, the ima,-
gination of youth, and to extinguish every sentiment
of spiritual beauty. Hence, in the judgment of
wise antiquity, and in the absence of more full and
efficacious sources of truth, poets were men of a
di'vine and holy character.
It was observed that Ulysses escaped from the
Syrens by causing all the ears of his company to be
stuffed with wax, and himself to be bound ; but a
more noble and excellent mode of avoiding the
wounds of life seemed to be pointed out by Orpheus,
who disdained to be bound, and was able to sup
press the songs of the Syrens, and to free himself
from their danger, by merely singing the praises of
the gods with a sweet voice; to shew, as a great
philosopher observes, that di^vine poetry does not
only in power subdue all sensual pleasures, but also
far exceeds them in sweetness and delight. " Every
thing else," says Cicero, " may be obtained by pre
cepts and study ; but a poet must be formed by
nature and by a di^vine spirit. Therefore poets
were called holy. The rocks and solitary deserts
are found to give an answer to the voice ; cruel
beasts are frequently subdued by song ; and shall
we, trained up in gentle studies, be deaf and insen
sible to the voice of poets ? Dear was our Ennius
to -Airicanus ; so that it is said he stood in marble
even in the sepulchre of the Scipios. Armed com
manders worshipped the name of poets and the
temples of the Muses. Alexander, when he stood
over the tomb of Achilles, said, ' 0 happy youth,
who had Homer to be the herald of your virtues ! '
' Dion. Halioarnass. Epist. ad Cn. Pomp.

28 GODEFEIDUS.
And he said justly ; for if it had not been for the
existence of that Iliad, the same tumtilus which
covered his body would also have buried his name." '
To this sense of the importance of the imagina-
tion as an instrument of the greatest moral good or
evil, much that is interesting in the manners and
institutions of the ancients is to be ascribed. For
instance, Plutarch, after saying that the troubled
life of cities is injurious to the study of philosophyj
and that solitude is the school of wisdom — 17 8'
iprifila, ao(j)iag ovcra yvfivairiov — that it corrects and
directs the soul of man, continues to shew, " that
the pure air and aspect of the country, and the
absence of all disturbance from within, and constant
peace, conduce to the instruction and purification of
the soul. On this account also," he adds, " the
temples of the gods, as many as were constructed
in ancient times, were always in solitary places,
especially the temples of the Muses and of Pan, of
the Nymphs, and of Apollo, and of as many as were
guides of harmony; judging, I suppose, that cities
were necessarily fearful and polluted places for the
education of youth." ^ Without doubt the interests
of -virtue require that discretion and judgment
should attend upon the exercise of the imagination.
It is with poetry as with music ; a spurious order
flatters and corrupts men. When the Dorians,
having left their country and their rustic Muse,
which they had been accustomed to follow among
flocks and herds, began to relish new sounds of
flutes and dances, they corrupted, at the same time,
says Maximus of Tyre, " their music and their
virtue." ^ We must endeavour, in our future wan
derings, to guard against this evil, lest, through an
error, my zeal should be only deceiving both myself
' Pro Arohia Poeta. " Stobaei Florileg II 424
' Dissert. XX, 8.

GODEFEIDUS. 29
and others, and " so I should fly away like a bee,
leaving a sting behind." ^ The Muses are so called,
says Plutarch, from being united in concord, o/iov
ovaag. Poetry is a speaking picture, and a picture
is silent poetry.^ Various forms and tones shall be
here ; yet, it is hoped, without a breach of the sacred
union and fellowship which belongs to all truth and
excellence. The ancients observed, that there were
tones of music requisite for particular seasons : the
Orthion for war, the Paroenion for times of festi
vity; that the Embaterion suited Lacedemonians,
but not Athenians ; that the Enceleusticon was for
pursuit, the Anacleticon for him who retreated.-' In
the chorus of the Muses, Clio was so called from
presiding over poetry relative to glory, being in
praise of renowned men ; Euterpe, from the pleasure
produced by a virtuous education ; Thalia, froni
causing men's actions to flourish for ever in poetry ;
Urania, from enabling men to rise to heaven.* I
have endeavoured that these books should be also
diversified in tone, and should contain symbols not
inapplicable to the harmonious choir, so as to exhibit
that kind of social chain by which, according to the
just notions of the Platonicians, all the learning of
ingenuous arts is united.* For this purpose, I have
gathered from the stores of both ancient and modern
literature, without affecting to present original and
self -grown fruits; of which, perhaps, after all, the
scarcity is greater than many are inchned to sup
pose, since even Homer is said to have stolen many
verses from Daphne, the Sibyl priestess of Apollo,
in the temple of Delphi, and to have enriched his
own poems with them.^ I have endeavoured to
shew the fountains whence the lovers of chivalry

' Plat. Phsedo. ' De Audiendis Poetis.
' Max. Tyr. XXIII, 5. ¦* Diodor. Sicul. IV.
« Cicero de Oratore, III, 6. ' Diodor. Sicul. lib. TV, 66.

30 GODEFEIDUS.
may draw refreshment, and to mark the tract and
the journeys, not as being myself a guide, but that
I may only indicate the direction, and, as it were,
point towards the living springs. It is a great
advantage attending all the stages of this high
quest, that there is no need of a voice to direct
those who undertake it; for here things, which
cannot lie, have a voice which is audible to men,
unlike the treacherous accents of the tongue,
deceiving and deceived.^ Here, it is hoped, the
analogy of nature may be discernible in the ar
rangement of forms, regarded under the light of
faith. There is no cutting off and dividing into
separate departments the scenes and acts of human
life, which can only be enjoyed fully when -viewed
as parts of the whole. In this I have only followed
the plan of the romantic writers of chivalry.' Ob
serve those passages in the heroic poems of
antiquity, says Friedrich Schlegel, " or in the
chivalrous romances of the middle age, which afford
glimpses of the simplicity and rppose" of rural
manners. Their simplicity appears still more in
nocent, and their repose stiU more peaceful, from
the situation in which they are placed — in the
midst of the tumult of wars and the fierce passions
of heroes. Every thing appears in its true and
natural connexion, and- the poetry is as varied as
the world." ^
VII. A modern French writer, who endeavoured
to keep alive the spirit which belonged to the litera
ture of his country at the close of the eighteenth
century, says on one occasion, that under certain
points of view the history of the past possesses
some degree of the interest which belongs to the
present. " Behold," he says, " its real and great
' Valckenaer. Diatrib. in Enripid. p. 265.
» Hist, of Lit. 1, 104.

GODEFEIDUS. 31
attraction; that which sweetens these severe and
dry studies." i I need hardly observe, that it is
¦with a very different feeling the lovers of chivalry
look back upon times gone by. With them, per
haps, the converse of the Frenchman's proposition
is sometimes true, that the present is only to be
endured by means of those studies which appeared
to him so severe and dry. The Greeks called the
Muses the daughters of memory ; for " it is the
nature of the imagination to be retrospective much
rather than prospective." ^ The habit of preferring
one's self and the present to whatever is ancient,
degrades the nature of man, and, as Laurentie
justly says, " leaves the genius without develop
ment and -without enthusiasm." ^ " With what
discourses should we feed our souls ? " asks the
Platonic philosopher. " With those that lead the
mind etti tov irpoirOtv \p6vov, and which can give
it a view of the deeds of past ages." *
Isocrates, in his discourse on peace, contrasts the
ancients with his contemporaries, to inspire the
latter, not -with confidence, but with emulation.
Demosthenes does the same in his Philippics, where
he alludes to the simplicity of the ancient heroes,
Aristides and Miltiades ; and above all, in his im
mortal speech on the crown, where he begins, rig
yap ovKav ayaaairo tu)v avSpiov sKiivwv Trig apETrjc ;
Isocrates, indeed, draws a delightful portrait of the
ancients in his panegyric ; but the wise critic of
antiquity does not condemn him for exaggerating
the praise of past times, but shews the proper in
ference, saying, " Who does not bum with love for
his country after reading this discourse, which
describes the virtues of the ancient Greeks who
1 Thierry, Hist, de la Conqufete, IV, 142.
^ Guesses at Truth.
3 De I'Etnde et de I'Enseignement des Lettres.
* Max. Tyr. Dissert. XXVIII, 5.

32 GODEFEIDUS.
defended their country against the barbarians ? " ^
Livy deemed it an ample reward for his labours
that they enabled him to lose sight of the evils of
his own age, in keeping before his mind the manners
and events of the olden times of Rome. Cicero
wrote many things, not so much with the hope of
benefiting his own age, of which he could only de
spair, as of delivering himself from the misery of
conversing with it : escaping from the present, it
was his endeavour that he might live and converse
with the men of former times. ^ Perhaps it might
be stated, as the general fortune which attends upon
all heroic spirits, that in consequence of the cha
racter of the age to which they fall, they are obliged
to take shelter in the shadows of the majestic past,
and to live and converse with them ; that they feel
constrained to fly from the presence of a world
which oppresses them with the sense of intolerable
-wrong, their soul responding to the cry of nature;,
being sick of man's unkindness. Tasso published
his Jerusalem Delivered so late as in 1581. He
then stood alone, as a fine writer says, "like an
image of ancient times in the midst of a fallen
generation." Nothing is more worthy of astonish
ment in Shakspeare than the power which his
genius must have exerted to escape from the in
fluence of the calamitous age in which he lived,
which was possessed -with so insane an enmity to
all former things, that he speaks of his country at
that time as being the reputed land of madmen.'
He fed his soul with the lofty thoughts which be
longed to times gone by, disdaining to taste " those.
subtleties of the Isle which would not have let him
believe things certain."
I shall pass over the observations which might
' Dion. Halicamass. " De Eeb. Fam. Epist. VI, 4.
^ Hamlet, act V, s. 1.

GODEFEIDUS. 33
be made on the metaphysical causes which dispose
great and good minds in every age to reverence
antiquity ; and I shall pause awhile to remark how
far those who form part of the present race of men
have particular motives to give their studies and
minds this direction. I am not ignorant that there
are some who say, with a French -writer of the day,
" we hesitate not to repeat the boast of Sthenelus,
and apply it to ourselves : thank Heaven, we are
infinitely better than our forefathers." ^ Though
Plutarch would have reminded them that Sthenelus
was an ignoble fellow, and that this very sentencSe
is an instance of Homer's profound knowledge of
men, who ascribed it to him as suitable to his cha
racter, and that it is, therefore, an evidence of the
benefit which youth may derive from his poetry, by
she-wing how he distinguishes base and ¦vile persons
from those of a generous and noble nature.^ But
it must be confessed that such an opinion of present
superiority not only upon general principles, as in
dicating the absence of those qualities which be
long to intellectual greatness, but also with reference
to the particular ground on which it is now advanced,
can have no place among the sentiments which be
long to chivalry in our age. To accuse and condemn
is at all times an office most at variance with the
disposition of wisdom; it knows well that "per
petual sober Heaven has often to forgive our general
and exceptless rashness " ; but, at the same time,
although it is fond to wail ine-vitable strokes, wis
dom does not diminish susceptibility, nor confine
the judgment. The Christian philosophy opens a
new field for thought to range when moved by the
pressure of events, and affords a light to those who
seem like belated wanderers in the human course,
> Guizot, Cours d'Hist. Mod. p. 32.
' De Audiendis Poetis.
Qodefridus. D

34 GODEFEIDUS.
who then behold the rugged scenes and fierce as
pects of men around them softened by the mild
influence of its gentle beam. Livy relates, that
upon one occasion a certain measure was approved
of by a majority of the senate, and adds, " Never
theless the old men, and those who remembered the
ancient discipline, denied that they could trace the
Roman arts in that legation ;, the new wisdom did
not please them : however, the other part of the
senate prevailed, who had more regard to utility
than to honour." ' This seems to describe a period
which has occurred in various stages of the world's
history. Hereafter the system and character of later
ages with respect to the great lines which separate
them from Christian antiquity will be pressed upon
our attention ; at present it may be only necessary
to notice some of the more general and outward
obstacles which the innovation effected by them in
the moral world -will offer to our proposed course.
In the first place, the religion and philosophy of
many men having been moulded upon new prin
ciples, their whole disposition of mind and rule of
conduct are at variance -with the sentiments and
actions of that class of mankind which naturaUy
belongs to chivalry according to the theory which
shall be shortly laid down. The moderns have
learned to spell honour in a new way, if they do not
know how to practise it; and they can appeal to its
laws, when they do outrage to its spirit : they can
quote honour to sanction their performing a deed of
foul dishonour, of which I shall not give a recent
instance, lest I should reveal mysteries : they can
write with as much ease upon the philosophy of
Plato as upon fireworks and harlequin. To make
no mention of those guides who, as the Roman
moralist said of flagitious persons, are not to he
' Lib. XLII, 47.

GODEFEIDUS. 35
fatigued with words and the disputation of philo
sophers, but with chains and imprisonment, let us
confine our attention to instances of outrage to the
more delicate sentiments of the heroic soul, which,
from their being rather symbolical than exemplifica
tions of the evil which we fear to name, are more
within the compass of our present argument. Who
has not heard of those old Greek mounds or monu
ments which were, according to universal tradition,
pointed out as the graves of Achilles and Patroclus,
over one of which Alexander wept, envying the fate
of the hero who had found a Homer to celebrate
him ? It was high diversion for the men of our
age to ransack these tombs, and violate the sacred
repose of the ashes and arms of heroes which were
found within their recesses.^ The same spirit was
more recently employed in breaking open the vaults
of an ancient church, where the shrine of a great
Saxon saint was piously visited by those of the
family of Christ who occasionally appeared on their
passage there. From the mere desire to wound the
feelings of Catholics, or to disprove what was sup
posed to be their faith, it was resolved that his
canonised bones, hearsed in death, should burst
their cerements ; that the sepulchre wherein we
believed him quietly inurned should be forced to
open its ponderous and marble jaws to cast him up
again. Perhaps, indeed, while the great infectious
wounds of the moral world are exposed before us on
every side, it may seem trifling to expend thoughts
upon these acts, of which we can only say that they
have no relish of ancient piety in them ; but if the
lesser evils are fraught with such sorrow, who can
find courage to -unfold the greater ? And, after all,
it is only to the superficial eye that these things
' Fr. Schlegel, Hist, of Lit. I, 32.
D 2

36 GODEFEIDUS.
appear rather contrary to the ornament than to the
health and life of the soul.
There are men, and in some countries they form
no small portion of society, who seem destitute of
all spiritual elevation, who neither conceive good
themselves nor consent to those -who can ; men of
earthly tempers, unconscious of the enjoyment
derived from the high faculties of the soul; who
are ready to affirm with Cyclops in the play,
o 7r\ovTO(, civ9pu>TriaKi, toXq oo^oXq Bcoq'
rd 5' dWa KOjiitoi Kai Xoytav tVfiopfiaL'
who, "fruges consumere nati," appear to be sus
ceptible of no pleasure but that of providing against
the present and possible evils incident to mere
animal existence, and who may be truly said, in the
language of the poet,
 — propter vitam vivendi perdere causas.

They are symbolically represented by the genius of
Cervantes in the person of that famous squire, "who
wanders amidst sierras and moonlight forests, and
glides on the beautiful stream of the Ebro, without
forgetting, for a moment, the hope of pelf that had
drawn him from his viUage " : men before whom
an apology must be offered for virtue, in the fatness
of whose pursy courts " Virtue herself must pardon
beg, yea, curb and woo for leave to do them good."
There are men also who make a separation between
the heart and the head ; who teach as an axiom in
philosophy, that self-love and self-interest are the
operative principles of the soul, and who logically
conclude, that the chivalrous mode of existence is
but the dream of an excited imagination ; men who
trust to dry mathematical reason, which Cudworth
justly says is incapable of giving an assurance of
truth to men "possessing minds unpurified, and

GODEFEIDUS. 37
ha'ving a contrary interest of carnality, and a heavy
load of infidelity and distrust sinking them down."
In their eyes there is nothing admirable but ability,
nothing in ¦virtue but what is derived from calcula
tion of expediency; they refer to matter and the
senses every thing but the dry skeleton of operations
in the brain, and they regard all objects of study
and observation, history, romance, poetry, painting,
the beauties of nature, and architecture, as fit for
no other purpose but that of exercising and display
ing the rational faculty; and hence they hold them
selves privileged by their acknowledged ability, to
play with the imagination, and to mock the elevated
sentiments of the chivalrous part of mankind.
Speak to them of history — they are concerned -with
dates and controversies, with speculations and
political theories, with making out St. Dunstan to
be a ventriloquist, and Alexander the Great a com
mercial statesman ; they proceed " more hominum
vellentium spinas et ossa nudantium," and shew
clearly that the father of history could not multiply ; ^
perhaps admiring antiquity, but only its bones, not
its blood and spirit ; or there is a sequel at the heels
of this admiration which gives it an air of insult ;
or praising the ancients, but using other manners ;
or, explaining history by contraries, throughout
they affirm That from the Trojan bands the Grecian ran.
And deem Penelope a courtesan.''
Speak again of romance — they offer their vapid
interpretations of a poetical story : Roland is a
prefect of the British frontier ; Arthur, the son of
Uthyr Pendragon, is Arcturus or the great bear.
The account of ^neas's descent into hell should be
omitted in a translation of the .^neid, " as a tale
¦ Herod, lib. I, 32. « Orlando Furioao, XXXV.

38 GODEFEIDUS.
manifestly forged, and not to be believed by any
rational reader." "Dante's poem is in truth a
satirical history of his o^wn times." King Arthur's
round table is a symbol of the horrible mystery of
iniquity. They pretend, upon the data of refined
selfishness, and by submitting the inducements of
persons to the operations of arithmetic, to account
for the development, and to explain the movements
of human passions. Speak of poetry and literature
— they are only careful to determine between the
classical and romantic schools. Of music— they
know the theory of vibrations, and by a mathema
tical process they can determine tha exact relations
of concordant and discordant sounds, but the in
ternal harmony, the precious music of the heart,
they have, they know, it not. Or speak to them
Of scenery — the tall rock,
The mountain, and the deep and gloomy wood.
Their colours and their forms ;
which were to the poet in his youth
An appetite, a feeling and a love,
That had no need of a remoter charm
By thought supplied, or any interest
Unborrowed from the eye ;
and when that time was past, which then did
nourish feehngs of delight and peace, of
¦ a sense sublime

Of something far more deeply interfused,
¦Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,
And the round ocean, and the living air.
And the blue sky, and in the mind of man 
such as kindled into rapture the heart of Fenelon,
when he exclaimed, " How miserable are those who
do not feel the charm of that picture !"
Fortunate senex, hic inter flumina nota
Et fontes sacros frigus captabis opaoum :

GODEFEIDUS. 39
speak of this, I say, and they will perhaps confess
that these are lovely and magnificent objects, but
they will at the same time caution you against being
impressed by a false notion of the happiness which
they seem to inspire. " The Eclogues of Virgil,"
they will tell you, " represent neither what is nor
what ought to be ; but rather the dreams of happi
ness which the view of the country excites — the
simplicity, the sweetness, the innocence, which we
love to contrast ¦with our habitual state." ^ Speak
to them of architecture — this too they have studied
as a science. If they do not detect the gnostic hand
and trace the mystery of abomination in every rose-
carved buttress, they at least are convinced by the
appearance of our old Cathedrals, that nothing can
be more extravagant than the Gothic monuments,
which prove the barbarity and darkness of the
middle ages. Draw them to a higher ground, and
speak of all the elevated and generous dictates of
chivalry, and demand why, upon such an occasion,
they are not actually practised ; they have a ready
answer to silence all further objections — a kind of
organ like that of the torpedo, which stupifies what
ever it touches, — " My dear friend, beware of cant."
It is right, that while I furnish you with amuse
ment, you should supply me with money ; and I
hope, as Locke says in his epistle to the reader,
" thou wilt as little think thy money, as I do my
pains, ill bestowed." " Quelle odeur de magasin !"
cries the Count de Maistre. They are like the
foolish poet that Horace tells of.** Let them but
have money for rehearsing their comedy, they care
' Dr. Johnson, in the Idler, gives a sarcastic picture of the
happiness of an Arcadian life, which proves nothing but hia own
melancholy want of taste and feeling : he would have sent Isaac
out to meditate, not " in the field at even-tide," but into Fleet
Street in the bustle and heat of the day !
= Ep. 2, 1, 175.

40 GODEFEIDUS.
not about the rest. " Manners too stately and pure
for humanity," they proceed to observe, " are not
for this world." These may be delightful images
to divert your intervals of leisure : the mind requires
relaxation after intense labours in scientific and
mercantile pursuits. The mathematician, the eco
nomist, and the man of business, must provide some
indulgence of this kind ; but you are not to suppose
that they have anything to do with common life, or
that they furnish fit rules and examples of conduct ;
that they are to interfere with your desire of gain
ing money, the proper compensation for labour, or
interest, leading to the substantial and real good of
this world. Endowed with versatile genius (this it
would be affectation to deny), we have composed
histories and romances, where you will see repre
sented, in more charming colours than your imagi
nation could have conceived, all these indefinable
objects of your enthusiastic attachment. Here is
chivalry in aU its flower and pride, in all its boasted
independence, generosity, fidelity, and heroism.
WTiat more can you desire — can you conceive ?
But  paulum a turba sednctior, audi,
it is all a delusion, it is all an idle vision, made to
amuse and unbend the intellectual faculties of our
weak nature : must you not submit to our judgment,
you who could never have described these things
so well, or have given them half that appearance
of reality which they derive from our pencil ?
0 ourvaa in terras animffi, et ooeleatium inanes !
Oh, the vain pride of mere intellectual ability ? how
worthless, how contemptible, when contrasted ¦with
the riches of the heart, with "the feeling soul's
divinest glow !" WTiat is the understanding, the
hard dry capacity of the brain ? a mere dead skeleton

GODEFEIDUS. 41
of opinions, a few dry bones tied up together with
out any flesh and sinews, if there be not a soul to
add moisture and life, substance and reality, truth
and joy ! " There are truths," says the Count de
Maistre, " which man can only attain by the spirit
of his heart {mente cordis). A good man is fre
quently astonished to find persons of great ability
resist proofs which appear clear to him. It is a
pure mistake. Those persons are deficient in a
sense ; that is the true cause. When the cleverest
man does not possess a sense of religion, we can not
only not conquer him, but we have not even the
means to make him understand us, which proves
nothing but his misfortune." These are men made
rather to wonder at the things they hear, than to
work any : men who will rhyme upon the judgment
which condemns them, and vent it for a mockery.
" Essayists, -with thoughts as distinct, and perchance
as numerous, as their fingers, they wUl declaim
against the silliness of chivalry ; they will talk about
ignorance, and darkness, and absurdity, and folly,
and the Uke, such being, perhaps, the qualities they
are most f amUiar -with ; and they -will congratulate
themselves oti being born in an age when knight-
errantry has been supplanted by author- vagrancy ;
when a youthful aspirant after renown, instead of
breaking a lance in a tournament, wears a quill to
the stump in a review." i Every writing and object
seems to them of this colour ; for, like Atheists,
they infect innocent matter with their own venom.^
They look with basiUsk eyes upon everything —
men, institutions, usages, wronging those who are
as far from their report as they from honour : sym
bolically represented by Daedalus, or mechanical
-wisdom, a man ingenious but execrable, en-vious, a
murderer, a contriver of mischief and destruction ;
' Guesses at Truth. ' Montaigne, II, 12.

42 GODEFEIDUS.
fearfully answering to the last evil which Pythagoras
said entered into a state, the first being luxury, the
second satiety, the next insult, after which ruin
foUowed.i " The art of printing," says Friedrich
Schlegel, " in itself one of the most glorious and
useful, has become prostituted to the speedy and
universal circulation of poisonous tracts and libels ;
it has occasioned a dangerous influx of paltry and
superficial compositions, alike hostile to soundness
of judgment and purity of taste — a sea of frothy
conceits and noisy dulness, upon which the spirit of
the age is tossed hither and thither, not without
great and frequent danger of entirely losing sight
of the compass of meditation and the polar star of
truth." ^ Hence the revival of a school of sophists,
in which youth is taught, as by the master whom
Aristophanes lashes : —
ro fiiv aiffxpfiv liirav koKov r]yua9ai,
T& KaXbv S* ai(T\p6v.^
These disciples study, but do not meditate; for
men study to become knowing, but they meditate
to increase in goodness and virtue. A great German
philosopher, at the end of the seventeenth century,
who was as profoundly master of history as of
science, made use of this remarkable expression —
that the last sect in Christianity, in the whole
historical development of the Christian revelation
and of modern times tiU the end — that the last sect,
and also the most general and the most fearful,
would be Atheism. As Friedrich Schlegel observes,
" This must have appeared a paradox when it was
delivered : however," he adds, " as the beginning
and the end often resemble each other, that which
wiU be the last may have also been the first sect."*
' SfcobsBus, II, 120. = Hist, of Lit. II, 39.
' Nnbes, 1019. ¦• Philosophie des Lebens, p. 333.

GODEFEIDUS. 43
"Insulated already by opinions, these men are
separated from each other stiU more by interests.
Covetousness is the soul. Who among them has a
family, a country ? Bach has himself, and nothing
more. Generous sentiments, honour, fidelity, devo
tion, all that used to make beat high the heart of
our forefathers, seem to them like empty sounds.
What the poor peasant learns at the foot of the
altar — to support the human condition in peace, to
love his brethren, to serve them, to devote himself
for his country, to die for his God — men never learn
either on the 'Change or in the theatre, or in the
antechambers and saloons, where places are dis
tributed. To calculate is the sole business of these
men. Conscience is an astonishment and a scandal."
This is the portrait which a great -writer of France
has drawn of his contemporaries. "What," he
continues, " do you perceive on all sides but a
profound indifference as to creeds and duties, with
an ardour for pleasure and for gold, which can
procure every thing ? Every thing can be bought — ¦
conscience, honour, religion, opinions, dignities,
power, consideration, respect itself ; vast shipwreck
of all truths and of aU -virtues ! All philosophical
theories, all the doctrines of impiety, have dissolved
themselves and disappeared in the devouring system
of indifference, the actual tomb of the understanding,
into which it goes down alone, naked, equally stript
of truth and error ; an empty sepulchre, where one
cannot even find bones." Friedrich Schlegel
remarks, that " the high moral principles of, life are
variously attacked and overthrown by three destruc
tive passions : in the first case, of spiritual blind
ness, the moral sense is perverted and falsified by
pride and vanity; in the second case, of the soul
becoming wild and disordered, it is by some one of
the sensual passions that the moral sense is at first
confused, then perverted, and finally extinguished ;

44 GODEFEIDUS.
in the third case, of a total torpidity of the inward'
life from selfishness and avarice, the moral sense is
utterly lost — it becomes extinct, while the dead
mammon, as the highest good and the only object
of existence, enters, and is established in the place
of all higher and spiritual good." ^
WhUe such reflections are forcibly presented to
us on casting an eye upon the manners of the world
around us, it cannot, indeed, be denied, that, as on
all subjects which are not connected 'with the duties
and spiritual destiny of man, great light has been
thrown upon the various fields of science, and that
in these, men have laboured with admirable perse
verance and success. So far wisdom wiU admit the
claim of our age to an increase of light ; but still it
wiU be only to conclude, in the words of the divine
prophecy, which the Church reads in the office of
Holy Saturday : " Juvenes viderunt lumen, et
habitaverunt super terram : -viam autem disciplinse
ignoraverunt, neque intellexerunt semitas ejus, neque
susceperunt eam filii eorum. A facie ipsorum longe
facta est. Non est audita in terra Chanaam, neque
-visa est in Theman. Filii quoque Agar, qui exqui-
runt prudentiam quae de terra est, negotiatores
terr^ et fabulatores, et exquisitores prudentiae et
inteUigentiffi : viam autem sapientiae nescierunt,
neque meminerunt semitarum ejus."
If from the sublime views of the dignity and
powers of the human soul, which characterise the
philosophy to which chivalry is essentiaUy bound,
we descend to survey this sad scene of inteUectual
ruin in minds which, -with all their science and know
ledge, are not more spiritualised, as Malebranche
proves, than those of the vulgar crowd of worldly
men, must we not feel horror at the view of " their
monstrous baseness" ? How far do the men of
' Philosophie des Lebens, p. 39.

GODEFEIDUS. 45
reUgious and chivalrous spirit differ from these
modern sophists ? Aristotle once repUed to a
siniUar question, o(t(^ ol Zuvrsg rxov TedvtiKOTwv.
It is even so, — as much as the li-ving from the dead.
What is life to them? I say, what degree of
happiness can they possess, whose spirits are thus
enslaved by the senses, and separated from the
Divinity, the centre of life and joy ? What is the
value of an existence thus perverted from all the
ends of high and pure enjoyment, for which it was
beneficently given ?
While I am compassed rotmd
With mirth, my soul lies hid in shades of grief, .
Whence, like the bird of night, -with half-shnt eyes.
She peeps, and sickens at the sight of day.
"Longa dies igitur quid contuUt ?" "Fi de la
vie," cried a princess of France, when she was
pressed to take a remedy for her disorder, " fi de
la vie ! qu'on ne m'en parle plus."
Certainly, when a man of genius or religion is
tempted to contemplate the common lot and condi
tion of mankind, — when he looks down, like the
philosopher in Plato, upon the toils and vanities,
and delusions of a worldly life, wg i? aTroTrrov
OidfiBvog — beholding in the regions from which he
has descended all that is admirable and lovely, the
TO TToXii Trikajog tov KaXov — his soul discerning
TT}X£o-K07r<{) ofifiaTi what is invisible to the -vulgar, as
the ancients would say, the chariot and horses and
countenances of the gods, — ^his mind haunted with
the idea of perfection, of " aliquid immensum infinit-
nmque," — his

• body's self tumed soul with the intense

Feeling of that which is, and fancy of
That which shonld be, —

language must be inadequate to express his con-vib-

46 GODEFEIDUS.
tion, that men are formed for a nobler purpose and
for a higher enjoyment ; — that
The finer thoughts, the thrilling sense.
The electric blood with which their arteries run,
were not designed to assist them in the painful
pursuit of miserable gain, or in the search of that
mean excitement which a perverse and degraded
nature is content to substitute for the higher feelings
of which it was originally susceptible. " Oh ! que
j'aime I'inutile," will be his reply to the maxims of
the worldly wise. Life is not worth acceptance, if
we are to be solely occupied with its reaUties.
Heaven-bom, the soul a heaven-ward course must hold
Beyond the visible world she soars to seek
(For what delights the sense is false and weak)
Ideal form, the universal mould.
The wise man, I aflu-m, oan find no rest
In that which perishes, nor will he lend
His heart to aught which doth on time depend.
Such perfect apprehensions of the vanity of mere
earthly interests have, no doubt, been vouchsafed
to men. St. Benedict being at his prayers in the
night perceived a sudden brightness, and presently
he saw the whole world deciphered, and set out
before him by a ray of the sun, abbreviated and
comprised in a little volume. " It is no wonder,"
saith St. Gregory, "that he who was compassed
and en-vironed about with a di-vine light, and ele
vated above the world and himself, should see an
epitome and abridgment of the world before him :
not that the earth and heavens were lessened and
straitened to the measure and capacity of his eyes,
but because, with a heavenly light, his soul was so
dilated and enlarged, that being close united -with
God, with facility it beheld and saw aU that was
under God." The sum may be briefiy stated. It
is not for heroic or for saintly spirits to quit their

GODEFEIDUS. 47
line of solemn procession to mix in the press and
confusion of the multitude; to make their judg
ment wait upon the sentence of the un-wise many,
and to draw no advantage to their hearts from the
possession of that noble- treasure, the inheritance of
ancestral -virtue, of the uninterrupted chain of a
long and briUiant history.
Perhaps these broken and imperfectly developed
thoughts will be sufficient to indicate upon what
peculiar grounds the chivalry of our age may be
disposed to take refuge in the remembrance of past
times; since, amidst the pursuits of real life, the
fruit of its early studies must be lost in consequence
of the general disorder of the inteUectual world.
It is sad and ominous to be presented with such
images at the commencement of our course ; but the
evil was more of necessity than of choice, since we
are on all sides oppressed -with the opinions " non
modo vulgi, verum etiam hominum leviter erudi
torum." '
VIII. Thus it has been seen that heroic examples,
and the images of poetry, viewed with a general
disposition to esteem and respect the past, -will be
long to the varieties of the course on which we
are entering. It -will possess also other features, of
which it may be well to form a general idea irom
the first. I am not ignorant that in consequence of
the total change in religion and phUosophy which
distinguishes the age that established what has
been called the Reformation, there was produced a
most unfortunate rupture between men and their
ancestors ; that, not content with laying aside the
contested points of faith or ecclesiastical govern
ment, they thought it necessary to forget the whole
middle age, and to despise the history, the arts, and
the poetry, with which its recollections were so in-
' Cicero de Oratore, III.

48 GODEFEIDUS.
timately blended and united. Friedrich Schlegel
justly remarks, " that such a breach and throwing
aside of the intellectual inheritance of our fore
fathers could scarcely faU to be produced by a
revolution so sudden and so entire" : and, indeed,
after such a loss of all that was vital, it mattered but
little what men could forfeit in addition. Down to a
time very near our own, and even generally at pre
sent, this old literature, as Dionysius HaUcarnassus
says of the ancient Attic eloquence in his age, is, as
it were, bespattered with mud, and every insolent
scribbler has his fling at it, irpoTrriXaKiZofiivri koi
Stivag v^ptig virofiivovaa. " Ceterum et mihi,"
that I may use the words of the great historian of
Rome, "^vetustas res scribenti, nescio quo pacto,
antiquus fit animus ; et quEedam reiigio tenet, quae
UU prudentissimi viri publice suscipienda censuerint,
ea pro dignis habere, quas in meos annales ref eram." ^
In order to take any interest in what follows, we
must be ¦willing to agree with the poet, who says
that we should ¦ to bokis that we finde,

. (Through which the olde thingis ben in minde)
And to the doctrine of these old wise,
Give credence in every skilful ¦wise.
That teUen of these old approved stories,
Of holiness, of reignis, of victories,
Of love, of hate, and other eondrie things.
Of whi6h I maie now makin rehersinges.'
A number of distinguished works, which ap
peared in Germany after the middle of the eighteenth
century, succeeded at length in directing attention
to the too much neglected history of that country,
and to the many beautiful traits of magnanimity
and virtue which are related in the ancient chroni-

' Livy, XLIII, 13.
° Chaucer's Legend of Good Women.

GODEFEIDUS. 49
cles.' In availing myself of these and similar
sources, it seemed to be that, independent of the
matter of these books, their general tone, and air of
antiquity, were entitled to some degree of admira
tion. Favorinus, indeed, advised the youth to ado]it
ancient manners, but the words that were in present
use.^ Nevertheless, the
 speciosa vooabula rerum,
Quae priscis memorata Catouibus atque Cethegis,
possessed a high degree of interest ; and as, when
we walk in the sun, we are coloured by its golden
rays, so, in reading these books, we cannot prevent
our thoughts and language from assuming their
colour.' Dionysius Halicarnasseus remarks of Thucydides,
that he seemed to admire whatever was more an
cient,* and he even censures him for having often
chosen antiquated words ; ^ though the same charge
may be advanced against Plato, whose unrivaUed
beauty of language might have deterred men from
such criticism.'' The Greek poets always chose the
ancient names of their heroes : thus they called
Amphiaraiis and Adrastus the Phoronides, and
Theseus they called Erechthides.' It was the use
of ancient genuine words that Cicero so much ad
mired in Laelia. " Truly, when I hear Lselia, (for
women more easily preserve incorrupt antiquity,
because, being unacquainted with the conversation
of many, they always hold the things which they
have first learned,) I listen to her as if I were hear
ing Plautus or Naevius ; the sound of her voice is
so just and simple, not being infected with the least
ostentation, or desire of imitation, that I feel coii-
1 P. SoWegel's Hist, of Lit. I, 3. " Aul. Cell. I, 10.
' Cicero de Oratore, II, 14. ¦• Lysias.
^ Epist. ad C. Pomp. ^ Diin. Halicarn. de Dcmosth.
' rausanias, Ub. Vii, 17.
Oodefridus. ^

50 GODEFEIDUS.
vinced it was thus her father used to speak, — thus
her ancestors." ' And, in another place, he recom
mends the occasional introduction of ancient and
unused words, as imparting dignity and grandeur
to a discourse,^ for which usage the refined elo
quence of Laelius was remarkable.' Without
entering into the Platonic question, whether names
are inerely conventional, or have a real and essen
tial connexion with the things denoted ; without
staying to determine whether the Homeric river
should be designated by the name given to it hy
men, or by that under which it was known to the
gods;* it may be allowable to hazard the opinion,
that there is a language, as well as a philosophy,
belonging to chivalry ; for, as Gicero says, " si est
honestias in rebus ipsis, existit ex rei natura quidam
splendor in verbis."^ And Siramnes did but ex
press the mind of chivalry, when he said that words
at least are in our power, even if we should he
prevented from action; accounting for his own
excellent sayings, and his unsuccessful deeds,^ on
the same principle as that urged by Demosthenes
upon the Athenians, when reminding them of their
ancestors, " If occasion be wanting, and we cannot
act like them, let us at least think like them, and
imitate their greatness of soul." ^ Cicero adduces
the eloquence of Demosthenes in its peculiar gran
deur of expression, as the consequence of his having
studied Plato, of whose philosophy the Grecian
orator spoke with such admiration in his Epistle to
Heracleodorus. Indeed, upon reflection, it is ob
vious that there must be a language peculiar to a
disposition of mind so defined as that of chivalry,
' De Oratore, III, 12. ' De Oratore, III, 38.
" Brutus, 21. 1 Plato, Cratulus.
= De Oratore, III, 31. s Plutarchi Apophthegm.
' Plutarch, de Fals. Legatione.

GODEFEIDUS. 51
since it is the characteristic sign of all human
knowledge and of all human sentiments, that they
should be bound to language, which is itself a pro
duction of the soul, and in the formation of which
the imagination and reason are both employed.
An old critic has remarked, that in Homer a
grand and noble sound is given to the mean and
vile names of many towns by means of conjunctions,
as 'Sixoivov Tt SkwXov te ; ' and he shews that
Homer has given a grandeur even to the name oi
Nireus and his three ships, in saying that Nireus
led three ships ; Nipsiic 'AyXa'trjc viog, Nipevg og
KaWidTog avTJp.^ And we know that the same phi
losophy, which Cicero declares to be destructive of
eloquence, was essentially opposed to the whole soul
of chivalry. As for the pleasure which names
themselves can afford, the admirable author of
"Guesses at Truth" has said, that "one can hardly
help -wishing at times to be a Southern, for the
sake of being called by a southern name. Listen,"
he adds, " to the names which meet you at every
turn and winding in a ' Spanish chronicle : many
of them come upon you with a sweeping sound,
like a full peal of bells, while others have a depth
and solemnity as if they were brooding over the
glory they had inherited from Pelayo and the
Campeador." The action of all these principles may perhaps be
traced in the composition of the following books,
which may appear like a measure full of state and
ancestry. Possibly, in some instances, it may even
dictate the choice of authors, in order that the very
names which are cited may have a certain venerable
sound and authority, in harmony with the tone and
object of the whole work; for even truisms and
' Demetrius Phalereus de Elocutione, 54. ^ lb. 61.
E 2

52 GODEFEIDUS.
common-place remarks may sometimes be presented
under a certain noble form, when connected with
works whose origin seems lost " in the dark back
ward and abysm of time," or conveyed in the lan
guage of men whose very names breathe holiness
and majesty. Assuredly, if with the Platonic phi
losopher,' in beginning his research into the high
and sacred mysteries of the divine nature, any one
should ask where he ought to apply for beauty of
language, a light of words, or a harmony of melo
dious sounds, worthy of such a flight, he ought to
be directed to the writings of the holy doctors and
monks of the earlier and middle ages of the Church.
Occasionally, though but very seldom, the sentence
of some writers of the modern philosophy may be
introduced, because, in the instance of such men
who wrote in the first age of its establishment, they
were not wholly deprived of the light of the Cathoho
faith, which was then but passing away from this
country and still discernible ; and we find that fre
quently such men expressed the ancient principles,
in the noble language with which the old reUgion
furnished them, to the sublimity of which they had
not then become insensible ; and besides, with re
spect to others of subsequent time, whose genius
has fostered some scattered rays of celestial bright
ness, every sentence which expresses truth belongs
of right to the philosophy of the Catholic Church,
and it is an. innocent and even perhaps a very
laudable exercise to direct these separated beams
back to their common centre, where only they can
discharge the salutary office for which they were
created. Nay, who can tell but that the lost chil
dren, who have followed them through .the inter
minable wastes of error and vanity, may be enabled
to persevere in pursuing them, when they are con-
' Max. Tyr. XVII, 1.

GODEFEIDUS. .53
strained to cease their anomalous wanderings, and
to guide rnen infallibly to truth ?
With respect to the style to be observed in these
disputations, I shall not labour to imitate that of
our modern Stoics, who, like their models of old,
may be truly denominated " architects of words." ^
It is an excellent rule for this purpose which pre
scribes, that in general every word taken separately
should be a common word in constant use with the
people ; so that even children, when they hear the
whole read aloud, may suppose that they could
write in the same style. ^ With respect to the
introduction of learned tongues, which may seem
to justify a charge of foreign insolence (a fault
which Cicero ranks along with rustic, asperity),^
it may be sufficient to remark, that there are many
sentences and expressions which do not retain the
same beauty when the words are changed ; and
Greek shall only be used where the verse or phrase
carries with it a greater grace and emphasis than
the same would bear in Latin or English. After
all that can be said against pedantry, the Greek
language was familiar to the knightly heroes of the
Crusades, and the noble princes of Latin dynasties
in the East ; and therefore its introduction here is
the less open to a charge of inconsistency. On the
tombs of the grand masters of the order of St. John
of Jerusalem, which are still to be seen at Jeru
salem, Ptolemais, Rhodes, and Malta, many inscrip
tions are in Greek, the being able to read and under
stand which would certainly never be unbecoming
in a knight. Suoh are those on the tombs of
Fernan de Heredia, Jacques de Milli, Giovan Battista
Orsini, Pierre d' Aubusson, and Guy de Blanchefort.-*
' Cicero, Brutus, XXXI. ^ Cicero, Orator, XXIII.
' De Oratore, III.
' Monumens dea Grands-Maitres de I'Ordre de Saint Jean de
Jerusalem, par le Vicomte de Villeneuve-Bargemont, I.

54 GODEFEIDUS.
However, every visitor here has permission to pass
over such passages, if he find them troublesome.
They shall not be multiplied where the occasion al
ready explained does not exist. It shall be left to
learned poets like Virgil to talk of mixing wine with
Achelous ; ^ and in no instance shall it be intimated
that the ability to conjugate tvtttoo is essential to
chivalry. Where classical authorities are associa,ted
with passages from Christian writers of various
ages, it will be obvious that they are not produced
as historical evidence respecting a fact connected
with any point of time, but only as moral evidence
to enforce or exemplify some general truth, which
may apply equally to all periods of the world.
IX. It may be proper to offer some general
observations, in this place, touching the character
of the works from which chiefly I have derived my
materials. The declamations of the modern philo
sophic writers on history, as they have been caUed,
were, in the first place, passed by with the contempt,
and also with the horror, which even the world is
beginning to evince for deceivers of this kind. But
history in general, and that of the middle ages in
particular, presented of course the most fruitful
ground for the exercise of such labours. And here
I must call my reader's attention to the benefit
which may be derived from consulting those original
historians, who present such lively portraits of
ancient chivalry, and to whose candour and love of
truth their infidel transcribers of these days are
indebted for all the information which they so
proudly present, as if it were to them that the world
was indebted for the discovery. As for the general
character of the times with which those histories
are concerned, it would be premature to offer many
reflections at present '; yet some few remarks may
' Vid. Macrob. Saturnal. V, 18.

GODEFEIDUS. 55
be advanced. It may be urged, in the first place,
that nothing can be more unreasonable than to
make the obscurity in which those ages are involved
to serve as evidence that they were unhappy. We
know but little of the twenty-three years' reign of
Antoninus Pius. The Count of Stolberg produces
this as an instance to shew that the happiest periods
of history are not those of which we hear the most : '
in the same manner as in the little world of man's
soul, the most saintly spirits are often existing in
those who have never distinguished themselves as
authors, or left any memorial of themselves to be
the theme of the world's talk ; but who have led an
interior angelic life, having borne their sweet
blossoms unseen, like the young lily in a sequestered
vale, on the banks of a limpid stream.
In a state of society also, where men were not
obliged bylaw to observe the discipline of Christians,
it is to be expected that violent contrasts would be
presented, and that the number of the good, that
is, of those who were good from principle, would
appear comparatively small. Before all things were
weakened, dissolved, and melted into one vast dull
mass of mediocrity, in which there would be nothing
to appear as a contrast to evil, it was unavoidable
that excellence and constancy of virtue, and that
the perfection of Christian sanctity, should produce
a violent reaction, so as apparently to give rise to
crimes of a certain ferocious and sublime character ;
for the same reason that there may be fewer avowed
infidels and atheists, where the modern system has
obtained undisputed possession of a country, than
in any other. M. Rubichon has well explained this
difficulty — " There is no reaction where there is no
action ; there is no infidelity where there is no
faith; religion is not insulted where it is never
' Geschichte, VIII, 1.

56 GODEFEIDUS.
mentioned. Is there not a God ? ' I wish nothing
better,' is the general reply under such circum
stances. ' There is no reason to hate him. If there
be a God, it is weU ; but as his kingdom is not of
this world, and we are so beneath him, he can never
be concerned about us, and consequently he does
not require that we should be concemed about
him."" " The history of the world is the judgment of the
world," says a celebrated poet ; and I am far from
wishing to express the opinion, that the middle ages
should be exempted from this charge. There have
been always passions and errors, and consequently
crimes and troubles ; but it seems to me that the
Abbe de la Mennais is singularly happy in his dis
tinction between the past and later ages, where he
says, that in them " men knew what was e^vil and
^vhat was good; whereas, at 'present, men are rather
inclined to doubt than to pronounce positively what
is evil and what is good."
The disposition to revile the period of Christian
antiquity accompanied the zeal of the 'religious and
political innovators of the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries ; it became the spirit of those ages to
revile the past; and this leads me to remark a
circumstance which will further explain why his
torical truth, as far as regards Christian antiquity^
is often obscured to the moderns. On the one sidoj
those who are attached to the ancient wisdom find
it impossible to enter into the detail of all the crimes
and absurdities and sophisms of the men who ca
lumniate it, whose whole course is so ignoble and
wretched that they rather endeavour to forget it,
and leave the judgment to God, who searcheth
hearts ; whereas the Church, which became inti
mately connected with all the institutions of the
' De I'Action du Clergy, p. 20, 200.

GODEFEIDUS. 57
middle ages, is in itself so venerable and majestic,
so closely associated, even in the estimation of its
adversaries,- with all that is noble, and generous,
and heroic in our early history, that the grossest
attacks directed against it are found to excite great
interest in consequence of the magnificent back
ground which must belong of necessity even to such
false and malicious representations ; however false
andmalicious, they must still be oon cerned with nam es
which, after all efforts to pervert their sound, inspire
the ideas of sanctity and peace, so that even the
faithful are drawn on by the magic of the harmonious
words which their adversaries are obUged to repeat
in calumniating them. That it should be the spirit
of any age to calumniate a period from which it
derives all its ancestral treasures, need excite no
surprise. "All things are to be expected by man,
since I am now accused by you." This was the
observation of Xenophon when he found himself
basely charged with treachery by the very men
whom he had conducted from the plains of Babylon ;
whom he now beheld rising up, one after another,
to give unjust sentence against him.^ There is
nothing strange, therefore, in the circumstance of
ingratitude and calumny being visited upon an
heroic age. Pericles, in his celebrated oration over
the slain, laid bare one spring which would be
sufficient to give movement to those base passions.
" Men," he said, " are always ready to listen to the
praise of others as long as each man supposes that
he could perform what he hears ; but whatever is
recorded exceeding that point they regard as an
object of envy, and reject as incredible."^ It may
be observed in all those modern writers, that they
take a pleasure in dwelling upon the faults of the
old Christians, and in exaggerating their crimes.
' Anab. VII, 6. = Thucydid. II, 38.

58 GODEFEIDUS.
This, too, arises from a principle of constant opera
tion in all ages. It is remarked in Athen^us how
later poets, even ^schylus and Sophocles, ascribed
certain corrupt manners of their own time to the
Homeric age, which did not belong to it."- And in
the same manner it is certain that, even where
there was a disposition to do justice to Christian
antiquity, sufficient care has not been taken to form
a just estimate of the intentions of a simple people.
That a French liberal, like M. Montlosier, should
produce the reproaches of , Pope Gregory to the
clergy, designed for their correction, and preserved
by them to be studied by their successors, as an
historical evidence of the corruption of the clergy
in the middle ages, is no great wonder ; but that a
learned and candid German historian, like Neander,
should make similar use of the remonstrances of
St. Bernard to his clergy, intended for their private
edification, and transmitted by them to our time,
does indeed appear strange and grievous. Surely
there is great reason to suspect histories, in the
composition of which the ordinary rules of life and
the dictates of common sense seem violated. Neander
might have observed that St. Bernard was so far
from standing alone in his age, that he represents
himself as deriving his greatest consolation from the
character of his contemporary clergy. Thus he
says to the monks at Clairvaux : " Tristis est anima
mea usquedum redeam, et non vult consolari usque
ad vos. QuEe enim est mihi consolatio in tempore
malo et in loco peregrinationis meae ? Nonne vos in
Domino ?"*' The modern writers seem to consider
the Christians of the middle ages as men who were
deficient in natural reason ; but they bring no proof
that the superior men of those times (for the vulgar
at all times want guidance) stood in need of the
> Lib. I, 14. 2 ^.pist. 144.

GODEFEIDUS. 59
writers of the nineteenth century to tell them what
their duty was. What these men thought to be
their duty, in all probability was their duty; and
no doubt, without waiting for our judgment, the
people generally could determine when they had a
good king and a holy bishop, and when there was
that good cause which is required for martyrdom.
The scenes and events which appear to our eyes as
having been most extravagant may suggest very
different reflections from what are now generally
advanced. They seem^in one respect to serve as an
evidence of the truth of the Christian religion ; for
if, instead of the zeal and enthusiasm which charac
terized those times, so much nearer than our own
to the great events of the Christian history, men
had appeared as indifferent and cool as the present
race of reasoning disciples, it would have been very
natural to infer that they did not believe in it. The
zeal and enthusiasm of those ages seem a necessary
link in the chain of historical evidence in proof of
Christianity. It was to be expected and required
that human nature would thus act when in the
presence of such a miraculous and divine event. It
may be for men like the moderns, who lead a com
fortable and easy Ufe of indifference and oblivion,
to rail at enthusiasm, but how can it be for them to
talk of faith ? Moreover, a conviction of the pro
found faith which prevailed in those ages may induce
men of really philosophic minds to be more cautious
in charging them with superstition. Friedrich
Schlegel remarks that, " faith should not be con
sidered, as many persons would teach, to be the
true middle way between both extremes of super
stition and infidelity; but on the contrary, that
superstition should be ranked along with infidelity,
for it is impossible to assign it a place separate
from infidelity. Superstition is a positive error and
part of unbeUef, which last is generally rather a

60 GODEFEIDUS.
misbelief, a false belief, than a bare absence of
belief ; it is an idolizing of nature and of reason,
and of its suggestions and knowledge. One may
even lay it down as a general position and invariable
rule, that wherever faith in the one good and just
God is lost, there will be raised inwardly some more
or less dangerous idol, either of selfishness, or of
sensuality, or else a system of reason and an idolatry
of nature, or the false sentiment of power belonging
to that pernicious spirit which despises and ridicules
every thing but itself." ^ Generally, as applied to
the charges usually brought against the different
institutions of the middle ages, there seems excellent
sense in the expression of Guizot, that " nothing
falsifies history more than logic : when the mind
rests on one idea, it draws all possible consequences,
and makes it produce all that it could produce, and
then represents it in history with all this attendance.
But it is not so that the world moves ; events are
not so quick in their deductions as the human
mind." ^ Of late years^ however, several iUustrious
men have employed their genius in defence of the
heroic ages of Christianity. Miiller calls the middle
ages "the ages of forgotten or unkno-wn merit."
" The substantial part of the knowledge and civil
ization of antiquity never was forgotten," says
Friedrich Schlegel; "for very many of the best and
noblest productions of modern genius we are entirely
obliged to the inventive spirit of the middle ages.
It is, upon the whole, extremely doubtful whether
those periods which are the most rich in literature
possess the greatest share either of moral excellence
or of political happiness. We sacrifice truth to
effect when we speak of the dark ages and of the
revival of knowledge." ' We are unjust in giving
' Philosophie des Lebens, p. 298.
= Cours d'Hist. Mod. V, 23. ' Hist, of Lit. I, 7.

GODEFEIDUS. 61
with one consent exclusive praise to new-born
gawds, though they are made and moulded of things
past, giving to dust that is a little gilt
More laud than gilt o'er-dusted.
Who does not love and admire the patriotic
warmth with which Voght speaks of the German
people united under Maximilian ? Certainly the
spectacle of a vast empire, rich in that old national
virtue which still gives an jnterest to their name, is
most imposing. Then ruled Berthold the Dextrous,
and Albert the Lover tif the Arts, in Mainz ; John
the Learned, in Worms ; Priederich the Wise, iu
Saxony; Philip the Generous, in the palatinate of
the Rhine ; George the Wealthy, in Bavaria ; Philip
the Magnanimous, in Hesse ; Albert the Warlike, in
Brandenburg ; Eberhard the Bearded, in Wiirtem-
berg ; and over them all the virtuous Maximilian,
in imperial splendour, who himself, in " The White
King," held out a pattern for all brave and mag
nanimous heroes.
X. Friedrich Schlegel, speaking of the decline
which was manifest in the art of historical writing
in England, observes that one great cause of this
consists in the want of some stable and satisfactory
philosophy. " Without some rational and due con
ceptions of the fate and destiny of man, it is impos
sible to form any just and consistent opinion, even
concerning the progress of events, the development
of times, and the fortunes of nations. In every
situation history and philosophy should be as much
as possible united." ^ It would not become chivalry
any more than youth to boast of having a system of
philosophy which would exempt it from all danger
of going astray; and yet its apparently undefined
wanderings, like the playful walks of childhood, will
be found more true to the simple harm.ony of nature,
' Hist, of Lit. II, 225.

62 GODEFEIDUS.
than the cunningly calculated progress of the worldly
wise. Men take more pains to lose themselves than
would be requisite to keep them in the right road.
Guided by the infaUible light of faith, firmly at
tached to the pillar and ground of truth, all faithful
Catholic Christians maintain a great advantage in
having the farthest end of knowledge always visible
to them, and in possessing an internal conviction of
what ought to be done : without an effort of their
own they find themselves possessed of a compre
hensive view of this wide and universal theatre, pre
senting so many more mysteries than the scene
wherein they play, yet all subject to the influence of
a perfectly consequent and systematic government ;
and it can only be through their own exceeding
fault if they do not think and live conformably to a
complete and rational adoption of a doctrine and
object. Under such impressions, they trust them
selves on the ocean of thought as on that of life,
full of hope and means of security ; and whichever
way they are borne, they spread their sails ; and
though they may seem sometimes like children play
ing on the shore with shells and sand, or like young
poets pacing through a grove, " chewing the food
of sweet and bitter fancy," or only disposed to
" fleet the time carelessly as they did in the golden
world," there may be consistency in their lives, and
harmonious unity in their imagination. The reader
of these volumes must be prepared to engage upon
a quest where perhaps the tracks are not exactly
marked nor the passes made smooth : there may be
no accurately expressed indications of the way;
there may be chasms and interruptions ; even when
concerned with ideal images, it will not be ov\ov
ovupov, like that which the Homeric Jupiter sends
to Agamemnon, a whole and connected dream, a
complete and unbroken view : and yet in these
symboUcal forests of chivalry, as weU as " amid the

GODEFEIDUS. 63
wUds and wastes of human speculation, so many
crosses have been set up by holy men, reminding the
wayfarer at every turn of the things which ought
evermore to be 'uppermost in his thoughts";^ that
it -will be his own fault if he should complain of
difficulty or give reason to report of danger. He
must therefore be -willing frequently to wander on
with me without being confined by any strait rules
or fixed direction. Nay, it must often appear as if
II ne se plaist qu'en chevaux
Eodant par monts et par vanx ;
like a knight of the Round Table, who rides through
adventurous forests, and is ever ready to encounter
whatever giant may come forward to oppose his
advance. Perhaps in this forest before us there will
be found many strange adventures, and furious men,
and monstrous phantoms, rising up in countless
diversity of form to combat those who are on the
quest of honour. Yet there is a joy belonging to
such an exercise which is well represented in the
description of the young man when made a knight
by King Alexander, in the romance of Perceforest,
where it is said, " After this he galloped off through
the forest so fuU of spirits, that he seemed as if he
would joust against the first tree that he met : thus
did he joyously ride through the forest tiU the hour
of vespers." Nevertheless, I shall not esteem all
who are not of our company as adversaries, justify
ing those revilers who accuse us of loving indis
criminate slaughter. Our duty is to spare friend
ships and dignities, to avoid giving irremediable
wounds ; it is rather to feign enemies, and them not
always, nor all that can be supposed, nor in every
manner. Bryan of the Hys, sworn brother of Sir
Meliot, "a passynge good knyght," shall be our
guide in this ; for " he was full loth to do wronge
' J. C. Hare.

64 GODEFEIDUS.
and fuU loth to fyghte with any man but yf he were
sore souzt on, so that for shame he might not leve
it."i Or rather we shall follow the track of Sir
Servause le Breuse, who had " never courage nor
lust to doo batail ageynst no man but yf it were
ageynst gyaunts and ageynst dragons and wylde
beestes."^ Assuredly no levelled malice infects one
comma in the course I hold. Our way is over
pleasant meadows and through the deep wood, under
the shade of melancholy boughs, leading us perhaps
where some willow grows askant the brook, that
shews his hoar leaves in the glassy stream, that we
may dive into the river's darksome deep, where,
often floundering, we shall be well read in all its
soundings ; or where some little bark is moored,
into which we may leap, and trust ourselves, without
oar or compass, to the rapid waters. Nor let the
grave and solemn scorn to join us company. Ac
cording to the ancient fable, it was Pan's good for
tune to find out Ceres as he was hunting and little
thinking of it, which none of the other gods could do,
though they did nothing else but seek her seriously;
to shew, as Lord Bacon says, " that we expect not
to receive things necessary for life and manners
from philosophical abstractions, but from discreet
observation and the universal knowledge of the
things of the world, whereby oftentimes, even by
chance, as it were going a hunting, such inventions
are lighted upon " :¦'' and Sphinx, or science, was
said to beset the highways, because, which way
soever we turn in this progress and pilgrimage of
human Ufe, we meet with some matter or occasion
for contemplation. Our present course will corre
spond with the variety of nature.
' Morte d' Arthur, I, 8fi. ' Id. II, 383.
' On thu Wisdom of the Ancients.

GODEFEIDUS. 65
For we have fair resource in store
In classic and in Gothic lore ;
Nor hill nor brook we pace along
But has its legend or its song.
To borrow a comparison from the poet, Victor
Ilugo,-^ I wish that this book may resemble one of
those beautiful old cities of Spain, in which one finds
everything ; cool walks shaded by orange-trees along
the banks of a river ; great open squares, exposed
to the burning sun, for festivities ; narrow, winding,
dark streets, composed of houses of every form,
height, age, colour; labyrinths of buildings, all
confused together, palaces, hospitals, convents, halls,
all raised in an appropriate style of architecture ;
market-places, resounding to the busy hum of men ;
cemeteries, where the living are silent as the dead :
in the centre, the vast Gothic cathedral, .with its airy
spires and massive tower, its fine sculptured portals,
and its arches and capitals of varied tracery, its
deep vaults, its forest of pillars, its burning chapels,
its multitude of saints, its high altar lighted with a
thousand tapers, — wonderful structure ! imposing
by its enormous magnitude, curious in its details,
sublime when seen from a distance of two leagues,
and beautiful when only two paces from the eye.
Then, in another quarter of the city, the vast arch
or aqueduct constructed by the Romans ; or, con
cealed in a grove of palms and sycamores, the ruins
of the oriental mosque, with its domes of brass and
enamelled pavement.
When some will object to these books, that they
are unequally sustained, and too obviously made up
of fragments collected from various quarters, I will
refer them to this image, and ask if it was not better
to leave the palace of the middle ages standing un
touched by the side of my own little humble structure
' Les Orientates, preface.
Oodefridus. F

6fi GODEFEIDUS.
than to demolish these monuments of a grand age,
in order to construct, with their materials, some
thing uniform and mean, like a street in one of our
modern English towns, which any vulgar buUder
may produce as all his own. Even Nature herself
rejects such models of uniformity ; for in her mag
nificent forests you find the majestic oak by the
side of the humble brier or the green sapling. It
is by no means necessary that we should be able
always to determine the exact matter of fact which
will give rise to this varied imagery. Cicero deemed
him over cautious who should examine carefully
whether it was really Marius's oak that was to be
seen at Arpinum, and the actual palm of Ulysses
which remained at Delos, for it was enough that
both of these were sown in the minds of men ;
" nuUius autem agricolae cultu stirps tam diuturna,
quam poetse versu, seminari potest." ¦*¦ We can
speak of nothing to some men but they wiU require
us immediately to point it out with our finger.
" You must not oblige me," says Plato, ¦" to shew
that the things which I produce in discourse are
actually and in every respect matters of fact."^ Let
no one proceed here who belongs to that class of
men who think that there is nothing true aW rj to
(j-wjuaTOEiSlc, except what they can touch, and see,
and drink, and eat. Moreover, I do not engage to
pursue any unbroken track, which would enable
indolent persons to trace my progress without
trouble, and to ascertain exactly the distance be
tween each of my places of repose. One who de
scribes chivalry may in his literary wanderings
resemble Sir Beaumayns, of whom some persons
said, " ' We pray you tell us where we may find
hym.' ' Fayre lordes,' said Syr Ironside, ' I can
not teUe you, for it is full hard to fynde hym; for
' De Legibus, Ub. I, 1. ^ De Bepub. V, 473.

GODEFEIDUS. 67
suche young knyghts as he is one, when they be in
their adventures ben never abydyng in no place.' "'
Here will be game for aU, and scenes most congenial
to first-fledged youth. Here they will have the
advantage which Plato prescribed for them — the
means of beholding danger without incurring risk
till they are strong enough to meet it.^ And here
age may remember the adventures of its past career,
and fight over again the battles of youth, to derive
the sweet fruits of past experience, and even to in
crease its store of wisdom —
del yap v^^ "^olg ykpovuiv tw fiaQtlv.^
Under the green- wood tree
Who loves to lie with me,
may never cease worshipping the Graces, joined with
the Muses, the sweetest union. May we never live
separated from the Muses, but may we always con
sort with crowns !
oil •Travffop.ai rag Xapirag
MovaaiQ avyKarafiiyvig,
rjSiffrav cvZ,vyiav.
firi Z.i^r)v fiiT dfiovaiag,
aUi o' iv (jTi<pdvoitjiv ti-qv.*
Our course shall be like that of Sir Bors, Sir Ector,
and Sir Lyonel, who ride in search of their friends
from country to country, in woods, and ¦wildernesses,
and wastes, sleeping at the foot of crosses, and
having perhaps visions of angels and of holy peni
tents, who come before them during the night to
worship. All varieties of scene, and form, and
sound, will belong to this adventure. We shall
listen at one time to the

• Morte d' Arthur, I, 224.
' De Eepub. V, 467.
^ .aSsohylus, Agamem. 570.
* Burip. Hercul. furens, 673.
F 2

68 GODEFEIDUS.
Wild strains of scalds, that in the sea-worn caves
Eehearsed their war-speUs to the winds and waves ; '
and at another to the stringed lute of old romance.
That cheer'd the trellis'd arbour's privacy.
And soothed war-wearied knights in rafter'd hall :'
nor shall we be unfamiliar with towered cities, famed
more for noble ways of Ufe than for palaces and
walls-^ Where throngs of knights and barons bold.
In weeds of peace, high triumphs hold.
Thee too, 0 rare land of courtesy ! we shall behold,
0 Florence ! with the Tuscan fields and hills,
And famous Arno, fed ¦with all their rills ;
Thon brightest star of star-bright Italy !
Eich, ornate, populous, all treasure's thine ;
The golden corn, the olive, and the vine.
Fair cities, gallant mansions, castles old,
And forests, where beside his leafy hold
The sullen boar hath heard the distant horn.
And whets his tusks against the gnarled thorn ;
Palladian palace, -with its storied halls ;
Thine all delights, and every muse is thine ;
And more than all, the embrace and intertwine
Of all with all, in gay and twinkling dance,
'Mid gods of Greece and warriors of romance ! '
It must be observed, however, from the begin
ning, that an exact knowledge of particular events
is not to be sought for in such a course as the pre
sent. Persons who, like Hurd, merely desire to
learn "all that is necessary to be kno^wn about
chivalry," wiU meet with nothing here save disap
pointment ; but those who are themselves endowed
with the spirit of chivalry, may be assured of find
ing scenes that will be congenial to the sentiments
of their soul, and to the images which they discern
within. ' Coleridge. ' Wordsworth. » Coleridge.

GODEFEIDUS. 69
XI. It may be necessary to state for what de
scription of persons the course on which we are
entering has been principally designed. The Latin
line will partly answer this end. Juvat
Ingennis oculisque legi, manibusque teneri.
A pleasui-e which, even in our age, may be obtained
by every one who undertakes to unbar the portals
of the heroic world. " Car je voys plante de
jouvenceaulx de gentil sang et qui s'adonnoient de
leurs natures a la chevalerie."
j^l the ancient philosophers, and, in later times,
all who have thoughts consistent with the principles
of chivalry, have, as Cicero says, approached the
cradle, not only because they could more easily
discover in youth what was the will of nature,^ but
also because they were fully impressed with the
importance of the early images which become
- famiUar to us in the morn and liquid dew of youth.
Moreover, as a certain taste is required to judge of
a picture or a statue, or as no one can determine a
wise man who is not himself wise ; ^ so it is only the
young, or, at least, those who have retained a
youthful mind, who can enjoy or even comprehend
chivalry. In youth, as in chivalry, there is a vital
principle, " from every-day forms educing the un
known and the imcommon. In that little Goshen
there ¦wUl be light, when the grown world flounders
about in the darkness of sense and materiality"; ^ and
while chivalry and youth are left, imagination and
piety can never spread their holy ¦wings totally to
fly from us. We have all heard " that the time of
issuing out of youth and entering into the world
is the most dangerous of all our life";* and that
the chief care of young men, who enter the world,
' Cicero de Finibus, lib. V, 20. ^ PHn. Epist. X.
3 EUa. * Gobinet's Instruction of Youth, 177.

70 GODEFEIDUS.
ought to be the preservation of the sentiments and
practices of piety, which they have observed in their
youth; because the first source of the disorder of
j^oung persons, at that time, springs from the change
of their sentiments concerning piety, and the aban
doning of their former religious exercises ; such as
daily prayer, reading pious books, frequenting the
holy sacraments, conversation with pious persons,
and advising with a discreet director."' Now,
before we take a step in this projected course of
inquiry, I would have it weU understood, that it can
only be innocent (for that is the highest praise it
can ever hope to merit) when exercised in connexion
with this piety of early youth, and in the spirit of
the most simple and humble dependence upon these
great sources of life and blessedness. Where these
are lost, all exercise of the imagination must be
vain and pernicious.
In these wanderings we shaU, no doubt, meet
with much of worldly matter, and, perhaps, occa
sionaUy be called to listen to sentences which the
saints condemn ; but they are not presented to in
spire ns with affection for worldly matter, or to
dispose us to admit sentences which the saints con
demn. It is only intended to exemplify, as it were,
and to embody forth the higher and more spiritual
lessons, which have been prepared for Catholic
youth by holy men, to pro^vide innocent images for
the delight of their imagination, that, as in their re
collection of St. Ludo-vico di Gonzaga, who is repre
sented in his early years wearing a little cuirass, the
object of their admiration may be beautiful as a
Paladin and perfect as a saint. However, it is not
to be denied, that those persons are most happy
who have the least occasion for these earthly forms,
which, if deprived for an instant of their symbolical
' Gobinet's Instruction of Youth, 178.

GODEFEIDUS. 71
character, must be acknowledged to be identical
with vanity itself. Nevertheless, I see that this,
my first ingr ession, will not be led from the dispu-
tatjon of critics upon the romances and literature of
the middle ages; but, as Cicero says of his own
work upon eloquence, it will be maintained from the
midst of philosophy, which, as it is ancient and
profound, will give rise to some degree of objection,
or, at least, of wonder ; for either men will wonder
what connexion these things have with those on
which we profess to treat, though in the end they
wiU see with what justice we have mounted so high
for the source of chivalry ; or they will object that
we should follow uncommon and irregular paths,
leaving those which are worn ; although I may
repeat Cicero's words, and say, "ego autem et me
saepe nova -videri dicere inteUigo, cum pervetera
dicam, sed inaudita plerisque." But if that great
orator proclaimed of himself,^ that he was indebted
for whatever degree of eloquence he possessed, not
to the workshops of the rhetoricians, but to the
retreats of the Academy, and, as it were, to those
shaded walks on which he could trace the footsteps
of Plato, with how much more justice may it be
affirmed of all who would follow the high qualities
of the knightly soul to their source, that they have
never found -them to flow, in genuine perfection,
from any other spring than that which yields the
water of life, of all intellectual, of all spiritual purity.
The literature connected with chivalry can never be
secularized, as other branches of study have been
of late, in accordance with the prescription of the
modern sophists. Assuredly, the only wisdom
which is consistent with the views that will be here
unfolded, is that which holds it for" an infaUible
maxim, that there is nothing more certain than the
¦ ' Orator, 3.

72 GODEFEIDUS.
Christian Catholic faith; nothing so_ worthy of
affection and reverence as the Christian CathoUc
Church ; so sublime in her mysteries, so pure and
holy in her maxims, supported by so great authori
ties, foretold by the prophets, confirmed by so many
miracles, cemented by the blood of martyrs, defended
by so many learned and sainted persons, embraced
by such a multitude of people, continued during so
many ages, notwithstanding the persecution of
pagans, the false doctrine of heretics, and the
wicked lives of many of her own children. The
writers who neglect this ground in endeavouring to
correct men are, as Friedrich Schlegel says of the
modern writers of England, only physicians who
make use of palliatives, but who are incapable or
unambitious of effecting a radical cure.
In one book, indeed, we shall find those who
address themselves more particularly to persons
who have been born and trained up in the modem
philosophy. Some old knight or venerable priest
will conduct them to an eminence, and entreat them
to look back and behold their fathers, and mark well
how unjustly they have been induced to scorn them.
Here the language, though designed to awaken the
English nobility from a state, as Shakespeare would ¦
say, of " bestial oblivion," in which the wrongs of
the innocent are forgotten, shaU be, notwithstanding,
that of reconciliation and peace. As Priam says to
Helen, when he leads her upon the walls, he will
say, "My dear child, come hither, that you may
behold your former friends and relations. Be
comforted : I do not blame you ; it is not your
fault that you are opposed to them now in hostile
ranks": ovTi jioi airiri fffffi, Seoi vi /toi a'lTini (laiv,
o'i fioi i^wpfij)(jav jToXffiov TToXiSaKpvv 'jlxoiuv.'
' H. in, 164.

GODEFEIDUS. 73
But charge your memory -with these oracular words
of a great saint, and meditate upon them till you
can complete the sentence to which they belong.
Say to yourself, " quid prodest — ? quid nocet — ?"
I am aware with what distrust this part will be
regarded by the few who may turn to it ; for if ever
the moderns are tempted to look into a book which
defends the religion of their ancestors, they approach
it, as Catulus says of some Roman who began to
apply his mind to the Greek philosophy, " timide,
tanquam ad aliquem libidinis scopulum : " ^ they put
armour on their ears and on their eyes, whose proof,
nor deeds of noblest chivalry, nor solemn sayings of
the ancient wise, nor sight of priests in holy vest
ments bleeding, shaU pierce a jot.
The history of our own country furnishes us with
a parallel instance to what is related of a Roman
emperor, who nearly succeeded in banishing from
every library the writings and images of Virgil and
Livy, as of men who had no genius or learning, only
distinguished by inflation of style, and neglect of
truth. ^ At the same time, it is probable, that a
day wiU arrive when this prejudice must give way.
" Homines transeunt, sed Veritas Domini manet in
sternum." I have always, says Cicero, considered
it to be the part of an irrational animal, not of a
man, not to lend an ear to the Greeks, who professed
to undertake such great things, and who engaged
to furnish men -with means of beholding things
obscure, and of living virtuously; and if one did not
dare to hear them openly, lest authority should be
diminished -with one's fellow- citizens, it seemed at
least but right " subauscultando excipere voces
eorum, et procul, quid narrarent, attendere."^ I
am aware, too, that the confusion and disorder of
' Cicero de Oratore II, 37. ' Sueton. in Vit. Calig.
' De Oratore, II, 36.

74 GODEFEIDUS.
the matter may, perhaps, be even traced in the form
and composition of the book which treats upon it ;
and this, no doubt, will be an important circum
stance ; for it was with order, fitTa Trig KOcrfitoTriTog,
that Bellerophon fought against the Chimaera, when
he prevailed so as to destroy the whole tribe of
wild savage monsters;' and, as Plato says of the
sophists, it is hard to lay hold of this race of men,
who will be here opposed to me, otl Bvrr^riptvTov
Eirj TO ytvoQ.^ Here will be, indeed, a fearful
obstacle ! How I have thought of this and of these
times, I shall recount hereafter. In the mean time,
I may cherish the hope, that some men, who make
grave and large invectives against absurdities, will,
if their hearts be made of penetrable stuff, if custom
have not brazed them so that they be proof and
bulwark against sense, be convinced here, either
that they have been offended by something wliich
is only strange to them, from being different to
what they have been accustomed to, and which is
not contrary to wisdom (and the wise Plutarch
observes of men generally, that they are more quick
to resist what is against custom than what is against'
nature'); or else, that the real absurdities which
offend them do in no ways concern the faithful, to
whora belongs that negative theology of which St.
Denis is the great master, and which is explained
so well by Luis of Granada, as consisting in the
doctrine which is inseparable from all their affir
mative ideas of what relates to God ; for instance,
that all their conceptions being limited, God is not
great, or -wise, or powerful, in the manner or degree
which any created spirits can understand; and that
it is necessary, at one time, to deny the perfections
which, at another time, are ascribed to him, in order.

Stobsei Florileg. I, 155. ' Sophista, 61.
2 De Bsn Carnium.

GODEFEIDUS. 75
to glorify him more.i Therefore, as St. Augustin
says, these conceited objectors will find, that, after
all their pretensions to exclusive wisdom, they have
been speaking only against old wives' tales and
childish opinions, in confutation of which, the
more earnest they have been, the more they shewed
themselves to want judgment. Here it will be
seen, that whosoever was moved by such clamour
to turn unto them, condemned not the doctrines of
the Church, but shewed himself ignorant thereof :
St. Augustin -adds, "If you retain anything of a
human heart, if you have any care of yourselves,
seek diligently in what good and pious sense these
things may be spoken. For such a faith as believeth
of God absurd and inconvenient things, we do
more vehemently and plentifully accuse than you ;
and when by any of our church these things are
understood as the letter soundeth (such as that
God can be angry, and the like), their ignorance
we instruct, their pertinacity we deride."^ Facts
of history, the incidental and undesigned evidence
of the romantic literature of the middle ages, the
sayings of holy men, who lived during the times
that are calumniated, may fill some hearts with
gladness that are now empty of all things but grief ;
may sound like tidings of peace to some whose souls
are full of discord and dismay ; may supply a fresh
instance to prove, that in the mysterious govern
ment of the world of spirits, the great God makes
use of humble instruments; that of a few hours
spent in reading, of the very act of closing a book,
when alarmed by reflections on the responsibility
of knowledge, the consequence, as an old writer
says of his six weeks' acquaintance with one who
was before and since that time unknown to him.

' Catechism of Luis of Granada, part I, c. 38.
2 Lib. de Mor. Eccles. Cathol. c. 10.

76 GODEFEIDUS.
may end only with their being, that is, may be
eternal. Oh, rejoice beyond a common joy, and set
it down in your heart, as it were, with gold, on
lasting piUars, if you should be induced, by any
imaginations here suggested, to enter into the ark
of the Catholic Church, singing, with St. Augustin,
"non docet Catholica quod putabamus, et vani
accusabamus." ^
The other books are addressed to persons who are
previously prepared for such a course, and with
whom it may be permitted us to wander on, forgetful
of the discords and the wounds of life ; for if we
were still to remain, as it were, in presence of these
objectors, there would be no end of objection, of
accusation, and of sorrow : there is a mode of
reviving objections a thousand times refuted, which
no patience is adequate to surmount ; there are men
whose very remembrance is like a kiUing frost to
the beautiful blossoms of a poetic world :
Not them, therefore, in sweet society.
The generous youth conversing ever name.
Yet here, too, our course, though amidst a garden
of pleasure, may not be ¦without a high moral end.
Religion does not permit her children to gather the
flowers which spring up in every part of the intel
lectual world without a view to promote their ¦wisdom
and goodness. " One may affirm anteriorly to any
veriflcation in detail, that there cannot occur in any
writer whatsoever a single beauty, little or great,
of which the original may not be shewn in a Ca
thoUc truth." ^
In the idlest page of chivalrous history we shaH
meet with something ¦ that toucheth geutillesse

And eke moralite and holinesse ;

' Confess. VI. ' Memorial CathoUqne.

GODEFEIDUS. 77
something that will bring it home to our inmost
souls, that even the most severe and solemn pre
cepts of our holy faith are productive of human
happiness, consistent ¦with all that is beyond ques
tion lovely and of good report, agreeable to the
constitution, and even essential to the perfection of
our nature. Our glorious ancestors, the champions
of Christendom, and the very piUars of noble chi
valry, did lay the foundations and enjoy the fruits
of the freedom and the fame of England ; as Homer
would say, TovSs voov Kal 9vfidv kvi ffrrjOiirffiv exovreg.^
And a nation can never be prepared to perish as
long as any portion of her youth possess souls of the
same proof and constancy.
XII. It is to be expected that some persons will
ask upon what grounds the use of chivalrous ro
mances can be reconciled with the introduction of
history, philosophy, and religion, or, in other words,
of reality and truth : and though the answering
this inquiry fully might lead to an entire disserta
tion, which, however interesting, would lead us too
far beyond our prescribed Umits, I cannot proceed
¦without producing some apology. I pass over the
mere literary objections of men like Landino, the
commentator on Dante, who speaks of the " fabu
lous and inelegant books of the Round Table." For
it is sufficient to know, that the exclusive taste of
these scholars for the writers^of Greaoa-and Rome,
upon the reviyaJjof-jclassicaLiearnlBgj. li^^ rendered
them insensible to the beauty of the roma.ntic litera-
ture. Nor need I seek to defend the chivalrous
romances with the poems of Dante against the
sweeping and immoral censures of CorneUus
Agrippa, whose professed object is, to level all
' II. IV, 309.

78 GODEFEIDUS.
intellectual greatness. In the same manner it was
natural that a French writer of the age of
Louis XIV should speak like Fleury of "the im
pertinent and monstrous fables of the Trouba
dours ;" ^ aiid that an affected epicurean — I mean,
one who rather affected than really felt the influ
ence of that philosophy — should say, like Mon
taigne, " Car des Lancelots du Lac, Amadis,
Huons de Bordeaux, et tels fatras de livres a quoy
I'enfance s'amuse, je n'en cognoissois pas seulement
le nom, ny ne fais encore le corps." ^ EquaUy idle
would it be to seek to alter the judgment of critics,
who condemn the romances of chivalry in a manner
that would lead us to suppose they had never read
them with any attention, like the learned author of
the History of Fiction, who says, "As we advance
in the history of Arthur of Little Britain, we do
not find Arthur possessed of a single quality, ex
cept strength and courage, to excite respect or
interest." ' The passages that wUl hereafter be
produced, though without any reference to such
charges, will furnish the best answer to this kind
of criticism. But the opposition which I shall
notice proceeds from a quarter demanding far
greater attention and respect than are due to any
mere literary judgment, however sound and im
partial. We_aUjhaye^'epeatedly heard that _such
reading Jias been^jondemnedTJ by' boly porcone as
being at^least injurious, if not absolutelyixipposed
to the "mterests of the  spiritual_ Uf e ; a lesson
awfully exemplified in the most sublime passage
of the greatest Christian poet, where he sings of
Francesca and the son of Rimini's proud lord,
whose tale bf surpassing woe, beginning with that
day "when for delight they read of Lancelot,"
' Disoours sur I'Hist. Eccles. IXme. ^ Essais I 25.
' Dunlop, Hist, of Fiction, vol. I, p. 348.

GODEFEIDUS. 79
caused' such bitter cries of sorrow that, heart-
struck, he
Through compassion fainting, seem'd not far
From death, and like a corse fell to the ground.'
St. Teresa became fond of reading these romances
after her mother's death; and though she confesses
that while reading them she did not discover their i
evil, and though the conversation of her cousin- '--'^^
german seems to have been a greater cause of dis
traction than her studies ; yet she relates that her ^ '
father disliked them, and would have prevented her i
from reading them ; and she agrees to his opinion
in stating them to have been a great snare. It is
true, at the time when passing the most severe cen
sures upon these objects of her early admiration,
she confesses, that while enchanted -with them, her
intentions were not evil, and that she would not for
the world have given offence to God ; an admission
which might be urged in behalf of these books
which then delighted her. Yet it is not becoming
to criticise the language of the saints, when the
results of their science are plainly laid do-wn. Alban
Butler takes occasion ^ to__paas__a__severe_ceiisure <-«-
jipon^sneh-beefesy-as-tendiag.jio .pieEvert— the.Jieart
and tojexcite-the-jpassions.; though it is probable
that he judged of their general character, without
attending to exceptions, and rather from the report
and experience of others than from his own judg
ment. Yet stUl, it would argue but little piety or
submission to maintain a contrary opinion.
Father Possevin, a learned Jesuit at the close
of the sixteenth century, who was the director of
St. Francis de Sales at Padua, used to complain,
that for the last five hundred years the princes of
Europe had been infatuated by romances, and that
' Canto V. ' Lives of the Saints, vol. X, p. 310.

80 GODEFEIDUS.
in his time it was a mark of inelegance not to be
familiarly acquainted with Lancelot du Lac, Perce
forest, Tristan, Giron le Courtois, Amadis de Gaule,
and Primaleon. Far be it from any faithful Chris
tian to recommend the reading of booksTzMchhave
been condemned by holy men. It is not from a
conceit of the world having grown- -wiser, or of
there being any new mode of piety more agreeable
than what was known to the saints of past times,
that, in the ensuing books, passages -will be occa
sionally produced from the romances of chivalry.
We know, as Dom Bartholomew de Martyribus
says, " verba Dei et sanctorum promulgata non sunt,
ut varientur cum tempore, sed ut Ulibata perma-
neant in omni tempore et eis ser-viant omnia tem
pora." ^ But it is one thing to condemn the general
and promiscuous use of a study, and another to
maintain that it is not capable of yielding advantage
to any person, or under any circumstances. Poison
itself is a remedy in some diseases ; and there in
nothing so evil but what may be converted to pur
poses of good. Father Luis of Granada, accounting
for the pleasure which men take in the romances
and exercises of chivalry, upon the principle that a
display of courage and the contempt of death
causes the greatest admiration, continues to shew,
that the same principle which gives rise to those
fabulous histories, to those tournaments and blazon
of shields, should induce men to study the acts and
triumphs of the holy martyrs, whose courage and
contempt of death were beyond comparison more
admirable and more heroic than any ever evinced
by the chivalry of the world.^ Moreover, it would
be a mistake to suppose that the censures and com
plaints of holy writers, -with respect to the reading
of the chivalrous romances, are to be understood as
> Stim. Past. XXVI. ^ Catechism, part II, o. 17.

GODEFEIDUS. 81
oon-veying an universal prohibition from examining
or citing them. It is certain, on the contrary, that
they would gladly have seen them enlisted on
the side of piety ; yielding beautiful images to the
fancy of youth, and illustrious examples of ancient
honour to chivalry ; proving that there is no region
so abandoned to weeds but that some sweet flowers
can be gathered, and that where minds predisposed
to e-vil find food for their base passions, plain and
holy innocence is only conversant with purity and
' brightness itself ; in like manner as we read, that
from one and the same river the Egyptians drew
blood, and the Israelites a lively and crystalline
stream. It is certain that some very ¦wise and devout men
have been in the habit of reading these romances
with pleasure. Rene d' Anjou heard his good chap
lain, Pierre de Marini, preach against Lancelot and
Amadis, and the romances which he dearly loved ;
and while he respected Marini the more for his
evangelical boldness, the old saint-like king, feeling
assured that they did his mind no injury, continued
to read them, and even composed new volumes in
imitation of the old.^
Even the worthy curate of Cervantes could urge
a great deal in favour of such writings, saying,
" with some regulations, they might be made both
instructive and diverting." He speaks of Tirante
as furnishing a treasure of delight; for in the Spanish,
as in the Italian translation by Lelio Manfredi, it is
at least free from the objectionable garb in which
it has been arrayed by the Count de Caylus, after
the fashion of the Count de Tressan. " And this
Palm of England," says the curate, meaning the
Palmerin of England ; " let it be kept and preserved
as a thing unique, and let another casket be made
• Villeneuve, Hist, de Eene d' Anjou, 91.
Godefridus. "

82 GODEFEIDUS.
for it, such as that which Alexander found among
the spoUs of Darius, and set apart, that the works
of the poet Homer might be kept in it. This book,
sir comrade, is of authority for two reasons — the
on, beecause it is a right good one in itself ; and
the other, because the report is that a ¦wise king of
Portugal composed it. All the adventures at the
castle of Miraguarda are excellent, and managed
with great skill. The discourses are courtly and
clear." Cervantes probably conveys his own opinion,
when the knight says to the canon, " read these
books, which you may find will banish all melan
choly if you are troubled with it, and sweeten your
disposition if it be harsh. This I can say for my
self, that since my being a knight-errant, I am
brave, courteous, bountiful, well bred, generous,
civil, bold, affable, patient." The libraries of the
monasteries contained romances. Perceval was in
that of Lincoln Cathedral. Many northern romances
were preserved in the Abbey of St. Denis. Bevis
of Southampton, in French, was in the Ubrary of
the Abbey of Leicester. In that of the Abbey of
Glastonbury were the Liber de Excidio Trojse, Gesta
Ricardi Regis, and Gesta Alexandri Regis. In a
catalogue of the library of the Abbey of Peter
borough, in 1247, are recited Amys and AmeUon,
Sir Tristan, Guy de Bourgogne, and Gesta OsueUs,
all in French, together ¦with Merlin's prophecies,
Turpin's Charlemagne, and the Destruction of Troy.
Among the books given to Winchester College hy
the founder, William of Wykeham, in 1387, was
Chronicon Trojae ; and in the library of Windsor
CoUege the flagitious commissioners of Henry VIII.
found there were " duo libri Gallici de Romances,
de quibus unus liber de Rosa, et alius difficihs
materiae." They were then in a hurry.
The second division of the Book of Heroes begii|is

GODEFEIDUS. 83
saying, "In the Abbey of Tagmunden,in Franconia,
an ancient volume was discovered. There it was
held in high honour, and was sent to the Bishop of
Bichstaedt, who was greatly delighted with the ad
ventures related in it. Ten years after his death it
fell into the hands of his chaplain ; and when he
began to tire of reading it, he presented it to the
Abbey of St. Walpurgis, in the town of Eichstaedt.
The abbess, a lady of uncommon beauty, was highly
amused by it, as well as her nuns. She caused two
clerks to copy it in the German tongue, for the good
of the whole Christian world."
In the statutes of New College at Oxford, given
about 1380, the -wise founder says, "Quando ob
Dei reverentiam aut suae matris, vel alterius sancti
cujuscunque, tempore yemali, ignis in aula sociis
ministratur ; tunc scolaribus et sociis post tempus
prandii aut cene liceat gracia recreationis, in aula,
in cantilenis, et alUs solaciis honestis, moram facere
condecentem, et poemata, regnorum chronicas, et
mundi hujus mirabUia, ac cetera que statum cleri-
calem condecorant, seriosius pertractare."
A monk of St. Denis wrote a history of chivalry,
which is still an authority. Jean de Billy, a Car
thusian monk, translated the ancient Christian ro
mance of Josaphat and Barlaam, and published his
work at Paris in 1574. The Count of Stolberg gives
substantial reasons for rejecting the report of Nice-
phorus, who says that Heliodorus was deposed by
a council for having composed the romance of
Theagenes and Chariklea,^ a book which was the
admiration of Tasso, and deemed worthy of being
iUustrated by Raffaello and Giulio Romano. How
ever, it is to be observed, that many and grievous
faults must be charged upon the Greek romances of
JambUchus, AchiUes Tatius, Longus, and Busta-
' Geschichte, X, 227.
G 2

84 GODEFEIDUS.
thius, from which the romances of chivalry are free.
It is certainly to be remembered, to the praise of
these latter compositions, that they have been the
deUght of admirable and heroic men. PhUip Au
gustus, whom some historians regard as the greatest
French monarch after Charlemagne, was the de
clared patron of the chivalrous romances in verse
and prose : it was his favourite relaxation to hear
them read aloud ; and they are said to have arrived
at their greatest perfection in his reign. The court
of all the Valois had no higher amusement than
reading the romances of chivalry. It was Charle
magne who ordered that those ancient heroic poems
should be collected, which have been condensed
into the Nibelungen-lied and the Helden-buch.
That the great chancellor Seguier did not despise
these romances, may be inferred from the copy of
Gyron le Courtoys, which belonged to him, in the
different borders of which he ordered the coats of
arms of his nearest relations to be painted. Here
we see emblazoned his own arms, those of his wife,
of his eldest daughter, who was married to the
Marquis de Coislin, and of his second daughter,
who married the Duke of Sully. ^ In the revenue-
roll of the twenty-first of King Henry III. of Eng
land, which is dated 1237, there is an entry of the
expense of silver clasps and studs for the king's
great book of romances. Arthur of Little Britain
and some others are said to have been composed _
for the use of that poor young king, Charles VL,
who, before his calamity, was remarkable for such
a generous and romantic spirit. The greater part
of these histories were composed in the twelfth
century, which even Sismondi pronounces to have
been a great age. Some are as old as the tenth

' Catalogue des Livres sur veUn de la Bib. du Eoi, torn. IV,
255.

GODEFEIDUS. 85
century.^ It is not to the discredit of these ro
mances, that in Spain some of the Arabian princes,
such as the Almoravides, had expressly forbidden
the reading of them, though their publication was
encouraged by others of a more chivalrous spirit,
like Abdulmumin.^ Certainly it would be great
injustice and inconsistency to deny that there is
excellent matter in these books, which were the
delight of our ancestors, and to maintain that they
are utterly obsolete and useless ; which, perhaps,
will never at any time be true, until virtue, and
honour, and faith, become obsolete and useless;
until love, courtesy, humanity, friendship, genero
sity, and heroism, are no longer to be cherished and
reverenced by mankind. When that time shall have
arrived, and these volumes shall be consigned to for
getfulness, then may be repeated the words ascribed
to Cato upon the death of Pompey ; it may then be
said, that of a truth already aU sense of the ancient
honour had in reality expired, but now that the
romances of chivalry are to be given up, it will
perish even in fiction : " Nunc et ficta perit."^ It
is impossible not to feel grateful for the gratifica
tion which is still to be derived from the labour of
these ancient compilers, whose works, with all their
imperfections, when discreetly read, may be able to
exalt the imagination and to correct the heart ;
which could yield inspiration to the greatest of our
poets ; for The mightiest chiefs of British song
Scorn' d not suoh legends to prolong ;
They gleam through Spenser's elfic dream,
And mix in Milton's heavenly theme.
And Dryden, in immortal strain.
Had raised the table round again.

' Hist. Lit. de la France, tom. IV, 207.
2 Conde, Hist, de la Dominat. des Arabes, II, 417.
' Lucan.

86 GODEFEIDUS.
Works in which the student, who has fathomed the
depths of Platonic lore, 'will behold in action the
sublime principles of his phUosophy; books in
which all the beautiful circumstances of real life
belonging to a Catholic age are related with histo
rical fidelity ; which present a world of enchantment
in harmony with the 'vdsions of youth, unfolding.
scenes which are ever sweet, and blooming with
perpetual spring, until those withering hours, when
the spirit is oppressed by the weight of the external
world —
When the huge book of faery-land lies closed,
And those strong brazen clasps -will yield no more.
Percy informed Boswell, that Johnson when a
boy was immoderately fond of the romances of
chivalry, and that he retained his fondness for them
through life ; so that, spending part of a summer
at his house in the country, he chose for his regular
reading the old Spanish romance of Felixmarte of
Hyrcania, in folio, which he read quite through.^
" The moral Gower," amidst his graver studies,
was a great reader of these old romances. Even in
the Schoolmaster of Ascham it is said that "la
Morte d' Arthur did not the tenth part so much
harm as one of the modern novels." It is to their
honour that they should have been despised by men
who could say with Montaigne, that they preferred
the Decameron or Rabelais to all the romances of
chivalry.^ According to the polished taste of
Politian, these romances of chivalry were worthy of
being imitated : they were objects of study, and
encouragement to the learning and munificence of
Lorenzo de Medicis. They furnished themes which
Tasso and Ariosto sang, and even
' BoBwell's Life of Johnson, I, 25. = Essais, II, 10.

GODEFEIDUS. 87
"What the sage poets, taught by the heavenly Muse,
Storied of old in high immortal verse.
M. le Laboureur says, that a ma.n of learn
ing ought to feel shame if he should have gained
nothing by reading the romances of chivahy.
There would be no end of citing learned men who
have acknowledged their obligations to them, like
Pasquier, Fauchet, Dom Vaissette, Duchesne, Du
eange, &c. These profound scholars supposed
them, as Niebuhr regards Virgil, to contain an
immense mine of learning. Victor Hugo says, that
the Spanish romance of the Wrath of Mudarra is a
Gothic Iliad. The very simplicity which belonged
to the authors of these books, as when they call
Joseph of Arimathea " the gentle knight who took
down our Lord from the cross," ' gives them in one
respect a character of perfect historical truth ; jor_
it shewsthat theyj'were incapable of representing
to men"Tdeal personages : the heroes ~of~ thSr
romancesare but the exact resemblance of the real
Eeroes" of their time ; and,_JhexiIore,_it_Jias_been
shewn bvieamed  meaj— in the Memoirs of the
FfHSchTAl^demy of Inscriptions, that thev may be
used in common vvith._histoj:y, and Es of equal
autEori^JT^henever an inquiry take_g]ace-xesg5ct^^
TngJhespirjL and rrrSIhefs'of- the ages in which they
were composed. Such are the books of Merlilr^le
Roman o[ir~Saint Greal, le Roman du Vaillant
Perceval, Lancelot du Lac, Meliadus of Leonnoys,
Tristan, Ysaie le Triste, le Roman du Roy Artus,
Gyron le Courtois, Perceforest, Arthur of Little
Britain, the Morte d' Arthur, Cleriadus, all romances
of the Round Table ; also the Chronicle of Turpin,
Huon de Bordeaux, Guerin de Monglave, Galien
Restaur e, Milles et Amys, Jourdain de Blaves,
' Morte d' Arthur.

88 GODEFEIDUS.
Ogier le Danois, all concerning Charlemagne;—
also Amadis de Gaul, Tirante the White, Partenopex
de Blois, Gerard de Roussillon, Lisuarte of Greece,
Palmerin de Oliva, Primaleon, Palmerin of England,
Livre de Jason, La Vie de Hercule, Alexandre,
&c. &c.
Gerard de Roussillon lived in the castle on Mount
Lassois, near Dijon, which is now in ruins. There
he retired from court in the reign of Louis le
Debonnaire and Charles the Bald : it was his life
in old rhymes, dedicated to Jeanne de Bourgogne,
queen of France, which formed the text of the
romance writers. History and romance are often
found so intimately united, that it is impossible to
separate one from the other. Romance says that
in the eighth century died the Count and Countess
Theodoric and Beatrix of Cleves, lea-ving one
beautiful daughter, Beatrix, who inherited their
possessions. In deep affliction for the loss of her
parents, she mourned her solitude; and one day,
being lost in reflection, as she sat at the window of
her tower gazing upon the still silver flood of the
Rhine, she saw below in the distance a little golden
ship drawn by swans, and gUttering in the evening
sun. She watched its approach, and when it drew
near the castle, she perceived rising out of it a fair
and comely youth, who looked more like a Grecian
god than a son of German chivalry. In one hand
he held a silver shield with eight golden sceptres,
and on his finger was a ring, and at his side hung
a silver hunting horn. The lad left his boat and
mounted to the castle, where he was entertained
with all hospitality. After the banquet, being
asked as to his name and country, and whether he
was of noble or lower origin, he replied, that a fairy
had given him the little gold ship and charged him,
with strong words, that if he would be happy, he
must not tell from what stem or place he came.

GODEFEIDUS. 89
" So here," he continued, "I come under a strange
name, to offer my services to you, 0 Princess of the
Rhine, to fight for you with sword and lance, and
to be your page in bower and hall." His offers
being accepted, he was charged to revenge the
orphan Beatrice on Wittikind, the Saxon, who
slew her father ; and in consequence he departed
¦to the wars, and under Charlemagne fought bravely
and killed Wittikind, and was rewarded by the
hand of Beatrice. It was not till after three fine
sons were born to them, (Dietrich, who held his
father's sword, Gottfrid, to whom fell his father's
scorn for wealth, and Konrad, who succeeded to
lands and gold,) that Beatrice, instigated by fatal
curiosity, drew the secret from her dear husband,
and then the angry fairy came in the Uttle ship
with the swans, and carried him off, while poor
Beatrice in vain looked out continually from the
tower, hoping that he might come again in the little
gold ship ; but, alas ! he returned no more.^ Real
history has repeated reference to this fanciful legend,
which is associated -with some of the most heroic
names of our history. We are reminded of it at
the great banquet of the Duke of Burgundy, at
Lille, in 1464, when Adolf of Cleves appeared under
the name of the Knight of the Swan; and the
Castle of the Schwanenburg at Cleves stiU re
mains with a golden swan shining upon its towers,
and with its record that Elias de Grail, a chivalrous
youth, of unknown parentage, married the heiress
of Cleves.
Again, another instance of this alliance of history
and romance. Romance says that Melusine used
' See the beautiful engraving in the Eheinische Bilder. The
swan drawing the little ship with the armed youth occurs also in
the Histoire Miraouleuse dn Chevalier au Cygne, fils dn puissant
Eoy Oriant, duquel est issu Godeffroi de Bouillon, avec les Faits
de oe Eoi et de plusieurs autres Princes et Barons Chretiens.

^)-^-

90 GODEFEIDUS.
to become a serpent every Saturday night. Jean
de Bouchet does uot beUeve this report, although
at the great banquet at LiUe, by PhUip, due de
Bourgogne, on one table was represented the castle
of Lusignan with its ditches and many towers, on
the highest of which Melusine appeared in the
form of a serpent. History says that Melusine,
sister of William the Fifth, duke of Aquitaine, who '
died a hermit, having inherited Melles and Lusignan,
acquired that name. Her husband was Count
Raymondin, and they lived in the castle of Lusignan.
The lady was most beautiful, and a prodigy of
learning ; hence a report became prevalent that
she was a necromancer. Others suppose that the
count purposely encouraged the report of the
serpent-form to keep off suitors. From her are
descended the noble houses of Soubise, and Rohan,
and Rochefoucault. Twelve battles of King Arthur
are in authentic history. We have detailed accounts
of his victories at Llongborth, which is supposed to
be Portsmouth, at the ford of Morlas, and again at
Badon. The illustrious Bishop Milner and Dr.
Lingard both reject the account of Arthur being
the founder of -the Round Table. Yet th&,t round
table which so delighted the Emperor Charles V.
when he came to Winchester, which was then new
painted, and made to appear as it does at this day,
which so well represented chivalry, that Cromwell's
soldiers found themselves impelled to fire at it,
though not the identical one which Arthur had
erected, has at least the age of seven centuries and
a half, for it was made by order of King Stephen,
who built the Castle of Winchester. All historians
hold that Arthur gained twelve victories, and that
he was solemnly crowned at Pentecost with much
splendour, at Caergwent in Monmouthshire; that
he made a pilgi'image to the Holy Land, returned
home, and was wounded in battle, and retired

GODEFEIDUS. 91
secretly to prepare for death among the solitaries of
Glastonbury, where he died in so much obscurity,
that his credulous countrymen would not admit the
fact of his being dead; but continued to cherish that
insane expectation, which, under the expression of
esperance de Bretagne, has become proverbial for a
groundless hope. Many passages and characters
of history seem to have been borrowed from
romance ; such as, the deliverance of France by the
Maid of Orleans. 1 Many places even bear a kind
of legendary testimony to the events of romance,
and derive an interest from such associations.^
Many historical characters have resembled Sir Giles
d' Argentine, whom Lord Hailes called " a hero of
romance in real life." In ancient times also, the
poetical and the real hero were often beheld in
union. The Spartan Brasidas was a noble knight
of true history, and Plato makes Alcibiades affirm
that he had indeed his equal, but only in the
Achilles of Homer. ^ Our annals contain many
simUar examples. What an instance presents itself
in Edward the Black Prince, who avowedly studied
the heroic page of romance to find patterns for
chivalry !
When Peter the Cruel, upon flying to Angou
leme, had prevailed upon the Prince of Wales to
defend his cause, having presented him with a
superb golden table, the prince ordered that the
present should be shewn to his princess, who was
at the same time informed of his resolution. This
¦wise and excellent woman lamented in bitter terms
the decision of the prince, and exclaimed aloud that
' Even GaUlard, in his work Sur la EivaUte de la France et de
1' Angleterre, acknowledges that he thinks tbe history of the
Maid of Orleans to be miraculous.
' Eoland and 20,000 brave men who fell at Eoncevaux were
thought to be buried at Aries, in the cemetery of Eliscamps.
' Conviv.

92 GODEFEIDUS.
she heartily -wished that the table had never been
presented, and that the wicked Peter had never set
foot in their court. When her expressions were
related to the prince : " I see well," saidhe, "that
she wishes I should be always by her side, and
never leave her chamber; but a prince must be
ready to win worship, and expose himself to aU
kinds of danger, comme firent autrefois Roland,
Olivier, Ogier, les quatre fils Aimon, Charlemagne,
le Grand Leon de Bourges, Jean de Tournant,
Lancelot, Tristan, Alexandre, Artus et Godefroy,
dont tous les romans racontent le courage, la valeur
et I'intrepidite toute martiale et toute heroique ; et
par Saint Georges, je rendray Espagne au droit
heritier." The editor of the last edition of the Morte
d' Arthur says, that " this book was the favourite
A, study of Nuno Alvarez Pereira, who, endeavouring
/ as far as possible to imitate the character which he
admired, became himself the fair ideal of a perfect
knight, as courteous as he was brave, as humane as
he was courteous, as pious as he was humane ; unit
ing in himself the accomplishments of a hero, the
feeling of a true patriot, and the -virtues of a Chris-
Ij^s. tian and a saint."
/ Francisco Rodriguez Lobo says of him, in a pas-
/ sage of the Corte na Aldea, quoted in the preface
, to this edition, " there was a brave captain in Por
tugal, better than whom Rome never produced, who,
A by imitating a knight of romance, and copying the
Y virtues which were written of him, became the
V;,^ greatest of his time."
¦^"^ This is sufficient to shew upon what grounds the
romances of chivalry may be adduced as an histo
rical evidence, entitled to perfect credit with respect
to the spirit and manners of the age in which they
were written. In point of language too, it may be
inferred, perhaps, from the passages which I shall

GODEFEIDUS. 93
adduce, that great profit and gratification may be
derived from reading the Morte d' Arthur in the old
EngUsh translation by Sir Thomas Malory, or the
romance of Huon de Bordeaux, translated by Lord
Berners. A great critical writer says, that the ex
ceUence of the French language is chiefly seen in
the books compiled on the gests ofthe Trojans and
Romans, and the delightful adventures of King
Arthur, with many other histories and works of
instruction ; and in these old versions, in our lan
guage, there is a store of genuine idiomatic Eng
lish, which will be enjoyed by every one who has
gro-wn weary of the affected philosophical jargon
of some Scotch -writers and their imitators. As a
mere recreation, even the worthy curate of Cer
vantes deemed them licensed, " for the same reason
that tennis, billiards, chess, and other amusements
are tolerated, that men may find a pastime for those
hours they cannot find employment for." It is still
true, as Jean de Bouchet says, that in them " on
veoit des choses incroyables et toutesfois delecta-
bles a lire." ^ If incredible and monstrous, did not
the classic ancients also sing of dragons ? ^ and
where do we find in our romantic literature so
many shameful and horrible deeds as in the one
history of the Greek Agamemnon, whose heroic
house is defiled with the most disgusting succession
of crimes, perfidy, and bloodshed, the murder of
father, wives, and sisters ! On the other hand, what
scenes of exquisite beauty, and what noble images of
heroic virtue, abound in the romances of chivalry !
Episodes at least, deserving the highest praise, might
be selected from them, as ih the collection of the
Cento Novelle antiche, which was composed from
them in the thirteenth century. It is well re
marked, in Athenaeus, that -^gistheus could not
' Annales d' Aquitaine, 152. ' Vide Nicandri Theriaca, 438.

94 GODEFEIDUS.
seduce Clytemnestra tUl he had murdered the old
bard, whom Agamemnon had left to sing to her ;
and it is impossible to overlook the advantage
which virtue can derive from the imagination being
kept familiar with beautiful and illustrious objects,
such as are presented by our heroic minstrels,
who, like the Greek Phemius, knew many jSporwi/
daXKTijpia,

tpy

dvBpCiv Tt dtZv TC, rd Tt K\tiov<xiv doiSoi. '

It was under the influence of ..tl
out ancestors kept alive the ...spark..
adventurous chivalry —
As often as they heard bards tell
How, in the old time, towers and cities fell,
How haughty kingdoms met their destined day.
And peerless champions bled their sonls away.'
"The whiche excellent mater," said a worthy
ancient of such works, " as longe as I lyve by the
helpe of God, I shall contynue; for the more
I followe and labour it, the more it pleaseth me; as
the noble knyght or squyer lovynge the feates of
armes, do perceyver in the same and be therby
experte and made parfyte, so in laborynge of this
noble mater I delyte and take pleasure." Seeing
also that it is a study which forsaketh subtile and
knotty inquisitions, (for we need not concern our
selves with either the Gothic or Arabian systems,
as accounting for chivalrous romance ; and if we
can but inhale the fragrance of that rose, gathered
in a delicious but almost inaccessible garden, of
which the poet, in the fourteenth century, wrote that
famous romaunt, it shall be left to theologians,
ci-vilians, chemists, and others to penetrate into the
mysteries of its hidden nature,) a study which is
' Od. I, 338. » Old German poem.

GODEFEIDUS. 95
calculated not to wither, but to open the heart,
filling the mind with wonder and admiration, with
splendid and illustrious objects ; we may conclude
and appeal to the authority of Bacon, that "it
tendeth to cherish nature, to secure health of body,
and a long and happy life." True it is, if men
would comprehend and enjoy these parts, they must
learn, if they be old, as Cicero says, " repuerascere,"
and if young, to exercise the feelings of youth, not
to anticipate the prudence, and distrust, and sagacity
of the old : " odi puerulum praecoci sapientia." It
is a wise precept, "miscere stultitiam consiliis,"
which must be put in practice here. We must lay
aside all that harsh, and acrimonious, and proud
wisdom, which constitutes the worldly wise; we
must have some enthusiasm and much simplicity,
more imagination and innocence than discernment
and experience of mankind, putting on " bowels of
mercies, kindness, and humbleness of mind," having
hearts susceptible, in the highest degree, of generous
and tender feelings, of admiration, and love, and
pity; we must be content to humble ourselves, and
even to become as little children.
For folk of other mould, right well I wot,
'Tis all time lost ; they comprehend me not.
True, as far as the majority of readers are concerned,
" the fashion for the chivalrous romances may have
passed away"; but as a modern writer has well
observed, "there may be stUl some minds which
possess that certain aptitude which is necessary for
the full enjoyment of them. When that aptitude
exists," he adds, " perhaps no works of imagination
produce so much deUght. It is something like that
pleasure of which the poet and the painter partake
from forest scenery, and in following the course of
a mountain stream."
XIII. The propriety of classical allusions in a

96 GODEFEIDUS.
review of chivalry may, perhaps, at flrst, appear
questionable to some persons, although probably a
moment's reflection will induce every one to admit
it. I shall presently have occasion to state the main
grounds upon which this propriety depends, and to
observe the general principles which are to be taken
into account in all inquiries respecting the nature
and extent of chivalry. In the present instance it
will be sufficient to shew, that this mode of extendr
ing the Umits of chivalry is no modern, invention,
and that such a view of its extent may be justified
by examples from classical learning. In the first
place, this usage is according to the universal
practice of the chivalrous writers in the middle ages.
The author of the ancient chronicle of Godeffroy de
BouiUon, in his prologue, quotes Job as saying,
" que la vie de I'homme sur la terre est toute
chevalerie."^ Of the nine worthies, three of whom
were Hebrews, Joshua, Da-vid, and Judas Maccabeus,
and three Christians, King Arthur> Charlemagne,
and Godfrey of Bouillon, three also were GentUes,
Hector of Troy, Alisaundre of Macedon, and Julius
Cffisar.** In the Morte d' Arthur it is said, that
" Merlyn made the round table in tokenyng of
roundenes of the world; for al the world, Crysten
and Hethen, repayren unto the round table ; they
thynke them more blessid and more in worship than
yf they had geten half the world." ^ Chaucer speaks
of Hercules, That was of strength alone peerless.
For like as bookes of him list expresse.
He set pillers through his hie prowesse
Away at Gades, for to signifie.
That no man might him passe in chivalrie.*

' Les Faitz et Gestes du preux Godeffroy de Bouillon et de sea
chevaleureux Freres : aussi plusieurs Cronicques et Hystoires
tant du Eoy Sainct Leys que de plusieurs autres Chevaliers : Paria.
¦' Les neuf Preux : Paris, 1507. ^ Lib. II, 233.
' The Black Knight.

GODEFEIDUS. 97
Again he says.
Witness of Eome, that founder wai truly
Of all knighthood aud deeds marvelous,
Eecord take of Titus Livius.'
In the same spirit the poet Lydgate following
Boccacio in his Hesiod, supposes that Theseus
founded the order of knighthood at Athens. Piir-
terer, a Bavarian poet of the fifteenth century, treats
in his romance of Arthur's Knights upon the origin
of knighthood, which he dates from the times of the
Argonautic expedition and the Trojan war. Sir
Thomas More said in parliament, that Phormio made
a solemn declaration concerning chivalry before
Hannibal, and he calls the Carthaginian general
"the prince and flower of chivalry." The tactics
of Vegetius appeared under the title of " Livre des
Pais d' Armes et de Chevallerie par Christine de
Pisan." In the book entitled " Le Triumphe
des neuf Preux," printed at Abbeville in 1487,
the virtues and vices of " le vaillant preux roy
Alexandre " are described with great justice, but in
the language of our own chivalry. Hector is called
"le puissant et preux Hector, miroir de toute
chevalerie et preud-hommie." And Julius Cassar
being described as about to pass the- Rubicon, is
made to address these words to Rome : " J'ay este
ton champion ; seuffre moy estre ton chevalier loyal,
et seuffre corriger ceulx qui empeschent me donner
ce que tu m'as promis."^ With all the main facts
as to the classical histories, men in our heroic age
had a very general acquaintance; all knights had
at least heard often
Of JuUus Csesar the empero-ur.
Of Alexander the oonqnerour.
Of Greece and Troy the strong stryf.
Where many a man lost his lyf •

• Flower and Leaf. '^ Les neuf Preux.
Qodefridus. H

98 GODEFEIDUS.
Warton quotes Chaucer to prove the general popu
larity of Alexander's history in the middle ages :
Alexaundres storie is so commune.
That every wight that hath discrecioune
Hath herde somewhat or al of his fortune.
It was the common expression when it was said, "no
thing so horrible had happened since the destruc
tion of great Troy." Men were not struck -with any
air of inconsistency when they were presented -with
images taken promiscuously from the earlier or later
chivalry of the world. In the Orlando Furioso
there is this union of Gothic and classical images,
which has so much provoked the criticism of modern
pedants. Few of the chivalrous romances are with
out it ; and Bojardo formed his chivalrous heroes
partly and avowedly on the Homeric model. So
far it only . appears that the chivalrous writers,
during the middle ages, assumed that those gentle
knights. Sir Hector, Ajax, and -Alexander, were
gentle and chivalrous like themselves. I proceed
to shew that this character, to a certain degree, and
with due allowances for the circumstances of the
world in their time, did actually, in many instances,
distinguish them. That the old world must have
had its chivalry in some form or other will appear
manifest, when we come to examine into the nature
of chivalry, and the principles upon which its
existence depends. In this place it will be sufficient
to point out the resemblance and identity. In the
first place, it is e-vident to every intelligent scholar,
that, in fact, the characteristics which belong to
what has been termed the romantic literature are
by no means inconsistent with the ancient and the
true antique. The legends of Troy and the poems
of Homer, the labours of Hercules, the war of giants
and heroes, the beleaguering of Thebes by the
seven champions, the expedition of Jason and the

GODEFEIDUS. 99
Argonauts, the old heroic songs of the Romans, the
birth and fate of Romulus, the combat of the Horatii
and Curiatii, the pride of Tarquin, the death of
Lucretia, the wonderful war of Porsenna, the stead
fastness of Scaevola, the revolt of Ooriolanus, are all
throughout romantic and chivalrous. As Friedrich
Schlegel observes, " Even in the ancient tragedians,
the echoes of this feeling are here and there to be
distinguished. The romantic is not opposed to the
antique, but to those false and frigid erudite among
ourselves, who strive to imitate the form, without
being gifted -with any portion of the enthusiasm of
the antique."^ The whole fourth book of Diodorus
concerning Hercules, the Argonauts, Theseus, and
other heroes, is like a romance of chivalry. Athe-
ngeus describes a Round Table among the Gauls.'
An early instance of chivalrous vows is recorded by
Herodotus, where he relates how the Argives and
Spartans contended for Thyrea.^ Even things most
unconnected -with our own chivalry, though accident
ally, for a time, associated with it, such, for instance,
as the ordeal, occurs in the Greek poets. Every
nation had its Hercules. Varro reckons forty. This
might lead us to trace those great heroic fables of
antiquity to some common source in the circum
stances of human life, and in the very constitution
of our nature. Indeed, the whole of our mental
refinement is in so great a degree derived from that
of the ancients, or, rather, so little has ever been
created by any age, that it would be extremely
difficult to treat, in any way, of a subject so in
timately connected with literature as chivalry,
without bestowing a few observations on the writers
of Greece and Rome; "nations," says Friedrich
Schlegel, " to whom we are indebted for so large a
share of our mental cultivation, and from whom we
' Hist, of Literature. ' Lib. IV. ^ Lib. I, 82.
H 2

100 GODEFEIDUS.
have derived so rich a legacy of models."^' " Quam-
multas nobis imagines, non solum ad ifntuendum,
verum etiam ad imitandum fortissimorum virorum,
expressas, scriptores et Gr^ciet Latini reliquerunt!" ^
It would be well to observe the testimony which
Cicero bears to Sulpicius ; presenting so remarkable
a contrast in its expression to the language of the
moderns, who think themselves dispensed, through
the fancy of possessing certain inventive faculties,
from either respecting the examples or the traditions
of past ages. "I remember,'-" he says, "that from
your early youth you were most studious and desirous
of learning, omniaque, quae a sapientissimis ad bene
vivendum tradita essent, summo studio curaque
didicisse."^ It seems to be no homage to the
Christian religion to deny the praise which is really
due to the ancients, or to reject the wisdom of those
primeval traditions, which through every age and
nation have descended, though, indeed, under various
degrees of corruption, from the original common
fountain of all human knowledge; for what was
conservative in the laws and creeds of the ancients
was not of their invention. " The higher one
remounts to antiquity," says a great French writer,
"the purer are these creeds; they appertain e-vidently
to primitive tradition, the common inheritance of
the human race, altered and debased graduaUy by
passions and reason, and declining with the progress
of time, and in proportion as the schools of the
sophists extended their influence." Nor can it be
said with justice, that because the ancients were
involved in the darkness of idolatry, therefore aU
traces of the Divinity which belong to the human
soul -were obliterated, or that their belief in a di-vine
power, and their desire to propitiate him, were no

' Hist, of Literature, I, 20. « Cicero pro Arohia Poeta.
^ Epist. I, lib. IV.

GODEFEIDUS. 101
"more entitled to praise than the worst actions of
their most profane men; for even Prideaux shews
the error of such a judgment, when he attributes
the fate of Crassus and Pompey to their profanation
of holy things. On the contrary, examples which
exhibit any degree of intellectual or moral greatness,
as well as the sentiments which directed them,
should always be respected, and may well be per
mitted to have a place in the archives of memory ;
so that, like the fate of the ancient music, of which
the most simple and noble species were at once
adopted into the service of the Christian Church,
to whose Uberal and comprehensive spirit we are
indebted for the means of hearing many ancient
Roman airs adapted to the service of hymns, and
invested with a more solemn and ethereal harmony
by the majestic accompaniments of the organ ; the
examples of heroic virtue which animated the
ancients, and the great universal traditionary pre
cepts of wisdom which they have left to us in their
¦writings, being thus associated with all the intel
lectual treasures which are employed to illustrate
and confirm truth, may assume new grandeur from
its influence, and a character which will render them
not unworthy of the bright banners under which
they are made to serve.
Every one who is conversant with the histories
and poetry of the ancients must have been >struck
with many instances which presented a strong re
semblance to the spirit ahd character of our later
chivalry. Xenophon's account of Agesilaus, making allow
ance for the errors of his faith, reminds one of a
perfect knight, remarkable for piety, valour, tem
perance, justice, and purity. The character of the
old Persians is in like manner highly chivalrous.
The same spirit is to be traced in that sentence
which the Germans deUvered in the Roman theatre.

102 GODEFEIDUS.
when they said, "nullos mortalium armis aut fide
ante Germanos esse." ^ The sentiments of the
Homeric age, as also those which prevailed in aU
the heroic periods of Grecian and Roman history,
were in like manner more chivalrous than politic or
sophistical. The oath which used to be taken by
the Athenian youths might have been proposed to
the chivalry of a Christian land — " I wiU not dis
grace the sacred arms entrusted to me by my
country, nor will I desert my place, afivvw Se koI
VTTip hpwv, Kal virep ba'iwv, Kcii fiovog Kai fUTa ttoA-
Xiiv."^ The same spirit of devotion directed the whole
view of the ancients as to the qualities of the heroic
character. In any of the poetical records, wherein
the heroes are mentioned, we find not that any one
of them besides Diomedes did ever with his sword
offer violence to any of the deities, and Diomedes
suffered the most dreadful punishment afterwards,
being put to death by his host.^ It would be
premature at present to dwell much in detail upon
the heroic character of the ancients ; but a few in
stances may be adduced to shew the resemblance
which it bore to that of our later chivalry. Take
the example of the Theban knight, described by
king Eteocles in ^sohylus —
liaX tvyevij TE, Kai tov at(Txi>i'i]g Qpovov
Tip.wvTa, Kal (TTvyovvQ' vnkptppovag \6yovg'
alaxP'^'" ydp dpybg, ptfi Kaxog d' tlvai (piXtl.*
In like manner, it is impossible to read the
speech of Sthenelaidas the Spartan, in Thucydides,^
or of Agamemnon, in the Iphigenia in Aulis of
Euripides, without obser^ving that they breathe the
very spirit of chivalry.^ A few passages from the
> Tacitus, An. XIII, 54. ' Stobsei Florileg. vol. II, 110.
' Lord Bacon on the Wisdom of the Ancients.
" Sept. cont. Theb. 405. * Lib. I, 86.
^ Burip. Iphig. in AnUd. 463.

GODEFEIDUS. 103
Greek tragedy of Rhesus will make the justice of
this view sufficiently manifest. In the first place,
the doctrine of nobility is well marked in the testi
mony of Hector to the parentage and virtues of
Dolon, who volunteers in a most perilous service
for his country — TTarpbg Sk Kal Trpiv evK\id do^iov

vvv dig roCTwe eiiTjKag evKXeeffTSpov.
There is a display of noble spirit when Dolon scorns
the offer of riches and title and splendid alliance as
the reward for his service, but demands for his
prize Tovg 'iwiTovg 'AxiXXiwg- ha^ving previously had
the promise of Hector that his peti^tion should be
granted. This gives rise to another display of chi
valry; for the possession of those horses was the
grand object of Hector's ambition, as he informs
him in reply, Kai firjv tpuvri y' dvT€pq.g 'iTnTiav tfini'
he concludes, however, with these noble words —
aXX* ou ff' ETrdpag ^evtrofiat' Sb}(Tw Se ffot
KaWiarov oiKoig KTTJfi' 'A;^tXXewg o^ov.
Perfectly chivalrous are the generosity and frank
ness displayed by Hector, when having reason to
suspect and condemn the conduct of Rhesus, in
coming to the army when the danger seemed to be
over, he does not conceal his feelings, and so per
mit displeasure against his old friend and ally to
rankle in his breast, but immediately upon their
first meeting thus accosts him :
TToI rfjg liiKijiSov iir]Tfpog, MovaHv /iidg,
OpjKog re TTOTa/iov ^Tpv/iovog, 0iXw Xlytiv
raXjjfite dti, kov SnrXoiig jte^ub' dvrjp.
irciXai, vdXai xp^v ryde avyKdjiviiv xQovl
eXQovra  ¦
raiiQ', wc dv dcyt"'EKTop' ovt' kXfvGspov,
Kal liSjiipoiiai ffoi Kai Xsyui Kar' opiia abv.

104 GODEFEIDUS.
There is another chivalrous sentiment nobly pro
nounced by Rhesus —
ovSelg dvrip tvi\jvxog d^iol XaBpcj,
KTtivai TOV ix^P^^* dXX' Ithv Kurd ffTOfia.
And lastly, when Hector is accused of treachery by
a stranger, like a knight of king Arthur he appeals
with noble simplicity and confidence to those who
had known his former life, and could bear testimony
to his reproachless fame.
This must serve to justify our brave ancestors for
having spoken with such confidence of the ancient
heroes, as being noble and chivalrous like them
selves. If any should please to make such senti
ments a ground of accusation against them, as well
as against the spirit of these books— for there are
profane men who compare the heathen superstition
with Christian simplicity — I must refer to another
place the task of engaging with such adversaries.
In the mean time, it will be sufficient to observe,
that it is very possible to have the mind of a hea
then without being in the least acquainted with
heathen literature ; and, on the other hand, that
one may employ the language of the heathens, as
far as quoting from their writings, without having
one's faith in the least infected with their philo
sophy. A Christian may cite heathen testimonies,
and may admire what was good in the old heroic
world, without being the less a Christian; and it
is too clearly seen in a great part of modern litera
ture, and especially in the eminent productions of
the age of Queen Anne, that a writer, having the
mind of a heathen, may quote Scripture, and may
even condescend to pass an eulogium upon such
men as Fenelon, without having his mind restored
by the light and influence of Christianity. While
we affirm that there was, to a certain extent, a
spirit of chivalry among the ancients, we do not

GODEFEIDUS. 105
prove ourselves insensible to the mighty change
which Christianity produced in every region of the
moral world, when, according to the involuntary
testimony of Niebuhr, " the old religion of Rome,
and along with it all hereditary usages, were
abolished, and a new religion was preaching other
. virtues and another kind of happiness exclusively,
and was condemning sins unreproved by the old
morality; when Rome, for ever disarmed, was be
come the capital of a spiritual empire." ^ On the
contrary, we engage to shew that chivalry was not
exempted from the blessed influence of this great
renovation, for that, from this period, it assumes a
character infinitely superior to all that had ever
before entered into the conception of man ; that ' it
is invested -with somewhat of a holy grandeur, aris
ing from its Christian graces, for a single example
of which, or of anything in the least approaching
to them, we should in vain search the whole of
heathen records, from the description of the wan
derers of the desert, by Herodotus, to that of the
most accomplished heroes of Greece and Rome, by
Thucydides and Livy. In fact, it could not have
been other-wise ; for wherever the spirit of Catholic
Christianity enters there must be a mind as much
above that of the wisest and best of the heathens as
heaven is above the earth.
Laurentie complains of the direction of early
studies, which in modern times have been exclu
sively devoted to the literary associations of Greece
and Rome ; ^ a most just complaint, which speaks
the sentiment of common sense and piety. In the
monastic schools of the middle ages, as in those of
chivalry, youths were not brought up as if they
were to be Greek and Roman patriots and pagan

1 Hist, of Eome, vol. I, p. 189.
'' De I'Etude et de I'Enseignement des Lettres.

106 GODEFEIDUS.
moralists ; while they were induced to respect the
virtues of the heathens, they felt assured of possess
ing a far higher standard, and of being bound to
the discharge of very different duties ; thus their
sentiments, their deeds, their very language were
to be chivalrous, but also essentially Christian,
other-wise they would have been deficient in chi
valry, which must ever be directed by the highest
known good. They were not so blinded by immo
derate admiration for classical learning, as to look
-with reverence to the Areopagus or the Forum, to
extol their deeds of atrocious wickedness and de
mocratic tyranny.
Quid memorem infandas csedes ? quid facta tyranni
Effera ? 
Not even the Homeric records could meet their
lofty conceptions of reproachless chivalry. On the
contrary, they would say even with Cicero, " Quid
Achille Homerico foedius, quid Agamemnone in
jurgio ? " 1 In vain to them would you hold up
the palms of Greece and Rome. They would reply
in the words of St. Augustin, " Quid mihi obten-
ditur nomen laudis nomenque victorise ? Remotis
obstaculis, insanae opinionis facinora nuda cernan-
tur, nuda pensentur, nuda judicentur." ^ It was to
their own annals that they looked back with in
tense and affectionate interest, for. examples of men,
who, as the poet says, "were prodigal of their
great souls in the service of their country." " It
shews but little reflection," says Wippo, " to write
and read the deeds of Tarquinius the Proud, of
TuUus, and Father ^neas, and others, and never
once to think of om- Charles and three Othos, of
our Conrads and Henrys, of our Fredericks and
1 Tuscul. Disput. IV.
' De Civitate Dei, lib. Ill, 14.

GODEFEIDUS. '307
Rudolphs." " Where," says Vogt, " do we find in
the middle history of the Rhine so many shameful
and horrible deeds as in one heroic house of
Greece ? " ^ Germany may well be proud of her
Othos, Henrys, Lothars, Conrads, Fredericks,
Karls, Rudolphs, MaximiUans, Lud-wigs ; Bo
hemia of her Ottocars, Bolpslaus, Wenceslaus ;
Hungary of her Stephan, her Ludwig I, Mathias
Corvinus ; Poland of her Casimirs, Boleslaus, Vla
dislaus I., Stephan Bathori, and Sobieski. It is
our heroic defenders of the Church of Christ which
should be dear to the youth of England ; it is from
the men whose learning and patriotism were gnided
by eternal truth that we should derive our models
of chivalry, to animate our souls -with the hope of
future renown, or to console them with the remem
brance of past greatness.
XIV. We are now prepared to meet the great
question, and to determine what that general spirit
of chivalry is, which can be found existing, more or
less, under such different circumstances as those
which belong to the early and latter ages of the
world. " The age of chivalry is gone ! " cried
Burke, in a burst of impassioned eloquence, full of
indignation and horror, when he thought upon a
beautiful and innocent queen abandoned to destruc
tion by a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men
of honour and of cavaliers. " The age of chivalry
is gone ! " calmly observes the calculating sophists,
who lead the mind of the moderns, and persuade
them that the world is hastening, under their influ
ence, to a period of increased light and civilization,
— a most convenient maxim to establish from the
declamation of an orator ! for that is as much as to
hold, that there is no longer occasion for men to be
generous and devoted, faithful and indifferent to
' Eheinische Geschichte, I, 393.

J

108 GODEFEIDUS.
their own selfish interest, full of high honour ; not
aiming to follow the erring multitude, but emulous
of imitating the example and of joining the society
of the celestial citizens : an assertion, however,
which carries -with it the less weight from its being
characteristic of a class of men, whose first prin
ciples are all contained in similar propositions, with
whom every age is gone but that of economists and
calculators. On the other hand, we are told by
some, that it is an error to speak of the age of
chivalry ; for that " chivalry never existed except
ing in briUiant fictions." ^ In opposition to these
opinions, I shaU endeavour to shew that chivalry,
in some form or other, is coeval with human
society, and that it must continue to exist with it
till the end of time; but that, under the influ
ence of the Christian religion, it is infinitely en
nobled, and even assumes many general features
wholly new, which must be examined pre-vious to
engaging in any of the detailed -views of the heroic
age of Christianity, which wUl occupy the succeed
ing books.
The error which leads men to doubt of this first
proposition consists in their supposing that tour
naments and steel panoply, and coat-arms, and
aristocratic institutions, are essential to chivalry;
whereas these are, in fact, only accidental attend
ants upon it, subject to the influence of time^
which changes all such things, new-moulding them
into a countless diversity of forms, to suit each race
of new-born fancies.
Cuncta fluunt ; omnisqne vagans f ormatur imago. '
In the common acceptation of the word, chivalry,
as a learned French writer observes, " did not
create a new system, — it only extended and refined
' Sismondi, Hist, des Francais, Introduct. p. 22.

J

GODEFRIDUS.

an old." 1 Chivalry is only a name for that general
spirit or state of mind which disposes men to heroic
and generous actions, and keeps them conversant
with all that is beautiful and sublime in the intel
lectual and moral world. It will be found that, in
the absence of conservative principles, this spirit
more generally prevails in youth than in the later
periods of men's Uves ; and, as the heroic is always
the earliest age in the history of nations, so youth,
the first period of human life, may be considered as
the heroic or chivalrous age of . each separate man :
and there are few so unhappy as to have gro-wn v^
without ha-ving experienced its influence, and hav
ing derived the advantage of being able to enrich
their imaginations and to soothe their hours of
sorrow with its romantic recollections. The Anglo-
Saxons distinguished the period between child
hood and manhood by the term " cnihthad," boy
hood ; a term which still continued to indicate the
connexion between youth and chivalry, when
knights were styled children, as in the historic
song beginning. Child Eowland to the dark tower came :
an excellent expression, no doubt ; for every boy and
youth is, in his mind and sentiments, a knight, and
essentially a son of chivalry. Nature is fine in him.
Nothing but the circumstance of a most singular
and unhappy constitution, and the most perverted
and degrading system of education, can ever totally
destroy the action of this general law ; therefore as
long as there has been, or shall be, a succession of
sweet springs in man's intellectual world ; as long
as there have been, or shall be, young men to grow
up to maturity, and until all youthful life shall be
dead, and its source withered for ever, so long must

Disoours PreUm. de I'Hist. Litteraire des Troubadours.

110 GODEFEIDUS.
there have been, and must there continue to be, the
spirit of noble chivalry. To understand, therefore,
this first, and, as it were, natural chivalry, we have
only to observe the features of the youthful age, of
which examples surround us ; for, as Demopho says
of young men, —
Ecce autem similia omnia ; omnes congruunt :
Unum cognoris, omnes noris  ^
Mark the courage of him who is green and fresh in
this old world. Amyntas beheld and dreaded the
insolence of the Persians ; but not so Alexander the
son of Amyntas, ote viog rs Iwv icat KaKwv awa^rig,
says Herodotus, ovda/xiog sti KaTe\eiv olog tb ^v.'
When Jason had related to his companions the con
ditions imposed by the king, the first impression was
that of horror and despondency, tiU Peleus rose np
boldly, and said, —
&pri iiTjTidaaOaL o k' tp^ofiiv' ov filv toXva
PovXfjg ilvai oveiap, oaov r iiri Kaprii xftpwv.
If Jason be unwUling to attempt it, I and the rest
wiU undertake the enterprise ; for what more can
we suffer than death ! and then instantly up rose
Telamon and Idas, and the sons of Tyndarus, and
CEnides, although
 ouoE irep Sffffov iiravBtocpvTag iovXovg
dvTkXX(av'
But Argus, the Nestor of the party, restrained their
impetuous valour, and represented the great advan
tage of endeavouring to persuade Medea to help
them -with her enchantments ; and while he spake,
the gods seemed to approve by sending a dove,
which took refuge from a hawk in the bosom of
Jason. The sanction of heaven was said to attend
' Terent. Phormio, I, 2. ' V, 19.

GODEFEIDUS. Ill
this advice, and to this authority the youthful heroes
were willing to assent. The Grasae, representing
•treasons, were described by the ancients as grey
headed, and like old women from their birth, to
shew that youth has no concern in the cares, sus
picions, and trepidations -with which such traitors
are continually vexed. So it is with the spirit of
chivalry. When Olivier de Clisson had escaped from
the dungeon of the castle of Hermine at Vannes,
where he had been treacherously seized by Montfort
and imprisoned, he hastily repaired to Paris to
demand justice of the king. Oharles VI. was moved
by the -wrongs which had been suffered by his
constable, but in promising to take them into con
sideration, he added, " I must express my astonish
ment, that you should have committed so great a
fault as to let yourself be conducted into the castle
of Hermine by your most cruel enemy. The Duke
of Bretagne caught you as if you had been a chUd ! "
"Eh ! monseigneur," replied Olivier, "il me mon-
troit de si beaux semblans que je ne lui osois pas
refuser." ^
To break forth in the praise of chivalry might
expose one to the reproof which Antalcidas passed
upon the sophist who was going to recite the praise'
of Hercules, till he was stopped by the question,
" Who reviles him ? " And yet there are not a few
men who speak reproachfully and disdainfully of the
majestic world to which it introduces us. To praise
youth is, indeed, to praise chivalry, and therefore
there can be no want of testimonies to its excellence.
It is a remark of Lord Bacon, "that, for the
moral part, youth will have the pre-eminence, as
age hath for the politic " ; and this has always been
the opinion, which is allied to that other belief, that
' Vies des Grands Capitaines Frangois du Moyen Age,
t. IV, 142.

112 GODEFEIDUS.
the heroic (the Homeric age) was the most -virtuous
age of Greece. When Demosthenes is desirous of ex
pressing any great and generous sentiment, he uses
the term veaviKov (jipovrifia ; and it is the saying of
Plautus, when surprise is evinced at the benevolence
of an old man, " benignitas hujus ut adolescentuli
est." There is no difference, says the philosopher,
between youthful age and youthful character; and
what this is, cannot be better evinced than in the
very words of Aristotle : " The young are ardent in
desire, and what they do is from affection : they are
tractable and delicate ; they earnestly desire, and
are quickly appeased ; their wishes are intense,
without comprehending much, as the thirst and
hunger of the weary : they are passionate and hasty,
and liable to be surprised by anger ; for being am
bitious of honour, they cannot endure to be despised,
but are indignant when they suffer injustice : they
love honour, but still more victory; for youth
desires superiority, and -victory is superiority, and
both of these they love more than riches ; for as to
these, of all things, they care for them the least.
They are not of corrupt manners, but are innocent,
from not having beheld much wickedness ; and they
are credulous, from having been seldom deceived;
and sanguine in hope, for, like persons who are
drunk with wine, they are inflamed by nature, and
from their having had but little experience of
fortune ; and they live by hope, for hope is of the
future, but memory of the past, and to youth the
future is everything, the past but little : they hope
all things, and remember nothing ; and it is easy
to deceive them, for the reasons which have been
given, for they are willing to hope, and are full of
courage, being passionate and hasty, of which
tempers it is the nature of one not to fear, and of
the other to inspire confidence : and they are easily
put to shame, for they have no resources to set

GODEFEIDUS. 113
aside the precepts which they have learned ; and
they have lofty souls, for they have never been dis
graced or brought low, and they are unacquainted
with necessity : they prefer honour to advantage,
virtue to expediency, for they live by affection
rather than by reason ; and reason is concerned with
expediency, but affection with honour: and they
are warm friends and hearty companions, more than
other men, because they delight in fellowship, and
judge of nothing by utility, and therefore not their
friends ; and they chiefiy err in doing all things
over-much, for they keep no medium; they love
much, and they dislike much, and so in everything ;
and this arises from their idea that they know every
thing, and their faults consist more in insolence
than in actual wrong : and they are full of mercy,
because they regard all men as good, and more ¦
¦virtuous than they are, for they measure others by
their own innocence ; so that they suppose every
man suffers wrongfully."
In this admirable picture of the youthful mind
we behold the characteristic features, and as it were
the ground- work, of natural chivalry. With some
men, indeed, there may be a winter in the spring
tide to become afterwards a spring-tide in winter ;
youth may be perverted by the doctrine of sophists,
and so bent from its natural direction as to become
political and suspicious, and riper years, undeceived
and renewed by religion, may enjoy the bright
visions of imagination and innocence ; but the
natural order which prevails in the moral world is
otherwise, and the time of issuing from youth is
often distinguished by the decline and fall of a
kingly and heroic state in the little world of man's
soul. With the sentiment of chivalry happiness
withdraws, attended by all the raptures which
belonged to that lively, jocund, and, as I may say,
dancing age ; for what is termed entering the world,
Godefridus. I

114 GODEFEIDUS.
assuming its principles aud maxims, is nothing else
but departing into those regions to which the souls
of the Homeric heroes went sorrowing :
'dv TTOT^ov yooioua, Xtirovff' dvdporijTa Kai mirjv.
Generous souls are like those birds of paradise which
are found on the banks of the Nile. When caught and
confined, they never cease lamenting and struggling
till they die, or are suffered again to fly away. To
the spirit of chivalry there are, however, many other
qualities belonging, the indications of which will
always supply us with means of tracing its existence,
Among them may be noticed, in the first place, an
ardent admiration for excellence ; which Crassus
describes as " studium et ardorem quendam amoris,
sine quo in vita nihil quidquam egregium nemo
umquam assequetur." ^ A beautiful instance of
this occurs in the romance of Perceforest. Lyonnel,
discoursing with Perceforest, without knowing who
the stranger was, had said of him, " Sachez qu'il
nest riens au siecle que je desire tant que de devenir
chevalier de sa main." Perceforest discovered him
self to the youth, and then Lyonnel threw himself
on the neck of the horse and kissed his thigh ; and
when the king saw the goodness of the squire, he
alighted from his horse, undid his helmet, and then
embraced and kissed the child. " Ha, sire," said,
Lyonnel, " vous faictes oultrage qui etes descendu
pour ung garson que je suis." " Lyonnel," said the
king, "je suis descendu encontrele bien que j'entens
qui sera encores en vous."
The same principle breaks out in the ardour •with
which men admire the exceUence that is exhibited
in books of philosophy, of history, or fiction, though
youth, profound in its simpUcity, will never believe
excellence to be fiction. When Turenne was a lad,
' Cicero, de Oratore, I, 30.

GODEFEIDUS. 115
he used to delight in reading Quintus Curtius. An
officer one day thought proper to tell him that it
was but a romance. The young viscount was hurt
to the last degree ; and upon the officer continuing-
to rally him, he left the company, and sent him a
challenge, which his mother, the Duchess of Bouil
lon, took care should end in a fete.' Pompey, it
appears, had, in like manner, absolutely resented the
criticism of Dionysius Halicarnasseus, when he cen
sured the ¦writings of Plato. ^ Chivalry induces men to
conduct themselves in the same manner with respect
to their favourite author as to their friend. When
the queen, in the Morte d'Arthur, said that Sir
Launcelot was " a fals traytour knyghte ; ' Madame,'
said Sir Bors, ' I pray you saye ye not so ; for wete
you wel, I maye not here such langage of hym.' " ^
The most surprising instance of this disposition is
recorded by an ancient writer, who says that Cleom-
brotus, having read the Phsedo of Plato, was seized
with such a desire for the future life, that he threw
himself into the sea. This disposition of mind is
described by Cicero to aU his fellow- disciples in
philosophy, when he says, " There is not one among
us who, when he reads the books of Plato, so ad
mirably written, in almost all of ¦\vhich Socrates is
represented, does not suspect (although they are
divinely written) that something still greater belongs
to him upon whom they are written. To me, indeed,"
he says again, " those ancients seem to have em
braced something more in their minds, and to have
seen far more than can be perceived by any of our
contemporaries." * It may be permitted me to urge
this confession upon those who would engage in a
review of our heroic age, and entreat them, in re
garding their ancestors, " ut maj us quiddam de illis
' Histoire dn Vicomte de Turenne par Eampay, p. 5.
^ Dion. Halicamaos. Epist. ad 0. Pomp.
" II, 342. " De Oratore, lib. Ill, 4, 5i
I 2

116 GODEFEIDUS.
quam quantum a nobis exprimitur suspicentur."
Assuredly such a sentiment will not lead them from
the truth. But this disposition of chivalry does
not terminate with a mere belief in excellence, for
it renders men anxious to promote it and to multiply
__jihe-efejeQtg_QfjisJi5vg_5ind^j:e2£i:^^ grand
tournament described in the Morte d Arthur, when
Sir Gareth had overthrown a multitude of knights :
" '' So God me help,' said king Arthur, ' that same
knyght is a good knyght;' wherefore the kyng
called unto hym Syr Launcelot, and praied hym to
encounter with that knyght. ' Syr,' sayed Launcelot,
' I may wel fynde in my heart for to forbore hym as
at this tyme, for he hath hadde travail ynough this
day ; and when a good knyght doth so wel upon
some day, it is no good knyghtes parte to lette hym
of his worship : peradventure,' said Launcelot,
' he is best byloved with this lady of all that ben
here, for I see well he paynethhym and enforcethhym
to do great dedes ; and therefore as for me, this day
he shall have the honour; though it lay in my
power to put hym fro it, I wold not.' " ' The same
spirit breathes in that fine answer which is recorded
of Charlemagne, when the traitor Ganelon, in an
old romance, desired him to take the horse upon
which young Galien was mounted, saying, that it
•V was the finest in the world ; to which the emperor
replied, " II convient mieux a Galien qu'a moi."
From the love of excellence is inseparable a spirit
of uncompromising detestation for everything base
and criminal. Thus Froissart describes Gaston de
Foix, who " in every thyng was so parfite, that he
cannot be praised too moche ; he loved that ought
to be beloved, and hated that ought to be hated";
adding a testimony to his practice, that "he never
had myscreant with hym." ' Vol. I, 233.

GODEFEIDUS. 117
King Arthur, hunting in a great forest, strayed
away from his company, and wandered for a long
time, till at length his weary horse sank under him :
so he proceeded on foot to look for some lodging.
Exhausted with fatigue he lay down and fell asleep,
and after awhile when he awoke, he found himself
in a dark prison, hearing on all sides of him many
complaints of woeful knights. " What are ye that
so complain ? " said Arthur. " We ben here xx.
knyghts prisoners," said they, "and some of us
have lain here seven yere, and some more, and some
less." " For what cause ? " said Arthur. " We
shall tell you," said the knights, "The lord of
this castle is Sir Damas, and he is the falsest knight
that liveth, and full of treason, and a very coward
as any liveth ; and he hath a younger brother, a good
knight of prowess. Sir • Ontzlake, and this traitor
Damas, the elder brother, wiU give him no part of
his livelode. And great war hath ben between them
both, but Ontzlake had ever the better, and ever he
profereth Sir Damas to fyght body for body, or
else to find a knyght to fyght for him. Unto that
Sir Damas hath granted 'to find a knyght, but he is
so evil beloved and hated, that there is never a
knyght will fyght for him : and when Damas saw
this, that there was never a knyght would fyght for
him, he hath dayly lain await with many knyghts
with him, and taken all the knyghts in this country
to see and espye his adventures ; he hath taken
them by force, and brought them to this prison ;
and BO he took us severally as we rode on our ad
ventures, and many good knyghts have died in this
prison for hunger, to the number of xviii, knyghts.
And if any of us all that here is or hath been would
have fought with his brother Ontzlake, he would
have delivered us ; but for by cause this Damas is
so fals and so full of treason, we would never fyght

118 GODEFEIDUS.
fpr him to die for it." ' Eie Tag XoTOfiiag was their
cry, as it had been of old that of Philoxenus in the
presence of a tyrant. In all this we can observe
the operation of a principle which acted as great a
part in the moral world of chivalry as in its political
— the consciousness of personal obUgations, and
therefore, in some sense, of personal importance ; —
the opinion that there is a spiritual monarchy, con
stituting to each man individually the kingdom of
his soul, in which he has to govern according to
truth and justice, and to oppose error and evil with
out regard to the policy of other powers.^ Friedrich
Schlegel has made some excellent observations on
the danger of abandoning this principle in relation
to all the great duties of life. His words are these.
" The point wherein human charity chiefly fails
is, in its being too much concerned with general
views and grand abstractions, but not sufficiently
exercised in the little detail of daily life, in the
innumerable cases of trouble and care which it
might be employed in relieving. As with the
charity, so it is with the faith of men; it is not
sufficiently personal ; it is not sufficiently confiding.
The greatest part of men have by far a too high
opinion of their own worth, and an over-great con
fidence in their own strength ; but of their vocation,
of the end to which they are destined, they have,
in general, a sense far too low ; they do not believe
in it ; they look upon their calling and destiiy and
themselves as from the point whence they survey
the whole world : but in this they are guilty of a
great error and of great injustice, for every man is
a separate world in himself — a true microcosmus
in the eyes of God and in the plan of the whole
creation. Every man has a separate calling and an
' Morte d'Arthur, vol. I, 99.
' Luis of Granada, Cat. part I, o. 33.

GODEFEIDUS. 119
end peculiar to himself." ^ As in the warfare of the
middle ages, when each man was regarded as a
power, so in the spiritual combats of all times,
chivalry requires every man to believe that he is
personally called upon to pronounce between error
and truth, injustice and justice, vice and virtue.
It may be observed also, with respect to the
great characteristics of chivalry, that at all times a
foundation of honesty for honour to rest upon is
indispensable : " Where I could not be honest,"
says Albany, " I was never valiant " : and that,
where duty and honour call, no fear of suffering
can cause chivalry to fail. The boys of Sparta
would endure whipping till their very entrails saw
the light through their torn flesh, and some of them
to death, without crying or complaint. The whole
system is more concerned with action than with
¦ discourse, and therefore may often render useless
the contrivances of legislation; according to the
opinion of ChariUus, who being asked why Lycur
gus had made so few laws, replied, " they who use
few words have not occasion for many laws."
It would be foreign from the design of these
sheets to attempt to enter into any deep investiga
tion respecting the original sources of chivalry in
the human soul ; nor, indeed, can such an inquiry
be desired ; for theology has long since revealed the
only spring from which all virtue must proceed.
The sophist knew by the young man's tone of voice,
or manner of opening his lips as he spoke, that he
would never make a sophist :
TTwe dv fidQot TToB' ovTog dizo^tv^iv SiKrig ;*
Scipio Africanus was wont to commend that
saying in Xenophon, that the same labours of war
fare were easier far to a general than to a common
soldier, because he was supported by the great
' Philosophic des Lebens, 156. " Aristoph. Nubes, 874.

120 GODEFEIDUS.
appetites of honour, which made his hard marches
nothing but stepping forward and reaching at a
triumph ; but. the difference of character observable
in men does not depend, as this would imply, upon
any accident or circumstance of their situation. The
full development of the chivalrous spirit seems to
depend upon the direction which is given to that
agitation of mind peculiar to man, from which the
ancients argued in support of its celestial origin,^
and this secret principle of action is often too
powerful for any circumstances to resist.
Buesching ^ gives a passage from a great chival
rous poem, caUed the Knight Gamuret, by Wolfram
von Eschenbach, which relates how this Knight
Gamuret, having left his wife in France, great
with child, fell in battle against the Paynims of
Asia. Shortly after his death, the lady was de
livered of a son, who was called Parzifal [Perceval],
whom she carried away into a wild forest, that
the child might be separated entirely from the life
and bustle of the world. Then she gave orders
to all the men and women who attended upon her,
that they should never speak of knighthood;
"for," said she, "if the dear one of my heart
should become aware of chivalry, then must great
suffering be his portion." So he was kept in
ignorance of knighthood, of what love and honour
commanded, and within the bounds of the forest
was all his knowledge conflned. Here he ranged
about, with his own hands cut a bow and arrows,
with which he might shoot the birds of the forest,
and, with a small javelin, slew wild beasts. Thus,
without knighthood and the world's titles, he waxed
strong, and chivalrous power was instilled into his
limbs. He was still a youth when flrst he beheld a
knight appearing in his pomp, like a god, who told
' Quinctil. lib. I, 0. 1. ' Eitterzeit und Eitterweseu.

GODEFEIDUS. 121
him that he Was a knight, and that King Arthur
conferred knighthood. Then did Parzifal run to
his mother, and tell her what he had seen and heard.'
From that hour nothing could stay his departure.
Upon leaving his mother, in order that she might
be sure of his return, she dressed him like a fool
instead of a knight ; but he became, in process of
time, one of the stoutest and most glorious knights
whose deeds are the theme of ancient minstrelsy.
As nature, therefore, when favoured and assisted,
seems to impel men to pursue the generous paths of
chivalry, the debt is repaid by a return of affection
and docility ; for nothing harmonises with the spirit
of chivalry but what is at least consistent ¦with the
grace and majesty of nature. Her simple pleasures
and her grand distinctions are ever uppermost in
the thoughts of this favoured part of men ; even the
most pompous and imposing contrivances of art
seem never more than half enjoyed by them. The
ancients said that Erichthonius, though of a comely
body from the middle upward, had his thighs and
legs like the tail of an eel, small and deformed ; of
which monstrosity being conscious, he became the
first inventor of the use of chariots, whereby his
deformed parts might be concealed. Rather than
.descend to a life of effeminate luxuries, chivalry
would seek to imitate the creatures, " whose naked
natures live in all the spite of wreakful heaven."
From all this it appears, that nothing can indicate .
a more complete ignorance of the essential principles y
which give birth to chivalry, than the assertion, that
any age can witness its final and utter extinction.
Times may be more or less favourable to its de
velopment, and perhaps circumstances may combine,
so as for an interval to stifle its generous sparks ;
and then every bright image may seem to withdraw,
¦without a promise of return. Suoh was King
Arthur's sorrow when his knights were about to

122 GODEFEIDUS.
depart in search of the Saint Grayle, "the teres
fylle in his eyes, and he said, ' ye have sette me in
grete sorrow e; for I have grete doubte that my true
felowship shaUe never mete here more ageyne. I
wote wel ther shall no manner of joye remedye me.'"
But however it may be with the little world of one
book, in nature there is no such final departure of
all chivalry. The noble fellowship of the round
table cannot be broken for ever ; but fresh aspirants
will again appear to revive the generous lists, to
keep ahead of the degraded world, and to bear the
palm alone.
What is accidental, and not necessarily connected
with the inmost soul of chivalry, may indeed have
its destined period, beyond which it may be obsolete
and lifeless. The plumed troop, and the bright
banner, and all quality, pride, pomp, and circum
stance of feudal manners, may pass with the age-
which required them ; but what essentially belongs
to this great cause must endure to the end.
Although all other things are uncertain, perishable,
and liable to change, this is grafted upon deep and
indestructible roots, which no time can weaken,
and no force remove.
XV. So far we have considered the general
characteristics of chivalry, as existing under all
circumstances; but our object would be only im
perfectly obtained, if we did not also take a general
view of those features belonging to it which seem
to have an especial reference to the Christian religion,
and which render it so interesting a portion of the
Church of God : a proposition which should not
startle any intelligent observer ; for it -will be shewn
hereafter, that as there is a spirit and a language,
so there is also a system of philosophy belonging
peculiarly to chivalry, the main principles of which
I shall endeavour to point out in the course of the
present book, which is yet but an introduction to

GODEFEIDUS. 123
others, in which all these propositions will be
exemplified and established in detail. In the first
place, every Christian has been told, that in order
to profit by the divine words of life, he must receive
them as a Uttle child, that is to say, according to
what we have lately seen, he must receive them in
a generous and noble spirit, to which the epithet of
chivalrous may be justly applied. Nor let this
position sound as if it were an extravagant novelty ;
for there might be no end of citing passages from
the writings of the saints, in which they shew how
religion takes advantage of those dispositions which
are commonly referred to mere generosity and
nobleness of nature. Father Luis of Granada, St.
Ignatius Loyola, St. Francis de Sales, and Fenelon,
may be distinguished as having repeatedly availed
themselves of the principles of chivalry, to induce
men to turn from vanity to God. Itis the constant
practice of holy writers to shew that nothing can
be more generous than humility, more noble than
perseverance, more heroic than the whole spirit of
a Catholic Christian. As, therefore, before the
coming of our Lord, there was evidence to believe
a priori, that if it should please God to make a
divine revelation of his will to mankind, all minds
which were under the influence of the philosophy
ascribed to Socrates would have hailed it with the
utmost joy and gratitude, while the world in general,
the philosophers so called, would have rejected it ;
in like manner it must have appeared highly pro
bable to every wise observer in these ages, that this
youthful or chivalrous spirit would have afforded
soil in a manner previously prepared, and peculiarly
favourable for the reception of the divine seed. This
fresh and ingenuous spirit would not, like the cor
rupted dregs of the heathen world, become a burden
and injury, instead of a source of vigour to the
Church. St. Augustin says, " he who was formerly

124 GODEFEIDUS.
an avowed Pagan, ha-ving clothed himself in the robe
of a Christian, is now, under the veil of religion, a
concealed e-vil.'" Such would never be the con
sequence of a conversion, where the mind of chivalry
existed. That mind would embrace the doctrine of
the Cross of Jesus with sincerity and ardour. It
would be insensible to that human respect which is
so great an obstacle to -nrtue, and particularly to
the sanctification of Christians. There have been
Catholics who appeared to take a pride in imitating
the adversaries of their holy religion, and in being
associated in friendship with them ; no one so dear
to them as he who had most daringly reviled their
holy faith ; men who were ashamed of everything
but what they had solemnly renounced in their bap
tismal vows ; ashamed of ser-ving God only -without
regard to the opinion of the world ; ashamed of the
Cross ; unwilling that a crucifix should be seen in
their apartments ; afraid to sign themselves like all
faithful Christians at the accustomed time ; and
afraid, or disdainful of all the exercises of a peniten
tial Ufe; as if they could gain anything by pro
fessing to believe -with Catholics, and li-ving after
the manner of the Gentiles ; ashamed of some or all
of the sublime and beautiful practices prescribed by
religion, which are dear to those who love the Church
of Jesus Christ ; and harassed with continual fear,
lest they should not always be seen invested with
the livery of the world, and ready to concede to it
the sentiments of a Christian, and even the noble
qualities of youth. The spirit of chivalry in religion
would despise and abhor this ungenerous and servile
disposition, under whatever name it might be
recommended, whether extoUed as liberality, mode
ration, or prudence : it is a disposition not only
essentially opposed to di-vine charity, but also to
' In Ps. XLVIII; Serm. II, § 1.

GODEFEIDUS. 125
every sentiment of human honour ; it denotes a want
of faith ; it is wholly of the world, and characteristic
of those who are of the world. It is deceived too
in all its wisdom. It was afraid of being despised,
and, lo, its endeavour to avoid contempt is the secret
scorn of the very world that it would propitiate ;
whereas • those who despised the ridicule or censure
of the world, while they were guided by the discipline
of the Church, who laughed at the world's charge of
superstition or idolatry, are seen invested with an
heroic dignity that is able to intimidate even the base
assailants, whose front of brass is never proof against
the power of holy innocence. " Fear them not,"
were the divine words; "be not afraid of their
countenance." "Faciem tuam valentiorem faciebus
eorum, et frontem tuam duriorem frontibus eorum." ^
The results of this fatal vanity of concession con
tinually verify the divine sentence, " qui timet
hominem, cito corruet;"^ and the justice of what
St. Jerome said, " Let not those who make profes
sion of being the disciples of truth, follow the erring
multitude; for it is most safe to follow him who
saith, "^He is the way, the truth, and the life."'^
When the noble PaulKostka, brother of St. Stanislas,
was converted to religion, he chose for his motto
the words which he afterwards caused to be engraven
upon his tomb, "Non erubesco evangelium." It
is essentially an heroic sentiment to set at defiance
the judgment of the world when honour is at stake.
Again, the spirit of indifference and tepidity would
be alike unknown to chivalrous devotion. " It is
my noble father's maxim," St. Ludo-dco di Gonzaga
used to say, " that when a man of honour under
takes an office, he ought to discharge its duties with
the utmost fidelity. Since my father has practised
' Ezech. Ill, 8. ' Prov. XXIX.
^ Epist. ad Celant.

126 GODEFEIDUS.
this lesson for the things of the world, is it not my
duty to practise it for the things of God ? " Such
would be the fervour of chivalrous piety : once sub
dued by the love of Jesus, it would cast away all
other remembrance but that of his passion, it wotfld
seek no other consolation but that of his adorable
sacraments ; it would desire no other science but to
know him who died for us, and who rose again to
redeem us by his blood, that we should no more live
to ourselves, but to our Lord who died for us, and
who rose again.'- It was this spirit which animated
the centurion when he spoke the words which the
Church teaches her children to repeat when they
approach the fountain of grace and blessedness.
The saints have only amplified them, for they con
tained the substance of all that the spirit of man
can demand. " 0 sweet Saviour, do thou but speak
to my heart, and the tumults of the soul shall ibe
hushed before thee. Do thou but speak, and nothing
shall distract my mind from the attention it owes
thee; speak in those accents of peace which were
promised to thy people : say to my soul, I am thy
salvation." The Desire of all nations, the great Restorer of
mankind hath appeared, hath visited, a,nd wrought
the redemption of his people. Therefore from
henceforth the world may lift up its standard, and
boast of honour, and generosity, and noble senti
ments, with as much emphasis and solemnity of
phrase as it will ; its slaves may be the only free,
its base, cruel ministers may be all liberal, all
honourable men ; but the time is for ever past for
its language to have power over any but its genuine
children ; there is now a rallying point and a rival
banner to direct and animate those who are not of
the world, who scorn its service, and who abhor its
' B. Esaiae Abbat. Orat. 27 ; Bibl. Patrum, XIII.

GODEFEIDUS. 127
despotism. " Omnis qui est ex veritate audit vocem
meam," said Christ to Pilate ; and we may set this
down as acertain consequence, that excepting in cases
of unavoidable ignorance, where this orient from
on high hath not dawned, in hostility to the world's
claims, our Saviour Jesus Christ is become the chief
and eternal King of all the really free, generous,
and heroic spirits that exist upon the earth ; that it
is to him alone they come, offering the homage of
undivided love ; and that, renouncing allegiance to
the world, scorning its pretensions, and regarding
with the utmost degree of contempt and detestation
its haughty standard of false honour, and false
liberty, and false virtue, it is to his church they
repair, from every region, and language, and people,
to confirm their union, to proclaim their fidelity,
to take up the arms, with which they are to fight
against the ruler of this world, to secure their de
liverance from the hand of their enemies, and to
receive power from their adorable Lord, who is
enthroned in the centre of their hearts, to serve
him without fear all their days, in holiness and
justice. " Vidimus, et Venimus," is from hence
forth the cry of genuine chivalry. " Procidentes
adoraverunt eum," says the evangelist of the holy
kings ; and in their train we may behold a multi
tude which no man can number, which continues to
press on in succession to the feet of Jesus ; each
generation contributing, in its tum, to augment this
religious chain, and to pay its tribute to the divine
Redeemer. "Et procidentes adoraverunt eum."
The Divine will, expressed in the sentence, " Praebe,
fili, cor tuum mihi," seems to have a special regard
to the disposition of souls like that of the knightly
Ignatius, who had but one desire — " 0 ! utinam
facere possim ut omnis terra adoret te, et psallat
tibi."^ In proceeding to shew the features of the
' Exercitia Spiritualia, VIII, 2.

128 GODEFEIDUS.
chivalrous character, which are pecuUarly favour
able to the reception of the Christian religion, we
may remark that there was a disposition among the
proud and pharisaical part of the heathen world,
expressly inculcated by the sophists, and nourished
by all the established systems of religion, which
would be most hostile to the extension of Chris
tianity, and from which the spirit of chivalry,
wherever it existed, would be free. The character
and effects of this disposition are described by St.
Augustin, when he says, "Many glory in their
works ; and you will find many Pagans who are
unwilling to become Christians because they ima
gine that they have all things sufficient to themselves
for good life. '' What we have to do,' they say, ' is
to live well and virtuously. What can Christ pre
scribe to us ? That we should live well and virtu
ously. We live well and -virtuously now.' These
men," adds St. Augustin, "have glory, but not
according to God ; for not so our father Abraham." ^
Now it is not too much to affirm that the spirit
of chivalry is essentially opposed to such sentiments
as these : it is honest, therefore it perceives the im
perfection of its best virtue; it is susceptible of
divine impressions, therefore it seeks for refuge, for
peace, and for security, not in anything which be
longs to its own weak and mortal nature, but in the
mercy and power of God. Among the heathens it
was e-vinced in those wanderings and unutterable
expectations and desires, of which the Apostle
speaks when he says that "the whole creation
groaneth andtravaileth in pain until now." Among
those who fell from the unity of the faith, and were
ranked without the Church, it would be manifested
in the resolution of those few whose minds were not
to be contented with the regularity of their own
' In Ps. XXXI ; Bnarrat. II, § 2.

GODEFEIDUS. 129
lives or with the respectable morality of any nation,
and which could never find rest until they were re
ceived into the ark of covenanted mercy; giving
up their private judgment for submission to divine
authority, and being determined to repose all their
hopes for future happiness, not upon any principle
of human philosophy, or deduction of their own
reason, but solely upon obedience to the positive
and simple command of God, however inscrutable
and unfathomable that command might appear as
to the object and reason for which it was deUvered.
When we take up the instructions of holy men,
it is most obvious that, if the form of their precepts
were a little changed, the substance and spirit would
seem to have been intended expressly for the pro
motion of honour and chivalry. There are many
holy books which might lead us to ask. Do their
authors -write to instruct men in what is commonly
regarded as the highest sentiment belonging to
nobility, or do they address themselves to those who
foUow the professed path of spiritual perfection?
If the spirit of the Catholic religion were not
always the same, we might be tempted to say that,
as the scholastic disputation was after the custom
of chivalry in that time, when the combatant, man
and horse, from head to foot, was enclosed in an
iron panoply, composed of innumerable rings and
chains, and when the great object was to force the
enemy out of his saddle, here, too, the forces being
often so equally matched that both the philosophic
combatants, at the end of the battle, remained on
the old spot, or were drawn back to it : in like
manner, the di-vine discourses of holy men, in our
heroic age, had assumed a kind of chivalrous tone
from the prevailing spirit of noble knighthood. For
instance, the holy abbot St. Columban's precepts
to his monks are thus conveyed : " Audax in causa
veritatis, timidus in contentionibus, supplex bonis,
Godefridus. K.

130 GODEFEIDUS.
insuperabilis mails, senioribus obediens, junioribus
concurrens, coeequalibus co^quans, perfectis con-
certans, melioribus non in-videns, prjecurrentibus
non dolens, remorantibus non detrahens, provo-
cantibus consentiens." i May it not be affirmed,
that this is the way of chivalry as well as holiness ?
Chivalry is humble, and it detests the attendants
upon exaltation ; it prefers the lowest place and
the simplest lodging; it prefers service to com
mand ; it wishes to join the chorus of admirers,
not to be the object of its praise. The Duke of
Gandia, upon arriving at Lisbon, was waited upon
by a man of quality who had been despatched for
that purpose by King Dom Joao III, who, in his
compliments, gi-ving him repeatedly the title of most
illustrious lord, and asking him if he were not
fatigued by his journey, received for a reply the in
timation that his expressions were a greater source
of weariness than the way had been ; and a sur
geon, who was called in to dress a wound which the
duke had received on one occasion, observing that
his lordship had received a great wound, — "You
inflict a greater upon me," replied the duke, "hy
your manner of speaking." In religion, therefore,
chivalry would be truly humble, and might assume
for its motto the words which are on the tomb of
Cardinal Beaufort in the old cathedral of Winches
ter, "Tribularer, si nescirem misericordias tuas."
What St. Bonaventura says of St. Francis expressed
the humility which was in harmony with this spirit :
" In his own estimation he was but a sinner, when
in truth he was the mirror and splendour of all
kinds of holiness ; and he was more pleased to hear
himself the object of reproach than of praise." It
belongs essentially to this spirit to feel how much
occasion the soul has for some divine object to
' Bibliotheca Patrum, XII, Instruct. XIV.

GODEFEIDUS. 131
supply its present vacuity, and to experience what
the ancient poet termed
The eternal wound of love.
It feels, as Socrates says, that human efforts are
not worthy of much earnest care, and yet it feels
the necessity for having earnest care about some
things : TO. Tb>v avBpwir(j)v npayfiuTa piyaXrig /xiv
awovdrig oiiK a^ia' avayKoiov ye fifjv cnrovSaZsiv.
" This seems an unfortunate condition," adds the
sage. This is the state in which he found the soul
of Alcibiades ; and his finding him in this state of
dissatisfaction was the sole ground which made him
regard this representative of disordered chivalry
with affection. " How, then," he continues, " can
we remedy this condition ? In this way, by shew
ing that God is worthy of all anxieties, irdcrjig
awovdtjg a^iov." ^ This disposition is alluded to by
St. Augustin, when he says that the grief of one
who feels his wound is nearer to salvation than the
insensibility of one who remains indifferent : " Vi-
cinior est immortaUtati sanitas dolentis quam stupor
non sentientis." " This spirit is, therefore, pecu
liarly prepared for receiving the good news of the
great sacrifice of propitiation; for acknowledging
how great is the debt which it owes to the divine
justice ; for pondering upon all its past years, and
lamenting that it should have so early turned away
from God to follow vanity ; for confessing that it
has nothing to offer to the Lord that is worthy,
-with which it might kneel before the high God ;
that neither holocausts nor thousands of rams, nor
yet its own blood, could expiate its guilt ; that the
blood of Christ alone could do it, with which it

Plato de Legibus, VII.
K a

132 GODEFEIDUS.
might kneel before the Most High when it assisted
at the sacrifice of the altar." ^
But while this humble spirit, in accordance with
truth and nature, characterised the mind which
was tempered after the tone of chivalry, there was
also in such minds a perfect sense of the dignity of
the soul of man, and an anticipation of the high
destiny which awaited it. The ancient sage ex
pressed this sentiment, saying, "We must not
agree to those who maintain that being a man, one
should cherish the thoughts belonging to man, and
being mortal, the thoughts which are mortal; but,
as much as possible, we should immortalise our
selves, and do all things with a view of attaining
to the highest life." ^ There is no occasion to point
out that this disposition of mind would be pecuUarly
favourable to the reception of the Christian philo,-
sophy. Again, let it be noted well, that chivalry,
Uke youth, is essentially devout. "Puer ccepi
rogare te auxili,um et refugium meum," says St.
Augustin of himself.^ It was a pretty couplet which
formed the conclusion of some verses which were
composed on the death of an angeUc youth by one
of his fellow-students in the college of St. Acheul :'
At prsematura doleam qnid morte peremptum ?
Nam si aetate puer, vir pietate fuit.*
The proposition contained in it might, however,
admit of being opposed. It is the first age of man
that is admitted nearest the sanctuary. In all its
examples and precepts, the Christian religion has
especial provision for youth. " Christ," says St.
Irenaeus, " made himself an infant to infants, that
he might sanctify them ; he made himself a child
to children, giving holiness to those of that age, to
' Bishop Chalouer's Meditations. ^ Aristot. Ethic, lib. X, 7.
2 Confess. I, 9. * Souv. de S. Acheul, p. ll

GODEFEIDUS. 133
the end he might afford them, in his person, an
example of piety, and sanctity, and subjection ; he
made himself a young man to young men, giving
them a pattern, and sanctifying them for the service
of our Lord." '
It was not the part of chivalry to merit the re
proach which the hermit passed upon Gawayne,
when he said to him, " It is longe tyme passed syth
that ye were made knyghte, and never sythen thou
servedest thy Maker, and now thou art soo old a
tree, that in thee is neyther lyf ne fruyte ; where
fore bethynke thee that thou yelde to our Lord the
bare rynde, sythe the fiende hath the leves and the
fruyte." 2
Who need be told of the generous passion with
which the soul of chivalry is possessed by the mere
view of that beauty which has been given to crea
tures ? " Behold it," says Luis of Granada, " in
the person of Amon, son of Da-vid ; all the vigour of
whose soul is so occupied and suspended by the
excess of this affection, that his frame is left without
support, so that it seems consumed and withering
away through weakness." If, then, the beauty of
a creature has such power, what will not the infinite
beauty of the divine goodness be able to produce,
when the Holy Spirit, by the rays of its Ught, dis
closes to a pure and innocent soul some particle of
this adorable beauty ? If what is human has such
force, how much more that which is divine ? If
nature is so powerful, how much more grace ? or,
rather, if such be the strength of the corruption of
sin, what wiU not be within the power of grace,
and the light of the Holy Ghost ?^
To be always ready was the maxim of chivalry,
which would accord well with its religious duties.

' S. Iren. adversus H^reses, 39. = Morte d'Arthur, II, 362.
^ Catechism, part II, ch. xi.

134 GODEFEIDUS.
This was also the principle of the saints, whose
death, precious in the sight of God, is often observed
to be premature and sudden. Some have accom
plished their course at twenty, others at sixteen,
others at a still earlier age. One is preaching on
the love of God, falls into an ecstasy, and sinks to
the ground ; on beiug raised up, he is found to be
dead: such an instiance lately happened in the
cathedral of Rennes. Another dies in the act of
blessing the people, -with the ciborium in his hands ;
another while beginning to say mass with the words,
"Introibo ad altare Dei." He thought he was
about to mount to the material altar, but it was to
that which is in heaven. The Due de Montmorenci,
in 1827, died in the act of kissing the Cross on
Good Friday, in the church of St. Thomas Aquinas,
in Paris. To be attentive and prompt to answer to
the call of duty was another quality essential to
chivalry; and what advantage might not be expected
from such a disposition in regard to reUgion?
" Amanti sat est indicare." Behold the character
of chivalry : it knows not the word to-morrow, as
St. Augustin says of a Christian. On the other
hand, what does not religion fear in regard to those
who e-vince a different disposition ? " Cras " is the
word of the reprobate, says St. Augustin, as " nunc"
is of the just. It is a thing which kills many, the
saying " cras, cras," and suddenly the door is shut,
and they remain abroad with the raven cry, not
having the sighs of the dove. Cras, cras, corvi vox
est. The angel of the great council calls, and they
deliberate. " They are called to go into God's -vine
yard," as Sir Thomas More says, "and between
wilUng and not willing, they enter not there."
" We read of wonderful examples concerning this
subject," says Father Persons. " God says, ' Be
cause I called, and you refused ' ; he does not say
how many times or how long he did call. ' I stood

GODEFEIDUS. 135
at the door and knocked,' but says not how often.
Herod the father had a call given him, and that a
loud one, when St. John the Baptist was sent to
him, and his heart was so far touched, that he will
ingly heard him ; but yet because he deferred the
matter, he was cast off again, and his- last doings
were worse than his former. Herod the tetrarch,
his son, had a call also,^ when he felt a desire to see
Christ ; but because he answered not, it did him no
good, but rather much harm. What a great call
had Pilate given him, when he was made to under
stand the innocence of Christ, and his wife sent to
him to mind him of it ! No less a call had King
Agrippa, when he said to St. Paul, ' In a little time
thou persuadest me to be a Christian.' But because
he deferred the matter, this motion passed away
again." The great secret of spiritual perfection,
expressed in the words of St. Ignatius Loyola,
"hoc -vult Deus," might serve as the motto oif'
chivalry. God wishes me to stand in this post, to
fulfil this duty, to suffer this disease, to be afflicted
-with this calamity, this contempt, this vexation.
God wishes this : whatever the world and self-love
may dictate, hoc vult Deus. I no longer live to
myself, but to my King and Saviour. His will is
my law. It was with such words that a holy pontiff
prevailed in persuading the warUke youth of France
to take up the Cross of Christ in defence of Christen
dom. " Warriors," he said, " who are continually
seeking some vain pretence for war, rejoice now,
for you have obtained one that is just and sufficient ;
now is the moment to shew whether you are animated
with true courage. Soldiers of hell, become the
soldiers of the living God ! " In an instant the
plain resounded with that devout and heroic cry of
"Dieu le veut, Dieu le veut." In all works of
1 Luke XI, 23; Matt. XIV.

136 GODEFEIDUS.
chivalry, it was the constant object to impress the
mind of heroes with a sense of a double warfare to
which they were called, with the resolution to acquit
themselves like men in a holy war, in a spiritual
combat. " There are four kinds of chivalry," says
Bartholomew Arnigio : " the first is the CathoUc,
which opposes all errors and heresies contrary to
the doctrines of faith, in which Timothy, the dis
ciple of the Apostle St. Paul, exercised himself as
a good champion and soldier of Christ. The second
is the spiritual, which sustains the combat against
flesh and blood ; for what else is the life of man
but a warfare ? The third is the votive, when men
engage to defend Christendom against the infidels.
The last is that which serves for wages, which com
prises all who are employed against the enemies of
temporal princes." But the grand distinction, -with
the sense of which all were to be deeply impressed,
was that of the two standards — the one of Christ,
the other of Lucifer ; and it was when under the
Cross, sicut bonus miles Christi,^ that they felt
themselves on the side of honour. They rose up as
soldiers of the living God, and took from God's
armoury a sword of ethereal temper, setting forward
in full assurance of faith, arrayed in that panoply
divine, which alone was able to quench iall the fiery
darts of the wicked. Never did the valour of
chivalry appear so heroic as when it was employed
in the war of a Christian. When the venerable
Marechal de Mouchy was led to execution for hav
ing protected priests and other devoted -victims ; as
they were hurrying him from the Luxembourg, a
voice was heard from the crowd saying, " Courage,
Mouchy ; courage, Mouchy." The hero turned to
them who were by his side, and said, " When I was
sixteen years of age, I mounted the breach for my
' 2 Tim. II, 3.

GODEFEIDUS. 137
king ; now that I am eighty-four, I shall not want
courage to mount the scaffold for my God." Let
us also mark well how prepared this spirit would be
to suffer no affections of nature to prevail over its
loyalty to Christ, who declared that whoever loved
father, or mother, or chUdren, more than him, was
not worthy of him. Alonso de Guzman, duke of
Medina, was governor of Tarifa in 1294, when it
was besieged by a great army of the Moors. He
was summoned to surrender ; but he refused to open
the gates. Then the Moors threatened to kill in his
presence his young son, who had fallen into their
hands. The voice of nature could not overcome his
honour. With his own hands Alonso threw a dagger
to the enemy from the top of the walls, pronouncing
these generous words, which have become the motto
of the house of Guzman, " Mas pesa el rey que la
sangre," — the king prevails over blood. ^ If the
spirit of chivalry could cherish such sentiments
towards an earthly sovereign, how would it be ready
to abandon all that was dear to it in the world, when
its adorable King and Saviour, Jesus Christ, should
call upon it to make such a sacrifice; or should
intimate that it was necessary, by a look like that
which was sufficient to strike St. Peter to the heart,
and to make his soul dissolve in tears of penitence !
The spirit of chivalry seems to have even a pre
vious disposition to follow all the circumstances of
piety. While the proud sensualist at Alstat is com
posing his book against monastic vows, the heroic
knight of Biscay retires to Montserrat, consecrates
himself to God in solitude, and, in his retreat at
Manreza, frames those spiritual exercises which
served to form one of the most illustrious companies
that ever foUowed the standard of the cross of Jesus.

¦ Mazas, Vies des grands Capitaines Fran9ais du Moyen Age,
tom. Ill, p. 220.

138 GODEFEIDUS.
WhUe disabled by his wound, in the castle of Loyola,
this celebrated soldier was first awakened to the
ardour of sanctity, by considering the love of the
saints for solitude.^ May it not be affirmed that
this love entered into the character of chivalry ?
Witness even the champions of romance, who are
often represented like St. Ignatius in the ruined
chapel, which he found on the road-side between
Sienna and Rome. " Thenne Syr Galahad came
unto a mountayne, where he found an old chappel,
and fond there no body, for aUe was desolate, and
there he kneled to fore the aulter, and besought God
of holsome councU."'' From, the recesses of forests
that seem interminable, their desire is always to
reach the monastery ere the bat hath flo-wn his
cloistered flight. Sir Galahkd, says the romance,
rode four days, and on the fourth day, after even
song, he came to a white abbey, and there he was
received with great reverence and led to a chamber,
and there he was unarmed, and then he was told
of two knights of the Round Table who were in the
church ; and when they heard of his arrival, they
came up to him and made him great solace. What
a scene was that in the monastery of St. Just, when
St. Francis Borgia came to visit the Emperor Charles
v., who had not seen him since the time that he
used to attend his court as Duke of Gandia ! St.
Thomas says that monks must aim at perfection, or
else they deceive the generous and heroic men who
constructed such venerable asylums for those who
sought retirement and sanctity.^ It was chivahy
which founded and endowed and protected these
houses of religion, in which, as St. Bernard says,
men lived with greater purity, fell less often, rose
again more quickly, walked with more prudence,

' Bonhours, Vie de St. Ignace, 12.
= Morte d'Arthur, II, 221. ^ i^ j^^ 29.

GODEFEIDUS. 139
were more constantly refreshed with the spiritual
dew of heaven, rested with less danger, died with
greater hope.^
It was to these asylums that even temporal
chivalry repaired for renovation and strength. In
the college of the Jesuits at Spires, a celebrated
minister of the imperial court, no less famed for
deeds of arms than for wisdom in council, used to
assist frequently during the times of spiritual re
treat; and, on one occasion, while thus employed,
despatches arri-ving, addressed to him, from the
Emperor Ferdinand, he refused to open them till
ithe exercises were at an end ; sending back answer,
that, as he was engaged in communication with the
King of kings, he could take no thought for the
affairs of an earthly monarch.^
This inclination of the spirit of chivalry to follow
aU the circumstances of piety might be traced
through a long detaU. The youthful mind is pre
disposed to love and admire everything that
belongs to the Church, — the angelic occupations
which she assigns to the young in the service of her
altars, her ceremonies, her models of beauty and
grace, her flo-wing vestments, her approved man
ners, her hours ; for it is her holy fathers who are
pleased with the salutation of an early tongue, and
it is always some young observer of the morning
sky who hears their first benedicite.
Chivalry required that youth should be trained
to perform the most laborious and humble offices
with cheerfulness and grace. How easy was the
transition from this to feel the force of that sen
tence in the Imitation of Christ, "magnus honor,
magna gloria, tibi servire, et omnia propter te con
temnere." The Duke of Gandia had been accus-
' Hom. de Marg.
^ Bellecius, Exercitia Spiritualia S. P. Ignatii de Loyolas
Monita, p. 14.

140 GODEFEIDUS.
tomed, according to the practice of his ancestors,'
to entertain a certain number of poor people every
month in his castle, and to wait upon them, ser-ving
them with his o-wn hands.' In like manner, it
might be shewn that the spirit of chivalry, which
abhorred a delicate and luxurious life, would be
admirably prepared for obeying the commands of
the Church, and for observing her discipUne -with
strictness. Disdaining every unjust subjection, and
therefore rejecting every authority but that of God,
and that which is derived from him, the only
motives which can command chivalry are drawn
from religion. When the Due de Bourbon and the
Constable, in the name of the King of France,
begged pardon of PhUippe duke of Burgundy, for
the death of his father, before the Cardinal of
Sainte-Croix, Philippe repUed, " qu'il pardonnoit
pour I'amour de Dieu ; " meaning to say, that no
earthly inducement could have drawn such a pro
mise from him. And when St. Ludovico di Gonzaga
had succeeded in persuading the Duke of Mantua
to be reconciled with his brother the Marquis
Alfonso di Gonzaga, there were persons of great
authority who suggested to the duke, that, since he
was resolved to testify his reconciliation, he ought,
at least, not to appear as having been induced to it
solely by the persuasion of the young Ludo-vico, but
that he ought to defer it to another time, in order
to give satisfaction to the princes who had, from
the first, been anxious to prevent the discord. But
the duke replied, that he was resolved to finish the
affair that moment, because he was induced to act
so only by the arguments of the saintly chUd. Not
that the spirit of chivalry is contrary to that of
forgiveness. One of the first traits recorded of
Sir Tristan is his petition that the Ufe might be
' Vie de St. Fran9ois de Borgia, II, 297.

GODEFEIDUS. 141
spared of his step-mother, who had t-wice attempted
to poison him : " he kneled before the kyng and
besought him a bone : I byseech you of your
mercy that ye wUl forgive it her. God forgyve it
her and I doo ; for Goddes love, I requyre you to
graunt me my bone." ' This noble sentiment
tended to confirm men in the true principles of all
Christian government. St. Ludovico di Gonzaga
used to say, that it was characteristic of a mean and
dastardly mind to obey any man from merely
human motives, however they might be made to
appear dignified.^
In its reUgion, chivalry would not be full of selfish
views and crafty calculation. This is the spirit
which the great St. Augustin so ardently desired to
¦witness : " quaeritis me, quia manducastis ex panibus
meis. Propter carnem me quaeritis, non propter
spiritum." " How many only seek Jesus that they
may derive temporal advantage!" These are the
words of the holy father-. " One has business, he
seeks the intercession of clerks ; another is oppressed
by a person in power, he flies to the Church ; one
for this cause, another for that. With such men
the Church is daUy ffiled. Vix quaeritur Jesus
propter Jesum."' Chivalry is drawn to Christ be
cause it loves " truth, happiness, justice, eternal Ufe,
aU which is Christ," adds St. Augustin. "The
soul is drawn by love. Da amantem, et sentit quod
dico. Da desiderantem, da esurientem, da in ista
soUtudine peregrinantem atque sitientem et fontem
aeternae patriae suspirantem ; da talem, et scit quod
dicam. Si autemfrigido loquor, nescit quid loquor."*
This is not the spirit which prompts men to say,
like those whom St. Bonaventura censures, "if I
knew that I should die -within a short period, I
' Morte d'Arthur, I, 249.
^ Vie de St. Louis de Gonzague, par Cepari, p. 142.
3 S. August, in Johan. Tractat. XXV, § 10. " Id. XXVI, § 4.

142 GODEFEIDUS.
would prepare myself thus, and I would live in a
holy manner ; but this rather inspires them with the
sentiment which he ascribes to perfection, to say,
" if I knew for certain that I should live a thousand
thousand years, it would be my wish to serve my
God -vrith as much holiness and zeal as if I knew
that I should pass this very day from the world ;
for herein a son is distinguished from a mercenary
and a slave." ^ " 0 my true life, happy life, which
is hidden from the world and associated with Christ,
which is at rest in God its centre ! One thing is
necessary to me, and one thing only do I seek. Let,
therefore, the multitude of phantasms depart from
before me, one only is my beloved, one only is my
love, one only my Christ, my God. Nihil ergo
sapiat, nihil delectet, nihil alliciat, nisi Jesus
Christus, totus sit meus, totus sim suns, et fiat
cor meum unum cum ipso, nihil me judioans scire
vel amare vel affectare nisi Dominum Jesum
Christum et hunc cruciflxum."^
Not only was the spirit of chivalry that of obe
dience, but all its positive laws and institutions
required the exercise of obedience. M. de HaUer
has shewn what would become of military order if
the Protestant system were introduced into it.^ That
absolute will, which is so early developed in chUdren,
and for which every mother finds the necessity of
providing some check, which still discovers itself in
all the great relations of life, and in the history of
the world itself, besides being the most pernicious
of aU the sources of destruction and error in the
soul and in the life of men, is not only in a particular
manner fatal to all the sentiments of generosity and
self-devotion which are essential to chivalry ; but
absolutely incompatible with the exercise of the

' Stimulus Divini Amoris, pars II, o. X-VI.
Id. pars II, 0. XVII. ' Memorial CathoUque, Mai, 1828.

GODEFEIDUS. 143
positive duties which it imposes, insomuch that
chivalry can exist only where this will has been
subdued. Chivalry obeys from the bottom of the heart, Uke
a chUd : love renders sweet what is otherwise most
painful. This is the obedience required by religion.
" Calicem Domini aff^ectanter bibe, si amicus ejus
esse, et partem cum eo habere desideras."^ Chivalry
seeks not its own -will, but is content to wait tiU a
higher power is pleased to afford it refreshment.
It comes in sorrow, and weakness, and dereliction ;
and it returns from a -visit to the fountain of graces,
fiUed with strength, and courage, and joy. ^ Chivalry
pkces its trust in God. Witness the counsel of the
elder, in the shining palace, to Astolpho —
But, son, ascribe not you the journey made
To -wit or worth, nor through your winged steed.
Nor through your virtuous bugle had ye thriven.
But that such helping grace from God was- given.^
It seeks His glory ; witness the reply of Astolpho
to the Nubian king, which was also that of our
Edward the Black Prince to Don Pedro, king of
CastUle*— If I shall prosper, be thy praises paid
To God alone, who sent me to thy aid.
Offer these vows to God, to him well due ;
To him thy churches buUd, thine altars rear.-'
In connexion with this desire of referring all glory
to God, there is a high and delicate sentiment be
longing to the chivalrous spirit, which would
admirably harmonise with the disposition required
for the disciples of a crucified Lord, who received
' De Imit. Christi, II.
^ Bourdaloue, Eetraite Spirituelle, tom. IV.
= Ariosto, XXXIV.
" Vies des grands Capitaines dn Moyen Age, tom. Ill, 306.
° Ariosto, XXXIII.

144 GODEFEIDUS.
nothing but outrages from those whom he came to
save ; for it is characteristic of loyal and generous
chivalry to shrink from the applause or favour of
men who have done any grievous injury to its chief,
and to reject every offer of advantage which has
been refused to him. If he has not been honoured,
neither will those who love and serve him accept of
honour ; if he has not obtained justice, neither wUl
they demand it ; if he has been denied a triumph,
neither will they assume the palm of victory. St.
Augustin expressly appeals to this sentiment of
chivalry, when he says, " Do you, who are a Chris
tian, desire to be revenged and vindicated, and the
death of Jesus Christ has not yet been revenged,
nor his innocence vindicated ? Vindicari vis Chris-
tianus, nondum vindicatus est Christus ?" The
same appeal occurs in the Imitation of Christ.
" Christus habuit adversaries et oblocutores, et tu
¦vis omnes habere amicos et benefactores ? Si nihil
contrarium vis pati, quomodo oris amicus Christi ?"^
How well was this spirit shewn by that crowd of
noble youths who joined the company of St. Ignatius,
and who, like the Duke of Gandia, could only be
prevented, by the absolute prohibition of their
spiritual father, from shedding their blood in honour
of the flagellation of the Son of God ! How well
was it evinced by that royal martyr, in the Place
Louis XV. at Paris, when his heroic spirit was about
to break forth into flames of indignation on hearing
that he was to be bound, tiU the saint who sup
ported him gently reminded him that this would he
only one more opportunity of imitating Jesus Christ,
and in an instant behold his hands stretched out to
receive the cords ! All this, according to the great
St. Ignatius, is in the highest degree chivalrous, as
weU as indicative of sanctity. " Quid enim magis
' Lib. II, 1.

GODEFEIDUS. 145
heroicum quam malle cum Christo spreto, paupere,
et afflicto contemni, egere, et pati, quam deliciis,
honoribus, et divitiis frui ? Quid generosius quam
malle cingi corona spinea quam aurea, solum ob
majorem cum Christo similitudinem ?"^
Chivalry demands that it may be simple in its
faith and perfect ; and that it may not be called
upon to engage in contention of words. Its religion
is finely represented in the poem of Roderick : —
How calmly, gliding through the dark blue sky.
The midnight moon ascends !
The watchman on the battlements partakes
The stillness of the solemn hour ; he feels
The silenceof the earth, the endless sound
Of fio-wing water soothes him, and the stars.
Which in that brightest moonlight well-nigh quenched.
Scarce visible, as in the utmost depth
Of yonder sapphire infinite, are seen.
Draw on with elevating infiuence
Towards eternity the attemper'd mind.
Musing on worlds beyond the grave he stands,
And to the Virgin Mother silently
Breathes forth her hymn of praise.
An argumentative man once asked Zeno whether
virtue were useful or not ; he said that it was not,
in order that he might not afford him an occasion
of dispute, who e-vidently desired victory rather than
truth. ^ When the Pythagoreans used to be asked
concerning the gods in an impudent, light, careless
manner, they always kept silence; and when
-^schines, the Socratic, was reproved for remaining-
silent after being a scholar of Socrates, — " I do so,"
he replied, " because I have learned from Socrates
as well how to be silent as how to speak." It was
in accordance with the spirit of chivalry that Jaques
made that fine answer which might be applied to
every man who endeavours to disturb faithful Chris-
' Exercitia Spiritualia, Med. Ill, 1.
2 Stobffii Florileg. II, 50.
Qodefridus. L

146 GODEFEIDUS.
tians with vain difficulties, — " He is too disputable
for my company : I think of as many matters as he;
but I give Heaven thanks, and make no boast of
them." " Whether these laws be good or evU,"
says the wise Athenian in Plato, " you have one, the
most exceUent of all laws, ' not allowing youth to
inquire whether such things are good or evil,' but
inducing them with one voice, and as it were from
one mouth, to agree that all these things concerning
Heaven are well laid down ; and if any one should
speak otherwise, not so much as enduring to listen
to him." 1 In the absence of truth and just authority,
here was no doubt a great obstacle in the way of
conversion ; but this opinion shews the judgment
of sound reason respecting the excellence of sub
mission to an authority which can substantiate its
claim. This spirit would, therefore, rather be
charged with ignorance than be supposed to pretend
to universal knowledge. This is so certain, that
the spirit of chivalry has been frequently condemned
for despising the profession of much knowledge,
though it is only superior to the affectation of
knowledge, and to whatever diverts the soul from
its noble and heroic bent. Now this disposition is
even sanctioned by the approval of human wisdom,
as conveyed in the sentence, woXvpaOfi rj afiadfi,
which is ascribed to Cleobulus, one of the seven
sages of Greece : while it is declared to be in
accordance with the spiritual interests of a Chris
tian life. " Quiesce a nimio sciendi desiderio : quia
magna ibi invenitur distractio et deceptio."'' What
would have been thought of a knight who should
have possessed in his ancestral hall an armory as
rich as that which we see in the Tower of London
or in the Museum of Paris, and who should never
have put on a cuirass or drawn a sword to protect
' Plato de Legibus, I. ^ De Imitatione Christi, Ub. I, 2.

GODEFEIDUS. 147
the innocent people ? What opinion then would
chivalry entertain of a Christian who should have
all the titles of Catholic religion without ever making
use of the spiritual weapons which the Church
offered him, to subdue his passions, to strengthen
his heart, and to sanctify his soul ? The religion
of chivalry would, therefore, be found rather in
action than in discourse : as St. Martin says, it is
inclined of itself to few words, though patient to
endure the loquacity of others. ' Sophocles ascribes
the true sentiment of chivalry to Theseus, when he
makes this prince promise to protect CEdipus, and
adds, ou yap Xoyoiat rotf ^iov ffTrovSdZop.tv
Xafiirpov TTOitityQai fidXXov rj rolg hpiiijitvoig.^
The reason and excellence of aU this appears at
once. It is with all noble sentiments as with re
ligion : the substance is often diminished by being
too largely expressed. " Quanto verborum parcior,
rerum divitior," say the monks of St. Blase in the
Black Forest, when describing the character of St.
Hildegard. " Ceux qui parlent leplus de Dieu," —
says an old writer in his life of St. Elzear de
Sabran ; and the observation is true respecting those
who speak of any noble sentiment, — " sont ceux
bien souvent qui I'aiment le moins. Toute leur
vertu s'evapore en babil et exhale en fumee de
paroles." How clearly is this remark verified in
those mysterious persons who are described by
Tieck in his work entitled the Betrothing, who make
innocence forget that there are suoh things as eyes,
who pluck the very soul from chivalry, and make
sweet reUgion a rhapsody of words ! Hence it will
be no ground of surprise to find the sons of Chris
tian chivalry often possessed of great internal grace,
' De Quatuor Virtutibns : Bibl. Patrum, IV.
2 (Edip. Cui. 1140. L 2

148 GODEFEIDUS.
while action and obedience formed their exercise
rather than the reading of leamed books. St.
Gregory illustrates the law of spiritual life by re
marking, that the disciples who were favoured by
our Lord's company and discourse going to Emmaus
were not enlightened so as to know him while they
only heard his words, but were quickly enlightened
in fulfilling his commands in the exercise of hospi
tality and charity. " Audiendo praecepta Dei, illu-
minati non sunt : faciendo illuminati sunt." ^ And
besides this, it was the simple, resigned, and placid
spirit belonging to those who are practised in self-
control and obedience, which religion requires,
according to the sentence, " Cum simpUcibus ser-
mocinatio ejus."
The principles of chivalry would be broad and
comprehensive in a religious sense as well as with
regard to honour : " 0 morem praeclarum disciph-
namque, quam a majoribus accepimus, si quidem
teneremus ! sed nescio quo pacto jam de manibus
elabitur." In its estimation every religious order
had its particular end, its peculiar spirit, its distinct
character, which qualified it more especially for
some one kind of sanctification and perfection.
One was retired in a profound solitude, interrupting
silence only by the chanting of psalms and the sighs
of prayer; another buried in an austere seclusion,
purifying itself by the rigours of penitence and
mortification; one had embraced the state of po
verty, another gloried only in the sufferings of Jesus
Christ ; one was devoted, like the angels in heaven,
to contemplation and praise; another united the
virtues of its state with the apostolic zeal and vrith
the pastoral functions. The love and veneration
inspired by such blessed orders did not leave hei-oic
men without similar sentiments for a new order,
' Hom. XXIL

GODEFEIDUS. 149
which displayed one of the most perfect institutions
that the spirit of Christianity has produced ; which,
as M. de Bonald says, " was born for combat, and
yet most proper for peace ; constituted for aU times,
all places, all employments ; powerful and rich,
whUe each member was poor and subject ; esteemed
by the great and respected by the people ; uniting
in an equal degree genius and piety, politeness and
austerity, dignity and modesty, the -vrisdom of God
and the science of men." This harmonious variety
in the spiritual world was not a source of dissension
and jealousy vrith men whose comprehensive and
generous wisdom had not been impaired by the
narrow trammels of any party-recollections, or
by the degrading influence of those melancholy
drudgeries which contract the understanding and
-wither the heart : chivalry had a soul for all per
fection ; it had a heart for all goodness : it had a
mind for all truth. This was the spirit which re
ligion required. " My dearest children," cries the
holy abbot St. Columban, "agree quickly together,
and be united in one, and unwilling to contend for
ancient feuds ; but rather be still, and deliver them
to eternal silence and oblivion : and if there be any
things doubtful, refer them to the divine judgment.
If you are all true Christians, what else have you
to defend besides the Catholic faith ? For I cannot
understand how a Christian can be against a Chris
tian : he may contend concerning the faith ; but,
to whatever an orthodox Christian says, who rightly
glorifies the Lord, the other will answer Amen ;
because he also, in like manner, loves and believes.
Therefore, let all speak and think the same, that all
maybe Christians."^ " The wicked contend with
each other," says St. Augustin, " the good and the
wicked contend -vrith each other; but the good,
' S. Columban, Epist. IV, Bibl. Pat. XII.

150 GODEFEIDUS.
when perfect, can never contend -vrith each other." ^
" Meus est qui amat unitatem ; non est meus qui
separat," says St. Columban.^ " It is not the
knowledge of mysteries which is required ; it is the
constant meditation on the life of Christ which
strengthens the mind against vain and perishable
things, fortifies it against tribulations and adversity ;
instructs it against the snares and deceitful blandish
ments of the enemy." ^ " To imitate Christ is the
highest and most perfect life. This is the rule and
example of all perfection of life and virtue ; to imi
tate Christ in his passion and in his death."*
" Haec est vita aeterna, ut eredant te verum Deum."
" Here is the fruit of all the labours of the Church,"
says St. Augustin, " which she bears with groans
and sorrow, and brings forth with gladness and re
joicing." 5
Hear how WiUiam of Tyre speaks of an Arme
nian renegade — " Ivelinus nomine, vir apostata, qui
relicta mediatoris Dei et hominum fide ad gentilem
impietatem se contulerat." ^ This was the summary
of a crusader's religion, the doctrine of faith in a
mediator between God and man. Humility pre
served faith perfect. A fable of the ancients is
made to illustrate this by a great philosopher. Pen-
theus, by climbing up into a tree to behold the
hidden sacrifices of Bacchus, was stricken with
such a frenzy, that whatever he looked upon seemed
to be double ; so that he saw two suns, two Thebes,
and, running towards Thebes, spying another
Thebes, instantly turned back again, and so kept stiU
running forward and backward ; to shew that men
who rashly pry into the secrets of divine mysteries
are justly punished with perpetual inconstancy, and
' De Civitate Dei, lib. XV, c. 5. a Epist. III.
^ S. Bonaventura, Med. Vitse Christi, I.
•* Id. Stim. Divin. 'Amor. I, u. 4.
* De Cant. Dei, X, u. 4. « XXI, 21.

GODEFEIDUS. 151
with wavering and perplexed conceits ; for, seeing
the light of nature is one thing, and of grace
another, it happens so to them as if they saw two
suns and two Thebes ; so they know not whither to
go, but are distracted and unresolved, being carried
about with sudden passions.
As the faith of chivalry was to be simple, so was
its practice. " His reign was rather stra'nge to the
taste of many," says Jean Molinet, relating the
death of a king of France, " mais il fina catholique-
ment," full of penitence and making restitution.
This rule may be illustrated by obser-ring that the
Constable of France, Olivier de Clisson, in his last
will, which may be seen in the Castle of Nantes,
commands that all lands which he was not entitled
to possess should be restored to their right owners ;
that the houses, mills, and farm-yjirds which had
been demolished by his orders, in order to fortify
towns and castles, should be rebuilt at his expense ;
and that 100,000 livres should be distributed among
those who had suffered from his wars.' In short,
the rule of manners was to be as simple and intelli
gible and as invariable as that of faith ; a most im
portant fact, which cannot be too often pressed
upon the recollection of those who are within the
sphere of the world's maxims, which would lead
them at last to suppose that they may be Catholic
Christians while they Uve like Gentiles or Turks.
Again, the spirit of chivalry is that of sacrifice,
and essentially opposed to the desire of enjoyment
whilst its companions are suffering hardship. When
the two armies of Charles de Blois and of Montfort
met before Aurai in Brittany, to contend for the
duchy, the Sire de Beaumanoir, who was prisoner
of the latter, after vainly endeavouring to prevent
the combat, applied to Chandos, entreating him to
' Vies des grands Capitaines Fran9ai3 du Moyen Age, IV, 199.

152 GODEFEIDUS.
use his interest with Montfort, that at least he might
be permitted to take part in this cruel struggle, and
to shed his blood like the rest ; for being prisoner
on parole, the laws of war forbade him to fight
without the permission of Montfort.^ The same
day of the battle, which was the festival of St.
Michael, when the holy mysteries had been cele
brated before the two armies, and the plain was
about to become the scene of death, the Count of
Blois, hearing the trumpet sound at the termina
tion of mass, burst into tears, and said, " Oh, that
I might ransom with my own blood that which is
soon to be shed for me ! " His confessor, a Fran
ciscan friar, never quitted his side during the
slaughter; he received him in his arms when he
fell : and Charles breathed his last sigh in the
act of striking his breast as a penitent. He had
fought in compliance with what he was assured was
his duty ; for he detested war, and though he thus
perished with arms in his hands, he was remarkable
for his love of peace and retirement.
From all this it follows, that the spirit of chivalry
in religion would be prepared to practise that morti
fication to which men are bound as Christians. The
high and marvellous adventures towhich the knights
of romance devote themsel-ves are but a continued
course of hardship and suffering.
Of necessity also, to the spirit of chivalry must
belong temperance and constancy. Cicero says,
that Panaetius, in praising the abstinence of Afri
canus, should have remembered that this was only
to ascribe to him the character of the times in
which he lived ; all the heroes of that period merited
the same praise.^ The Athenian in Plato urges the
example of Iccus the Tarentine, of Chryso, Astylus,
Diopompus, and a multitude of others, who, through

' Vies des grands Capitaines Francais du Moyen Age, III, 183.
^ De Ofaciis, II, 22.

GODEFEIDUS. 153
the love of glory, and the hopes of conquering at
the Olympic games, observed a constant chastity.
" If," he says, " these men abstained from what is
commonly esteemed happiness, for the sake of being
proclaimed -victorious in wrestling or in a race, are
our children incapable of simUar abstinence for the
sake of a far more glorious victory ? " ^ Nay, in
dependent of this consideration, the mind which
accords with the exceUence and dignity of nature
will feel, as Cicero says, "how shameful it is to
give way to luxury and pleasure, and how noble a
thing it is to live soberly, in abstemiousness and
continence." ^ How does he express the praise of
men who were the pillars of Roman chivalry ?
"Laelium et Furium, moderatissimos homines et con-
tinentissimos " ; and again, Metellus, " homo sanc-
tissimua modestissimusque omnium." ^ When re
cording a noble sentiment, he says that it is worthy of
.^acidae,* of a race descended from that hero whom
Plutarch calls "the holiest of the Greeks 'EAXijvwy
oaiwTaTov." ^ Vice and luxury are destructive of
chivalry, and incompatible -vrith its spirit, and with
the object which it has to fulfil ; as is said of the
quest of the Sancgreal, its praise " may not be
achieved but by virtuous lyvying, by hevenly dedes,
and knyghtly deds in Goddes workes." The most
renowned knight of the Round Table says upon one
occasion, " As for to take my plesaunce, that wylle
I refuse in pryncypal from drede of God. For
such knyghts shall not be happy ne fortunate unto
the wars, for either they shall be overcome -vrith a
sympler knyght than they be themselfe, or else
they shall by such cursydness slee better men than
they ben themself. And soo who that useth
peramours shall be unhappy, and all thyng is un
happy that is aboute them." ^ The spirit of
' Plato de Legibus, VIII. ' De Officiis, lib. I, 30,
' Pro Arohia Poeta. * De Officus, I, 13.
* In Theseo. ° Morte d'Arthur, I, 170.

154 GODEFEIDUS.
chivalry is to the highest degree delicate and
susceptible ; once convince it that an action is
base and criminal, and it shrinks from it with a
depth of moral feeling such as leads the poet in the
Indian legend to represent sin as something so in
capable of concealment, that every transgression is
not only known to conscience and to all divine
spirits, but felt with a sympathetic shudder by those
elements themselves which we call inanimate, by
the sun, moon, fire, air, the heavens, the earth, the
flood and the deep, as a crying outrage against
nature, and a disarrangement of the universe. How
much more then did it accord with Christian chivalry
to feel sensible of the enormity of sin ! " 0 my
soul," cries the holy Ignatius, once the knightly
paladin, " behold Jesus expiring on the cross to
expiate thy sins ! Canst thou view him and not
dissolve in te^,rs ? At this tragedy the sun is
darkened, and the rocks are rent, and the GentUes
return striking upon their breasts ; and dost thou
remain unmoved ? The graves are opened, the veil
of the Temple is burst, aU nature trembles ; and art
thou alone insensible, and dost thou consent- to
repeat this dismal scene ? Ah, flow fast, my tears,
break forth, my heart, in bitter sighs, that I may
worthily weep for the sorrows of my Sa-riour ! 0
Jesus, may I die before I cease to have a horror of
sin ! God liveth, in whose sight I stand ; for while
there is breath in me, and the spirit of life in my
nostrils, my lips shall not give utterance, nor my
heart cojisent to iniquity." ^
Again, the youthful or chivalrous mind is sincere,
and the contrary disposition is fatal to every quality
of the spiritual life. St. Ludo-vico di Gonzaga was
so frank and true that no one ever suspected for an
instant that he could be guilty of dissimulation.
' Exercitia; Spiritualia, dies II, meditat I, 73.

GODEFEIDUS, ¦ 155
This patron of all pious youth used to say, that
artifice and disguise were not more destructive of
the social commerce of men than of the simplicity
of religion. St. Thomas Aquinas even speaks of
insincerity in prayer, which he calls a tempting of
God; when men pray for direction, and all the
while are resolved not to abandon their former
opinions and ancient habits ; . like those of whom
the poet says,
"Whose only care, might truth presume to speak.
Was not to find what they profess'd to seek.
This sincerity of the chivalrous character, which
prompts men like St. Francis of Sales to abhor all
political debates and counsels, and even which in
spires them with an utter aversion for all the maxims
of worldly wisdom, would be an admirable advan
tage to religion. "For all the estates of Savoy
and France, and for the whole empire," said the
holy bishop of Geneva, " I would not carry a false
paper in my bosom : I belong to the blood of the
ancient Gauls. WTiat is on my tongue is precisely^
what comes from my heart. The prudence of the/ ./
world and the artifices of the flesh appertain to the |
children of the world ; but the children of God have
no double meaning and no dissimulation,"
Again, the youthful and chivalrous spirit is sus
ceptive of the utmost love, and never would that
love be more from the heart than when God was its
object : therefore it was essentially quaUfied to em
brace that pure religion which consists in filial love ;
in feeling assured, as an ancient father says, how
" that God can never be strong against us who for
our sake became weak even unto death,"
Again, the spirit of reverence and of affectionate
devotion belongs to chivalry. How well was this
evinced by the first Christians, even in the circum
stance which is now so vehemently brought forward

156 GODEFEIDUS.
as a ground of accusation against CathoUcs ! for
Eunapius, a Pagan writer, says, "The Christians,
gathering the heads and bones of such as the ma
gistrates had executed, made them their gods, pros
trated before them, and thought themselves purer
by being defiled at their tombs." It was well,
according to this spirit, to seize every mode of
e-rincing reverence for what appertained to God, to
honour the relics of saints' bodies, in which the
Holy Ghost did vouchsafe to dweU. " We do
believe," says St. Augustin, "that the bodies of
saints, and especially the relics of blessed martyrs,
are to be honoured as if the members of Christ.
If any one should teach the contrary, he is not a
Christian, but an Eunomian and VigUantian." ^
Have we not the example of Moses, who used great
reverence to the bones of Joseph the patriarch ? ^
Of Josias, who treated those of another prophet
-with the same respect ? * Were not miracles wrought
by the bones of Eliseus,* by the shadow of St.
Peter, and by the napkin of St. Paul ? The same
spirit would prompt men to take delight in all those
pious customs which were practised by the faithful
in the house of peace; to kiss the ground at the
reading of their Sa-riour's agony ; to adore the cross
-vrith humble reverence ; to be the first at the offer
ing of ointment and incense, the last that would
observe a cold and insensible demeanour while others
were prostrate. The advice of St. Francis to his
brethren, always to pick up written paper and place
it in a clean place, lest the sacred name of our Lord
should be upon it, was symbolical of this reverential
spirit. We meet with instances of it even in the
most ensanguined page of profane history. Before
the battle of Bou-rines, Philip Augustus endeavoured

' De Eccles. Dogm. c. 73. ' Exod. XIII,
= Eeg. IV, 23, * Ibid.

GODEFEIDUS, 157
to persuade Otho, who was excommunicated, to put
off the battle till the next day, to avoid the sacri
lege of fighting on a Sunday .^ Chivalry, essentially
devout, loves the Church and whatever relates to
our Lord's ser-vice; it resembles the spirit of the
faithful in the primitive times, when men had need
of being dismissed with the " Ite missa est." Fried
rich Schlegel might have appealed to its profound
sense of the sublime, arising from the harmony of
its interior, and the fervour of its heart, as well as
to the feelings of every man who can appreciate the
high dignity and noble strength of the Roman
language, whether it is possible for words to be
found more harmonious and majestic than those
which are used by the Church in the Vulgate trans
lation of the Psalms. " I am almost tempted to
doubt," adds this great scholar, " whether the whole
circle of Roman literature can shew a single imita
tion of Greek poetry so eminently happy as this
version of the sacred songs of the Hebrews, wherein
the utmost elevation of sentiment is throughout ac
companied with the most chastened simplicity of
style." ^ As long as men were in the most noble
quest of chivalry, they were charged " to hear mass
daUy, and they may do it ; and that they take upon
them to forsake sin." ^ Men were even reminded
that all the faithful, after being washed in the heal
ing waters, are called priests, but especially the
just, who have the Spirit of God, and are made
liring members of Jesus Christ ; for these, by faith
which is kindled by charity, immolate on the altars
of their mind spiritual hosts to God.*
They had read in " The Festival," which was the
devotional book of the English laity before the
change of religion, " that of those who go to mass,
' Vies des grands Capitaines Francais du Moyen Age, I, 80,
^ Hist, of Literature. ' Morte d'Arthur, II.
* Catechism. Concil. Trident, pars II, XL v.

158 GODEFEIDUS.
every step thitherward and homeward an angel shaU
reckon," The spirit of chivalry was contrary to
that disposition which St. Augustin describes, where
he speaks of errors which induced men to say, "It
is enough for me to worship God in my conscience.
What need have I of going into a church, or of
associating visibly with Christians ? " ^ I say that
these errors argued the prevalence of sentiments
which were contrary to the spuit of chivalry or of
youth : for it is the characteristic of this spirit to
shrink from that pagan state of isolated dignity, to
which some of the old philosophers, and many of
the moderns have aspired, and to feel the necessity
of cherishing bonds of attachment with numbers of
men, with whom it may be possible to entertain a
sympathy, so as to experience hopes and fears in
common -vrith them. The sense of a vacuum and of
a desertion, where such a connexion does not exist,
is intolerable to minds of this class. They find
themselves impelled to look around for some great
bond of fellowship, which may embrace all who
love order and freedom, and light and justice; aU
men of every climate, and language, and people.
M. de Haller, in the preface to his fourth volume
of the Restoration of Political Science, makes use
of a similar remark, in order to explain the secret'
ground of those associations which were formed in
Europe, after the progress of the new opinions had
dissolved the religious unity, and had introduced
interminable discord and party feuds into what had
before been the great common country of aU Chris
tians. He shews with admirable force that the
Catholic Church alonepossesses all those perfections,
which the ardent but misguided zeal of the modern
youth has vainly sought to find in their numberless
secret associations : for the Church was a society in
' St. August. Serm. XXXVII, § 9.

GODEFEIDUS. 159
which not only all the wants of each man's own
heart were fulfilled, but where alone all the prin
ciples which they so much desired to behold in
action, of political justice and of the highest legis
lative wisdom, were realised and maintained in
exercise.^ Here was a most glorious company,
answering to ideal grandeur. Let one try to imagine
anything which surpasses a multitude of its separate
members taken singly — men like St. Thomas Aqui
nas, St. Bernard, or Fenelon, who possessed the
utmost virtue, sanctity, learning and nobiUty, — and
it vrill be found to be impossible. Here was a
society which possessed all that the heart of man
can wish upon earth. Is it truth ? Where can
that be found if not in the CathoUc Church, which
was able to satisfy the genius of a St. Augustin ?
Is it happiness ? Here it has been found by millions
who had vainly sought for it in aU ways, in glory,
in science, in pleasures, in friendships, in the world,
in solitude ; here they found that peace which sur
passes all understanding, that joy which flows from
the bUssful regions where God is present for ever
more. Is it learning and philosophy ? Profane
literature can produce nothing comparable to the
treasures which have been granted to the Church, Is
it nobility and grandeur ? All that is illustrious in
the annals of heroic fame has been foremost to pay
her homage. Is it poverty and holy seclusion ? It
is in the Church that poverty and seclusion have
been sanctified and practised by innumerable saints.
Is it a separation from the profane and degraded
world ? Here was a heavenly fellowship, often, as
in pagan times, declared unlawful by states and
'rulers, who would give no other explanation of their
enmity, but by saying "non licet esse vos," and
always more or less persecuted by men of sensual
' Eestauration der Staatswissensohaft, IV, 14,

160 GODEFEIDUS.
lives ; a blessed union of innocence and sanctity,
of loveliness and grandeur, of all that pleases God,
and of all that captivates man, which no wrath of
princes, no wars of rival nations, no contending
interests of political parties, could for an instant
interrupt. It was found in every place and in aU
times ! it was holy, universal, eternal ; it maintained
a unity of doctrine and faith, which nothing could
alter or modify, neither the lapse of ages, neither
science nor ignorance, neither diversity of languages
nor of natural character; from Chili to Greenland,
and from Kamchatka to Naples, it was the same
society as had existed at Jerusalem, and at Memphis,
and at Rome, in the time of Nero. Here were
mysterious rites which could be understood only by
the initiated ; for " sancta Sanctis " were the words
addressed to strangers. Whenever the divine mys
teries were celebrated, whoever belonged to this
holy fellowship was invited, at the giving of the
peace, to interchange this holy kiss, at least in
spirit, with his brethren. Unlike the mind of the
moderns, the spirit of chivalry, when submitted to
the influence of the faith, could practically demon
strate the error of Celsus, when he said that " a
man must be deficient in understanding who could
believe that Greeks and barbarians, in Asia, and
Europe, and Africa, might be united all in one
religion." ^ It was even a disposition absolutely
requfred by chivalry, to seek a union and fellow
ship -vrith the generous and heroic men of every
country. How prepared was such a mind for the
spirit of Catholic religion 1 The moderns, it is
true, seem to feel that their only point of union is in
the theatres and saloons of the different great cities
of Europe ; and it is not wonderful, therefore, that
they should be always eager to hail the tidings of
> Orig. cent. Cels. V, 438.

GODEFEIDUS, 161
some new b:^eaking out of national animosities,
affording an occasion to practise all the worldly
maxims, and to exercise all the cruel passions which
have been, at least secretly, fostered in their assem
blies, and which have burnt and consumed the
very vitals of the spiritual life, under the surface
of polished manners and ceremonious courtesy.
But wherever this philosophy has not extended, men
must have regard to Religion, when she points out
her temples as containing the true centre for all
hearts ; and it -vrill not be in the power of men to
hate and despise the people of other countries,
with whom they have often knelt in adoration, as
members of the great Catholic family, before the
altar of God, the pavement of whose churches has
often received their faUing tears, multitudes for
whom, and with whom, they have repeatedly prayed,
perhaps discharged angelical offices, and to the effi
cacy of whose suffrage, (for no prayer is available
farther than it is in union vrith the worship of the
Chureh,) they know that the success of their own
devotion is in part to be ascribed. The necessity
of such an union has been sufficiently shown by
holy men.
"Behold," says St. Augustin, "how the soul
operates in the body ; it sees with the eyes, it hears
with the ears, it smells through the nostrils, it
speaks with the tongue, it works with the hands,
it walks with the feet, it~ gives life to all the mem
bers and offices of each. The eye does not hear
nor the ear see, yet both live; and with various
offices there is a common life. Sic est ecclesia Dei.
In some saints the Holy Ghost works miracles, in
others it speaks truth, in others it preserves virginity,
in others conjugal modesty, in others this, in others
that ; each has its office, each lives : so that what
the soul is to the body, the Holy Ghost is to the
body of Christ, that is, the Church. But mark
Oodefridus. M

162 GODEFEIDUS,
what you have to heed well : if a member be cut off
from the body, does the soul follow the part cut off?
While attached to the body it had life, when cut off
it is dead. Sic et homo Christianus Catholicus est,
dum in corpore vivit ; praecisus haereticus factus est,
membrum amputatum non sequitur spiritus. Si
ergo vultis vivere de Spiritu Sancto, tenete caritatem,
amate veritatem, desiderate unitatem, ut perveniatis
ad aeternitatem." ^
Essentially generous and benevolent, this spirit
would have felt the need and sufficiency of divine
charity to lighten every burden, to soften every
violence, to excite to all virtues, to teach all wisdom.
It would be sensible that -vrithout this all things must
be vexatious, difficult, and insupportable.^ The
words of St. Augustin might have been the motto
of the high orders which were to exhibit the per
fection of knighthood — "Amor meus,pondus meum;
illo feror, quocunque feror." To this disposition
nothing can be too minute, nothing indifferent;
and holy men have said that " solicitude about the
least things is not the characteristic of novices, but
of the most perfect saints ; not of a shadowy and
fantastic virtue, but of one substantial and sohd,
and even most approved."' The spirit of chivalry
is infinitely removed from that incessant suscep
tibility of offence, that fear of scandals, which, pro
ceeding from a want of perfect faith, and allied to
the spirit of ridicule, is now a prevailing passion of
the age. Equally free is it from all base suspicion,
and distrust of virtue, and rash judgment : there
fore it would be peculiarly favourable to the recep
tion of divine instruction, " As the countenances
of men are different," says St. Bonaventura, "so
also are the modes of living and of advancing in

Serm. 267. ' Euseb. Nieremberg, Doct. Ascet. I, ii, 8.
' Nieremberg, Doot. Ascet. Ill, v, 47.

GODEFEIDUS. 163
virtue ; and therefore, when you perceive that yoti >
distinguish yourself by laudable actions, and that
others are negligent, you ought to suppose that ,
although these things are manifest, yet notwith- /
standing they labour in secret, or at least are >
employed in some delicate works in the retirement (
of their heart. And because God especially loves /
them from the holiness of their heart, perchance it i
is not his will that they should be oppressed with 'i
exterior toils, lest they might not be able to endure )
both internal and external labours ;"i " for there are
many outwardly most honest who make but little
advance within; and there are many of free and
loose demeanour who are in heart most holy, -^.nd
most beloved of God."^ Oh, how far was such a
spirit fr-om a disposition to credit any charge against
the Church ! St. Augustin says, in allusion to this,
that " men ought hardly to beUeve their own eyes,
though they should see words which seemed to yield
a blasphemous sound, but that they should read the
passage again and again to discover the true mean
ing ; and," he adds, " if you cannot by your own
learning give them a good sense, seek some leamed
and holy man that may instruct thee. Such a
man cannot be found with ease ? seek him then
vrith labour. He is not to be met with in thy own
country ? what better motive canst thou have to
travel? No such man can be found on the con
tinent ? then saU beyond the seas : if thou canst not
find any one near the sea, pass further into the
country, and even into those parts where the things
happened of which these books speak." ' The spirit
of chivalry would prompt men to use such diligence
before they should fasten any imputation upon the
Church; and even reason, which prompted the

Stim, Divin. Amor, pars III, c. ix. ' Id.
3 De Utilitate Credendi, 7.
• M 2

164 GODEFEIDUS.
/ancient phUosopher to say, that he who listens to
V calumny is as criminal as he who calumniates, must
agree to the justice of that sentence of St. Cyprian,
that "who so ever giveth credit unto thosewho slander
the' Church, (the Church, of which, as St. Augustin
says, the prophets speak less^ obscurely than even of
Christ,^ that they might be without excuse who
should take part against her ; the Church, to which
the most holy and illustrious men that ever graced
the intellectual world have bowed in reverent sub
jection;) shall share -vrith the slanderers in their
sentence at Christ's coming to judge the world." ^
Again, the spirit of chivalry is active and heroic :
and in this also it is admirably prepared to receive
the injunctions of religion. " To stand is to go
)r back," says Nieremberg, " Non progredi, regredi
est. On Jacob's ladder no angel was seen to stand
still, but all were in motion, ascending to God by
meditation, or descending to men in charity. Sem-
'if- per procedere debemus, ne ruamus."'
Was it not an heroic and chivalrous spirit in St.,
Francis which so astonished the Mohammedan sultan
that he spared his life, and even proceeded to treat
him with the greatest respect, confessing frankly
that none of his priests would venture their Uves,
as he had proposed, for their religion ? The result
of the union of chivalrous qualities is docUity, and
the love of truth and goodness. Even the great
master of ancient philosophy declared that he was
never disappointed in his hopes when he directed
his lessons to the young : e5 yap oiS on otttj ov eXflw,
XkyovTog \\xov UKpoacrovTai ol vioi (oairip ivOaSi.* The
spirit of chivalry belongs to the two classes of men
who St. Augustin says are laudable in a religious
sense; those who have found truth, and who are,
' In Psal. xxx, 2. 2 Lib. I, Epist. 3.
' Doct. Ascet. Ill, TH, 58 ¦• Plato, Apolog.

GODEFEIDUS. 165
therefore, to be judged most blessed ; and those who
studiously and rightly inquire after it : the first being
in possession ; the latter on the way, which, how
ever, is most certain of leading to a successful issue.
The same spirit is essentially opposed to the three
other kinds of men, whom he pronounces to be
detestable : those who are of opinion that they know
what they really are ignorant of ; those who perceive
in truth that they are ignorant, but who do not seek
in such a manner that they can find; and lastly,
those who neither think that they know, nor wish
to inquire.' On every account, therefore, the spirit
of chivalry was highly favourable to the reception of,
and calculated to facUitate the labours of, the holy
priesthood, whose motto, Uke that of the Dominican
order, might be said to be, " Laudare, benedicere, 1^
et praedicare." Accordingly, in the lives of the
saints, and in all books which describe the piety of
youth, there is nothing more constant than the
testimony which is produced to shew the reverence
and love of young persons for all priests and men
invested with a holy habit. The generous and
chivalrous spirit of nature longs for spiritual instruc
tion, and most ardently admires and loves the sanctity
of the men who impart it. Truly grateful to the
youthful chorus are those sacred hymns which are
used in honour of Apostles and Confessors ; as when
they sing, Bxultet coelum laudibus
Eesultet terra gaudiis :
and, Iste Confessor Domini sacratus.
Oh ! with what reverence and perfect affection does
it regard the holy priests, who announce the great
mysteries of the Catholic faith, and who, notwith
standing their sweet simplicity in condescending to
' De Utilitate Credendi.

166 GODEFEIDUS.
all, boldly denounce the judgments of God upon the
rich and impenitent, while their souls seem to dis
solve in tenderness for the poor humble members
of Jesus Christ 1 These are the men who are dear
to the youthful and knightly heart ; those professing
it watch their countenances, and find it is a comfort
in solitude to repeat their words, and imitate their
movements and action in delivery : it is their pride
in public to shew them every mark of honour ; were
it not for fear of singularity and of gi-ring offence,
they would kiss the ground on which they trod;
in their presence they would spend their most joy
ous moments of recreation, and it is in thefr arms
that they would wish to die. During one of the
most stormy periods of the French revolution, when
all the priests of the department of the Seine and
Oise were arrested, pressed together upon waggons,
and conducted to Versailles, where they were left
without means of subsistence, it was the young who
came forward, as the ministers of Pro-vidence, to
relieve their distress. Innumerable young persons
were seen hastening to console them, loudly de
manding the deliverance of those who had instructed
them, who had prepared them for their first com
munion, who were the guides and friends of their
youth. Those who had no money brought their
bread to share with them ; a young maiden cut off
her beautiful hair, and hastened to the prison -vrith
the sum which she had obtained for it. Pierre
"d' Aubusson was a young warrior, assisting at the
brilliant festivities which took place at Nancy, in
1445, on occasion of the marriage of Marguerite
d' Anjou and of Henry VI, king of England.
Charles VII of France had said of him, " I have
never seen united so much fire and so much wisdom."
Hearing the dismal recital of the manner in which
a holy legate of the pope had been burned alive by
the Turks, his soul was oppressed -vrith such horror.

GODEFEIDUS. 167
that he instantly resolved to forsake his country,
his parents, and his hopes of fortune, to hasten to
Rhodes, to be invested -vrith the habit of a simple
knight of St. John.^ The Duke of Gandia, in his
instructions to his son, the Marquis of Lombay, after
charging him to govern his vassals with gentleness
and justice, and to obey in all things the law of God,
and to consider it as his highest honour to be devout
aud compassionate, 'concluded with these words :
" I require you also to favour, to the utmost of your
power, the Dominican monks of Lombay, and the
fathers of the company at Gandia. Remember that
these are the foundations of your ancestors, and that
you will render no less service to God in preserring
them, than they rendered to him in establishing
them. I need not recommend to you the holy nuns
of Santa Clara, since you know their merit, having a
sister and many aunts among them ; and that their
prayers defend you, and assist you, and favour your
salvation." St, Francis Borgia received himself more honours
from the heroic world, as a holy man, who had re
nounced everything for Christ, than he would ever
have obtained, had he continued in the character of
Duke of Gandia, one of the most Ulustrious grandees
of Spain.^ The emperor would not be covered in
his presence ; great princes would ride out to meet
him at the head of a noble troop of cavaliers, and
would dismount as soon as they saw him ; and per
sons of the highest dignity would leave the court
to wait upon him in the hospitals of the poor, in
which he would choose his lodging. MarsolUer, in
his Life of St. Francis of Sales, relates a most in
teresting example of the love of chivalry for holy
men. There was at the court of Henry IV, a

' Le p. Bojihours, Vie de' Pierre d' Aubusson.
' Vie de St. Fran9ois de Borgia, tom. I, 218.

168 GODEFEIDUS,
.gentleman named Deshaies, whom the king had
made governor of Montargis : he was a brave and
faithful subject, who loved his king, and who was
admitted among the number of his private friends.
When St, Francis de Sales came to Paris, the king
soon perceived that there was a great attachment
between him and Deshaies; so that one day he asked
the latter which of the two he loved best. King
Henry, or the coadjutor of Geneva, which of these
two friendships was dearest to him, and which he
would prefer to the other if he were obliged to make
a choice. Deshaies, surprised at such a question,
replied that the goodness with which his majesty
had treated him had not rendered him forgetful that
he was his subject, and that his duty as a subject
was superior to all other obligations ; that he had
for him a boundless zeal and fidelity, but that the
word friendship was hardly respectful enough for a
subject to use in reference to his sovereign, though
he confessed that he cherished all those feelings for
his majesty which a tender and respectful friendship
could inspire. The king replied, that he did not
ask about what he owed to him as his sovereign;
that he never doubted of his zeal and fidelity ; but
that it was a question of friendship, in which Henry,
and not the king, was concerned, and that he wished
him to say sincerely for which of the two he had
the greatest friendship ; for him, or for the Bishop
of Geneva. A courtier would have dissembled, or
rather, one who had not the generous soul of chivalry
would not have had occasion to dissemble; but
Deshaies was a different character, and he would
rather have renounced all his fortune than the friend
ship of the saint ; he could not dissemble, and yet
he appeared embarrassed. The king, who loved
chivalry, was delighted at his confusion, and pressed
him, saying, " Deshaies, you must answer my ques
tion." At length, Deshaies finding it impossible to

GODEFEIDUS. 169
go back, replied in these words, that since his
majesty ordered him to tell the truth, he confessed
that he felt for him all the veneration and all the
tenderness of which he was capable, but also that
he dearly loved the Bishop of Geneva. The king
was pleased at the generosity of Deshaies, and said,
" I have nothing to object to you on this account ;
but I pray both of you to admit me as a third into
your friendship ! "
The ancient sages recommended something Uke
the external part of confession — that sublime in
stitution, to which all the noble establishments of
CathoUc Europe in favour of the poor are to be
ascribed.i Plutarch, in his dialogue Be Profectu
Morum, recommends the confession of faults.
Galen, in his book on the Cure of the Maladies of
the Soul, advises men to obey the judgment of some
prudent and virtuous counsellor. And Plato, in
the third book of his Republic, advises men to apply
to others as to their physicians, in order to cure
their mental iniseries,^ The holy instructions, and
the firm, uncompromising virtue of the clergy, which
would have been a source of fear and jealousy to the
base part of mankind, would furnish the very secret
of securing the respect and love of chivalry. Of
this truth reUgious men were often sensible. Euse
bius Nieremberg says, that the holy prelate Andres
Oriedo used to repay his hosts who had entertained
him on his journeys by gi-ring them a short sermon,
teaching them the way of devout life, and exciting
them to piety.* Holy men knew that the generous
part of mankind seeks to be reproved when con
victed of offence. With what simplicity and con
fidence did they discharge this office ! Even the
profane historian records instances. " Father,"
' Eubichon de I'Action du Clerge, p. 94.
" Nieremberg, Doot. Ascet. lib. V, ix, 64.
' Doct, Ascet. V, ni, 18,

170 GODEFEIDUS.
says the provost of a certain town, " I have been
too severe against the merchants when they came
to the fair ; my sergeants seized some of thefr cloth,
though, in truth, hardly enough to make one a
double collar." " Provost," replies the holy man,
" it is by the collar that the fiend will drag you to
perdition." " Father," says a citizen, " the lord pf
the manor is bound to send to their new residence
all such persons as change their abode. I have no
need of an escort, for the roads are safe ; but my
lord has put me to unjust expense, and in my turn
I wish to involve him in a little." " My friend, the
escort which you wish to take will never conduct
you to Paradise." 1 Chivalry was sure to respect
power which would be employed in the name of
Heaven to protect the innocent and to correct the
vices of the temporal government," to diminish the
sufferings of the lower classes of society, to increase
the happiness of the higher, and to maintain the
security of all :* it was sure to admire grandeur
which was possessed with humility and with the
Christian spirit ; as when the Archbishop of Rouen
walked bare-footed to take possession of his cathe
dral ; and when St. Francis de Sales replied to one
who objected to his appearing in the carriage of the
King of France, that Philip the deacon, at least an
apostoUc man, did not refuse to sit in the chariot of
the queen's minister.
What could be more in harmony -vrith the minds
of generous men than the whole character of the
Catholic clergy ? What can be more revolting to
all noble and chivalrous sentiments than the whole
system of those who resist the influence of the clergy?
Mark how this can be verified even in the most
minute detail. Always and everywhere the liberal
' Monteil, Hist, des Francois.
'' Guizot, Disoours sur I'Hist. V, 32.
^ M. Eubichon de I'Action du Clerge.

GODEFEIDUS. 171
arts have flourished in proportion as the clergy have
possessed more influence ; always and everywhere
the liberal arts have been ranged in hostility against
the mechanical arts ; and it need not be shewn that
the spirit of chivalry decides in favour of the liberal
arts, " to which Catholic Europe has given the pre
ference, whUe Protestant Europe has made choice
of the mechanical arts." This is the observation
of M, Rubichon.' It is to the clergy that chivalry
was indebted for those sublime paintings and repre
sentations of the heroes of religion which were
capable of exalting its spirit to such a height of
devotion ; and it is the sophists and enemies of the
clergy who have created that tribe of artisans who
cover our ignoble walls -vrith stamped paper, or break
the uniformity of coats of varnish with festoons of
cotton. It is to the clergy that it must ascribe
those numerous schools of painting and music which
gave a separate character to almost every great city;
it is to the adversaries of the clergy that men are
indebted for the formation of that national character
which is well expressed by M. Rubichon, where he
asks, " what would a modern Englishman say if one
were to speak of the School of London or of Bristol,
as we say the School of Seville, the School of
Valencia, the School of Cordova, or of Madrid?
He would suppose, and I say it seriously, that one
alluded to a school of pugilisih, the only schools that
I ever heard of which were not founded and vivified
by the religious orders."^
Passing to higher consideratipns, there would be
no difficulty in shewing that it would be in accord
ance with the inmost soul of chivalry to venerate
both that sacred state of orders which, as St. Thomas
said, requires a pre-rious sanctity from all who enter
itj and that holy life of religion which, though not
' De I'Action du Clerge, p. 125.. ' Ibid.

172 GODEFEIDUS.
requiring that previous exercise in virtue, was a
mode of life instituted to attain sanctity.^ Even
a licentious king, Ethelbald, could respect the ad
monitions of a Saint Boniface f and men devoted
to the labours and sufferings of active Ufe had not
the means of accusing those of indolence whom they
beheld, like the Franciscan, " labouring with their
hands, not for the sake of gain and avarice, but to
give good example, and avoid sloth :"^ or like the
great prelates of the Church, devoting themselves
to a life of mortification and continued watchfulness.
It is not necessary to suppose that it would be only
men who had themselves attained to perfect sanctity
who would be disposed to acknowledge that of the
Catholic clergy; for, as the Athenian in Plato
observes, " many men without virtue can determine
nevertheless who are really just and who are not;
for even to the wicked there is a divine power of
distinguishing good from evil men,"* Much more,
therefore, would the generous and noble spirit of
chivalry be sensible of the exceUence of the priest
hood, and anxious to promote its object. The Ger
man nobles in 830 presented a memorial to the
Emperor at Worms, " praying, with bended knees,
that the bishops might not thenceforth be compelled
to go with the army, but that they might remain in
their diocese, attending to their holy ministry." ¦ It
would be a filial reverence with which chivahy
would be disposed to regard the clergy. St. Boni
face, after his first mission to Friesland, travelled
to Hesse, and came to the banks of the Mosel, where
was a convent of nuns under the government of the
Abbess Addula, who received him hospitably.
During dinner it was the custom there, as elsewhere,
for some one to read aloud out of the Holy Scrip-
' II, II, 9, 180, art. 1, s Bibl. Pat. XIII.
^ Testament. S. Frauoisci. ¦* Plato de Legibus, XII.

GODEFEIDUS. 173
tures. On this occasion the Abbess selected Gregory,
her grandson, to read, who was then fifteen years
of age. After Boniface had given him his blessing,
the lad read out of the Latin Bible ; St. Boniface
was struck with the spirit of the boy, and after
listening to him for some time, he said^ " You read
well, my child, if you do but understand what you
have read," The boy, who did not rightly com
prehend the sense of St. Boniface, replied that he
knew well what he had read. " Very well, then,"
replied Boniface, " now tell me how you understand
it." The boy was going to read it over again, but
Boniface stopped him : " Nay, my son, I do not
mean that ; I know very well that you can read,
but you must express what you have read to me in
your own language." The boy was abashed, and
unable to proceed before the whole company, and
said he could not. " Shall I then tell you what it
means ? " asked St. Boniface. The boy begged that
he would; then St, Boniface read the passage in
German, and preached upon it before the whole
company : "aud," says Liudger, who was the scholar
of Abbat Gregory, " his words sank so deeply and
rapidly into the heart of Gregory, that he forgot
parents and father-land, and immediately went to
his grandmother and said to her, ' With this man I
must go and learn to understand the Holy Scrip
tures,' The Abbess at first sought to keep him
back, but much water cannot extinguish love ;
Gregory repUed, ' If you wiU not give mea horse
to ride with him, I wiU go with him on foot.'
When the Abbess saw how high was the heart of
the youth, she gave him a horse and a boy, and let
him depart vrith St, Boniface, There seems to me,"
says Liudger, " to have been the same spirit in this
young man which infiamed the Apostles, when at
the word of our Lord they left their nets and their
fathers to follow him," Gregory followed St, Boni-

174 GODEFEIDUS,
face through all his dangers, and became his most
faithful disciple : he laboured as a missionary in
Friesland, and collected disciples out of France,
England, Friesland, Saxony, Suabia, and Bavaria.
When he came to die, he ordered his scholars to
carry him into the church, and place him before the
altar, and then, after praying, and recei-ring the
holy communion, still looking to the altar, he
departed to our Lord.
These passages and reflections are sufficient to
shew how necessary it will be in the following re
view of the heroic age of Christianity to dwell at
some length upon the holy order of priesthood,
which exercised so great an influence upon the
spirit and institutions of chivalry.
In these days, when monasteries are described as
the monuments of superstition, and governments
are obliged to build prisons, which enclose as much
space as a village would occupy, giving rise to a
new order of architecture, we hear a great deal of
the evils resulting from subjection to the priesthood.
The baseness of such a subjection, the indignity of
recognising its authority, form the favourite theme
of the proud sensualists, who employ their thoughts
upon inventing new sources of pleasure and profit
for themselves, and new modes of punishment for
the poor. The fact, however, is, and that I may
express it without being tedious, and, as Socrates
would say, that I may speak after the manner of
geometricians, in proportion as men revere persons
of this blessed order, we may conclude that they
have advanced in virtue. The degree of reverence
which is e-rinced for the priesthood is the most
faithful criterion to determine how far any age or
nation has been endued with goodness and sanctity.
With what profound humility does it become
ordinary men to make mention of so high and mys
terious an institution ! Our Lord himself was the

GODEFEIDUS. 175
first priest in the time of grace, typically fore
shadowed by Melchisedeck. Oh, how reverently
do the ancient fathers speak of priesthood !
Nazianzen termeth a priest a mediator between
God and man. St. Chrysostom says, " neither
angel, nor archangel, nor any created power, but
only our Advocate and Comforter did institute this
order of priesthood." St. Ambrose says, "man
doth impose the hand, but God giveth the grace."
And Pacianus says, " how can that society or com
pany of men receive the Holy Ghost, if the anointed
priest doth not sign and bless them ?"
Moreover, all the perfections of sanctity must be
in a peculiar manner objects of admiration to the
spirit of chivalry, even in its lowest and most
disordered state. When the adverse spirit invaded
Saul, it was the harp of David which could appease
his madness. What was signified by Saul, says St.
Gregory, but the elevation of the powerful? and
what did David represent but the humble life of
the saints ? •'-
St. Hilarion, when he was 18 years of age, being
in his hovel in the forest, a band of desperate youths
resolved to fall upon him one night, either thinking
he had something which they might rob him of, or
else judging it an affront that a young man should
live in the midst of them so securely, without any
fear. They wandered all the night seeking his poor
cot, and could by no means find it. In the morning
they found him, and in a jeering manner said to
him, " What wouldst thou do, if thou shouldest see
thyself compassed about with thieves ?" And he
answered them, " The poor and naked fear no
thieves." And they said to him, " At least, thou
canst lose thy life." He answered them, " 'Tis
true, I can lose it ; but I fear not thieves, because
' De Cura PastoraU, III, 2.

176 GODEFEIDUS.
I am prepared to die." His innocence and con
stancy overcame them, and awakened them to a
sense of their own wickedness. They confessed that
they had sought him that night, without being able
to find him, and, with a flood of tears, promised to
amend their lives.'
Lastly, we may observe, that, true to the original
constitution of nature, this spirit was predisposed
to regard authority as its guide, rather than private
speculation and judgment ; hence it was prepared
for Catholicism, which would differ from heresy, as
the old man told Francis Walsingham, chiefly in
this, that it would lead men to embrace traditum
non inventum, according to the expression of Ter-
tuUian, that which would be delivered by just
authority and not invented by himself;^ it would
be prepared for having recourse to the Church, in
which the Apostles, as St. Irenaeus says, "have
placed all things that belong, unto the truth of
Christian religion, that every -man who would, might
take from thence the drink of life ; so that what
soever the Church delivereth we must love with
great diligence, and receive from her the traditions
of truth";* for, as St. Augustin says, "neque in
confusione paganorum, neque in purgamentis heere-
ticorum, neque in languore schismaticorum, neque
in caecitate Judaeorum quaerenda est reiigio, sed
apud eos solos, qui Christiani catholici vel ortho-
doxi nominantur, id est, integritatis custodes, et
recta sectantes," * not with those who invent and
change, who propose and modify, who select and
adjust, or who teach that men may change and
modify, select and adjust, but' with those who
hold fast, who guard and follow what was once
deUvered. ' Lives of the Saints, by Eibadeneira.
^ Search into Matters of Eeligion, p. 475.
' Advers. Hseres. I, 46. ¦* Liber de Vera Eeligione, 6.

GODEFEIDUS. 177
Herein the spirit of chivalry was seen in harmony
with the -vrisdom and simplicity of nature, which
ordains that man should be indebted for all essential
knowledge to authority, rather than to his own
private speculation and judgment. The man who
relies upon the authority of the Catholic Church,
besides the merit of obedience to the ordination of
Christ, deserveth also the praise of highest -vrisdom ;
for to prefer the judgment of so great a number of
learned, holy, and virtuous men as have been in
that Church from age to age, before his otvu private
judgment, is most evident wisdom, even considered
according to the principles of human wisdom. This
is the observation of Francis Walsingham, after
concluding his search into matters of religion.' No
intelUgent person wUl requfre to be shewn how these
and similar considerations are connected -vrith the
subject on which we are engaged. In the ages
which we shall shortly re-riew, it was the unity of
faith, resulting from these principles, which united
aU hearts in noble and generous chivalry.
"Europe," says Schlegel, "was united in one
during these grand ages, and the soil of this general
country was fruitful in generous thoughts, which
served to guide both in Ufe and death. One com
mon chivalry converted adversaries into brethren in
arms, and it was to defend one common faith that
they were armed. Love inspired every heart, and
the poetry which sang this alliance expressed the
same sentiment in different languages. Alas ! the
noble energy of the ancient time is lost. Our age
is the inventor of a narrow policy : and what weak ]
men are unable to conceive, is in their eyes only a 1
chimera. Nothing that is divine can succeed when _J
it is undertaken with a profane heart. Alas ! our
' P. 476.
Qodefridus. ' N

178 GODEFEIDUS.
age has knowledge of neither faith nor love ; how
could it have preserved hope ? "
"This know also," says the Apostle, "that in
the last days perUous times shall come; for men
shall be lovers of their own selves." That these
times were accomplishing in our heroic age, it was
impossible to suppose; but a new period of the
world's history has commenced, and new principles
are said to be necessary. The ancient orders of
Christendom are superseded by clubs and associa
tions, whereby men can enjoy some ofthe pleasures
of society, without fulfilling the duties attached to
social life, and may escape the burden of personal
obligation, -vrithout forfeiting their rights and
honour. That love which was the soul of chivalry,
that devoted affection of the youthful heart, in con
formity with nature's law, which expelled every
selfish thought and wish, and refined and developed
every generous virtue, is exposed to the counteract
ing influence of the new philosophy, which teaches
the young that there may be happiness without the
exercise of virtue, without being devoted and faith
ful, disinterested and sincere ; which places avarice
and ambition (for the consideration of wealth is
avarice, and the love of rank and high connexion is
ambition,) in the innermost sanctuary of the human
heart, and thus defiles, in its noblest feature, the
image of the Almighty ; which leads its disciples to
regard all duty and obligation, " which grey-beards
call di-rine," as matters in which he has no concern,
and to say to his selfish heart, like Richard,
I am myself alone.
The convenience and profit of individuals, not the
everlasting distinctions of right and -wrong, are
consulted ahd regarded as the only public good;
riches and presumption overpower the opposite
scale of virtue and modesty. In a word, the prin-

GODEFEIDUS. /^ \ 179
ciples and thoughts of men have changed with their
political situation. What was once honourable is
now said to be obsolete and worthless, imaginary,
eccentric, and ridiculous ; what was once baseness
and crime is now prudence, and moderation, and
philosophy. The question -vrill, therefore, again
present itself to every lover of his species, to every
thoughtful observer who casts a philosophic eye
upon the character, and transactions, and interests
of mankind, and to him it will, indeed, be a subject
of serious inquiry, how far this new direction, which
has been given to the movement of the human heart,
how far the principles and temper, which now
influence the actions of men, may fulfil the predic
tion of Holy Scripture.
XVI. In concluding this introductory -riew of the
spirit of the Christian chivalry, it wUl be necessary
to add some remarks on the symbolical character
which unquestionably belongs to it; which con
sideration will shew -vrith what perfect consistency
men may associate it with such grave reflections as
are occasionally to be met vrith in these books, and
into what error we should be led if we were to guide
our judgment by the ad-rice of men like Boileau,
who maintained, in his Art of Poetry, that religion
ought to be separated from literature, as it had
already been from the theory and practice, of civil
government. " There are many things between
heaven and earth whieh are not dreamt of in such
a philosophy," as Friedrich Schlegel says, in allusion
to the celebrated Unes of Shakspeare.' It is by a
reference to this symbolical philosophy, that we
should understand that sentence of Plato, where he
says, that the rule of moral excellence lies between
-what does not exist, and what is abstract truth.^
Modern critics tear to pieces the magnificent
' Philosophie des Lebens, I. '^ Plato de Eepub. V, 479.
N 2

GODEFEIDUS.
figures of chivalrous history, and then presenting
isolated fragments, they condemn them as extrava-
gant and ridiculous ; but they should observe, that
it is only when connected and associated with the
ideas which gave life and movement to chivalry,
that the images which belonged to it can be under
stood. In order to explain this, we are again directed
to the youthful mind as a mfrror, in which we can
more easily behold the leading features of chivalry
than if we were to contemplate it in a more abstract
form. " It is easy to shew," says Friedrich Schlegel,
" that the education of youth, whether domestic or
public, is essentially symbolic, and must be so,
unless it should degenerate into a mere mechanical
system. Herein consists, in a great measure, the
difference between a spiritless education, which,
however reproachless in point of moral strength,
must stiU prove dead and unfruitful, and another
more pure and suitable to human nature, less osten
tatious in the beginning, but, on that account, more
productive in the end. How susceptible the youth
ful mind is for whatever is symbolical within its
sphere, and with what liveliness it seizes upon it,
wUl sufficiently appear from observing one of the
most common sports for the different ages of boy
hood and youth, in which the employments, con
ditions, and situations of real life, which are for
them still in futurity, are imitated in various child
like ways, or rather emblematicaUy represented, and
it is known to aU how much motion this extends
through the little community ; what multitudinous
and deep impressions it leaves in their minds, more,
perhaps, than many hours of study, when the end
of this study is prevented by the usual method of
overloading." ' Nor is this observation to be con-
' Philosophie des Lebens, 368.

GODEFEIDUS. 181
fined to youth. It is true, in the White King and
other books of chivalry, we only read that Maxi
raUian, and Du Guesclin, and others, practised these
diversions in their early days ; but where there is
genius, maturer age seems to be oftener deterred
from engaging in them by external considerations,
than induced to abandon them through an inward
experience of their inefficacy to deUght the mind.
When Laelius ahd Scipio would go into the coun
try, they used to become quite like boys again,
escaping from the city as if from confinement.
Cicero says, " I hardly dare to relate of such men
what Scaevola used to affirm, that they used to
amuse themselves picking up shells and pebbles, and
descending to every kind of play and relaxation." '
To the youthful inclinations described by Schlegel,
might be added that disposition which so remarkably
characterises young persons of piety, who, like the
young Duke of Gandia (St. Francis Borgia), St.
Francis de Sales, and numberless others, find no
play or amusement so captivating as that in which
they imitate the ceremonies of the Church, building
little oratories and cloisters, decorating Uttle altars,
and training children of their own age to assist them
in their innocent solemnities.^ Even in a later age
of youth, St. Francis Borgia is described as sancti
fying, by means of this symboUcal view, the adven
tures of the chase, to which he was continually
obliged to accompany the emperor.
This want and demand of nature may yield us an
insight into the whole history of whatever is con
nected with the embellishment or harmony of human
hfe. The remark of Friedrich Schlegel may be
applied to all the images which belong to chivalry.
His words are these : " The reality, the actual form,
' De Oratore, II, 6,
' Vie de St, Francois de Borgia, tom. I, p. 9. Vie de St.
Fran9ois de Sales, par MarsolUer, I, 10. Souvenirs de S. Acheul.

182 GODEFEIDUS.
and the thousand imitations or copies, are never the
proper and immediate object of the arts of statuary
and painting. The beauty of form is, at least, not
thefr sole and exclusive end, but only conditionaUy,
and with reference to other given relations of
character. Painting, while it unfolds so wonderful
a variety of riches to the eye, is for the mind intel
lectual and symbolic : some thought, some idea of
opposition or form, is always as the inward sense
and the inward guide which directs the hand of the
artist, and from which the art itself proceeds ; or,
in other words, all art is symbolical : and certainly
this holds not merely in those arts of figuring, but
also in all other of the higher arts. The medium of
their representation may indeed be the form, as in
statuary and painting ; or the tone, as in music ; or
the word, as in poetry; and even herein lies the
distinction which separates the higher art from
another apparently related to it, but which has an
outward and practical object; whose spfrit and usage
cannot be merely symbolical, as in the instance of
rhetoric in its relation with poetry." ' Nor is this
all. " The Christian state is symboUcal and histori
cally holy ; whUe the bare natural state is either
unholy and false when formed on the principle of
rationaUsm, or else it is absolute tyranny. There
are three powers in human life and in human society,
which have a symbolical meaning, and a character
of sanctity, and which rest upon a divine founda
tion, — the paternal authority, the spiritual orpriestly,
and the kingly or highest ci-ril power. The loring
care of the earthly father has an analogy to, and is
a kind of representation of that of the Eternal
Father ; and the respect and obedience due to him,
founded upon nature, and sanctioned by revelation,
are found, more or less, in aU ages and nations.
' Philosophie des Lebens, 362.

GODEFEIDUS. 183
The spiritual or priestly power, as dispensing the
dirine grace of him who came to save the world,
is in the highest degree holy ; the judicial or regal
power derives a sanctity from its functions of justice
aud its author. All these three holy powers have
a kind of analogy and inward relationship amongst
each other ; the father speaks of rule, the ruler of
paternal care, while both these are encompassed, as
it were, by the spiritual power, holy and venerable,
to guide and moderate them. In a word, upon
nature, upon di-rine revelation, and upon historical
justice, these three holy powers are grounded — the
good and loving father, the pious priest, and the
just king."^ Deprive men of the symbolic sense,
by training them to confine all their observation to
the mere material form, and you prepare them for
being strangers and even enemies to every institu
tion belonging to a Christian state. Everything
that constitutes its happiness and real glory will be
denounced by them as unjust, ridiculous, or incom
prehensible. But we must ascend stUl higher.
" ReUgion itself doth sometimes delight in veils and
shadows, so that whoso exempts them, seems in a
manner to interdict all commerce between things
dirine and human." This is what Lord Bacon says.^
There is no way that I can conceive rhore worthy
to illustrate this position than by appealing to the
judgment of those who have had the happiness of
spending the holy week in a Catholic city, when the
Church, by her affecting symbols, displays the
dirine power of being able to spfrituaUse and elevate
the souls of multitudes to a state of communion with
the glorified choirs of heaven,^ Behold those veiled
sanctuaries, those stripped altars, those deserted
tabernacles ! behold that immense crowd of faithful
' Philosophie des Lebens, 384-8.
' On the Wisdora of the Ancients. ,
' Vide S. Dionysii Areopag. de Ecclesia Hierarch.

184 GODEFEIDUS.
Christians, who, from morning till night, fill the
temples of God, evincing all the sorrow and agony
of worthy disciples of the crucified Jesus, falUng
prostrate to kiss the dust, or, one by one, timidly
mounting the ungarnished steps to kiss the naked
spot where the precious body of their Saviour used
to be daily offered ; rich and poor pressing with
ardour to adore his cross ; some, perhaps, breathing
their last as their lips approach the image of his
feet ! Behold that long procession of devout men,
chanting the solemn litany ; thpse angelic children,
devoted to the serrice of God, bearing the lights
and incense ! Behold on the last vigil the opening
of the great festival of joy, the Ughting of the paschal
candle, while the deacon sings, " 0 vere beata nox,
in qua terrenis coelestia, humanis divina junguntur 1
Oramus ergo te, Domine, ut cereus iste, in honorem
tui nominis consecratus, ad noctis hujus caliginem
destruendam, indefioiens perseveret, et in odorem
sua-ritatis acceptus, supernis luminaribus misceatm\
Flammas igitur Lucifer matutinus inveniat. IUe,
inquam, Lucifer qui nescit occasum. Ille qui re-
gressus ab inferis humano generi serenus illuxit."
The unhappy chUdren who have wanted the instruc
tion of our common mother, and who cannot under
stand the symbolic meaning of these signs, turn
away in wonder or indifference ; but they who have
been taught to perceive it, withdraw in silence in
the unutterable thankfulness of the heart, some to
renounce the world, others to pray for death, or to
devote their remaining years to the ser-rice of their
feUow-men, in order to give glory to God. Oh,
what explanation can be given of symbols, if men
have not souls to feel and admire these ?
With respect to the general discipline of the
Church, which gave rise to the characteristics of
the Christian chivalry which I am about to describe,
it may be weU to anticipate what we shall hereafter
have frequent occasion to discourse upon, by a few

GODEFEIDUS. 185
sentences from the ancient wise. " It would indeed
be grievous and calamitous beyond all expression,"
says St. John of Damascus, in defining what he
speaks of as the ancient discipline . of Christians,
"if the Church, bright with so many privileges,
and adorned with the graces of so many holy men
who are gone before, should be turned back to
beggarly elements, so as to tremble with fear where
there is no cause for fear; as if, ignorant of the
true God, it should dread a relapse to the worship
of idols." ^ " The apostles beheld our Lord with
their bodily eyes, others beheld the apostles, others
beheld the martyrs. I also desire to behold with
my eyes as well as mentaUy, whence I can have a
remedy against evU. For I have a two-fold nature,
and what I behold I venerate, not as God, but as
the revered image of what is to be revered. But
you, perhaps, are more sublime and more removed
from matter, and, being above the body, you de
spise all that is subjected to the eyes ; but since
I am a man, and clothed vrith a body, I desire
to converse in body -vrith those who are holy,
and to behold" them with my eyes." ^ " These
images are books for those who cannot read. When
I have no books, and have no leisure for reading,
moved by my thoughts I go into the church, the
common infirmary for souls. There the flowers of
painting attract my eyes, and delight me like the
riew of a meadow, and they set before my mind
the glory of God. I reflect on the constancy of the
martyr, and the reward of the crowned. Falling
down on the earth, I adore God in his martyr, and
I receive the hope of salvation." ^ Does not St.
Chrysostom say : " He who pays honour to a
martyr, does it to God, to whom the martyr bore
testimony; he who reverently salutes an apostle
of Christ, reverently salutes Christ who sent him ;
' Orat. I, 2, de Imaginibus. ^ Id. ^ Id.

186 GODEFEIDUS.
and he who falls down to shew his veneration for
the mother of Christ, -vrithout doubt he offers that
honour to the Son. Yes, all things which are thine,
0 Lord, we adore, we shew reverence to, we em
brace with love, — thy divinity, power, and good
ness, thy mercy to us, thy descent and incarnation ;
and as we fear to touch red-hot iron, not on account
of the nature of the iron, but of the flre which is
joined -vrith it ; so I adore this flesh, not on account
of the nature of flesh, but on account ofthe divinity
which is hypostatically incorporated with it ; we
adore thy passion : who ever saw death adored ? We
do not adore his corporeal death, but his saving
passion. We adore thy image, we adore all things
which are thine, thy ministers, thy friends, and,
above all, thy mother, who bore God. We make
no image of the invisible God ; we make no idols
of dead men ; but after that God, through his in
effable goodness, had assumed flesh, and become
visible in flesh on the earth, and walked with men,
ha-ring taken upon him our nature and bodily
grossness, and the flgure and colour of flesh, we err
not when we express his image from the desire of
beholding his form. It is for envious Satan to desire
that we should not behold the resemblance of our
Lord, and to be fllled with jealousy because God
bestows honour on his saints." '¦
From the Old Testament no objection can be
advanced against the discipline of Christians. God
commanded the Ark and the Cherubims to be made,
and his servant carved many figures which God
commanded not, and was approved ; and God said
that the power of working in metals and of making
fine purple were his gifts ; and no men can call these
things base and mean, unless they be Manichaeans,
who designate as vilS what God has made and
' Joan. Damas. Orat. II, 5.

GODEFEIDUS. 187
approved of. Matter may become holy and deserve
reverence. "Take thy shoes from off thy feet,
for the place is holy." If this earth became holy,
how much more must not the resemblance of our
Lord be holy ? In this question of images, we must
inquire into the mind of those who use them ; and
if thefr mind be true and right, and bent on the
glory of God and of his saints, then these images
assist men to acquire virtue and to avoid vice, and
they are subservient to the salvation of souls : and
so, as for these images, examples, similitudes, the
books and monuments of illiterate men, we venerate
them, we kiss them, we embrace them vrith eyes and
lips and with our hearts.^ " God himself made man
in his own image. Adam beheld God, Jacob saw
him. It is clear that God suffered himself to be be
held in human form. We know that it is impossible
to behold the nature of God, of angel or spirit ; and
yet we may contemplate it by a certain transfor
mation. Divine Providence attributing forms and
figures to incorporeal things, which lead us to a
knowledge of that part of them which admits of
such connexion, lest we should be altogether igno
rant of God and of incorporeal creatures," ^ How
uniform are the testimonies from ancient fathers !
St, Basil says, " Arise, 0 excellent painters of great
actions, and illustrate the imperfect image of your
general with your pencil. The crowned conqueror
(that is the martyr Barlaam), whom I have obscurely
delineated, should be exhibited by you with colours,
and through your painting of the admirable actions
of the martyrs, I must depart conquered." St.
Gregory of Nyssen says of the picture of Abraham
offering*up Isaac, " I have often beheld the painted
representation of this bitter deed, and I have never
¦ Orat. Ill, 9,
" Id, III, 25, Vide S. Dionysii Areopag. de Divinis Nominibus
et de Coelesti Hierarch,

188 GODEFEIDUS,
turned from it without tears ; for art enables the'
eyes to -vritness the whole history." St. Athanasius
says, " We, the faithful, never adore images as gods,
like the heathens ; God forbid. As an evidence to
the contrary, when the figure is obliterated, we
burn the wood as useless." Stephen Bostrenus says,
in arguing with the Jews, " As for images, aU things
in the name of God are good and holy; but as for
idols, God forbid we should know them. These,
indeed are e-ril, as they who make them ; for the
image of a holy prophet is one thing, but the statue
of Saturn, of Venus, of the sun and moon, is another."
To the same effect, and also arguing vrith Jews, St.
Leontius of Cyprus says, " On this account I ex
press and delineate Christ, and the passion of Christ,
in churches, in houses, in the market-place, in
paintings, and in woven work, and on garments,
and in every place, that by a continued considera
tion we may always keep God in memory ; and, as
Jacob, when he received Joseph's tunic, stained vrith
blood, after his brethren had sold him, kissed the
garment and held it before his eyes, not that he
lamented the tunic, but because he fancied that he
kissed and embraced Joseph; so we Christians,
embracing the image of an apostle or martyr, fancy
that in mind we embrace Christ himself or his mar
tyr. How many instances of adoration do you Jews
find in your own Scriptures 1 and yet you are angry
when you behold me reverencing the image of Christ,
or of his mother, or of some saint, and you call me
idolater. Have you no shame ? Do you not fear ?
Do you not blush when you see me demolishing the
temples of idols all over the world, and buUding
temples in honour of the martyrs ? What* and if I
do adore the images of the saints ? Are they idols?
Idols were representations of those who were adul
terers, murderers, effeminate, not of prophets and
apostles. The Chaldeans, at Babylon, had musical

GODEFEIDUS, 189
instruments of all sorts with which they celebrated
their divinities. The children of Israel had. brought
musical instruments from Jerusalem, which they
hung up on trees by the waters of Babylon. The
instruments were alike ; but the one were used to
the glory of God, the other to the worship of devils.
Such is the difference between the images of the
Christians, and the idols of the heathen." But the
sum is shortly expressed by another holy man, when
he says, " Whatever Christians do is to be tried by
their faith." In these later times, a great German
philosopher, the illustrious Leibnitz, has devoted
part of an immortal work to thp defence and praise
of this Catholic discipline.' Friedrich Schlegel
also has left a fine passage on the subject, in his
lectures on the Philosophy of Life : " The first and
highest destination of man," he observes, " was
symbolic, namely, the resemblance of the Divinity ;
and since the natural wants and desires of man are
symbolical, since his present office in the creation,
his whole earthly position, his high and di-rine
destiny, are even so, can it appear strange that
religion itself, for the most part, should be arrayed
in symbolical clothing ?" ^ Again, if one could
conceive a Christianity -vrithout an altar, without
any symbolical clothing or mysteries, it would be
only a philosophic view and opinion, or, at the most,
a school of art, but not a religion ; and the study
of the Bible itself, if still cultivated under such cir-
•cumstances, would be no more than a kind of
learned passion, like any other remarkable anti
quarian inquiry. On the other hand, a community
and a religion existing without an altar would cer
tainly ilot rest upon a philosophic opinion, or a bare
learned study, or passion, but solely upon prayer
and the spiritual instruction or preaching. But on
' System, Theolog. 121. ' Philosophie des Lebens, 371.

190 GODEFEIDUS,
this supposition we must conceive the belief of a
generally prevailing immediate inspiration, which
would serve as a point of passage to the most fearful
fanaticism, of which horror any one may form an
•idea, who casts an eye upon the history of the
Mohammedan people, and of all sects in ancient and
modern times,' So that, to return to this theory
of the arts, and of the universal source whence they
spring, " if it were conceivable that, at any time,
reUgion should entirely cease to exist, that not
merely its positive model and revelation should be
forgotten, but also that in general all faith in the
divine, this light of a higher unearthly struggle,
could be effaced, that this tone of eternity could be
silenced in the sensitive breast of the human race ;
then immediately would all higher art itself perish
and disappear. In our age the case is rather the
inverse. During the general prevailing poUtical
unbelief, which is a natural consequence of religious
unbelief, the whole life, especially the external,
being no longer understood and regarded according
to its symbolical meaning, and therefore the state
and all greatness having lost much of its ancient
venerable splendour and of its- former sanctity,
while the reUgious sentiment itself, in reality still
existing, is more or less dissipated in party conten
tions, so that scarcely one can find any longer a
pure free state of simple pious faith, — by a great
number of men of the cultivated class, the arts and
the beautiful are regarded as the last remaining
emblem of the divine, and as the only palladium of
the higher and inward life ; what they can never be
in any manner when thus isolated. Our age may
be compared in this respect, to a formerly rich but
now decayed noble house, where the only remnants
of ancient grandeur are some pieces of family plate
' Philosophie des Lebens, 377.

GODEFEIDUS. 191
and honourable heir-looms preserved from better
times. In like manner our spent and decayed age
has preserved only the outward ornaments of art,
whilst the great capital of old faith, to which we owe
that ornament and beauty, as well as the many other
good fruits, has been long since consumed for the
greatest part of men.'
The reader will have long since anticipated me in
obserring the application of these beautiful and pro
found remarks to the immediate subject of this
book. They furnish the clue to guide us through
the obscure labyrinth of romantic fiction, and even
of history, in the middle ages, and an argument
which may succeed in con-rincing us that there is
not only entertainment, but even a high degree of
sublime instruction in the works which have, per
haps, been hitherto presented to us as belonging
to a department of literature worthy of no other
epithets but those of extravagant and unprofitable.
The ancients had well seen that " aU things are full
of enigmas -vrith the poets, as well as with the phi
losophers " ; and Maximus of Tyre, after making
this observation, adds, " whose modesty and reve
rence for truth seems to me more worthy of love
than the boldness of the moderns." ^ " Let the poet
speak the truth, although he speak poetically,
although in a fable and in verse, I will search into
the mystery of the fable, nor shall its form lead me
astray : aXridrj XtytTU), kuv ipiXwg Xiyy, I -vriU gladly
receive such instructions," ^
All poetry exists by the aid of metaphor. The
poet substitutes sensible images, which have a re
lation to those powers of the soul which he wishes
to awaken for the spiritual object of his conception,
in the converse manner in which the geometrician
substitutes purely abstract terms and letters, which
' Philosophie des Lebens, 373. ' Dissert. X, 5. ' Id.

192 GODEFEIDUS.
represent nothing definite, for numbers, lines, sur
faces, and solids. It has been shewn that the
process of the human mind is always the same in
all its exercises, and that a poet, in his inventions,
follows the same law as gtiided Napier and Descartes
in the invention of logarithms and the geometrical
analysis. It is the same with ordinary men in all
the customs and employments of life. Comparison,
and the substitution of images which have a relation
to the subject of thought, constitute the general
course of the human mind. The poet represents
the abstract by the sensible, the geometrician the
sensible by the abstract. In the symbolical style,
so peculiarly English, though it is by no means an
innovation in the French language, as some of their
later critics pretend,' for it belongs to the phUo
sophy of Christians, the object is effected by
developing only the secondary idea or image which
is to represent the ultimate subject of thought; and
it has the advantage of being more rapid than com
parison, and less obscure than allegory.
Cicero remarks the pleasure with which men hear
words that are transferred, that is, which are bent
from their direct use to convey another meaning ;
which he thinks may arise from its being an exercise
of genius, or rather from the person who hears the
word being led to a different idea without being led
wrong, which imparts a great delight.^ The first
fathers ofthe Christian Church made especial use
of this symbolical mode of instruction, and Clemens
Alexandrinus extols it as an admirable instrument to
minister to wisdom. PhUo, a celebrated philosopher
ainong the Platonicians, relates that the Christians
who lived in Alexandria used to employ themselves
in this holy exercise, and that they seemed to regard
the law as having a body and a soul, represented by
' Le Globe, VII, 28, '^ De Oratore, lib. III, 40.

GODEFEIDUS. 193
the letter and the spirit. Father Luis of Granada,
in the third part of his Catechism ; Menestrier, in
his Art of Emblems; Maximilian Sanda, in his
Theologia Symbolica ; and Benedict Hoeften, in his
book entitled Schola Cordis, show the use of emblems
in theology, as taken from the Holy Scriptures. The
Church, as we have seen, added the sanction of her
practice to this exercise ; for in her offices men were
presented with the most sublime emblems of aU the
great mysteries of the Christian faith. It was in
conformity with these principles, thus recommended
and developed, that in the romantic Uterature of the
middle ages, as Schlegel remarks of the Spanish
poetry, "religion and fiction, truth and poetry, were
not made to stand at variance from each other, but
were all united in the most harmonious beauty." '
This great philosopher observes, that "Milton,
when compared -vrith the Catholic poets, Dante and
Tasso, who were his models, laboured under con
siderable disadvantages, by being entirely denied
the use of a great many symbolical representations,
histories, and traditions, which were in their hands
the most graceful ornaments of Christian poetry.
He was sensible of this, and attempted to make
amends for the defect by adopting fables and alle
gories out of the Koran and the Talmud, such as are
extremely unfit for the use of a serious Christian
poet." ^ But if this tendency to a symbolical char
acter be observable generally in the poetry and
romantic literature of the middle ages, it is peculiarly
manifest in all works of an heroic character, which
were more immediately connected with chivalry. In
some instances, indeed, these were professedly alle
gorical, and' directed to a religious end. Such was
the Castle of Love, written by Grossetete, bishop of
Lincoln, in which he represented the great articles
' Hist, of Lit, II, 187. ' M- II, 150,
Qodefridus. 0

194 GODEFEIDUS,
of the Christian faith under the forms of knighthood.
In others real history was made the groundwork of
symbolical instruction. Thus, in the romance of the
Round Table by Wolfram von Eschenbach his hero
is at once the type of spiritual warfare and the ideal
of a templar. Nay, there is reason to believe that
many of the crusaders considered their perilous war
fare as symbolical of that which they had internally
to wage against their spiritual enemies. Thus in
the ancient chronicle of Godfrey of BouiUon it is
said that they laboured to gain Paradise, " which is
in an allegorical sense compared to the holy city of
Jerusalem, which they desired to conquer, at the
risk of their bodies, in order to serve God and work
out their salvation."-' In all these compositions
there was an imaginary model in the formation of
the plan, too sublime for complete development,
" The chivalrous poetry, and the Gothic architec
ture," as Schlegel observes, " have both, in a great
measure, remained ideal, and never been brought to
perfection in execution," It may be that the
grandeur of the original conception comes upon us
with a stronger impulse from -this unfinished work
than it might have done had they been adorned with
the last exquisite touches of elegance; the terrible
graces are ever conversant with the undefined,^
In the romances of chivalry the adventures and
scenes recorded were not indeed true, but they re
presented truths. It was in this sense that St.
Ignatius Loyola employed his early associations of
chivalry, which he retained after his conversion to
religion : remembering the customs which had de
lighted him in the old romances, he converted them
to holy purposes, and devoted himself to Jesus and
to Mary, in quality of their knight.^
' Les Faitz et Gestes du preux Godefroy de BouUon et de ses
chevaleureux Freres, f. 157.
« Hist, of Lit. I, 334. » Bouhours, Vie de St. Ignace, 23.

GODEFEIDUS. 195
In the Morte d'Arthur the beauty of the youth
ful form, and the brightness of the warrior's aspect,
armed in complete steel, are described as symbolical
of goodness and of heavenly purity. And in the
ancient chronicle of Godfrey of BouiUon, where the
death of Baldwin king of Jerusalem is recorded,
it is said that he rendered his soul to God " en la
compagnie des bien heureux anges et nobles cheva
liers sainctz et sainctes de paradis."' What a
noble image is that of Sir Perceval, whose purity is
rewarded with beholding the sacred chalice ! " God
make hym a good man," says a hermit ; " for beaute
fayleth hym not as any that lyveth." And we read,
" thus Sir Tristram, on a white horse, and in white
harness, rode out at a postern, and so he came into
the field, as it had been a bright angel." Sir Perce
val, as the emblem of purity, is brought forward in
the chivalrous romances of England and France and
Germany. The Knights of the Round Table are re
presented as setting out on the quest of the Saint
Graal, which is "the hygh way of our Lord Jhesu
Cryst, and the way of a true good lyver, not that of
synners and of mysbelievers." King Arthur's table
is itself symbolical of the perfect faith, with a vacant
place to denote the treason of Judas. The " siege
perilous " was not made for sinners, being the signi
fication of the place where Christ was seated on the
day of his supper ; which therefore no knight pre
sumed to approach. The noble feUowship of the
Eound Table required such virtue in all who be
longed to it, that when the four knights prayed Sir
Tristan to join it, he replied, " God thank them of
theyr great goodness, but as yet I feel well that I am
unable to be of their felowship ; for I was never yet
of such dedes of worthyness to be in the company
' Les Faitz et Gestes du preux Godefroy de BouUon et de ses
chevaleureux Freres.
0 2

196 GODEFEIDUS.
of such a felowship."^ The strangers are addressed
in solemn halls ; to remind them that " yf they be
Jhesu Crystes knyghtes, they ought to be defenders
of holy Chirche." Knights of the noblest, fellow
ship are separated from each other, in order to press
upon them the prospect of meeting in eternity.
When Sir Galahad and Sir Launcelot were about to
part in the forest, they heard a voice that said,
" Thynke for to doo wel ; for the one shall never
see the other before the dredeful day of dome."^
They wander through endless forests and gloomy
sierras, meeting with a thousand adventures, which
end in tears and penitenpe ; to prove that " unless
man conducts himself after the example of the Son
of God, all his labours are in vain." ' They come
to haughty castles and fearful towers, where they
are received by treacherous knights, who only
meditate their destruction ; but no sooner have the
faithful champions refused the offer of their hosts,
and signed themselves in proof of their constancy,
than the whole edifice falls down at once unto the
earth, and all the threatening monsters disappear;
to signify that the servants of Christ in the pU-
grimage of life have only to resist temptation for a
little while, and that, after proof of penitence, these
will suddenly vanish, and leave the soul in a state
of the utmost freedom and sweetness and joy. They
are represented like sorrowful captives in palaces of
passing splendour; to show that man "is miserable
whithersoever he turns himself, unless he turns to
God":* and in poverty and defeat they appear in
vested with a celestial radiance; to signify that
" standing upon earth, man is in heaven when he
loves God." * Their labour is not for themselves,
but for others ; their only desire is to acquit them-
' Morte d'Arthur, I, 333. « Id. II, 301.
• B. Esaise Abbat. Orat. XVIII. * De Imit. Christ. I, 22.
» St. Augustin, in Ps. LVIII. § 6.

GODEFEIDUS. 197
selves with honour in the present life, and " after
death to have a syght of the blessed face of Christ" :
and they are represented as attaining to a high de
gree of spiritual perfection, or, at least, as possess
ing a sense of the interior life, notwithstanding their
being deprived of all the assistance of learning and
leisure ; to exemplify what is so often said by holy
men, " graditur Deus cum simpUcibus, revelat se
humUibus, dat intellectum parvulis, aperit sensum
puris mentibus, et abscondit gratiam curiosis et
superbis."^ In the noble book of the Saint Graal we
read that "though the holy grayle was borne through
the hall, there was no knight might see it, but all
present took vows to depart in quest of it that they
might see it."^ " You may not see it with worldly
eyes ; for he wyU not, appear where such synners
ben," Here is a high symbol. " To whom is truth
manifested without God ? " asks TertulUan. " To
whom is God known without Christ ? To whom is
Christ revealed without the Holy Spirit ? To whom
does the Holy Spfrit descend vi^ithout the sacrament
of faith?"*
"I cannot see these things, you say. BeUeve,
and you will see," adds St. Augustin. " Perchance
your eye is wounded and obscured and disturbed by
anger, by avarice, by desire, by insane lust ; your
eye is troubled, it cannot behold that light. Be
Ueve, in order that you may see. Ton wUl be cured
and you will see. Lux orta est justo, et rectis corde
jucunditas."* The whole story of the Quest
of the Grail might be produced to illustrate the
symbolical character of Christian chivalry. Sir
Melyas is brought wounded to an abbey, where an
old monk, who had been a knight in his time, says
to him, "for your synne ye were thus wounded;

' De Imitat. Christi, Ub. IV, 18. -' Morte d'Arthur, II, 210.
' De Anima. * In Johan, Tractat.

198 GODEFEIDUS.
and I merveylle how ye durst take upon you soo
ryche a thynge as the hyghe ordre of knyghthoode
without clene confession." "Certes," said Sir
Gawayne, " I am not happy that I took not the way
that Sir Galahad went ; for and I may mete with
hym, I wyll not departe from hym lyghtly, for alle
merveyllous adventures he encheveth." " Sir," said
one of the monks, " he will not of your felouship,"
" Why ?" said Sir Gawayne. " Sir," said he, "for
ye be wycked and synful, and he is full blessed."
The worldly knight is represented by Sir Gawayne,
who would do no penance, saying to the hermit,
" for we knyghtes adventurous ofien suffren grete
woo and payne." " Well," said the good man, and
then he held his peace. Here is shown the present
sorrowful effects of " evil feythe and poure byleve.
For our sinneS it wyll not avaylle us to travaylle in
this quest," said the disappointed knight. " Truly
there ben an hondred suche that- never shall pre
vayle, but to have shame,"
Sir Galahad and Sir Perceval, after seeing the
holy Grail, " after the dedely flesshe had beheld the
spiritual things," never returned to converse vrith
the world. The flrst departed to God, and was
borne up by angels to heaven. The latter took a
religious clothing, and went to a hermitage, where
" he lived a full holy life for a yere and two moneths,
and then passed out of this world." Here the
religious sense needs no interpreter. " The vision
of God in essence, is the whole essence of our
felicity'" and "nothing in this world throws such
light upon the truth of Scripture, so elevates the
soul to the contemplation of heavenly things, and
so enlightens the heart to know God, as the passion
of Jesus Christ."^ In the death of the just is ful-

¦ S. Thomas, I, 9, 1, art, 4.
' S, Bonaventura, Stim, Divin. Amor. XII.

GODEFEIDUS. 199
fiUed the symbolical destiny of man ; " he recovers
the image of God in his soul, for the love of God is
the restoration of his image ; he presents back in
oblation to God, to his Father, his image, restored
to its original form in holiness, for He is holy ; in
love, for He is love.'" He sleeps to the world of
shadows, he will awake to reality : his spirit departs
in the calm of innocence, or in the sweetness of
penitential tears ; and flights of angels sing him to
his rest.
XVII. The expression has been already hazarded,
that there is a system of philosophy peculiarly-
belonging to the chivalrous spirit. Perhaps the
development of this idea may furnish a subject of
interesting meditation, although it may lead us back
to the ground over which we have lately passed, in
tracing the lines of the chivalrous character which
were favourable to the impressions qf the Christian
doctrine. In the first place, it seems sufficiently
clear, that chivalry is essentially opposed to all dis
positions of mind, and to all schemes of philosophy,
which are connected in any degree with the passion
for ridicule, and that ardour for levelling every in
tellectual and moral degree, which have so generally
prevailed in all ages and nations, when the influence
of religion has been observed to decline. I do not
allude to that kind of eloquence which Cicero
ascribed to C^sar, who could treat on severe sub
jects with cheerfulness, so that neither a joke was
excluded by the greatness of the subject, nor yet
gravity diminished by the wit.^ Nor again to that
spirit of ironical pleasantry which distinguished all
the writings of the Socratic philosophers, of which
we should probably form a wrong idea from view
ing their facetious sayings detached from other
' S. Columban. Instruct. XI : Bibl, Pat. XIL
« De Oratore, III, 8.

200 GODEFEIDUS.
parts, as they appeared in the collection made by
Cato^ : for such a style and disposition may be very
compatible with the noble gravity of which I speak,
though the connection between them may be as
difficult to trace as that which is however knowu
to subsist between indignation and laughter. But
what is essentially opposed to the spirit of chivalry,
is an illiberal, petulant, and indecent kind of ridicule,
which is not in accordance with humanity or honour :
or perhaps it would be more just to say, it is that
disposition, the observance of which may impart
the secret of the whole modern character, which
disposes those who possess it to allow every thought
that rises in their mind to grow up and extend to
all its consequences, without their being aware of
the necessity of combating it, and of crushing it as
it were in the shell, as if they were able to disprove
the existence and operation of those hostile spirits,
who are not merely known to us by revelation, but
whose influence, as Friedrich Schlegel justly re
marks,^ is clearly observable throughout all nature;
whose operations may be ranked among undeniable
facts, without the admission of which no philosopher
(those who despise vrisdom have never any difficul
ties) can account for the multiplied phenomena of
the moral world. On a future occasion it wiU be
necessary to show in fiUl detail, that in opposition
to such a disposition as this, the heroic character
must be involved in a certain air of majesty and
self-possession, denoting both joy and sadness, or
rather, a sadness which is full of resignation, and
dignity, and peace.
The poets say that Memnon was the son of Aurora,
who, adorned vrith beautiful armour, and animated
with popular applause, came to the Trojan war, and

' Cicero de Officns, lib, I, 29.
' Philosophie des Lebens, 172.

GODEFEIDUS. 201
was slain by Achilles ; and that Jupiter, pitying his
destruction, sent birds to modulate certain lament
able and doleful notes at the solemnisation of his
funeral obsequies : whose statue also, the sun re
flecting on it with his morning beams, did usually
send forth a mournful sound. It is tearful to be
caUed upon to view the boisterous winter-night of
age before the beautiful summer-day of youth is
well begun ; to sing the woes of heroes before they
have entered upon the stormy sea of dire calamity :
but immoderate hopes must die early ; and in this
outset of our enterprise, in this first stage of our
knightly quest, we must reconcile our ears to notes
of mourning, and our imagination to forms which
will flutter about us like these funereal birds about
the obsequies of the young, and become familiar
vrith those softer and graver sounds which always
continue to break out by occasions, and new motions,
and beginnings of great matters, as it were by the
morning rays of the sun.
It is repeatedly observed by Friedrich Schlegel,
that the heroic legends of all nations have a great
deal in common, so far as their essence and purpose
are concerned. In the Nibelungen-lied, as in the
legends of Troy and of Iceland, the interest tums
on the fate of a youthful hero, who is represented
as invested with all the attributes of beauty, mag
nanimity, and victory; but dearly purchasing all
these perishable glories by the certainty of an early
and a predicted death. In his person we have a
Uring type of the splendour and decline of the
heroic world.^
"Even among the most lively nations, the tradi
tions and recollections of the heroic times are invested
-vrith a half-mournful and melancholy feeling, a spirit
of sorrow, sometimes elegiac, more frequently tragi-
' Hist, of Lit. I, 271.

202 GODEFEIDUS,
cal, which speaks at once to our bosoms from the
inmost soul of the poetry in which they are embodied;
whether it be that the idea of a long- vanished age
of freedom, greatness, and heroism, stamps, of neces
sity, such an impression on those who are accustomed
to live among the narrow and limited institutions of
after-times ; or whether it be not rather that poets
have chosen to express, only in compositions of a
certain sort, and in relation to certain periods, those
feelings of distant reverence and self-abasement,
with which it is natural to us at all times to reflect
on the happiness and simplicity of ages that have
long passed away, ^schylus has not been contented
with the representation of individual tragical events;
throughout all his works there prevails an universal
and perpetual recurrence to a whole woridof tragedy.
In the midst of the ruins and fragments of a perish
ing world, he delights to astonish us now and then
with a view of that old gigantic strength, the spirit
of which seems to be embodied in his Prometheus,
ever bold and ever free, chained and tortured, yet
within invincible." The ancients, like Teletus, saw
that the boundless desires of man must render him
miserable, since nothing short of being like God
could satisfy him ;' and Lord Bacon shows that they
even inculcated the importance of cherishing such
desires, as affording the means to advance in arts
and wisdom. " Let men be admonished," he says,
"to acknowledge the imperfection of nature and art,
that they may show gratitude to Heaven, and obtain
new benefits; and the accusation of Prometheus
their author, though bitter and vehement, will re
commend them more than to be effuse in the con
gratulation of his inventions ; for the opinion of
having enough is to be accounted one of the greatest
causes of having too little." ^ " They that are Pro-
' Stobseus, III, 273. ' On the Wisdom of the Ancients.""

GODEFEIDUS. 203
metheus's scholars," hecontinues, "by prudence and
prospective wisdom deprive themselves of many
lawful pleasures, and vex and torment themselves
with cares and fears; for, being chained to the
pillar of necessity, they are afflicted with innumer
able cogitations, which, because they are very swift,
may be fitly compared to an eagle, and those griping
and, as it were, gnawing and devouring the liver."
In the Christian philosophy there is an analogy to
this ; for we read, " Quanto altius quis in spiritu
profecerit, tanto graviores SEepe cruces invenit : quia
exilii sui poena magis ex amore crescit." ^ Again,
with the ancients, Orpheus, a man admirable and
divine, signifying philosophy, falls into a deep
melancholy, and bequeaths himself to a solitary Ufe
in the deserts. " Sorrow rather than joy belongs
to men," says the Greek philosopher; "and this
too -(5]sop shows; for, when Prometheus formed
mud into man, he did not knead it with water, but
with tears." ^ Indicating a truth which was more
forcibly pressed upon the remembrance of Christian
chivalry by the doctrines and even ceremonies of the
Church, whose desire in this respect is constatitly
expressed by that sublime practice used in repeating
the Credo, when the priest chants, in a slow and
solemn strain, the "Homo factus est," while all
present kneel dovm ; whereas the next words,
" Crucifixus etiam pro nobis," are said rapidly, to
denote, as Luis of Granada observes, that the great
mystery of divine condescension consisted in our
Lord taking upon himself the nature of man ; for,
having once submitted to that humiliation, it was
no longer strange that he should have endured what
he chose to endure in his sacred humanity.* But,
leaving these general views, the peculiar connection

' De Imit. Christi, lib. II. = Stobsei Florileg, I, 53.
^ Catechism, part IV, 9.

204 GODEFEIDUS.
between chivalry and suffering, between grief and
honour, is well expressed by the Greek poet, in the
words of Hecuba to her heroic daughter, who con
sents to die —
KaXwg fiiv tiirag, OvyaTsp' dXXd rtp KaX(^
Xujri) rrpoffEffni/.'
On a future occasion it will be shown that these
thoughts were of constant growth in the soul of
chivafry. It is obvious, therefore, that the spirit of
ridicule was utterly at variance vrith its nature. The
spirit of ridicule, which disbelieves in the power of
virtue, is that of the world, and of the base part of
mankind, in all ages. When Phalynus, the herald
of Artaxerxes, after the battle of Cunaxa, had heard
the noble answer of the Athenian youth, he laughed
and said, " Young man, you seem to aim at being
a philosopher, and you say some very pretty things ;
but know this, that you are without common sense,
if you fancy that your virtue can prevail against the
power of the king," ^
Phocylides.said, that a good man must expect to
be often deceived ; and Plutarch adds, " that more
over he must make up his mind to be often laughed
at, and to bear reproach and calumny."^ It is
curious to observe the scorn and insult with which
the sophist Hippias speaks to Socrates, ovTug
aXoyi(TTti)g Kal aaKiiTTwg koi Evtjdwg kol aStavoriTug
8taK£«(T0£.'' All the lofty and generous sentiments
of a noble philosophy are held up to scorn by the
literary churl, who answers to Thersites, in heroic
life— Disoit enim citius meminitque Ubentins illud
Quod quis deridet, quam quod probat et veneratur.

Eurip. Hecuba, 382. ' Anab. II, 1.
De Auditione. ¦* Hippias Major.

GODEFEIDUS. 205
Such characters have one grand maxim,
'orav Tl Spfg tg Kspdog, oIik i/cvcii' TrpeTrti.'
It is always men who are impious and obscene, like
our " reverend " Chaucer, who have the most bitter
sarcasm for expressing the impiety and vice of
others. Yet let these applauders of "The Tartuffe"
remember that
Angels are bright still, though the brightest fell ;
Though all things foul would wear the brows of grace,
Tet grace must still look so.
Modern critics have said, that vice is never ridicu
lous, yet, perhaps, as nothing should make a Christian
melancholy but mortal sin, so Plato had a prof ounder
sentiment of plain and holy innocence, when he said
that there was nothing ridiculous but vice. " This
shows," he says, " the vanity of that man who
thinks that any thing is ridiculous excepting what
is evil, who endeavours to excite a laugh by repre
senting any object which is not eril, or who is
serious upon any other matter but what relates to
virtue." ^
The romances of chivalry were not without ex
amples of the scornful spirit, as may be witnessed
in Sir Kay's mockery of Perceval, when this flower
of knighthood first appeared at King Arthur's court.
This spirit of ridicule in Sir Kay was ascribed to his
ha-ring been nursed by a base person. " He was a
good knight, if it had not been that his mode of
speech was annoying and displeasing to other
knights. His companions forsook him because of
his language, which misbecame him,"^ He mocked
too frequently at other knights, for which he was
dispraised. Sir Tristan said to him, " Now wete
' Soph. Philoctetes, 111. ' Plato de Eepub. Ub. V, 152.
3 Merlin, I, 75.

206 GODEFEIDUS.
ye well that ye are named the shamefuUest knyght
of your tongue that now is lyvyng, how be it ye are
called a good knyght, but ye are called unfortunate
and passyng overthwarte of your tongue." ' Thus
Homer calls Thersites the basest man who came to
Troy ; and Menander says that laughter is unbe
coming in a man of noble birth.^ It was in the
spirit of ridicule that Sir Kay called the strange
young man, who came to the court of King Arthur
in a rich but ill-shaped coat, " La cote male tayle,"
The first day, a lion broke loose, and all the queen's
knights fled ; but this stranger advanced to meet
the lion, and overcame him. Then the king made
him a knight. " Now, sire, said this young knyght,
I requyre you and alle the knyghtes of your courte,
that ye calle me by none other name but La Cote
Male Tayle, in soo muche as Syr Kay hath soo
named me, soo wille I be called ;" and with that
name did he undertake the adventure of the black
shield. However, the dangerous power of ridicule
is well represented in romance; for the strange
young man chose " rather to fight one hundred
knights single handed, to die with worship, than to
abyde the scoffs of the damoisel Maledysaunt."'
" Man has a great dominion over man," says a
fine modern writer ; " and of all the evils which he
can inflict upon his fellow creatures, the greatest,
perhaps, is to place the phantom of ridicule between
generous feelings and the actions which they would
inspire. Love, genius, talent, even grief, all these
are exposed to the power of irony ; and it is impos
sible to calculate how far the dominion of this spirit
may be extended. The admiration of great objects
may be laughed away in jest ; and he who thinks
nothing of importance has the appearance of being

Morte d'Arthur, I, 332. = Stobsei Florileg. Ill, 213.
' Morte d'Arthur, I, 316.

GODEFEIDUS. 207
above everything. If enthusiasm then does not
defend the heart and mind, they will permit them
selves to be taken on all sides by this aversion to
virtue, which unites indolence with gaiety." " Dost
thou think I care for a satire or an epigram ?" says
the gallant Benedick ; " no, if a man wiU be beaten
with brains, he shall wear nothing handsome about
him." Whatever is most awful and sublime, most emi
nently generous and beautiful, is exposed chiefly to
the base influence of the spirit of ridicule ; and were
it to prevail, there would be nothing left in the
world to please the imagination, to exalt the charac
ter, or to attract the heart ; there would be nothing
in the world really worth living for; and, as a
great master of reason has well observed, there
would be " never a virtue left to laugh out of coun
tenance." It should never be forgotten that it was
with this spirit Julian attacked religion, using not
open force, as Diocletian had done, which was, in
deed, by this time out of the question, but ridicule
and all manner of traitorous arts and reproaches :
and thus also, in later times, the most insidious
attempt of the adversaries of the CathoUc Church
has been to render it contemptible, by representing
it as a system incompatible with all higher intellec
tual accomplishment. But without any reference to
this particular application of the power of ridicule,
it is important to remark the evil of the principle
itself, and its tendency to degrade the youthful mind
from the chivalrous dignity of its nature. How is
a youth, who has been brought up in holy discipUne,
full of admiration and confidence in virtue, full of
reverence and generosity, to withstand the spirit of
ridicule, which is incessantly directed by modern
writers against all wisdom and goodness ? As Plato
says, " when men sit down in some great general
assembly, as in the theatre, for example, when, -vrith

208 GODEFEIDUS.
immense clamour, some things that are said are
condemned and others applauded (according to the
wisdom of the sophists), out-voicing each other,
crying and striking their hands, so that the walls
and the whole place in which they are, by their echo,
multiply the sound of censure and applause; at that
moment, in what state of mind do you think is the
youth we speak of ? — iv Siij n^ toiovti,^ tov viov
Tiva ohi Kapdiav lo-x^Etv; — or how can you suppose that
his private education should resist these proclama
tions ? and will he not say the same things to be
honourable and base, which these men so designate,
and will he not become as one of these ? Truly he
will, of necessity." ^
These reflections naturaUy bring to our recoUeCi
tion the immortal book of Cervantes, which seems
at first to rise up in terrible array against all who
shall dare to maintain that the virtues of the chival
rous character are capable of being reduced to prac
tice. No man vrill be so hardy, or so insensible, as
to deny the genius which belonged to the author of
Don Quixote. Quam copiose ac varie vexavit anti
ques ! Quanto non solum ingenio ac spiritu, sed
etiam eruditione et arte ab ipsis mutuatus est, per
quae mox ipsos incesseret ! The admirable author
of " Guesses at Truth" ascribes a noble motive to
Cervantes ; for he says that, " when the light of
chivalry was expiring, he put his extinguisher on
it, and drove away the moths that alone still fluttered
around it. He loved chivalry too well to be patient
when he saw it parodied and burlesqued, and he
perceived that the best way of preserving it from
shame, was to throw over it the sanctity of death."
But whatever may have been the motives of Cer
vantes, with respect to the moral tendency of that
work, in this or in any age, there wiU arise quite a
' Plato de Eepub, VI, p. 289.

GODEFEIDUS. 209
legitimate subject for discussion. Many are the
men of reflection who think that it is a book never
to be read without receiving melancholy impres
sions, vrithout feelings of deep commiseration for
the weakness and for the lot of human nature.
What is the character of the hero in this history ?
It is that of a man possessing genius, virtue, ima
gination, and sensibUity, all the generous qualities
which distinguish an elevated soul, -vrith all the
amiable features of a disinterested and affectionate
heart. Brave, equal to all that history has recorded
of the most valiant warriors, loyal and faithful,
never hesitating on the fulfilment of his promise ;
disinterested as he is brave, he contends but for
virtue and for glory ; if he desires to win kingdoms,
it is only to bestow them upon Sancho Panza ; a
faithful lover, a humane and generous warrior, a
kind and affectionate master, a gaUant and accom
plished gentleman : and this is the man whom Cer
vantes has represented as the subject of constant
ridicule and of occasional reproach. Without doubt
there is an important lesson to be derived from the
whole, — the lesson which teaches the necessity of
prudence and good sense and moderation, of guard
ing the imagination from excess of exercise, and
the feelings from an over-excitement. But this is
a lesson to be gently hinted to men of -rirtue, not
to be proclaimed to the profane amidst the mockery
of the world. This is not the lesson which the
ordinary class of mankind vrill derive from it ; and,
if it were, this is not the lesson of which it stands
in need. Sismondi has indeed pronounced in favour
of the moral tendency of the whole ; but, without
rejecting his authority, from the general character of
his principles, while he acknowledges that the moral
of the book is profoundly sad, I can never agree to
the justice of his conclusion. Certainly it wiU re
quire no prejudiced eye in favour of chivalry to
Qodefridus. P

210 GODEFEIDUS.
discern, what may be read by him who runs, that
the faults of no age of the world are on the side
which incurs the reproach and ridicule of Cervantes.
There is no danger in an enlightened age, as it is
termed, or truly in any age, of men becoming too
heroic, too generous, too zealous in the defence of
innocence, too violent in hatred of baseness and
crime, too disinterested and too active in the cause
of virtue and truth : the danger is quite on the
other side. There is much to be apprehended from
the ridicule which is cast upon sentiment, from the
importance which is attached to personal con
venience, from substituting laws for -rirtue, and
prudence for self-devotion. There is more danger
from the great northern colosses, who make their
maxims to suit their bodies, which are but conduits
for wine and ale, than from the ingenuous melan
choly of the Spaniards, and the lofty noble
sentiments of chivalry.
S6gur laments that the fine institution of chivalry
should have lost its empire, and that the romance
of Don Quixote, by its success and its philosophy,
concealed under an attractive fiction, should have
completed the ruin, by fixing ridicule even upon its
memory, — a sentence, indeed, full of error, for real
philosophy needs not to be concealed to be attrac
tive. Cervantes seems to have foreseen the effects
which his work would produce, when he gives his
own opinion, in the words of Carrasco, — "young
sters read it, grown men understand it, and old
people applaud it." Youth saw nothing in it but
the beauties derived from the chivalrous and poetical
imagination of its author. Grown men discerned
his object, and rejoiced in being able to play with
their own conscience, while they made a jest of the
inspirations which are for repressing the corrupt
passions of the heart. This is not a new or singular
view. Sir WiUiam Temple quotes the saying of an

GODEFEIDUS. 211
ingenious Spaniard, who told him, " that the history
of Don Quixote had ruined the Spanish monarchy ;
for since that time men had grown ashamed of
honour and love, and only thought of pursuing their
fortune or satisfying their lust." A modern poet
agreed with this opinion :
Cervantes smiled Spain's chivalry away ;
A single laugh demoUsh'd the right arm
Of his own country. Seldom since that day
Has Spain had heroes. While romance could charm.
The world gave ground before her bright array ;
And therefore have his volumes done snch harm.
That all their glory as a composition
Was dearly pnrchas'd by his land's perdition.
From remarking how the sages of antiquity ob
served and deprecated the tendency of this spirit,
it is obvious that Cervantes was far from striking
out any new path of genius in the plan of his history.
He was, in fact, but one of a class of writers well
known to the ancients, and styled by them tnrovSo-
yiXoioi ; to whose influence the greatest of historians
seems to ascribe the chief corruption of Grecian
manners, when he says that "ingenuousness,in which
generosity principally consists, was laughed down and
abolished." ^ A critic of our own times might, there
fore, have traced the spirit of Cervantes farther back
than to the mock romances of the middle age, such
as the Friars of Richmond, and Tournament of
Tottenham. Notvrithstanding the ingenious and
learned criticism of a modern translator, I am of
opinion that in the comedies of Aristophanes we flnd
an early model of Don Quixote ; for the application
of the principle to the feelings of a different age
forms the only difference. To the names which re
called the dignity and virtue of a chivalrous age the
Romans clung with ardour to the last; yet even
> Thncyd. lib. Ill, 83.
P 2

212 GODEFEIDUS.
in the age of Cato and of Cicero there were men
who held "nihil esse praestabUius otiosa vita, et
plena et conferta voluptatibus : eos autem qui dice-
rent, dignitati esse serviendum, officii rationem in
omni -rita, non commodi esse ducendam, vulnera
excipienda, mortem oppetendam, vaticinari atque
insanire dicebant."^ It was not surprising, there
fore, in the later ages of the empire, that there should
be critics who used to say of their ancestors, " sunt
horridi, et impoUti, et rudes, et informes. Equi
dem fatebor vobis simpliciter, me in quibusdam
antiquorum vix risum, in quibusdam autem vix
somnum tenere." It was a marvel to such an age,
when it was told of a people, among whom no one
ever laughed at vice, and where to corrupt and to
be corrupted was not called the custom of society.
" Who does not know," says the writer of the
dialogue on the causes of corrupt eloquence, " that
eloquence and other arts have declined from that
ancient glory, not through the want of men, but
through the indifference of youth, the neglect of
parents, the ignorance of masters, and the forget
fulness of ancient manners ? Formerly the son of
chaste parents used to be educated in the breast and
arms of his mother, whose chief praise it was to
remain at home and to take care of her chUdren,
Some relation used to be chosen, of mature age, of
approved- aud respectable manners, to whom the
offspring of the house would be committed, before
whom no one ever dared to speak or act anything
disgraceful or dishonest ; who tempered not only
the studies and labours, but even the relaxations
and play of boys, to a certain holy and reverential
tone. Thus we read that Cornelia, mother of the
Gracchi, AureUa, of Cffisar, and Atia, of Augustus,
presided over education, and produced princes.
' Cicero pro P. Sextio.

GODEFEIDUS. 213
But now a child is handed over to some Greek
woman, a servant, with whom is associated one or
other of the slaves, generally the most vile of the
whole number. Parents themselves, too, accustom
their children neither to probity nor to modesty,
but to licentiousness and loquacity; by which
means, impudence, and the contempt of others,
graduaUy insinuate themselves into their minds;
but, above all, the proper and pecuUar vice of this
city seems to me to be conceived in the very womb
of mothers, namely, the theatrical passion, and the
love of gladiators and horse-races. And when the
mind is occupied and oppressed with such matters,
what place is left for noble arts ? when do you meet
vrith any one who ever speaks of any thing else at
home?" Ingenuousness is laughed down and
aboUshed. But to return to Aristophanes, and to show that
he was the Cervantes of Greece. In every page of
these writers there are features of resemblance to be
marked. The comic poet is glad of an occasion to
laugh at the rites of religion,'- Cervantes makes
Don Quixote hold a vigil in the court-yard of the
inn, that he may raise a laugh at the expense of that
ordination, which was symbolical of the piety and
purity of knighthood ; and he employed the most
beautiful description of a procession of penitents but
to play off the madness of his hero. Aristophanes''
accuses Euripides of making men
faffKovfrag o-b Z,yv rb ZyV
aUuding to that sublime sentence of the poet,
' Eause, 355, Vespae, 861. Equites, 1253. Aves, 580, ad fin.
' Eanffi, 1082; and again 1475, where Euripides grieves at
being left in Hades, and -Bacchus says to him,
rig olSev, tl to Z,yv fikv itrri KarBavtiv,
TO irvtXv dt SiiitvtXv, Kal to KaBtvStiv KiiStov ;

214 GODEFEIDUS.
TIC 5' otSev, fl rb Zyv jikv Ioti xarBavCiv,
rb KarBavtiv St Zyv ;
of which Socrates makes such flne use in one of his
most divine discourses.' Both are guilty of mis
representing the objects of their satire,^ of making
them contradict the common sense of mankind,' that
they may appear exclusively men of judgment;* of
descending to the grossest jests for the purpose of
inaking them more ridiculous ;^ of laughing at the
sublimest precepts of philosophy;^ of making the
end and effects of virtue to appear ridiculous ;'' of
holding up to ridicule the noblest associations of
patriotism, the heroes and victories of old;^ of
maliciously misapplying, for the purpose of satire,
the forms and expressions consecrated by former
genius f of laughing at purity of manners by con
trasting it -vrith gay licentiousness;^" of making -rirtue
and wisdom the instruments of evil ;P- of ridiculing,
on insufficient grounds, the taste of those whom
they censure ;^^ of vain triumphing and abuse, as if
their adversary were destroyed, and -without an
apology.'* There are other reflections suggested by a refer-
> Plato, Gorgias. ' Nnbes, 247. ' Nnbes.
' Eanae, 1491. = Nubes, 387, 698. Achamenses, 80.
« Nubes, 842, where the young man asks what oan be leamed
from such wretches ; and is told,
yviiati Si aavrbv ibg d/iaB^g el Kai jraxig.
Thus laughing at the fuiidamental precept of all philosophy.
' Nubes, 146, et pas,
» Equites, 781. Aves, 638. Aohar, 181.
' Aves, 687, Achar. 209,
'» The end of the Knights.
" When the son learns from Socrates to beat his father and
deny the gods.
'^ Eanso, 1265,
'•" Nubes, 103, ad fin. It would be tedious to enumerate the
parallel places in Don Quixote ; but they will strike every reader
of that history.

GODEFEIDUS, 215
ence to Don Quixote. What does Cervantes wish
men to substitute for the disposition of the knight
whom he ridicules ? Is it the mean, envious, and
spiteful heart of the bachiller Sanson Carrasco, who
grows jealous of a madman ? Is it the courtesy of the
Duke and Duchess, who make a laughing-stock of
their poor guest, and suffer him and his squire to be
insulted by their insolent domestics, and this even
in their presence ? Is it the politeness or charity
of Don Antonio Moreno at Barcelona, who leads
the poor knight about the city with a label pinned
to his back, to excite the jeers of the populace ? Is
it that of his wife, a lady of quality, inviting her
friends to a ball, for the sole purpose of sharing
in the diversion which his extravagance occasioned ?
Is it the tone of feeling of those who appoint a
running at the ring, " to make his madness a mere
public diversion ?" Is it the temper of Don Diego
de Miranda, the sober* gentleman of La Mancha,
-vrith his tame partridges and ferrets ? one of those
men whom St. Bernard reproves for saying, "Suffi
cit nobis, nolumusesse meliores quam patres nostri ;"
. — ^men who have lapsed into the rest of false security,
which is the oldest inheritance of sin, belonging to
mankind ; who think that they have knowledge
enough to need no teacher, devotion enough to need
no new flres, justice enough to need no penance. Is
it the paternal affections of the man who says he
should be happier without his son, because the
young man was a poet ? Is it the good sense and
feeling of the niece, and housekeeper, and squire,
who, when their friend and master was on his death
bed, " made much of themselves, proving that there
is a strange charm in the thoughts of a good legacy
pr the hopes of an estate, which wonderfully removes,
or at least aUeviates, the sorrow that men would
otherwise feel for the death of friends "? Are these
examples of that -rirtue and wisdom to which Cer-

216 GODEFEIDUS.
vantes would have his hero return on his death-bed,
declaring himself an enemy to the whole generation
of knights ? Cervantes must produce new examples
for imitation before he can expect that men will be
laughed out of their reverence for those which were
the admiration of their fathers ; and, indeed, the
modern despisers of chivalry must bring forward
models of a higher virtue than any which their
annals have as yet furnished, before the ancient code
of humanity will be abandoned by men of honour.
Meanwhile their ridicule, when it is not impiously
directed against Heaven, is utterly useless with re
gard to any purpose of moral good ; for it is certain
that, in these ages, men have more need of new fires
to be kindled within them and round about them,
than of any thing to allay their forwardness. " There
is little or no zeal now," says a great modern writer,
" but the zeal of envy, and killing as many as they
can, and damning more th^n they can ; and there
fore this discourse is less necessary. A physician
would have but small employment near the Riphaean
mountains, if he could cure nothing but calentures;
catarrhs, and dead palsies ; colds and consumptions
are thefr evils ; and so are lukewarmness and dead-
ness of spirit the proper maladies of our age."
So far, then, it may be concluded, that the philo
sophy which belongs to chivalry is essentially
opposed to the spirit of ridicule. It is at once
obrious that it must be equally at variance -vrith
the whole system of Epicurus, which annihilates all
belief, and all lofty feeling ; which, as Schlegel says^
in a scientific point of view, is connected with the
most absurd of hypotheses ; which, in its influence on
life, if not immoral, is at least selfish and unpatriotic;
and which, above all, is the deadly enemy of every
thing like fancy and poetry. Cicero well remarks,
that in the school of Epicurus, no one ever heard so
•much as the name pronounced of Lycurgus, Solon,

GODEFEIDUS. 217
Miltiades, Themistocles, or Epaminondas;^ and Max
imus of Tyre goes so far as to say, "I except always
Epicurus when I speak of philosophers, among whom
he cannot be named." ^ Cicero speaks as if he
thought chivalry the criterion of all moral philo
sophy, saying of Epicurus, "Nil generosum sapit
atque magnificum." * " Far be it from me," says
St, Augustin, " to compare the moral philosophy of
Plato with the system of those who place the judg
ment of truth in the senses of the body, supposing
that by their uncertain and deceitful rules all things
should be estimated ; like the Epicureans, and all
of that class, and even the Stoics, who, when they
vehemently loved that art of disputation which they
call dialectics, thought that it was derived from the
senses of the body ; asserting that the soul thence
derived the notions, which they termed ivvoiag, of
the things which they explain, and that hence the
whole mode of learning and teaching was propagated
and connected. I often wonder, when they say that
the vrise only are beautiful, by what senses of the
body they behold that beauty, by what fleshly eyes
they can discern that form and grace of wisdom.
But the men whom deservedly we prefer to others,
distinguished the things which are discerned by the
mind from those which are attained by the senses,
neither taking from the senses what they can yield,
nor ascribing to them more than they can yield :
but they said that the light of minds, enabling them
to learn all things, was the same God by whom all
things are made." * There is nothing in the heroic
character or annals which can please men whose
hearts have been blighted and whose souls darkened
by that profane philosophy, as Plato terms it, that
system of the plebeian Locke (de acumine agitur ejus,
• De Finibus, lib, XL ' Dissert. X, 4.
' De Finibus, lib. I, 7. * De Civitate Dei, Ub. VIII, 7.

218 GODEFEIDUS.
non de moribus) ; "for all phUosophers," says Cicero,
" are to be called plebeian, who dissent from Plato
and Socrates, and that family;"^ a system which is
ascribed by Cudworth to a want of consideration,
or to a fond and sottish dotage upon corporeal sense,
which hath so far imposed upon some, as to make
them believe that they have not the least cogitation
of any thing not subject to corporeal sense, or that
there is nothing in human understanding or con
ception which was not first in bodily sense ; " a
doctrine," says this profound thinker, "highly
favourable to atheism ;" one certainly which is
destructive of all chivalry, of all its generous rap
tures and refining fires, exalting and purifying the
soul. We have all of us, says Cudworth, pavTtvfia
Tl (as both Plato and Aristotle call it), a certain
presage in our minds of some higher good and per
fection than either power or knowledge. Aristotle
himself declares, that there is Xoyov n kphttov,
which is Xoyov ap\ri : ioT; saith he, Xoyov apj^ij ou
Xoyog, aXXd ti KpEiTTOv. And after quoting Plato de
Repub. vi. p. 477, he proceeds thus, " in all which
of Plato's there seems to be little more than what
may be experimentally found within ourselves ;
namely, that there is a certain life, or vital and
moral disposition of soul, which is much more in
wardly and thoroughly satisfactory, not only than
sensual pleasure, but also than all knowledge and
speculation whatsoever." Socrates shews that
" knowledge and truth have indeed a certain form
of good, but that they are not themselves the
summum bonum, for this is something still more
august." " The feeling is often the deeper truth,
the opinion the more superficial one," says the
author of Guesses at Truth. If the affections were
taken away, reason would be like the pUot of a
' Tuscul. I, 23.

GODEFEIDUS. 219
ship forsaken by the winds, in a profound calm.
This is what Castiglione says.' Friedrich Schlegel
shevfs that it is the feeUng, the imagination, the
sentiment of honour, rather than reason, which can
distinguish the minute line which often separates
right from wrong ; « and that it is in the cold, ab
stract, and dead reason, in a dialectic, contentious
spirit of argumentation, that the first source lies of
all errors of belief, and of all corrupt destructive
thought. "Medea modo et Atreus commemora-
bantur a nobis, heroicae personae," says Cicero,
"inita subductaque ratione, nefaria scelera medi-
tantes.'" It cannot appear strange that chivalry should be
despised and ridiculed, if we reflect upon the num
ber of men in these days whose principles are taken
from that perplexed and monstrous system of moral
philosophy or reflned selfishness, which has been
held and recommended by a numerous class of
writers in successive ages of the world, from the
Epicureans of old, as represented by Torquatus in
Cicero's first book. Be Finibus, to Hobbes and
Paley. The contrary doctrine of the ancient philo
sophy, as weU as of the Catholic Church, may be
ridiculed and ascribed to enthusiasm ; yet while it
can boast of such champions among the old sages
as Aristotle and Plato, whom, the wiser a man is,
as Sir Philip Sidney said, " the more just cause he
shall find to have in admiration," and, under the
Ught of revelation, the old holy fathers of the
Church, whUe all the glory of chivalry, all the
mighty deeds " vrith which old story rings," bear
evidence to its practical excellence and to its divine
power on the heart of man, certes we need not fear
the force of those who are in array against us.

The Courtier, TV, 377. ' Philosophie des Lebens, 44.
3 De Nat. Deorum, III, 28.

220 GODEFEIDUS.
Nathless we may lament the extent of the evil
which they are enabled to occasion. In these days,
alas ! when many an empty head is shaken at
Aristotle and Plato, it is little marvel if many a cold
heart be insensible to the feeUngs of chivalry, and
unable to kindle into rapture at the names of Char
lemagne and Saint Louis, of Richard and of Henry.
Let us mark the sentiments of the ancient philosophy
in this respect. "It is the characteristic of a generous
and nobly born man," says Aristotle, " not to attend
to his own interest." ^ A good man acts tov koXov
ivgKa, tovto -yap teXoc tjjc apErijo.^ It is necessary
to be brave, not from necessity, aXX' Un koXow
cTKOTTog ydp to koXov.^ He who gives money to whom
he ought not, rj /xfj tov kuXov evsKa, is not Uberal;*
and, speaking of a great-minded man, he says, koi
olog KSKTrjaBai fidXXov to. KaXd Kal aKaprra twv kojo-
irijuwv Kal w^fXifiwv : ^ and after observing that
music is of no practical use, he adds, ro Se Zvfiiv
¦travTa-)(ov to ^prfaifxov r\Ki(jTa dpfioTrei Totg fityaXo-
ipvxoig Koi To'ig iXivOipoig.^ Then, as for the principle
of refined selfishness, the philosophy of chivalry
can never admit even its expression ; for, according
to this philosophy, words are of great importance;
so that, supposing for a moment that it is only a
question of words, it cannot on that account be
trifled with. " I know well," says Socrates to
Crito, " that the not speaking well, to jujj koXwc
Xiyuv, not only is in itself vicious, but also it riti-
ates the soul." '' An English philosopher treats the
question with the contempt that it deserves. " It is
a poor centre of a man's actions, himself ; it is right
earth, for that only stands fast upon its own centre ;
whereas all things that have affinity •vrith the
heavens move upon the centre of another, which
> Ethic. IV, 1. ' Id. Ill, 7. ^ Id. Ill, 12.
* Id. IV, 1. ' Id. IV, 3. " PoUt. Ub. VIII, c. 3.
' Plato, Phffido.

GODEFEIDUS. 221
they benefit." What the servant says in the old
comedy is no less just —
(piXo likv iariv dpx4 tov KaKov.^
" In truth," says Plato, " the cause of all sins is
the ha-ring an over-great love of ourselves ; for a
great man should neither love himself nor the things
which belong to him, but only justice. From this
cause each man fancies his own ignorance is wisdom;
and, in short, through it we are all ignorant that we
know nothing, while we suppose that we know all
things. Therefore it is necessary for every man to
avoid, -vrith the utmost care, the over-much love of
himself." ^
It is true, as Aristotle admits, that " good men,
by their very goodness, confer the greatest benefit
on themselves ; " but, as even this heathen sage
observes, "It is not with the view of benefiting
themselves that they are good," " Ad altiora quse-
dam et magnificentiora, mihi crede, nati sumus,"
says Cicero. "Are we to suppose that youths of a
fine disposition, and of great promise, intend only
to study their own interest, and to do whatever
may be advantageous to themselves ? Do you not
observe what a perturbation of all things must
foUow ? what a confusion ? You take away kind
ness, you take away grace, which are the bonds of
harmony ; for that is not to be regarded as a
kindness but a lending on interest, when you do
good to some one for your own sake. Nor is that
a grace which is conferred upon another from the
same motive. All the great virtues will fall to the
ground under the dominion of pleasure." ^ Though
rirtue and utility are in the end inseparable, yet it
is by the former, as dictating a rule, that the views
' Aristoph. Vespae, 77. ' Plato, Leges, V.
= De Finibus, II, 35.

222 G O D E P'E I D U S.
and actions even of the heathen were to be regtt-"
lated; for attend to the distinction observed by?
Cicero : " nee quia utile honestum est, sed quia
honestum utile." ^ We are not to examine whether
an action be expedient that it may be virtuous, for
here is a point which we may not be able to deter
mine; but whether it be rirtuous, or, in other
words, whether it be agreeable to God, that it may
be expedient ; which is an inquiry that will never
terminate in uncertainty. And this is not mere
verbal refinement. They who first look to expedi
ency, supposing that they therefore consult rirtue,
are generally defeated in both objects which they
desire to secure : their virtue is forfeited, and their
policy unsuccessful. The words of the Corinthian
ambassador to the Athenians, as recorded by Thu
cydides, were to this effect : " Let no one suppose
that these things are just, and that others are
useful ; for there is most utility in avoiding all
crime as far as possible :" ^ to ts ydp ^vfi^ipav iv
(^ dv Tig sXdxKTTa d/xapTavy pdXiara sttstui. But
some men affirm that no one can forget his own
interest, and that selfishness is the secret spring of
all generous actions. What ! is no credit then due
to the oath of Palinurus, when speaking to -(Eneas
in the shades, concerning his fall into the sea, he
says, Maria aspera jure,
Non uUum pro me tantum cepisse timorem,
Quam tua ne, spoliata armis, excussa magistro,
Deficeret tantis navis snrgentibus undis P ^
Is there not a generosity most lovely and laudable
to all, which disposeth men, with their own pain,
hazard, and detriment, to succour and relieve others
in distress ? The frame of our nature, indeed,
speaketh that we are not born- for ourselves : we
' De Off. II, 30. = Lib. I, 42. » Lib. VI.

GODEFEIDUS, 223
shall find man, if we contemplate him, to be a nctbler
thing than to have been designed to serve himself,
or to satisfy his single pleasure ; his endowments
are too excellent, his capacities too large, for so
mean and narrow a purpose. How pitiful a creature
were man, if this were all he was made for ! How
sorry a faculty were reason, if it served not to better
uses 1 He debaseth himself, he disgraceth his nature,
who hath so low conceits. But it is vain to combat
such opinions upon metaphysical grounds; for, as
the Count de Maistre says, " It is only the spirit of
religion which can cure this malady." It is reUgion
which teaches the dignity of the human soul ; which
conrinces man that there are other things in heaven
and earth besides those which are objected to his
senses ; which declares self-love to be " the capital
and leading vice, the apostle placing it in the van."
" There are but two distinct classes of men," says
an eminent writer, " upon the earth : that which is
susceptible of enthusiasm, and that which despises
it. All other differences are the effect of society.
The one has not words for his feelings, the other
knows what should be said to conceal the vacuum
in his heart : but the spring which flows from the
rock at the command of heaven, this source is real
genius, real reUgion, real love." In this respect it
is the science of the saints, not the system of the
sophists, with its morality of consequences, which
corresponds with the disposition of chivalry.
. Clemens Alexandrinus says, " that the perfect man
acts well, not with a view to any personal advantage,
but because he is bound to be perfect, and that he
would prefer the knowledge of God to his o-wn
salvation."! " This is what I beUeve firmly," says
St, Bonaventura, " without any doubt, that angels
and blessed men wholly centre in God, that they
' Stromat. lib, IV, 22,

224 GODEFEIDUS.
love" God inwardly with all their minds, so that
beyond all comparison they love God more than
themselves : immo non credo quod seipsos diligant,
nisi propter Deum.'" "The praise of one's self is
most corrupt, unless when it is wholly resolved into
a desire of the divine honour ; not reflected towards
self, nor bent in any other direction, but solely and
simply tending to God." ^ " The saints of old,"
says Nieremberg, "sought not their o-wn utility."
Moses wrought great miracles, but, says St. Chrys
ostom, his greatest was that blessed voice, "aut
dimitte eis hanc noxam, aut, si non facis, dele me
de libro tuo," Similar to this mind was that of
David's, "Ego pastor peccavi; ethiquidfecerunt?"
So also Abraham sought not his own, but the
interest of the woman. Jonah exposed himself to
save the city ; so also acted Jacob, not seeking his
own good ; and Joseph only regarding that of his
brothers. " Magna quidem haec et angelo digna
vita." Witness again St, Paul, St. Chrysostom
himself, who would have given his eyes to convert
souls; St. Francis, St. Ignatius Loyola, and generaUy
all the holy saints of Christ's Church,-'' The Count
of Stolberg cites St. Paul, " Therefore if you be
risen with Christ, seek the things that are above,
where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God.
Mind the things that are above, not the things that
are upon the earth. For you are dead ; and your
life is hid with Christ in God. When Christ shall
appear, who is your Ufe ; then you also shaU appear
with him in glory " : and then he exclaims, " Oh !
the sublime, the heaven-possessing, the tranquilUs-
ing, the soul-transporting, and already beatifying
philosophy of Christians!"* "0 Domine!" cries

' Stimulus Divini Amoris, c, XU. ' Td. c. VTI.
' Doct, Ascet, I. ¦• Geschichte, VII, 533.

GODEFEIDUS. 225
St. Ignatius Loyola, "da ut non degenerem ab
excelsis cogitationibus fiUorum Dei," ^
To the Epicurean principles concerning pleasure,
the spirit of chivalry must be equaUy opposed : it
would be unable to secure men from falling, and
from being humbled to the dust; but it would at least
never suffer reason to pander to the wUl, The sen
tence of Aristotle expresses its sentiment : "Vfrtue
consists in its relation to pleasure and pain; for
through pleasure we do e-vrU, and through pain we
fly fr-om honour ,"2 'O fiiv trSfpiov rip.ojv 6ti^ (j>tXog,
ofioiog ydp' ^ this is the remarkable expression of
Plato. In another place he says, " There is nothing
better than the dehverance of the soul from the
body";* that is, no doubt, from the disorder of the
body. To be enslaved to the passions is the most
disgraceful condition :
0 -wretched state ! 0 bosom black as death !
O limed soul, that, struggling to be free.
Art more engag'd ! 
"Bonitas mater est castitatis," says the blessed
Abbot Esaia :^ and we have seen that in the symbolic
language of chivalrous romance, it was only Sir
Perceval who was able to achieve the high adven
ture. It was not, indeed, with precepts of human
morality, and in the language of the utUitarian
sophists, that chivalry resisted the Epicurean phUo
sophy ; but it was the holy faith of Catholics which
invested it with a panoply of unsullied brightness.
It did not encourage itself saying, " Remember how
much time and money and health and reputation
you will forfeit by a life of pleasure "; but it rather
trasted to some ejaculation like that in the Imitation
' Exercitia SpirituaUa, III, 1, " Ethic. II, 3.
» Plato de Legibus, lib. IV. * Ibid. Vin.
" Orat. XVI : Bibl. Pat. XII.
Qodefridus. Q

226 GODEFEIDUS.
of Christ : " Adveni, coelestis suavitas, et fugiat a
facie tua omnis impuritas." ^
Again, it is clear that the philosophy of chivalry
must be a philosophy of the heart ; therefore it was
prepared to admit the wisdom of those counsels
which said, with St, Augustin, that " the intention
makes the good work "; and with St. Thomas, that
"moral actions receive their form from the inten
tion." Even the ancient moralist said that "no
one would call a man just who did a just action, but
without delighting in justice, nor noble who did not
take pleasure in noble actions."^ The -vrisdom of
such views appeared in those lessons which taught
that " of suggestion there ariseth cogitation ; of
cogitation, affection; of affection, delight; of de
light, consent ; of consent, work ; of work, custom ;
of custom, despair ; of despair, defending of sin ; of
defending of sin, boasting ; of boasting, damnation."^
Again, a mind like that of chivalry and youth,
both, as we have seen, essentially symbolical, could
never admit the philosophy of the Manichseans.
The words of St. Augustin were more agreeable to
it : " He who praises the nature of the soul as the
highest good, and accuses the nature of the flesh as
evil, loves the soul carnally, and flies from the flesh
carnally ; for he derives that sentiment from human
vanity, not from divine truth,"* " The soul alone,"
says WilUam of Paris, " is certainly not man ; would
it be a man if joined to a body of brass ?"^ All
that is lovely and admirable in this beautiful world—
the sweetness of flowers, the clearness of the sky,
the cool blue of the placid waters, the solemn re
cesses of the grove — should be loved in reverence
to thefr Author. " Quales impetus habebas ad
' Lib. Ill, 48. '^ Aristot. Ethic. I, 8.
^ Canisins'a Catechism, quoting Greg. lib. IV, Mor. c. 27, and
Isid. lib. II, de Sum. Bon. c. 23.
¦* De Civitate Dei, XIV, 5. ' De Anima, lib. III.

GODEFEIDUS. 227
mundum, tales habeas ad Artificem mundi," says
St. Augustin, The siaiple and just philosophy to
which the generous part of mankind will ever be
attached, is in accordance with all the innocent
tastes and simple views of youthful nature. " Tell
me, what is your philosophy?" says Sophylus to
Euthyphron, in one of the dialogues of Hemster-
huis ;^ to whom the latter replies, " My philosophy,
dear Sophylus, is that of children; it is that of
Socrates ; it is that which is found at the bottom
of our hearts, of our souls, when we take pains to
seek for it." Even Cicero speaks of certain great
rules by which all things should be directed, and
which seem to have been let fall from heaven in
order to furnish men with a stable and incontrover
tible science,^ He says that "right nature is of
more avail than depraved reason ";' that " the illus
trious men of the Roman republic seem rather to
have followed nature without any learned system,
and that they were better taught by nature than
they could have been by philosophy ; and that all
philosophy which introduced this mode of distin
guishing expediency from virtue, so far from
assisting, was calculated to corrupt nature,"*
- The philosophy which belongs to the chivalrous
class of mankind, like their religion, is never seen
acting a part ; it is always natural, simple, timid,
and humble. " I adore thee, infant Jesus ! " ex
claims Fenelon ; " oh, qui me donnera d'etre aussi
enfant que vous ! 0 men, who are wise in your
own thoughts, prudent in your designs, and com
posed in your discourses, I fear you ; your greatness
intimidates me, — as children are alarmed at the
presence of great personages." Such a philosophy
would no more prompt men to pluck the ribbon
' Sophyle, ou de la Philosophie : CEuvres Philosophiques de
F. Hemsterhuis, tom. I, 292,
= De Finibus, lib. I, 19. ' Ibid. II, 18. ¦• Ibid. Ill, 3.
Q 2

228 GODEFEIDUS.
from the cap of youth, than to deprive age of its
sables and its weeds. Now it was for minds of this
class, formed according to these principles, that the
ceremonies and external discipline of the Catholic
Church would have the most powerful attraction.
This was the philosophy which used to prompt the
poor Indians of Paraguay, on Corpus Christi day,
to raise triumphal arches of the most beautiful
flowers and fruits, in the adorning of which they
took the greatest delight, sometimes contriving
means to draw wild and savage nature into the
sphere of homage, so that tigers and lions would be
seen ranged on each side of the procession-way,
while birds of the most exquisite plumage would
appear flying from branch to branch, displaying
their beautiful wings.'
According to this philosophy. Revelation cannot
be conflned to the written word of God and to
tradition. "Nature," says Father Luis of Granada,
" is also a book written on the outside and within,
in which the flnger of God is visible."^ Friedrich
Schlegel says, " It is also a kind of holy Scripture
in a visible and bodily form, proclaiming in liring
characters the omnipotence of the Creator. Re
velation is, in fact, fourfold ; in the conscience, in
nature, in the Scriptures, and in tradition, or the
history of the world." ^
The saints were agreed upon the moral effects of
such a philosophy. " We daily see with our own
eyes," says Luis of Granada, "that in monasteries,
where external things are best observed, there is
always more virtue, more devotion, more charity,
more force, more fear of God, and, in short, more
Christianity ; as, on the other hand, where these are
neglected, religion falls to ruin."* But this real

' Muratori. 2 Catechism, Preface, p. 10.
' Philosophie des Lebens, 85. ¦* Sinner's Guide.

GODEFEIDUS. 229
philosophy of nature, which belongs to youth and
chivalry, does not merely manifest itself in contra
distinction to that of the Manichaeans, favouring
the development of beauty and grace, for it contains
the great conservative principles upon which the
happiness aud security of human society depend.
To illustrate this, I will quote a passage from the
preliminary discourse to the great work of M. de
HaUer, on the Restoration of Political Science :
" Shall I say how nature herself conducted me to
form this enterprise ? And may it be allowable for
me to record for this purpose one of my oldest re
collections ? While in the age of first youth, and
almost at my mother's knees, I read in a German
work the assertion, then commonly received, that
men took their origin in a state of nature ; and that
in delegating their common power, they had sacri
ficed a part of their liberty in order to secure better
the preservation of the remainder. This single idea
contracted my heart, and could find no entrance
into my mind. How insane would be such a grant !
how uncertain the result ! and to what limits was it
extended ? Who would guarantee the more secure
possession of the remainder ? What right had the
first men to bind their posterity to such a hazardous
and dangerous convention ? Would it not be better
to remain in the state of nature ? and would it not
be possible to return to it ? These and similar
doubts presented themselves to me, and were my
torment during many years. Certainly I little
thought then that in my maturer years the sentiment
which I experienced in youth would change into a
full con-riction ; that I should recognize in this error
the cause of all the disasters and crimes of our age;
and that I should undertake to explain without the
social or factitious contract, without this delegation
of power, this renunciation of liberty, this abandon
ment of the state of nature, not only the legitimate

230 GODEFEIDUS.
formation of all social relations, but also that of
states. The doubts of my youth could not resist my
occupations and the crowd of contrary authorities.
I did not dare to regard as false an assertion which
I found in such a number of writings, and I referred
it to the number of those mysteries which we must
believe vrithout being able to comprehend them.
Even at a period long subsequent I was in the
situation of a multitude of men of good faith.
Although I did not feel in myself the force to refute
the prevailing principles, I nevertheless experienced
in my inmost soul an invincible repugnance to all
the developments of this principle, which were im
properly termed its abuse or its excesses. They
inspired me with horror." What an admirable Ulus
tration does this furnish of the fact which I am here
establishing ! I leave my reader, trusting to the
experience of his own soul, to supply a simUar in
the case of all those pernicious systems which may
have been presented to his youth in the writings of
Locke and Paley, and of many Scotch economists
and metaphysicians, which, like the astounding and
inconsistent propositions of the modern creed, are
all repugnant to the sentiments of youth, and
destructive of the whole chivalrous as well as
spiritual life.
Again, a spirit free from the affectation of sin
gularity, and fuU of reverence for the authority of
elders, must be opposed to all novel systems which
contradict the broad eternal principles of morality
and the great original traditions of mankind. The
master who corrected Cyrus for his judgment
respecting the great boy who took the little boy's
coat, followed this philosophy, which allows of no
ingenious fancies in contradiction to simple justice
and positive law.^ There can be no new discoveries
' Xen. Cyropaad. I, 3.

GODEFEIDUS. 231
in moral philosophy ; for time, which destroys the
successive opinions of men, has long since confirmed,
beyond the power of sophistry, the judgments of
nature.^ We have not to try to make out new
principles of action, but to act in obedience to the
positive law of God. " Life, therefore," as Aristotle
says, " is practice, not poetry or invention." ^ Public
opinion has nothing to do with determining virtue
and vice :
alffxpov TO -y' alffxpbv, kolv SoKy, Kav firl SoKy.
Nothing has occurred since the Homeric age to
prove that poverty can be an excuse for crime,'
The short axioms of the old humanity, su(3h as the
sayings ascribed to the seven sages of Greece, are
not to be deemed obsolete,* from a vain desfre of
believing in the perfectibility of the human race.
Men are not to legislate, nor philosophers to dis
course, as if the world were hastening to a state of
original order or exemption from evil ; for, however
they may love the present world, it is not here that
the reign of justice will be established. They must
be content to leave it for good as well as for evil ;
nor will Christianity justify their entertaining views
in this respect opposed to those of the ancient sage,
who says in the Theaetetus of Plato, " It is not pos
sible that all evils should be removed, for there will
continue to be something opposed to good. With
the gods it may not be so ordained, but mortal
nature and this present scene are thus doomed to
revolve : therefore we must endeavour to fiy from
here as quickly as possible, and flight is accom
plished by being made as far as possible conformable
to God, and we are made conformable to God by
becoming just and holy."
' Cicero de Nat. Deorum, lib. II, 2. ' Polit. lib. I, o. 2.
» Od. XIV. * Stobffii Florileg, I,

232 GODEFEIDUS.
Another important characteristic of the philosophy
of chivalry is its simplicity. The spirit of Christian
chivalry can never be induced to place confldence in
any of the mystical unintelligible systems of men as
long as it possesses religion, which adopts, or rather,.
which originally inspired, the simple axioms of the
old morality for the guide of its understanding as
well as of its actions. Not to make mention of all
the fine philosophic phrases which are now so much
used by men who wish to identify themselves with
the spirit of what they call a thinking people
and of the age, which really in a vast majority of
instances contain no sense at all, nor can convey
any idea to the mind, being merely a coUection
of sounding words, in use with persons who have
never had any mental exercise on subjects higher
than the interests of animal life ; there has arisen
a kind of cabalistic philosophy, supported chiefly
by men who became sensible of the utter degra
dation which would result from the principles of
the French atheists, without returning to the
more solid foundation of the philosophy of the
Church. But what philosophy can that be which separates
itself from the doctrines of our holy faith ? " A
dire vray," says Arnigio,^ "il n'y en pent avoir
d'autre qu'une sale et orde, errante et vagabonde,
faulse et trompeuse." Friedrich Schlegel speaks
of " a system, according to which unintelUgibility
is regarded as a kind of criterion to distinguish
true from false knowledge ; a system which dwells
in unattainable light, where the discoverer feels
confldent that he possesses a consciousness and
clearness of understanding which almost no other
mortal can obtain for himself, and a perception of
truths at which no one else has arrived, or can
' Les Veilles, p. 146.

GODEFEIDUS. 233
arrive ; while, for the greatest part, it is only the
false light of an internal dark-lantern, whi6h is
produced by this delusion of the unintelligible, or
rather of the want of understanding. Totally
opposed to this, he says, is the philosophy of life,
which requires no extraordinary talents from its
disciples. This living philosophy has no interest
in cold abstractions and unintelligible expressions.
It is no idle speculation and no unintelligible hypo
thesis ; it is not more difficult, and it has no occasion
to be darker than any other discourse concerning
spfritual things ; it can be as clear and as easy as
the task of obserring nature and of studying his
tory. Is it abstract and unintelligible ? This is
then only a consequence, and generally an infallible
sign, of its being in error." ^
This cabalistic philosophy, when employed against
the doctrines of the Christian Church, would be
equally opposed to the mind of chivalry. In many
modern works of general literature and philosophy,
where theological subjects are introduced, there is
occasion for adopting the very words of Cicero in
arguing against Epicurus, where he says, " Am I
not able to understand the force of words ? or am
I now to begin learning Greek or Latin ? But if
I cannot comprehend the meaning of what Epicurus
says, examine whether it be not his fault, who speaks
so that no one can understand him. On two accounts
he might, indeed, so speak -vrithout offending, either
like Heraclitus upon the secrets of nature, or like
Plato in the Timaeus, where the difficulty arises
from the subject, not from the words ; but Epicurus,
as I think, does not wish to speak plainly, if he
could : nor does he treat upon an obscure subject,
like physicians ; nor upon one which requires much
art, like that of the mathematicians ; but he speaks
' Philosophie des L.ebens, 29.

234 GODEFEIDUS.
of a thing which is clear and easy, and even trite
and obvious with the people." ^
Now take an example of this philosophy thus
applied. The writer of the article on the history
of the apostolic age, in the Encyclopaedia Metro-
politana, who, as a Christian, must be supposed to
profess his belief in one holy Catholic and ApostoUc
Church, says of the subject of Christian unity,
" Few points have been less satisfactorily discussed
than the exact import of this word : nor do we
pretend to remove all the difficulty with which the
question is encumbered." The sum of the obser
vations added as " tending to give clearer views on
the subject," is to this effect — they affirm that "it
was a unity against which schism or heresy would
not be necessarily an offence; and that nothing was
so likely to prevent schism as an equality of dis
pensation, which would leave all classes of converts,
in every age or country, without room for jealousy
and discontent ; and that neither schism nor heresy
is properly an offence against the Church univfersal,
but against some particular Church, and by its own
members ; and that therefore no Church can be
properly called either heretical or schismatical ; that
Churches are independent establishments ; and that
the Church never was, and never was intended to
be One, in that sense of the word Unity," which
supposed them otherwise.' Now I do not produce
this passage to form the text for a theological dis
cussion, but in order to maintain that a system of
philosophy, which admits of men believing in One
Church, which yet they are to believe never was,
and never was intended to be One, in any intelligible
sense of unity, must be totally at variance with the
philosophy which belongs to that class of mankind
of whom we are unfolding the inteUectual history.
' De Finibus, Ub. II, 5, ^ p^rt XX, p. 763,

GODEFEIDUS. 235
I do not in this place engage to prove that men of
chivalrous minds would reject such a theory as this ;
but I here maintain, that if they did receive it as
truth, they would infallibly no longer express their
belief in the words, "et unam, sanctam, catholicam,
et apostolicam ecclesiam," but rather in such a
sentence as this : " I believe in many independent
Churches"; which, as^ experience proves, may
contradict each other in every article of faith.
Nor is it only to metaphysical abstractions, and to
this mode of rendering unintelligible the most
simple doctrines of the Christian religion, that the
philosophy of chivalry wUl be opposed. Under the
influence of Christianity, it wiU be delivered from
the task of engaging in those numberless subtle
disputations, relative to the duties and end of man,
in which the ancient heroes, under the discipline
of the heathen sophists, might have been often
involved. In avoiding these interminable debates,
¦heroic men would be guided by the instructions of
the clergy. Diosoorus had written to St. Augustin,
requesting that he would solve some difficulties
which he found in the philosophical books of Cicero ;
and the holy bishop in his reply reminded him that
these questions were neither a proper subject to
occupy the attention of a bishop, nor a matter
which could involve anything of importance to a
Christian. " You have thought to surround or
rather overwhelm me with a crowd of innumerable
questions, from which I could not have extricated
myself if I had enjoyed the utmost leisure. I wish
to lead you away from the midst of your delicious
inquiries, and even to abandon my own cares, that
you may learn not to be so vainly curious, or that
you may not henceforth dare to impose the office of
feeding your curiosity upon those whose greatest
care it is to bridle and repress the curious. How
much better and more fruitful would it have been.

236 GODEFEIDUS.
if, in your literary pursuits, you had rather en
deavoured to cut o-ffi your vain and fallacious
desires ! which are so much the more to be avoided
as they are more capable of deceiving, being veiled
and adorned with I know not what shadow of hu
manity and title of liberal studies ; for if all these
dialogues are not to assist you with respect to the
end and exercise of all your actions, what can they
profit you ? If you continue to prefer the Christian
doctrine to all philosophy, as alone affording you
the hope of eternal salvation, you have no need of
understanding these discordant sentences. Nor is
such a study necessary to enable you to maintain
Christian truth against those who oppose it ; for
the knowledge of truth is sufficient of itself to
condemn and overthrow all error whenever it is
advanced, though it should never before have been
heard of by you. Nam cognitio veritatis, omnia
falsa, si modo proferantur, etiam quae prius inaudita
erant, et dijudicare et subvertere idonea est. Why
should we even trouble ourselves with the articles
professed by Donatists, or Maximians, or Mani
chaeans, or Arians, or Bunomians, or Macedonians,
or Cataphrygians, or other innumerable pests ? And
if to defend the Christian reUgion we are not obliged
to know their errors, why should we trouble our
selves with what Anaximenes may have thought,
reviving, cooking again that stale food for vain
curiosity ? Still, if it should be necessary, in order
to defend truth, to understand the opinion of its
adversaries, it is more important to study those of
the heretics who call themselves Christians, than
those of Anaxagoras and Democritus. Through
the want of humUity all the ancient philosophers
erred from truth : it is humility which can alone
lead you to it. There is no other precept to be
given to those who seek it. Other vices are to be
feared in sins ; but pride is to be dreaded in acts

GODEFEIDUS. 237
of virtue, lest, by the desire of praise, things praise
worthy should be lost.
" To this humility is greatly opposed that learning
according to which we love to know what Anaxi
menes, what Anaxagoras, what Pythagoras, what
Democritus thought, in order that we ourselves may
be deemed learned ; though such learning is in
truth of no advantage to any real learning and wis
dom; for what they held according to truth, we
love, not because they held it, but because it was
truth; and where they erred, their opinions will
not assist us ; since if we are men, it would rather
become us to grieve that so many men of noble
minds should have fallen into these errors, than to
find subject of boasting and of vain declamation, to
inflate those who are ignorant of them. How much
better never to have heard the name of Democritus,
than to know with grief that a person who was
once esteemed great in his generation, should have
thought that there were gods or images which
flowed from solid bodies and filled the minds of men
with a divine quality, to which they owed all their
power of perception and thought ! Therefore,
since such is the blindness of men, in consequence
of the darkness of sin, and the power of carnal
desires, will you, or any one endowed with an
attentive genius, suppose that any mode can be
proposed to the human race more available to the
attainment of truth, than that which induces us to
yield to the ineffable and wonderful guidance of
truth itself, so as to believe unto salvation what
cannot be comprehended by human prudence ? Of
this glory we are the ministers ; to this we en
courage you to adhere with immutable constancy,
by means of which not a few, but even whole
nations, who cannot judge by reason, beUeve with
faith, until, through the ministry of salutary pre
cepts, they escape from those perplexities to the

238 GODEFEIDUS.
aerial regions of purest and brightest truth; to
which authority we ought to submit with so much
the more devotion, as we observe that there is now
no error which does not raise its head, and seek to
collect to itself crowds of inexperienced persons,
under cloak of the Christian name : those who are
not within unity and Catholic communion, while
they boast of the name of Christians, are attacking
those who believe, and daring to traduce them as
being ignorant, although our Lord came chiefly
with this medicine, that the people might have
faith : but to this attack they are impelled from a
sense of their own abject state, if their authority
were to be compared with Catholic authority ; they
endeavour, therefore, to overcome that most firm
authority of the Church, as if with the name and
promise of reason ; for of all heretics, this temerity
is as it were the rule : but the most clement Ruler
of faith has fortified his Church by the consent of
people and nations, and by that seat ofthe Apostles,
that ark of authority ; and hath armed a few leamed
and holy men, truly spiritual, with the most copious
provisions of invincible argument : but it is the
right discipline to receive as many as possible of
the weak into the ark of faith, that while they are
placed in safety, others may contend for them with
force and courage." ¦"¦ It is, therefore, to the
Church that the Christian chivalry will have re
course whenever it is called upon to state its views
of philosophy ; for, besides that it feels bound to
revere its sublime authority, it is here that those
charmed words are to be found which were so
earnestly desired by the Thracian sage with whom
Socrates conversed, as containing that medicine
for the soul, of which the want is felt vrith such
peculiar force by heroic men ; and for the applica-
' S. Augustini Epist. ad Dioscorum, CXVIII.

GODEFEIDUS. 239
tion of which no deep learning or attainments
incompatible with the habits of heroic life are
required, " docet enim omnes Deus qui audire
volunt." ^ These are the words which have power
to produce that unity which, St. Augustin says,
" is the form of all beauty," ^ conducting to that
rhythm, as it were, and harmony, of which the
whole life of man stands in need,' and presenting
continually to men the great end and importance of
all phUosophy, convincing them that these do not
consist) in the perfection of the mechanical arts, in
the extracting from matter everything that it can
possibly yield, and all the enjoyment which the
senses can demand from it; but reminding them
that " truth is the greatest of all goods, which every
man that would be happy ought to possess from the
very beginning, in order that he may live as long
as possible consorting with truth" ; * for principles
of philosophy, as Berkeley observes of society in
general, produce a greater effect upon the tone of
men's minds, and therefore upon their happiness,
than even philosophers are wUling to suppose : and
even the ancient phUosopher saw the vanity of all
phUosophic research, which was not directed to the
moderation of the desires, and to the conduct of
life. Thus Maximus of Tyre says, " The soul of
man is torn with passions ; you behold an implacable
and bitter contest ; this is the war you should de
scribe, not that of the Medes ; relate the particulars
of this distemper, and pass over the plague. Say,
to whom shall I offer command and the office of
healing ; leave Hippocrates to look after bodies,
and Themistocles to think of the sea; announce
who is the physician of souls, who is the com
mander. If you should not find him among men,
' B, BsaiEe Abbat. Orat. VIII. = Epist. XVIII, ad Cosiest.
3 Plato, Protagoras. ¦* Plato, Leges, V.

240 GODEFEIDUS.
have recourse to the gods. Talk not about coun
tries laid waste, the sea covered -vrith combatants,
walls besieged, bodies perishing with disease; —
these things are of little moment, these pass away."*''
Again, it is clear that the philosophy which be
longs to this spirit must always be connected with
a belief in an especial providence, to ennoble its
motives, and to support its courage in time of dan
ger : witness the words of Csesar to the fisherman :
Ne cessa praebere Deo tua fata.^
Cicero says that the immortal gods proride not
only for the necessities of men in general, but also
for those of each man in particular, extending their
protection not only to whole continents and cities,,
but also to each of their inhabitants ; so that such
men as Curius, Fabricius, Metellus, Cato, Scipio,
and Laelius, never rose to their great merit without
the assistance of the gods. Hence it was, he con
tinues, that the poets, and especiaUy Homer, have
been obliged to assign certain di-rinities to their
heroes, in order to accompany them, and assist and
protect them, in all their adventures, as in the case
of Ulysses,, Diomedes, Agamemnon, and AchUles.
When the companions of Ulysses reject his advice,
and praise the speech of Eurylochus, who proposes
to land upon the Island of the Sun, Homer's expres
sion is, then Ulysses knew that a divine power was
adverse to him.^ And that magnanimous disposition
to regard men as the instruments of God to fulfil
his great decrees, is finely represented in the dying
words of Patroclus to Hector, " Rejoice now. Hector,
for Jove has given you victory."* Homer says that
Patroclus would have escaped death if he had fol
lowed the counsel of AchiUes ; but that the vrill of

' Dissert. XX-VIII, 7. ' Lucan, Ub. V.
' Od. XU, 294. ¦• II. XVI, 844.

GODEFEIDUS. 241
Jove is always stronger than that of man, and that
it is Jove who dispenses victory.' The ancients did
not think that it derogated from the glory of a hero
to ascribe his victories to an over-ruling power.
SyUa imputed all his success to fortune ; thinking,
says Plutarch, that such an opinion added an air of
greatness and even of divinity to his actions. But
the philosophy of our chivalrous romances was
better : " God may fordoo well destiny," said King
PeUinore to Merlyn, when the latter predicted his
fate.^ To the objections against this faith arising
both from an erroneous estimate of happiness, from
an unworthy conception of the Deity, and from an
imperfect observation of the natural order of events,
f the heroic part of mankind, in all ages, have opposed
themselves. Xenophon records the argument of
Socrates in combating Aristodemus, who held an
opinion like that of the modern sophists, that the
Deity was above condescending to take any interest
in the affairs of man.^ What a magnificent passage
is that in the Electra of Sophocles, where the chorus
exclaims to one who beheld in despair the prosperity
of the wicked !
Bdpati fioi, Bdpaei, t'ekvov'
tTi flkyag ovpavi^
Titig, og i^op^ irdvTa Kal KpaTvvei.
And with what force and majesty does the genius
of Demosthenes proclaim this truth to the despond
ing Athenians ! " TriUy, 0 Athenians, I should
regard Philip as a most formidable and overwhelm
ing adversary, if I beheld him acting justly ; but it
is not possible, 0 Athenians, that a power should
be permanent, which is marked with injustice and
perjury and falsehood."*
1 u, XVI, 688. ' Morte d'Arthur, I, 88.
= Mem. lib. I, u. 4. * Olynth. I.
Godefridus. E

242 GODEFEIDUS.
Polyaenus, in his book on stratagems, produces
the instance of the misfortunes and failure of the
Persians, after they had treacherously broken their
treaty with the Greeks, as an instance to prove how
justice may be policy, even in the lowest sense of
the term ; a principle which rendered the Corinthians
so anxious on one occasion to convince the Lace
daemonians, that they who were about to encounter
the power of Sparta had not been the first to break
the truce.^ Xenophon seems to have had a par
ticular regard to this great maxim, when he reminded
the Greeks of the sacrilege which had been com
mitted by the enemy ;*^ and Homer ascribes the
same argument to Agamemnon, in encouraging the
Greeks :' it was urged by the counsellors of Philip
of Macedon, in advising him to renew the treaty
with the Romans ;* and it furnished Themistocles
with an explanation of the victory of Salamis."
There can be no doubt but that this belief in a
moral retribution even in the present life, admitting
that there were difficulties in the way of perfectly
discerning its operations in every instance, was
characteristic of heroic antiquity,^ as it will ever be
of the chivalrous spirit ; that spirit which led the
contemporaries of Edward IV to remark, that this
usurper, when he landed in England to dethrone
Henry VI, disembarked at Ravenspur, the very
place where Henry IV had landed tp dethrone
Richard II, and which appeals in every age to the
evidence of history to confirm thisimportant lesson, —
that, sooner or la-ter, punishment is sure to be visited
on the guilty ; that vice is never without its penalty,
and, with most wonderful exactness, its peculiar
penalty; nor virtue without the reward which is
' Thucyd. I, 123. = Anab. Ill, 2. ^ n. jy, 236.
« Livy, Ub. XLII, 42. = Herodot. VIII, 109.
^ Plato de Legibus, IV, 10. Plutarch de Fort. Eoman. et de
sera Numinis Vindicta.

GODEFEIDUS. 243
proper for it to receive : — " Nee sine poena unquam
esse vitia, nee sine praamio virtutes."^ From what
has been shev\'n respecting the facility with which
the sacred truths of the Christian religion are im
parted to the generous and noble spirit of chivalry,
we might infer at once that the philosophy whicli
would generally belong to it would be in a high
degree characterized by a devout feeling. It is the
generous and heroic man, rather than the sophist,
who is prepai'ed to believe those celebrated sayings
of antiquity, that a man possesses nothing but his
soul, and that the greatest good at which he can
arrive in the world is to please its Author; that
piety to heaven is even essential to the magnanimity
of a nation f that all must in the first instance be
convinced of the existence of a divine power worthy
of worship, as being the cause of all good to men,
the words with which Zaleukos begins his laws ;'
that the spirit of reverence is a better inheritance
than gold ;* that the consideration of the parts of
man's body must oblige us to ascribe it to God, and
not to nature ;^ that God should be praised in the
things we understand, and admired in those which
we understand not;" that "a mortal nature could
never rise to such greatness as to despise the force
of animals of superior power, to pass over the sea,
to build cities, to found states, to observe the hea
vens, and to behold the circles of the stars and the
courses of the sun and moon, their times of rising
and setting, their eclipses, and return of the
equinoxes, and the solstices, and the pleiades, the
winter and summer, the winds and the showers, and
the destructive path of the Ughtning, and to immor-
taUze the events of the world by monuments, unless
there were indeed a divine spirit in the soul from
' Boethius, Consol. ' Diodorus, lib. XI, 72.
' Stobsei FloriVg. II, 197. * Plato, Leges, V.
' Galen, lib. V, de usu part. ^ Plotinus de Prov.
E 2

244 GODEFEIDUS.
which it possessed such knowledge ; that, therefore,
man passes not to death but to immortality, and that
instead of experiencing a loss, he wiU become capable
of pure enjoyment, independent of a mortal body,
unalloyed and void of every uneasiness ; that when
once deUvered from this prison, he will arrive where
all things are without labour, without groans, with
out old age, where there is a constant peace and
calm, a state of contemplation and of lo-ring wisdom,
in which one has not to address a multitude, but
truth itself, which flows round on all sides," ^
It is the heroic man who is the last to subside
into that state of insensibility in which the children
of pleasure are seen to become wholly forgetful of
death. Sophocles, in one of his most inspired
moments, seems to have expressed the deepest sense
which belongs to the soul of chivalry. "Many
things are wonderful, and nothing more wonderful
than man : he can pass beyond the foaming sea,
scudding through the waves as they roll around him;
he wears away the wearied and inexhaustible earth,
the highest of the goddesses, by means ofthe plough,
which yearly turns it up by the strength of horses ;
and he catches also the tribe of any birds, casting
lines round them, and all kinds of fierce beasts, and
the race dwelling under the sea, with meshy well-
woven nets ; and by his artifice he entraps the wild
beast traversing the deserts, and leads the shaggy-
maned horse by the yoke round his neck, and the
untamed bull of the mountains; and he learneth
oratory and perception quick as the wind, and civU
polity, and is able to extricate himself from every
difficulty, to escape the being exposed to the air and
keen hurtling showers of the barren and unsheltered
hills ; he comes upon nothing that shall occur with
out being able to extricate himself : from death alone
' .^Jlschines, Socrat. de Morte.

GODEFEIDUS. 245
he can effect no escape."' Therefore it is the heroic
mind which is peculiarly sensible of the importance
of providing for the moment when it wiU arrive,
and of obeying that holy precept, " Disce nunc mori
mundo, ut tunc incipias -rivere cum Christo ": there
fore it is preserved from that last act of horror in
the scene of a worldly life, which is able to sully all
the lustre of its past glory, and to make its remem
brance only a subject of shame and sorrow; when
everything departs, and the dying man looks for
the last time upon all that surrounds him, — ^hisTaeauti-
ful apartments, his precious furniture, his delicious
gardens, which are all to forsake him, along with
companions and friends, while he is about to embark
alone on the sea of eternity ; when the man of laws
is introduced, who says to him, " Sir, whom do you
leave to be your heir ?" and he begins with a falter
ing voice to utter these sad words, " I leave — I
leave— I leave my lands — I leave my castle — I leave
my furniture — I leave my revenues — I leave my
silver plate — I leave all — " " And what do you
leave to your soul?" asks St. Augustin, "quid
animae tuae relinquis ?" It is the man who is free
from all immoderate attachment to the meaner in
terests of the world who desires to repeat the prayer
of Socrates for his friend, that ajrXwc Trpoc "EpiitTa
fisTa ^iXoa6(pu)v Xoyiiiv tov [iiov iroir}Tar ^ and as far
as regards himself, " that he maybe beautiful within,
and that what he has external may be favourable
to what is within "; ^ who would feel the beauty of
the very word ' philosophy,' as expressing not the
possession but the love and desire of wisdom. It is
the simple and heroic man, void of the intellectual
pride which seeks distinction by new and singular
opinions, who in every age escapes the infection of
the sophist's impiety : it is from him rather than
' Soph, Antigone, 332, ' Plato, Phuedrus. " Id.

246 GODEFEIDUS.
from the learned disputant that words like these of
Plato proceed — " I say to you, it is a thing incredible
that there should be gods, and yet itis most true";'
or like those of the Athenian, related by Plato — " I
affirm that it is neither a human nor a divine impulse
which moves you to speak irreverently of the gods,
and to violate their temples, but a certain fury,
growing naturally in man from ancient and unex-
piated crimes, hurrying you on, which you should
strive to escape from with all your strength ; learn,
then, how you may escape from it : when any of
these opinions come into your mind, fly to the
expiatory sacrifice, fly a suppliant to the temples of
the gods who avert evil, fly to the society of good
men, and there hear, and endeavour yourself to say,
that what is just and good ought to be honoured by
all men ; but fly without looking back from the
company of the wicked ; and if after thus acting,
you should flnd that the disease is removed, it is
well ; but if otherwise, esteeming it better to die,
depart from life."^ And again, to any one who is
tempted to doubt the existence of the gods, he would
speak with mildness as follows — " 0 boy, yOu are
young ; but as you advance, time will cause you to
hold opinions the very opposite from those which
you now esteem. Wait, -then, that you may be able
to judge of the greatest things ; but the greatest is
that which you now hold to be nothing ; that upon
the right opinion concerning the gods depends your
living well or not. And first, if I were to suggest
one great matter, I should not err from truth.
Neither you alone, nor your friends, are the first to
have this opinion concerning the gods, for there
have been always some men more or less who
laboured under this disease ; but what happened to
many of them I will relate : not one of them receiv-
' Theages. ' De Legibus, IX.

GODEFEIDUS. 247
ing from youth this opinion concerning the gods,
that they are not, persevered unto old age in hold
ing the same ; but the other two diseases, namely,
that there are gods, but that they care not for men,
or that they care for men, but are to be bribed by
gifts of wicked men, have indeed continued with a
few men through their whole life. Be persuaded
then by me, to wait before you determine on such
subjects, and in the mean time do not dare to think
impiously of the gods.'"^
Friedrich Schlegel even ascribes to the circum
stance of men of a chivalrous and noble spirit
having taken a part in the ancient literature, the
characteristic greatness of thought and expression
which belonged to it, when men learned to treat
of everything and to judge of everything as if
they were all animated with the dignified spirit of
nobility. It was the possession of such a philosophy
which rendered Pericles so powerful and renowned;
for Thucydides says, that " in consequence of the
opinion of his superior integrity, he restrained the
multitude, and rather led the multitude than was
led by it, not being involved in the necessity of
always speaking to please the people, but having
power, from this moral dignity, to oppose them," ^
Those who are familiar with the writings of men
who were remarkable for their spirit of chivalry,
will likewise observe what Cicero describes as
characteristic of the eloquence of Scaurus, a certain
natural authority entitled to much greater faith
than any learning or ability whatsoever.'' But^ we
must not remain longer in this academic grove.
There remain, however, two important remarks to
offer, and when these are stated we may depart. In
the first place, when it is affirmed that a certain
' Plato de Legibus, X. ^ Lib. II, 65.
' Brutus, 29.

248 GODEFEIDUS.
phUosophy belongs to the chivalrous part of man
kind in all ages, it is not meant to imply that every
man possessing this spirit is a philosopher in the
ordinary acceptation of the term, or that he has
a clear idea of the theories which characterize the
school to which he belongs ; it is not to be sup
posed that every man who adopts this philosophy
is conscious of haring so done, or that he can
express to others the principles which govern his
own mind; on the contrary, the generality of such
men are incapable of forming any such ideas.
Achilles could no more explain the principles of
chivalry than Thersites could understand from what
cause he had derived the qualities of a base and
scornful churl. But of far less importance is the
ability to establish noble principles in argument
than the sentiment which gives them existence and
action in life : it is this sentiment and this action
which are ascribed to the spirit of chivalry. I have
only endeavoured to shew, in the language of phi
losophy, what are the movements of that heart which
is obedient to what may be considered both as the
light of a primal revelation and the uncorrupted
propensity of the original nature of man's soul,
upheld and guided by a greater or less degree of
divine power ; for of the nature and extent of these
high principles, of the language in which they may
be expressed, and even of their very existence, men
of heroic souls may have known nothing ; but, as
Cicero says of the resemblance between the Roman
Catos and Scipios and the Lycurguses and Solons of
Greece, our chivalrous youth and the great doctors
of the Christian philosophy may yet be fellow
disciples, "non tam fortasse docti, sed impetu
mentis simili et voluntate." ' Heroic men may be
obnoxious, therefore, in some respects to the charge
' De Oratore, III, 15,

GODEFEIDUS, 249
which Sophocles brought against ^schylus, when
he accused him of writing as if under the influence
of drunkenness ; for if he did what was right, he
did it without knowing what he did : Kai ydp tl Td
St'ovra iroitl, (pritiiv, dXX' ovk siSwg -yE.'
The second of these concluding remarks may be
still more worthy of attention, and will yield a
crowning evidence to confirm the justice of the
whole position, that there is a philosophy belonging
to the chivalrous spirit, Socrates says that " from
early youth one can discern whether the mind be
formed for philosophy or not" : * and in almost
the last page of the Phaedrus he speaks of the
youth Isocrates as having a certain philosophy in
the nature of his mind; of whom he therefore
predicts great things. It would appear, according
to these views, that there is a certain disposition
and tone of mind, independent of all opinions and
all abstract principles, required for the reception
of true philosophy. On the other hand, it is easy
to shew that where a contrary system of opinions
and principles to those which have been proved to
be congenial to the generous part of human nature
is instilled into the mind, the result is always more
or less a premature decay of the qualities and vir
tues which belong to youth ; that is, of the spirit
which belongs to chivalry, which we have before
seen is in a manner identical with youth. " When
I see any of these sophisms," says a hero of the
old poet, " I depart more than a year older than I
was before" :
'orav Tl TovTiov ruiv cTOffufTfiaTotv tow,
TrXiji' rj 'viavTov irptn^VTtpog diripxoii-ai.^
It is not a poetical fancy, but an actual fact, which
may be verified by daUy observation, that the phi

11-

StobEei Florileg. I, 367. "^ De Eepub. lib. VI, 278.
3 Aristoph. Eanae,

250 GODEFEIDUS.
losophy which now so generally prevails has a
tendency to blast all intellectual and moral youth,
and to make young men old ; old in selfishness, in
avarice old, in love of censure old, in suspicion old,
in the general disbelief of all virtue old, and in the
loss of all imagination, all sense of beauty, all re
verence, aud in the contempt of everything but
money and power, like old men who have not
escaped the degrading influence of a decayed and
world-worn nature. Accordingly we may observe,
that even in the ordinary language of life the period
of youth is shortened : formerly men were in the
age of poetry when now they are only fltted for the
renovating inspiration of Bacchus, which Plato said
was designed to support the last and decrepit stage
of man's life ; nay, they were in that age which could
furnish Fra Angelico with countenances of such
angelic grace, that Michael Angelo used to say he
must have been in paradise to borrow them ; when
now they are only characterized by features which
seem to denote a total degradation of nature, and a
long-protracted slavery to the vilest passions that
can assault the human breast. A time there was
when it did seem a token of the angry gods to see
children calculate, and now to behold them is evi
dence of an enlightened age ! Pythagoras divided
man's life inte four twenties ; a boy twenty, a youth
twenty, a man twenty, an old man twenty .'^ When
to the conservative principles which were enjoyed
by the ancients were added those belonging to that
Uving philosophy which was imparted in the Chris
tian revelation, the continuance of intellectual and
moral youth may have been still farther extended ;
the mind was constantly refreshed with the dews
of heaven ; no error or passion destructive of beauty
and innocence was suffered to gain strength ; age
' Laert. in Pythag.

GODEFEIDUS. 251
made no wrinkles in the heart ; death's pale flag
was not advanced there. But woe the while ! our
fathers' minds are dead, and now the hearts of
men grow old before their limbs are well formed,
and the principles of a false philosophy, leading to
the abandonment of moral res-traints, and destroying
the sentiments of chivalry, have, beyond a doubt,
abridged the period of youth, not merely in a moral
and intellectual sense, but even vrith regard to the
physical constitution of our nature.
XVIIL It is a common opinion with unlearned
and superficial minds, that from whatever period
chivalry may be traced, and how wide soever its
pale extended, it must always be regarded as be
longing to nobility, and exclusively attached to
civil or aristocratical institutions. The view which
has been already taken of the chivalrous spirit will
probably have shewn the error of such a supposi
tion ; but it may be right to dwell in a more par
ticular manner upon this point, before we proceed
to speak of nobility and of the institutions to which
it gave birth.
It has been shewn that chivalry is but a term to
express the spirit and general disposition of mind
which belong to the generous and heroic part of
mankind in all ages of the world ; consequently, no
rank of society can be incompetent to possess it,
though there may be occupations and modes of life
in the higher as well as in the lower classes which
would render its preservation extremely difficult. It
is not to be denied, that when this generous spirit
is accompanied with the outward splendour of
nobility, it gives rise to an image of great majesty ;
but it is essential to remember that the grand dis
tinction, which alone merits love and admiration, is
wholly independent of that adventitious splendour,
which, however it may adorn and assist, can never
of itself constitute chivalry. Even the ancients

252 GODEFEIDUS.
were ready to admit this position. ^EXsvOiptog SoiXsvs,
SovXor oiiK say, said Menander, as if he were ad
dressing a page or esquire of later chivalry. Plato
makes the Spartan say, Kal KaXXwrrlZsadai ^pj) ri^
KoXwg SovXtvaai juaXXov fj ti^ koXwc ap^at.' Another
philosopher was asked, who were noble ; he repUed,
" those who despise riches and glory and pleasure
and life." ^ Sophocles adopts the same principle.
Persons of low birth may have noble minds, and
may become noble : ¦ Kat dytvviiTtiiv dpa

fivBoi KaXuig irl-KTovaiv' rfSe ydp yuvy
SovXt] fJiiv, tiptjKtv <J' iXevBtpov Xoyov.^
Plato even affirmed, that to know how to obey
required as generous a disposition and as good an
education as to know how to command. The re
nown and exaltation of Cicero, who speaks of
himself as " homo per se cognitus," * may be fairly
weighed against the silly pride and jealousy of the
nobles towards men of merit, which he describes.^
And we know that even the Junian house looked
upon L. Brutus, a plebeian, as the founder of its
nobility. To be as noble as the king was the pride
of Diomedes, when he said to Agamemnon,
(Tot Si StdvSixa SwKt TLpovov iraXg dyKvXofirjTtio'
(TKtjTrTpi^ fikv TOI £bJKe TtTifiijtrBai -Trtpi irdvTiov'
dXKriv 6' ovTOt dCJKtv, o re Kpdrog iari fikyiarov.^
Without alluding to the great principles which
were afterwards established by the Christian reli
gion, it is ob-rious that these sentiments could only
gain additional force and extent by the lapse of
time, which always confirms the judgments of
nature. We can behold in life as well as in history
' De Legibus, VI, ' Stobsei Florileg, III, 199.
» Sophocles, Traohiniae, 61, < Cat, I, 18.
' In Verrem, art. II, Ub. V, 70, 71. « II. IX, 37.

GODEFEIDUS. 253
and in poetry " how that genterie is not annexed
to possession." For God it wot, men mournful often find
A lordes sone do shame and vilanie.
And he that wol hav pris of his genterie
Por he was boren of a gentil hous
And had his elders noble and vertuous.
And nill himselven do no gentil dedes,
Ne folwe his gentil auncestrie that ded is,
He n'is not gentil, be he duk or erl;
For vilain' s sinful dedes make a cherl.
For gentillesse n'is but the renomee
Of their auncestres, for ther high bountee.
Which is a strange thing to thy persone :
Thy gentillesse conveth fro God alone.
Then cometh our veray gentillesse of grace ;
It was no thing bequeatlied us with our place.
"The king may scatter titles and dignities, till
lords, Uke the swarm of Dons in Sancho's Island,
shall become as troublesome as so many fiesh-flies ;
but he may not save those among whom he scatters
them from rottenness and oblivion." "^ The king
can give letters of nobility, but he cannot bestow
the sentiment which gives it -rirtue : his favour can
not grant the inheritance which alone ennobles an
illustrious birth ; and his wrath cannot take it away.
" The emperor," says St. Gregory the Great, " can
make an ape be called a lion, but he cannot make
him become one."^
Princes and lords may flourish and may fade,
A breath can make them, as a breath lias made ;
but the noble chivalry of the heart,
Flos veterum virtnsque virfim,
must be held as an inalienable privilege which is
the gift of God alone. The Emperor Sigismund
replied to a favourite who begged that he would
' Landor. ' Lib. I, epist. 5.

254 GODEFEIDUS.
ennoble him, " I can give you privUeges and fiefs ;
but I cannot make you noble," " He who does
not possess these virtues," says the poet Arnaud de
Marvelh, " though he may have the name of oheva-
Uer, I do not regard him as a knight," As Talbot
exclaims when he plucks off the garter from the
" craven leg " of Falstaff :
He then that is not furnished in this sort
Doth but usurp the sacred name of knight.
Profaning this most honourable order.
And Pierre Cardinal, the old poet of Provence,
says, " the king of France is not so powerful that
he can change a wicked man into a man of honour;
he may give him gold and silver and robes and wine
and viands; but as for goodness, God alone can
impart that." He only who is himself free can
make men free :
iXtvOepog ydp ovrig Itrrl irXrjv &i6g.*
The ancients, notwithstanding their immoderate
regard for birth and nobility,' were not altogether
insensible to the stubborn facts which were against
their theory. " Noble sons do not always spring
from noble fathers, nor evil from evil," says Sopho
cles ; " but there is no trusting," he adds, "to any
thing mortal,"^ Themistocles was able to make his
son Cleophantus a good horseman ; but he failed in
every effort to make him a good man like himself.
Aristides could not impart virtue to Lysimachus his
son. Pericles had two sons, Paralus and Xanthippus,
whom he made inferior to no Athenian in horse
manship and music, and in all gymnastic exercises;
but he could make neither of them good men.
Thucydides ^ spared no expense in the education of
two sons, Melesia and Stephanus, who became equal
• ^sohyl. Prometh. Vinot. 50. " Stobfnus, lib. Ill, 20.
^ The rival of Pericles, not to be confounded with the historian.

GODEFEIDUS, 255
to the best of the Athenians in the games ; but in
the essential thing, virtue, they were both deficient.^
The heir of Q. Pabius Maximus was disinherited by
the sentence of the praetor, as being unworthy to
enter into the fields of his glorious father : there
were also degenerate sons to the Hortensian famUy.
Young Scipio, the son of Africanus, was a fool and a
prodigal, Marcus, the son of Cicero, to whom the
latter dedicated his immortal work Be Officiis, was a
drunkard. Horace alludes to the infamous Laevinus,
who was of the ancient Valerian family. Plutarch
remarks that the wretched miser Perseus was not
descended from any Lydian or Phoenician merchant,
but that he was allied to Alexander and Philip,
Commodus, educated with care, was the son of
Marcus Antoninus ; Constantine, Constantius, and
Constans, were sons of Constantine the Great;
Arcadius and Honorius were the weak and unhappy
sons of the great Theodosius ; Caligula and Agrip-
pina were the children of Germanicus, What a
shade of degeneracy is visible between John Ducas
Vatazes and his son Theodore ; between the founder,
who sustained the weight, and the heir, who enjoyed
the splendour of the imperial crown ! Ottocar,
king of Bohemia, was of more worth in his cradle
than Wenceslaus, his son, when a bearded man.
Philippe-le-bel was son of St. Louis ; Charles II. of
Naples was the son of Charles I, ; James and
Frederick were the sons of Peter III, of Aragon,
No paladin was more renowned for heroic piety than
Count Josselin, to whom succeeded a son infamous
for drunkenness and luxury, who lost the prin
cipality, and died of hunger in the prisons of the
Saracens,^ Thus it is of human worth ; and, as
Dante says,
' Plato, Meno.
^ Mar. Sanuti Tors. Secreta Fidel. Cruc. Ill, 15. Gesta Dei
per Francos.

256 GODEFEIDUS.
So ordains
He who bestows it, that as his free gift
It may be call'd.'
If we extend these reflections to later times, and
-riew the actions of nobility with regard to those
great religious duties which the Christian religion
imposed upon it, and in the discharge of which alone
can its consistency with that religion, as far as
individuals are concerned, be maintained, we shall
not be induced to dwell with greater pleasure upon
the feelings connected with it, than when we con
fined our view to the sentiments and actions of
classical antiquity. In the first age of Christianity
it is certain, as indeed might have been foreseen by
merely human vrisdom, that not many persons of
this class became converts. The earliest of the
Christians seem to have hardly contemplated the
possibility of a period arriving like that of the middle
ages of the Church, when holy bishops, like St.
Hugh of Burgundy, who lay enshrined in Lincoln,
would have been borne to their graves by kings and
by warriors, who were themselves holy. In the next
book we shall take a general view of this most
interesting and sublime history, and behold examples
of sainted kings supported by devout nobility ; but
no one needs to be told that this belongs more to re
collection than to experience : perhaps a future age
may exhibit something similar to what was the first
condition of Christians ; perhaps it will be reserved
for those to behold the triumph of the Church, who
generously followed her through the obscurity and
dangers of her infant state. To take a recent in
stance, — it was the nobility, however it might boast
of illustrious exceptions, not the chivalry of France ,
which first deserted from the holy standard of the
cross. " You attack religion, it is true ; you ridiculo
' Purgatory, canto VII,

GODEFEIDUS. 257
priests, you disdain the Church, you treat her mys
teries as a ceremony ; yet do we appear offended ?
Do we not, on the contrary, adopt you as our
philosopher, worthy of the court of the greatest
monarch? But as for you who speak against our
privileges, and presume to cast a reflection upon our
nobility, why can you not imitate these masters of
philosophy ? why should you be thus morose, and
savage, and fearful, opposed to all the first principles
of good company ?" This was the language of
many princes and nobles to the contending disciples
of the modern philosophy, of which the patriarch
was a flatterer of the great. It was well said by the
Abbe de la Mennais, that ^'the revolution was
already accomplished at the epoch when it is generally
supposed to have commenced. Men have mistaken
putrefaction for death." '¦ Nay, observe the succeed
ing stage in this history. Behold those pompous
equipages which crowd the streets of the capital;
those brilliant assemblies which seem to revive all
the glories of political nobUity. What a restoration
is here ! But turn to the other side and behold !
The house of God remains a stable or a workshop ;
no great institution of religion is allowed to resume
its offices of charity; no humble friar permitted to
evangelise the poor ; no children of St. Benedict to
recommence their learned labours ; no sons of St.
Ignatius to afford a religious education to youth.
Is this a restoration to refresh the soul of chivalry ?
to augment the lustre of noble titles ? to make us
forget the distinctions of nature? The moderns
seem wholly ignorant of the wide distinction which
exists in Catholic countries between the world and
those who are living members of the Church of Jesus
Christ. From the time of the Apostles even untU
the end of the world, there wiU have been always
' Nouveau Melange, 1826.
Qodefridua. S

258 GODEFEIDUS.
within the Catholic Church, as St. Augustin says,
"the two descriptions of men who correspond to
the sheep and the goats in the divine parable ; which
must feed together until the Prince of Pastors shall
come to separate them : nobis enim imperavit con-
gregationem, sibi autem servarit separationem ;
quia ille debet separare, qui nescit errare,"' The
Church, therefore, resisted those innovators who
called upon her to undertake this separation ; she
receives all ; • and although iniquity may seem to
abound, and many false brethren give rise to per
petual danger; in this dreadful wreck of all noble
virtues, in the very scenes of impiety and indiffe
rence, the most dreadful stage of impiety, there are
always existing worthy members of the numerous
and happy family of Catholic Christians, supported
by their sublime faith, and practising all the duties
of religion which belong to their station, — the holy
priest, the generous father, the pious youth, the
faithful domestic, the Christian in every walk and
condition of life, and in every respect like the first
and most perfect of the disciples of Jesus. But the
question here is, did it still continue the distinguish
ing characteristic of the nobility of France, to have
preserved this majestic character ? I fear we shall
chiefly find the Christian among the chivalry of
nature, far from courts and the assemblies of the
disdainful world, or present there only to serve and
obey, — in the valleys of La Vendee, and not on
the parades of the capital. If we turn to the his
tory of England at the great crisis which was to fix
her spiritual destiny, we shall find that the proper
objects of all horrible dispraise were men invested
vrith the titles and riches of nobility. This should
have been no astonishment to Christians who re
membered the judgment which our Lord has passed
' S, Augustin, ad Felic. Epist.. CCVIII.

GODEFEIDUS. 259
•upon the rich. " Omnis dives aut iniquus est, aut
heres iniqui," said St. Jerome; and Bourdaloue,
after an attentive consideration of the objections
which could be advanced against such a position,
was obUged to arrive at the same conclusion.^
" It is rulers," says a great French -writer, " who
first cease to beUeve, and irreligion sets out from
the cenfre of power, to spread itseK by degrees
through the lower classes. More attached to thefr
faith, from having fewer motives to wish that it may
be false, the common people for a long time resist
the influence of the higher ranks ; they defend thefr
faith with their conscience, and whUe attacked by
wit and false reasoning, and outraged by repeated
examples of daring impiety, they form for them
selves a sacred barrier at the bottom of thefr hearts,
to secure thefr consolations and their hopes." They
are the last to admit those monstrous and impious
plans which shock equally common sense and aU the
principles of Christianity, — ^whichdiride the chUdren
of mixed marriages, by training some to receive as
fruth what others are 1x3 protest against as error;
which establish schools in which religion is to be
excluded, or in which students of aU reUgions are
to be admitted, leading not only to indifference, but
to blasphemy and sacrilege. "As for political
nobUity," says Bartolommeo Arnigio in his Vigils,
" there are many in its ranks who take upon them
to censure and oppose the holy Church, and to
countenance the adversaries of the CathoUc doctrine,
or else who seem to take no interest in the dirine
service, to have no devotion to churches and holy
places, and no zeal for the honour of God."^ They
repafr to the church as the Jews of old came to
Bethany to the house of Martha and Mary ; not on
' Serm. snr les Bichesses.
* Les VeiUes de Barthel. Arnigio, traduites de I'IfaiUen : Troyes,
1608, p. 12.
S 2

260 GODEFEIDUS.
account of Jesus alone, but also that they might see
Lazarus.i They treat venerable priests as if they
were their lackeys, and seem to be quite above the
humble manifestations of faith which are practised
by the generous poor ; such men are not well taught
in the school of Jesus Christ, who says, " Learn of
me, who am mild and humble," not externally, Uke
the hypocrite, but " of heart." Abel, he continues,
came into the world to teach innocence, Enoch
purity, Abraham faith, Isaac holiness, J oseph grati
tude, Moses clemency, Joshua valour. Job patience,
but Jesus Christ to place humility as the foundation
of all virtue. How hard is it for the rich to glory
in being brought low,^ for the great to preserve
their own greatness by heroic humUity, without
which they are condemned, and for ever lost ! " I
should have a soul as base as yours if I did not feel
the dishonour which you have thrown upon my
house," wrotcthe father of St, Stanislaus Kostka, to
that holy child, " My reputation calls upon me to
make all Europe resound with my resentment ; that
every one may know, that though I have a son who
has traversed Germany and Italy on foot like a
beggar, in order to embrace a profession unworthy
of his birth, I am not so weak as to leave unpunished
actions so base and disgraceful to my name." Here
we can behold the blindness of such men, who,
through a wicked pride in the nobility of their house,
are often the great causes of its decline and ruin.
If the blessed Stanislaus had followed the intentions
of his father, no one now would ever hear of his
house, which has long since been extinct in Poland ;
it is this saintly youth who has immortalised its
memory, and has rendered the name of Kostka
celebrated, as we now witness it, in every region of
' De Imitat. Christi, III, 33. ' S. Jac, Epist. L

GODEFEIDUS. 261
the world. ^ The riches and pomp of this worldly
grandeur have a tendency to deprive the soul of its
wings ; all the thoughts of these men are of worldly
honour ; it is among them that its principles have
the deepest root. And yet such principles are
totally opposed to all which inflames with noble
ardour the mind of youth and chivalry. It is this
proud, artificial, or legal nobility, which chiefly con
tains the men who, like the Jews, seek honour one
from the other, and not that which comes from God
only.^ All their ambition is to obtain places of ciril
power for themselves, and to use it, not for God's
honour, but for their own advantage, forgetting
that, as the noble Arnigio says, it is absolutely neces
sary either to reject the doctrine of Jesus Christ,
or to renounce this false glory. Who can serve
Jesus Christ and this kind of honour? Certainly
no man. It is in vain that they try tp persuade
themselves that they are ^till Christians : " Le pro-
fesseur de I'honneur mondain se moque de Jesus-
Christ et de ses preceptes." That is the whole
truth ; while they only pretend to explain his doc
trine in a high, spiritual sense. Why should the
Christian chivalry seek to identify itself with men
who only want occasions when hell itself breathes
out contagion to this world, to become its very
chosen instruments ? so that to each of them may
be applied the words of the hermit to Sfr Mordrec :
" Tu feras plus de maulx en ung jour que tout ton
parentage ne fist oncques de bien en toute sa vie." •'
Or who use the same rather as an excuse for pride,
to proffer an insulting patronage, than for an excite
ment to generous devotion ; who seem to think that
they confer a great favour upon God by not openly
deserting the holy faith of their ancestors, and that
' Vie de St. Stanislas Kostka.
' Luis of Granada, Catechism, part III, 3.
* Lancelot du Lac, XXIII.

GODEFEIDUS,
le Church, illustrious through so many ages with
all the treasures and glories of intellectual greatness,
may be proud of having their empty titles to add to
the lustre of her crown. The only answer that such
boasters merit from those vrith whom they are too
proud to serve, is that breathing the very soul of
chivalry, which assures them they may fly —
(ptvyt fidX', ft TOI Bvfibg tTrkcrcrvTai' ovSk a tytjjyt
Xiffffopai e'lvtK' ffitXo jxkvtiv Trap' 'ffiotyt Kal dXXoi,
o'i Ks lit TLiiritTovm' iidXtffTa Si inqT'itra 'Ltvg.^
On the other hand, when did the pure and noble
mind of chivalry ever harbour such a thought as that
which political nobility has sometimes been known
to express, — that men of honour might adhere to a
religion which they believed to be false, from a
principle of honour, and that when it was no longer
condemned by legislative enactments, they would
condescend to range themselves on the side of truth,
and to make peace with God ? Can honour be a
sentiment which would prompt men to continue
through life attesting a most horrible falsehood,
deceiving the whole world excepting a few confiden
tial companions, employing their whole influence to
keep men in error, to distract the heart of their
country by useless di-risions, to proclaim themselves
as the enemies of truth and virtue, and of every
measure which is to impart to mankind just notions
of God, and to transmit this horrible devotion to
their chUdren, as long as their private vanity and
personal pique are in the least excited by thosewho
would lead them to knowledge and happiness ?
Nobility which has such thoughts does well to spell
honour in a new way. May it long preserve its
modern orthography ! It is only to be wished that
it might acquire fresh distinctions, which would
' n. 1, 173.

GODEFEIDUS.
keep it distinct from the society of men of noBTe
and generous natures !
We have seen that the spirit of chivalry is
favourable to recei-ring the impressions of religion ;
whereas we are assured by holy men, that riches
and nobility may be among obstacles to salvation.'
"Rich young people," they say, "are frequently
more ricious than others. We see them addicted
to pleasure, slothful, and averse to labour; their
minds always taken up with vanity, aspiring after
greatness, fortune, and the riches of the world,
proud, presumptuous, despising others, speaking
with haughtiness, ('dives effabitur rigide,'^) in
tractable, and resisting the most salutary instruc
tion, subject to much vice, oftentimes malicious and
ingenious in committing sin: and, on the contrary,
we see young persons of low condition or small for
tune live in the fear of God, desirous of securing
their salvation and advancing in virtue ; laborious,
seeking good instructions, and receiving them vrith
joy and much fruit, flying from sin, or recovering
instantly if they happen to fall into it ; and by this
means they heap the blessings of God upon them
selves ; for God is pleased to favour the humble and
those who fear him, as, on the contrary, he rejects
the proud and those that trust in their own strength,
and glory in the multitude of their riches." •¦* "To
number nobility," they continue, "among the
obstacles of -rirtue, were to offer an injury to it;
yet we shall not deriate from truth, if we say that
the ill conduct of persons of rank is a great impedi
ment to their salvation : they affect so much pride,
that they contemn all the world, and esteem all
others infinitely below them." They contrive that
the poor should not approach them even in the house
' Bourdalone sur les Eichesses, ' Prov. XXV.
^ Gobinet's Instruction of Youth, 105.

264 GODEFEIDUS.
of God ; though, in spite of their heartless maxims
of worldly prudence, the Church loves to smile
rather upon the poor than upon them. " They are
slaves to ambition; they are extravagantlyeffeminate,
envious, attached to self-interest, unjust, violent,
harsh, and often cruel towards others, especially
their inferiors ; impatient, passionate, revengeful.
What a Ufe is this for men who make profession of
the Christian religion ! What advantage to be great
before men, and contemptible in the sight of God !
to command others, and to be a slave to vice and to
his own passions ! to be prosperous in this world,
and of the number of those who -wUl eternally cry
out, ' What hath pride profited us, or what advantage
hath the boasting of riches brought us ? AU these
things have passed away like a shadow : therefore
we have erred from the way of truth.' " " That is
a wicked gentility," says St. Augustin, "which
makes you contemptible in the sight of God by its
pride."' It would ill accord with simplicity and truth to
imitate the passion of those modem sophists whose
works are characterised by the attempt to invest
vulgar personages with an air of solemnity, and to
ennoble whatever seems degraded by nature and the
common judgment of mankind.^ I desire not to
avail myself of " the secret of the modem Jacob
inical drama, and of all its popularity, which con
sists in the confusion and subversion of the natural
order of things in their causes and effects, in the
excitement of surprise, by representing the qualities
of generosity, refined feeling, and a high sense of
honour, in persons where experience teaches us
least to expect them."* The wise moralist of
' Serm. 27.
' Plato, Leges, III. Demosthenes vepi Tijg Trapavpfafieiag.
.Sischines Socrat. de Morte.
^ Coleridge's Biograph. Lit. vol. II, 271.

GODEFEIDUS. 265
antiquity remarks, as an instance of Homer's pro
found knowledge of men, and to exemplify the
instruction which may be derived from his poetry,
that Achilles, though in anger, addresses Agamem
non with respect, while Thersites reproaches him
with insult; and that Calchas, the false prophet,
who courts the favour of the multitude, without
scruple reviles him as the cause of the plague, while
Nestor endeavours to prevent the evil without ap
pearing to accuse him.'^ And yet my conclusion
from the whole must be, that the nobility of con
vention, although in some respects an institution of
all ages, has not necessarily any exclusive connection
with chivalry ; and that when this generous spirit
is banished from it, the admiration and respect of
men must be transferred along with it to the nobility
of nature, in whatever condition of life it may be
found ; to the quaUties which carry with them their
own dignity ; to those which belonged to what our
Saxon ancestors called knighthood, which meant
only the state of youth. And who knows in how
obscure a rank we may then discover "le plus
vaillant ecuyer qui oncques en son temps chaussa
eperons blancs ?"
There are times when the pride of emblazonment
and ancestral crests must give place to love for that
rural chivalry which preserves the noble sentiments
that may no longer be found in the courts of princes.
There is extant a discourse which was delivered by
the Abbe Fauchet in the church of Surenne, on the
10th of August, 1 788, on occasion of the fete of the
rose, which consisted in the presentation of a gar
land of roses to whoever was adjudged, by a council
of old men, the most perfect of the viUage maidens.
It had been devised by a venerable priest, and down
to the time of the Revolution it had retained all the
> Plutarch de Audiendis Poetis. i

266 GODEFEIDUS.
innocence and beauty of its original institution.
" At this moment," says the sacred orator, " when
all Europe is convulsed, and every country of the
world hears the rumour of war ; when internal dis
sensions are fermenting on all sides, and threatening
our country with agitations such as perhaps have
never been heard of, — how sweet is it to find our
selves united in this peaceable valley, in this ancient
village, in this holy sanctuary, in presence of a
princess who has no ambition but that of peace and
goodness, among these good old men and these
young and ingenuous maidens, these youthful
peasants, to whom a crown of vine-leaves imparts a
pleasure which neither jewels nor a diadem can
secure to princes ! How sweet is it to participate
in this pure joy of the country, in the pomp of this
rustic triumph, this virginal fete, this pastoral cele
bration, in these lists of rural simple chivalry ! It
was thus in the ancient world, when there were
patriarchs who were at once kings and shepherds.
Chivalry was then in' the tents of Abraham, Isaac,
and Israel ; not in the palaces of Ninus, Sesostris,
and Sardanapalus : hospitable Sara receives angels
under the leafy pavilion ; chaste Pebecca is pre
sented with a chaplet at the fountain's side ; Rachel
reigns as a mother over the pastures of -lacob ; and
the knightly David, armed with his shepherd's sling,
is able to overcome the formidable Goliath. Under
the palms of Mount Ephraim the wise Deborah pro
nounces the sentences of justice, and gives the signal
of victory ; under the oak of Ephra, Gideon is pro
claimed by Heaven the most valiant of men, and
receives the divine mission to be the deliverer of his
brethren. Behold the harvest-repasts of Bethlehem;
and confess that heroic manners are not confined to
Palladian halls. Here, too, you witness ancient
simplicity, sweet good nature, the delightful union
of rich and poor, that general fraternity, that mutual

GODEFEIDUS. 267
communication of affectionate sentiments, that con
fidence in virtue, that respect for modesty, that
fidelity to holy laws, that blessed alliance, that chaste
joy. There, as in the courts of Charlemagne and
St, Louis, are found nature, patriotism, and religion;
religion which sanctifies nature, and which crowns
patriotism," Leaving the people of God for the
scenes of profane history, we still may look for
chivalry under the circumstances of rural life. We
may repair to the meadows and groves of Arcadia,
leaving the brilliant Athens and the proud and severe
Lacedaemon. It is from the plough that Cincinnatus
is called to command the Romans. But when the
holy religion of Christians has been extended to
these simple companions of nature, what perfection
is then to be expected from them ! what a horror
of vice ! what a love of duty ! what fidelity ! what
generosity ! what honour ! what devoted chivalry !
The old peasant, the young shepherd, the good
mother, the ingenuous maiden, represent all the
personages of this simple court, where thrift does
not follow fawning ; but where is there greater
majesty and more perfect grace, nobler heroism,
and purer love ? There the banks of rivers re-echo
the hymns of the Church, amidst the gentle sounds
of nature ; and at the tolling of the cloister-bell, all
hearts are raised to heaven, and every tongue salutes
the Virgin Mother, and adores the mystery of love.
All that can nourish genuine sentiments of Christian
chivalry may be found there. The august solem
nities of the Church — the cross borne in triumph
along with holy banners, the inspiring lessons of
faithful pastors, and the sweetest chants of inno
cence; the social banquet prepared for holydays,
when smUes are still more amiable, and souls more
open to cheerfulness and peace ; the tranquUUsing
songs of the evening choir in the house of God, then
the burst of final rejoicing ; the games where inno-

268 GODEFEIDUS.
cence presides, and rural chivafry contends for the
praise of its dear familiar circle; before whose palms,
perhaps, the lustre of maturer conquerors will be
seen to fade, — for these are obliged to look back to
nature and simplicity for their best reward, as when
Epaminondas declared it was the chief happiness of
his life that his father and mother lived to witness
his victory at Leuctra. Countless passages might
be produced from the annals and instructions of
chivalry, to shew that there is nothing in this view
which does not harmonise vrith its spirit. Witness
St. Louis, the father of peasants, the friend of rural
labourers, the pastoral judge ; Charlemagne, who on
ordinary days used to wear the dress of a peasant,
whose palaces were like vast farm-houses, whose
courtiers were saints and pastors of the people;
Henry IV. of France, who was brought up like a
shepherd lad among the simple inhabitants of moun
tains, and who seemed always at home when he was
at the peasant's cheerful hearth. Justice, piety,
and every affection of the heroic mind, would be
willing to adopt the Castilian maxim, that " every
man is the son pf his o-vni works ;" so that when a
man performs any heroical enterprise, or any virtue,
or any extraordinary work, then is he new-born and
named the son of his own actions, and so becomes
an hidalgo " of a suffycyente gentyl lynage ;" a
doctrine which is beautifully expressed in the Tabula
Genealogica of the family of Lowenstein, which was
written by Johann Ludwig von Lowenstein in the
year of Christ 1 200, and placed in the f amUy archives.
The genealogical table of this noble house begins
with these words — " Satis antiqua, si posteri clan
sint rirtutibus et bonitate morum. Ille enim apud
Deum priest potior, non quem nobilitas saeculi, sed
quem devotio fidei et sancta vita commendat." This
is the doctrine of Catholic nobility, which fully
admitted the maxim of the ancients, "Nemo sibi

GODEFEIDUS. 269
parentes aut patriam eligere potest, at ingenium
moresque sibi quisque potest fingere." All other
principles, when exclusively maintained, argue, as
Plato would say, ypaiiv vdXov — they are only con
cerned about a shadow : now, as Petrarch says,
" I vrish to embrace the truth, and to let the
shadow pass."
" The greatest nobility," says Bartolommeo
Arnigio, in his Vigils, " is that which is natural or
divine, which may belong to him who walks bare
footed in rags ; whereas he who is without it, though
clothed in purple and gold, must be ignoble, et tr^s
vilain." ^ " The true and only nobUity," says the
golden tongue of St. John Chrysostom, " is to per
form the -vriU of God. This is the nobility of the
apostolic order ; and he who is illustrated by the
Holy Spirit is ennobled with the sovereign and
highest nobUity." There is, moreover, a natural
nobility which consists in peculiar generosity and
excellence of soul f and this also may be found in
the lowest ranks of human life. Witness Chaucer's
peasant, who lived in peace and perfect charity,
loving God with all his heart, whether prosperous
or in calamity, and his neighbour as himself ; who
also would work.
For Christe' s sake, for every ponre -vright
Withouten hire, if it lay in his might.
Chaucer's stately knight joins the company of
pilgrims, many of whom were persons of the lowest
degree, but they all ride lovingly together ; and
when the lot falls on the knight which requires him
to teU the first tale, with a right merry chere he
consents, and welcomes the lot in God's name which
imposes on him the obligation to amuse this party
of yeomen and foresters.
' Les Veilles de Barthelemy Arnigio, traduites de I'ltalien :
Troyes, 1608. ' Id- P- 21-

270 GODEFEIDUS.
John of Gaunt, duke of Aquitaine, used to play
upon a common with rustic youths. The great
noblemen of England used often to entertain the
poor at table upon days of festivity, when bonfires
were lighted before their castle-gates. The noble
Italian, Arnigio, shews how truly generous and
heroic peasants and men of the lowest rank of life
may become. " The glorious natirity of the Re
deemer of the world," he observes, " was revealed
to shepherds, as to men pure, just, and vigilant.
The poor are members of the city of God, of the
kingdom of Jesus Christ. When our adorable
Saviour was to be born, blessed Mary and the de
vout Joseph were so little possessed of worldly
grandeur, that the stable of an inn was their only
place of refuge ;" " for, mark," says a holy man,
" the Evangelists do not say that there was no room
in the inn, but that there was no room for them."
Oh, what a noble school is poverty ! what a temple
of sovereign honour !
These sentiments were not suffered to waste their
strength in mere speculation and discourse ; they
were drawn out into action by chivalry. "Inferior
mortals there are," says the knight of La Mancha,
so well versed in the lore of chivafry, " who aim at
knighthood, and strain to reach the height of honour;
and high-born knights there are, who seem fond of
grovelling in the dust, and being lost in the crowd
of inferior mortals. The first raise themselves by
emulation or by virtue ; the last debase themselves
by negligence or by vice."
The proud Infantes of Carrion held that men of
such station as themselves were not well married
with the daughters of Ruydiaz of Bivar, and for
that reason they forsook them, because they came
not of blood sufficiently high for them : but the
kings of Aragon and of Navarre thought different
ly ; they sent letters to King Don Alfonso and to

GODEFEIDUS. 271
the Cid Campeador, wherein these kings sent to
ask those same daughters of the Cid in marriage for
the Infantes of Aragon and of Navarre. So, instead
of being wives of the sons of counts, they became
wives of the sons of kings, and after trards queens.
In our beautiful poem of the Beggar's Daughter of
Bednall Green, it is the knight who refuses to
examine " the weight of the purse," while the
merchant and the innholder disdain the connexion.
If we turn to ancient history we find the same
sentiments and reflections, supported by similar
facts. Philosophy did not receive Plato noble, but
it ennobled him. Cleanthus used to water gardens
for hire. Pythagoras was son of a silversmith,
Euripides of a gardener, Demosthenes of a cutler,
Virgil of a potter. " Les hommes vils et de peu,"
says Arnigio, "ne descendent pas tousjours d'un
bas lignage." Nor do noble youths always spring
from a noble line : Pericles was born from a wicked
family ; and Strabo, the father of Pompey the
'Great, was trampled upon by the Roman people
through hatred for his crimes. If such men could
spring from vicious sources, what absurdity would
it have been to discourage youth of virtuous though
humble ' origin from aspiring to receive noble
palms !
Letters and arms both afforded opportunity for
generous efforts to young men of the lowest rank.
The poetic annals of the middle ages can supply
numberless instances of the renown which attended
such exertion, Bernard de Ventadour, born in the
castle of Ventadour in Limousin, was the son of a
servant ; Guillaume de Cabestaing, in Roussillon,
though noble, was without an estate; Giraud le
Eoux, born at Toulouse, was the son of a poor
man; Rambaud de Vaqueiras, the son of Peirols,
in the principality of Orange, was without fortune;
Peyrols d' Auvergne, of the castle of Peyrols, at the

272 GODEFEIDUS,
foot of Roquefort in Auvergne, ¦ was in similar cir
cumstances; Cadenet, whose father's castle of
Cadenet, on the Durance, had been rased to the
ground by the Toulousans in 1165, was left desti
tute; Perdigon was son of a poor fisherman of
I'Esperon ; Berenger de Palasol, of Roussillon, was
without fortune ; Hugues de Saint Cyr, in le Querci,
whose father's castle had been destroyed in the
wars, was left a burden on his relations ; Arnaud
Daniel, of the castle of Ribeyrac in Perigord, was
poor ; Guillaume Adhemar was a poor knight of
Marvejol; Guibert Amiels, a poor knight of Gascony;
Richard de Barbesieu, a poor knight of Saintonge;
Arnaud de Tintignac, a poor knight of Provence.
It need hardly be shewn that the Church attended
to' no privileges of birth and nobility in her distinc
tions : Pope John XXII was a poor shoemaker's
son; Nicholas V was son of a poulterer; Sixtus
V of a swineherd ; Pope Urban IV was so little
ashamed of being the son of a shoemaker, that he
ordered the pulpit of the church of St. Urbain at
Troyes, his native city, to be adorned on great
festivals with tapestry representing* his father'it
stall. In arms too, according to the sentiment of
the romances (and even to the practice of the
middle ages, — for Robert Knolles, the most cele
brated English leader in Edward Ill's wars, after
the Black Prince and Chandos, was of very ob
scure extraction), it was chivalry not nobUity
which conferred the greatest honour.
When Arthur proved himself able to achieve the
trial of the sword, which no one else could draw
from the stone, he was elected king of Great
Britain, though all looked upon him as a " berd-
less boy, that was come of lowe blood." ^ And
when Wolfdietrich, in the Book of Heroes, had
' Morte d'Arthur, 1, 11.

GODEFEIDUS. 273
defeated Count Hermann of Tuscany, who had up
braided him for joining the company of high
born knights when he was poor and apparently of
low rank, the author of the poem makes him become
the husband of the noble princess.'
In real history, too, chivalry is to be sought for
in the ranks of the Svriss mountaineers and peasants,
rather than in those of their imperial invaders ; in
the poor and unprovided followers of Sobieski the
Pole, not among the ceremonious and ungrateful
courtiers of Vienna. The soldiers of Pavia were
more noble than their Emperor Frederick II, when
they remonstrated against his barbarous execution
of the Parmesan prisoners ; saying they were come
to fight the Parmesans, but armed and in the field
of battle, not to serve them for executioners. There
is even an example of legislation on the principle of
the romances which places chivalry before nobility;
for the state of Pistoja, in the thirteenth century,
ennobled men as a punishment for their crimes. But
besides these grounds, which may be rejected as
fanciful, it would not be difficult to bring forward
others, from the severest principles of truth, to
prove that there is, after all, a more practical, direct,
and secure mode of extending the noble spirit of
chivalry than by any legislative or conventional
decree. It is the sublime faith and the holy dis
cipline of the Catholic Church which can enable the
soul of man to gain the highest degree of elevation
of which it is capable in its present state of exile ;
it is religion which can impart real magnanimity
and gentleness to the lower classes, so as to make
the most poor and obscure of men susceptible of all
the generous and lofty sentiments which belong to
true nobility.
In the little book entitled " RecoUections of St.
' Book II, Adventure vi.
Godefridus. T

274 GODEFEIDUS.
Acheul " there is an account of the life and death
of one of the young students, Jean-Baptiste Carette,
whose parents were in such abject poverty, that
their son, having excited the attention of a worthy
priest, had been supported solely by the alms of
charitable Christians, and sent to the college of the
Jesuits at their expense. Here he evinced, during
his short but brilUant career, for he died in his
eighteenth year, not only the highest talents, but a
certain nobleness and purity of sentiments, "which,"
adds the writer, " are not always found among
those of the highest society." It was the custom
at this college for the students to pass one day in
the country every month, during the summer season;
and Carette would employ these days allotted for
enjoyment in risiting his parents in their poor
cottage. It was on one of these occasions that
he was suddenly seized with the illness which re
moved him from the world. As soon as the news
arrived at the coUege of his being unable to return,
the Director of the Congregation of the Holy
Angels, of which he was a member, hastened to
visit him. He found him in a miserable cabin,
lying upon straw, which was spread upon some
loose planks, supported by stones. The pious youth,
who remarked his affiiction on beholding him in
such a state, said to him, " 0 father, how good it is
to submit to the -will of God ! " The holy man,
having heard that he had already received the last
sacraments, hastened back to the college to procure
something which naight reUeve his sufferings ; but
he did not return in time to find him alive. He had
departed, repeating the words, " Gloria in excelsis
Deo." Here we see in what a low and obscure
condition of Ufe nobleness and purity of sentiment
may be found ; for there is no height and delicacy
of honour, no refinement of sentiment, in fact no

GODEFEIDUS. 275
perfection of chivalry, which does not of necessity
accompany such piety as this.
Under the influence of the Catholic religion, the
peasant youth was devout and self-devoted, humble
and courteous, amiable, affectionate, upright, and
brave ; and what more was requisite to constitute
the knightly soul ? As for birth, it is ' true we
must say of such a person, " non patre prEBclaro,
sed vita et pectore pure ; " but in the ages of which
we speak, Charlemagne and the poorest groom in
all his courts had both heard " that the emperor
and the beggar, the master and the servant, are
brethren, having all the same Father." ' From
youth men were taught that " one nobility belongs
to all the faithful, one dignity, one splendour of
race, since all are born of the -same Spirit and of
the same sacrament of faith, and are sons of God
and coheirs of the same inheritance ; that the rich
and powerful have no other Christ besides him who
is followed by the poor ; that they are initiated in
no other sacraments, and have no higher expectation
of a celestial kingdom ; but that all are brethren
and members of the body of Christ, of his flesh and
of his bones." ^ But while all men might aspire to
the praise of noble chivalry, its distinctions, which
were nothing but those of nature, were esteemed of
such surpassing dignity, that even kings considered
themselves as deriving their chief glory from having
possessed them. Witness the reply which Charles
VI made to his father, when he offered him the
choice of a crown of gold or of a helmet, as the
emblem of that chivalry which he professed to
admire : " Monseigneur," exclaimed the young
prince, with energy, " donnez-moi le casque, et
gardez votre couronne."
' S. Augustin, Horn. IV, inter 50.
2 Catechism. Concil. Trident, pars IV, 31.
T 2

276 GODEFEIDUS.
XIX. If nobility be understood as the honour
consequent upon the circumstance of birth from
virtuous parents, it is of an antiquity which is lost
in the night of time. " If, indeed, you be his sou,"
says Nestor to Telemachus, aif5ag p e^e' tlaopouvra.^
Menelaus, delighted with the wise answers of Tele
machus, exclaims that he must have been born of
good blood ;^ and Alcinous, desiring Ulysses to
declare his name and parentage, adds an opinion
which shews how great were the moral effects
attributed to birth, ^ It is the pride of Penelope
that her son is come of a good race, Diomedes
begins his speech in council by boasting of the
virtue of his father and grandfather, of whom he
says, ap£r^7 8' vv s^o)(og aiiTiov,'* and upon this
ground he bespeaks the attention of the assembly.
No one can ridicule the heroes of the Iliad for
having this sentiment in such respect, when he
hears the immortal words with which the son of
Hippolochus defies his enemy :
'liTTToXoxog Sk p.' iriKTt, Kal iK tov ^rip,l ytv'tnBai'
TTSjUTTf St fl' tg TpoiTjv, Kai fioi fidXa ttoXX' tTrtTtXXtv,
a'liv dpirjTtviiv, Kal virtvpoxov tpfitvai dXXtiiv'
firjSi ykvog naTtpbiv altjxwkfitv' o'i fi'ty' dpwToi
tv t' '^(pvpy iykvovTO Kal tv Avtciy tvpeiy.
TavTTjg TOI ytvtrjg Tt Kal a'lfioTog fvxofiai tjvai.^
Virgil, in a lower strain, ascribes this sentiment to
the Rutuli, in accounting for their affection for
Turnus :
Hunc decus egregium formse movet atque juventse,
Hunc atavi reges, hunc Claris dextera factis.*
But the genuine foundation appears again in his
description of the assembly to witness the game of
Troy before ^neas, when the spectators applauded
the contending youths :
' Odysa. Ill, 123. ^ Ib. IV, 611. = lb. VIII, 552,
' II. XIV, 118. ' n. VI, 206. = Lib. VII, 473.

GODEFEIDUS. 277
 veterumque agnoscunt ora parentum.'
The importance attached to birth appears strikingly
in Sophocles,* Honour, not expediency, is the
motive which he knows will operate upon the
noble-born youth. ^ The climax of horrors with
(Edipus consists in his remembering that he was
born of the noble race of Laius.* The lines of
Euripides are celebrated —
Siivbg xapaKTTip, KaTT'iarffiog 'tv PpoToXg,
'taBXHv ytvkaBai.^
Plutarch, in his life of Phocion, proceeds to an im
moderate length in speaking of the importance of
birth ; but it is impossible not to admire Isocrates,
when he describes the force of vfrtuous ancestors.^
Polybius assigns the abolition of this principle as
one of the chief causes of the ruin of Carthage.
Plato, in many places, assumes it as the basis of
his instruction. Aristotle admits the principle in
its fullest extent.^ The most eminent of Roman
patriots, not excepting even Cato, acknowledged
their belief in the infiuence of generous birth, in
elevating the soul, and in fiUing it with a desire of
rirtuous deeds. Upon the whole, therefore, nothing
can be more certain, than that the merit of despis
ing an illustrious descent was unknown to the
wisest and most virtuous men of antiquity ; nay,
at Rome, when the people became eligible to the
offices of military tribune and quaestor, they in
variably returned men of patrician family to the
ninth election, and this notvrithstanding the utmost
efforts of the tribunes and the leaders of the
popular party. In A.U.C. 333, Antistius and
PompUius, both of them tribunes, demanded the
' Lib. V, 575. ^ Ajax, 1270. ' Philoctetes, 473.
* CEd. Tyran. 1370. ^ Hecuba, 379. ^ Evagoras.
' PoUt. Ill, 13.

278 GODEFEIDUS.
office of quaestor ; the first for his son, the second
for his brother; and yet, strange to relate, they
were both disappointed, and patricians were elected
by the people. That the same sentiments prevailed
among the old Persians appears from the expres
sions of Otanes, when he sent that celebrated ' mes
sage to his daughter, which is related by Herodotus;^
as also from the words of Otanes to Darius : and it
is singular to observe, in the same historian, an
instance of the very prejudice which sometimes
belonged to the knights of the middle ages — " that
it was beneath men of rank to contend with an
adversary of inferior degree,"^
If duration and general consent be an evidence
to establish the justice of an opinion, such proof
will not be wanting to confirm men in a reasonable
respect for noble birth. Who more free from the
vanity and ordinary prejudices of mankind than
Montaigne ? and yet, was he careless of his origin ?
Far from it, " Je suis nay," he says, " d'une familie
qui a coule sans esclat et sans tumulte et de longue
memoire, particulierement ambitieuse de preud-
hommie," Sir Henry Sidney says in a letter to his son
Philip, "Remember, my sonne, the noble blood
you are descended of by your mother's side, and
thinke that only by virtuous lyf and good action
you may be an ornament to that illustre famylie ;
and otherwise, through vice and slouthe, you shal
be counted lahes generis, one of the greatest curses
that can happen to man." Sir Philip Sidney
thus speaks of his own descent : " I am a Dudley
in blood, the duke's daughter's son ; and I do
acknowledge, though in all truth I may justly
affirm that I am by my father's side of ancient
and always well-esteemed and well-matched gentry,
' Lib. Ill, 67. , "^ Lib. V, 112.

GODEFEIDUS. 279
I do acknowledge, I say, that my chiefest honour
is to be a Dudley, and truly I am glad to have
cause to set forth the nobility of that blood whereof
I am descended." " Our calmer judgment," says
the historian of the Decline and Fall of the Roman
Empire, "will rather tend to moderate than to
suppress the pride of an ancient and worthy race.
The satirist may laugh, the philosopher may preach;
but reason herself will respect the prejudices and
habits which have been consecrated by the ex
perience of mankind. The institution of hereditary
rank has beeu maintained," he proceeds to state,
"for the wisest and most beneficial purposes, in
almost every climate of the globe, and in almost
every modification of political society ; wherever the
distinction of birth is allowed to form a superior
order in the state, education and example should
always, and will often, produce among them great
dignity of sentiment. If we read of some illustrious
line, so ancient that it has no beginning, so worthy
that it ought to have no end, we sympathise in its
various fortunes ; nor can we blame the generous
enthusiasm, or even the harmless vanity, of those
who are allied to the honours of its name." i
It seems, indeed, as if men of thoughtful minds,
in proportion as they were removed from the great
resources which the Catholic Church afforded to all
ranks of society, were desirous of clinging, vrith so
much the greater resolution, to all the minor safe
guards of generosity and honour. It could only be
one who had lost sight of the standard of Christian
chivalry, who could suffer such a word to overflow
the enclosure of his teeth, as that uttered by Sir
Philip Sidney, that his " chiefest honour was to be
a Dudley." Nobility, however, must not be reduced to a mere
' Memoirs of the Life, &o.

280 GODEFEIDUS.
spirit and claim to consideration on account of birth.
Aristotle defines it to be ancient or ancestral wealth
and virtue,' The law of primogeniture, as affecting
the succession of property and privileges, seems to
have passed from Egypt and Greece to Rome. Ac
cording to Homer, it was this which gave Jupiter
himself the pre-eminence over Neptune and Pluto,
and the poet represents the Fates and Furies as
vindicators of this right,^ Plato ascribes to the
elder-born of a family the right to command the
younger.' We know that under the law of nature,
before the written law, " the first-born were priests,
to officiate for the rest in all things that appertain
to God,"* Marchangy has treated this subject, in
its connexion with the institutions of the middle
ages, with considerable learning and abUity.*
Peerage, in the ordinary' sense of the term, com
menced in the twelfth century ;^ although the here
ditary descent of land was an institution of the
earliest times ; for all ancient legislators, as Niebuhr
observes, rested the result of thefr material ordi
nances, for virtue, civU order, and good manners,
on landed property, or at least on the secured
hereditary possession of land for the greatest possible
number of the citizens,' In the middle ages, the
feudal nobility lived in castles, which, as may be
inferred from the names of many, like Rochefort,
Rochetaillee, Montfort, and others, were generaUy
placed upon high rocks ; from which circumstance,
Vico, in his Scienza Nuova, supposes the Latin terms
for noblemen, summo loco, illustri loco nati, to have
been derived. The Spaniard's reverence for the

1 Polit. lib. IV, c. 7.
2 il. XV, 204. Vide Shuckford, book VI.
' De Legibus, IV. " Epist. ad Heb. V, 1.
* Tristan, tom. V, 419.
" Boulainvilliers, Hist, de la Pairie de France.
' Hist, of Eome, I, 201,

GODEFEIDUS. 281
seat of his ancestors, with whom " hidalgo de solar
conocido " is the expression for a man of old family
(so that the court of the kings of Spain is generally
almost deserted, and even it is difficult to find nobles
who will accept of public office), may be traced back
to great antiquity ; for the same sentiment occurs
in Menander —
oiKot ntvtiv XP^i "¦'^^ fikvfiv kXfvBfpov.^
Such was the integrity and independence ascribed
to simple gentlemen, that kings were warned not to
disregard their judgment :
Qui que preudomme ait conseiller,
Soit rois ou quens, je le conseille
Pour s'onnour, oroire son conseil.
Their dignity was esteemed equal to that of kings,
upon the principle urged by Plato, where he dis
courses upon the royal discipline, and says, " Who
ever shall possess this virtue, whether he hold a
public office or be but a private man, is justly styled
royal, according to this discipline."^ A remarkable
example was that ofthe noble and brave Enguerrand
de Coucy, the last of his illustrious race, who
perished so miserably, in 1397, far from his country,
at Broussa, among the infidels. From being a
simple baron, he had become, by his personal merit,
so mighty a gentleman, that there went a common
saying in France, Je ne suis roi, ni prince aussi ;
Je suis le sire de Coney.
The reply of Grimoald, duke of Beneventum, to
King Pipin, might have been the motto of all
such men —
' Stobijei Florileg. II, 70. ' Politicus.

282 GODEFEIDUS.
Liber et ingenuus sum natus utroque parente ;
Semper ero liber credo, tuente Deo.
The king was not the sole fountain of honour, for
every simple knight could confer knighthood.
Thus the chronicle of St. Denis relates, that when
Philippe, son of Philippe le Bel, at the feast of
Pentecost, knighted his three sons, Louis, PhUippe,
and Charles, these princes immediately conferred
knighthood upon four hundred other youths. The
dignity of a knight-banneret was hereditary.'- The
degrees of nobility were not to interfere with its
fundamental principle, that one gentleman cannot
be more gentle thau another.^ Baldus says, that an
emperor or king is not more noble than a simple
gentleman.* Thus Francis I writing to the emperor
Charles V, signed himself first gentleman of France;
and Henry IV used to say, that his quality as a
gentleman was the noblest title that he possessed.
As an old writer says, " this was the general title
throughout the world; so that nothing more idle
can be thought on, than for a particular prince to
erect a new degree of blood above this title, which
is universal in all nations."*
"The two titles of nobility and gentry," says
Gwillim, " are of equal esteem in the use of heraldry,
though custom hath equally divided them, and ap
plied the first to gentry of the highest degree, and
the latter to nobles of the lowest rank."
Among the Anglo-Saxons, with whom there was
as much inequality of rank as with ourselves, the
nobly born were not distinguished by any peculiar
title ; they were rather marked out by the name of
' Hist, de la Chevalerie Francaise par Gassier, 89.
' Dissertation IX, sur THist; de St. Louis.
' La Oolombiere, Theatre d'Honnenr et de Chevalerie, II, 154.
•* A Vindication of the Degree of Gentry, in opposition to
titular honour, and the humour of riches being the measure of
honour, 1663.

GODEFEIDUS. 283
the family which had become iUustrious, as the Fabii
and Cornelii of the Romans. In later times, the
gentry of England were Knights Templars and
Knights of Malta, being considered noble. Brother
Humbert was offended when he heard the knights
templars styled lords instead of brethren of the
Temple. " Quid prodest vincere Saracenos," he
observed, "et vinci a vitiis"?' for the vanity of
titles seemed worthy of being ranked among vices :
titles did not add to nobility.
In the letters of Richmond, Clarenceux King of
Arms in the reign of Henry VII, quoted by Sir
James Laurence from the Harleian manuscripts, the
gentlemen are named before noblemen. Sir Edward
Coke counts all noble who have a right to bear arms;
and Camden, Clarenceux King of Arms, speaks
of gentlemen as the nobiles minores.
Matthew Carter, in his Honor Redivivus; Sir
John Feme, in his Blazonry of Gentry and Nobility ;
Sir Thomas Smith, in his Commonwealth of Eng
larid ; Gwillim, Edmondson, Peacham, in his Com
plete Gentleman, &c., are all express as to the
nobility of the British gentry, who were consi
dered of equal rank with the nobility of France,
at the court of Bordeaux and Poitiers, in the' days
of our Angevin sovereigns. Their nobility is also
proved by Sir James Laurence, from proclamations,
state papers, and monumental inscriptions, in which
the gentry are styled noble. Thus, in Doncaster
church, "Here lyeth, of noble extraction, John
Harrington, a famous squire, and noble Isabel, his
wife"; and at Romaldkirk, in Richmondshire, so
late as 1664, a simple knight is inscribed, "NobiUs-
simus Dominus Apelby de Lartington." Sir James
Laurence justly censures Dr. Johnson for saying, in
his dictionary, a gentleman is " one of good extrac-
¦ Gurtler, 116.

284 GODEFEIDUS.
tion, but not noble"; an instance of the modern
blunder of confounding nobility with peerage.
" The knights and squires of England," continues
Sir James Laurence, " preferred being styled the
gentry to being styled the nobility ; they were
logicians enough to know the axiom, ' omne majus
continet minus,' and they, being allowedly gentle
men, could never dream that their nobiUty could be
contested; and the peers were styled the nobility,
not because they were the only nobles, but because,
as there were many peers who were not gentlemen,
they could not collectively be styled the gentry of
the upper house. The peer, therefore, is not always
at the head : he may be at the tail of his family,"
In the White King it is said, that young Maximilian
had a great inclination to examine into the origin
and antiquity of noble families, and for this purpose
learned men were appointed, who should do nothing
else but search through convents and libraries, in
order to discover facts relating to heroic houses.
The family of Dahlberg, of Worms, is held to be the
oldest of the whole German chivalry ; so that, when
a new emperor was cro-wned, it was usual for a herald
to demand whether there were a Dahlberg present,
that -he might approach to receive the order of
knighthood. The first class of the nobility of Venice
is ofthe electoral families, descended from the twelve
tribunes, who elected the doge in the year 709,
which all subsist to this day. These are, the Con-
tarini, Morosini, Gradenighi, Baduari, Tiepoh,
MicheU, Sanudi, Memmi, Falieri, Dandoli, Polani,
and Barozzi. There are four other families nearly
as ancient — the Justiniani, Cornari, Bragadini, and'
Bembi. The French house of Montmorenci is traced
to about the year 960.' The illustrious family of De
Pins is derived from the princely house of Thann-
' Duchesne, I'Hist, de la Maison de Montmorenci.

GODEFEIDUS, 285
Waldburg, from which was descended Gausse-
rand I, one of the nine barons of Catalonia who
were of German origin, having been the first to
fight against the Moors in Spain, under Pipin, king
of France. This Gausserand had received the
barony De Pinos, at the foot of the Pyrenees.
After the memorable victory of Urgel, in 768,
Charlemagne obtained from the pope an order that
the province of Tarragona should have nine cathedral
churches, to perpetuate the renown of these nine
barons. It must, be confessed, that such nobility
might reasonably inspire a great interest. In Eng
land the most ancient and noble blood is oftener
found in families which have no titles of peerage
than in those which have obtained them. In the
earlier ages of Christianity, we find the same degree
of interest attached to the antiquity of houses. Tlie
philosophic disciples of Boethius remembered with
pride that he was descended from the Roman Manlii;
and even St. Jerome, in the epitaph of St, Paula,
has not omitted that she was descended from
Agamemnon, It was natural, however, that this
sentiment should sometimes give rise to pretensions
which were not a little ridiculous. The strange
knight, in the Morte d'Arthur, replies to Sir Gawayn,
who had asked him of his lineage, "My fader is
lyneally descended of Alysaunder and of Hector by
ryght lygne, and Duke Josue and Machabeus were
of our lyneage,'"
The ancients, besides this domestic vanity, had a
pride in their national origin, which was still more
extravagant, as may be witnessed in the anxiety of
the Athenians to wear their golden grasshopper, and
of the Arcadians to prove that they were wpoasXnvot,
or before the moon, Cicero complains of the false
hood to which the vanity of new-made nobles had
' 1, 149,

286 GODEFEIDUS.
recourse in tracing their descent ; and says, that it
would be the same thing if he were to affirm that
he was descended from M. TuUius, who was a patri
cian, consul with Servius Sulpicius in the tenth
year after the expulsion of the kings.''
The heroic origin of many of the great families
had a charm to which he was not insensible. The
Junian family might have the images of twenty of
the noblest houses allied to them carried with their
dead in procession.^ The Julian family, at the funeral
of Drusus, displayed, in long ord^r, those of ^neas
and all the Alban kings, Romulus and the Sabine
nobles, Attus Clausus and his successors of the
Claudian house. ^ The ^milian family traced their
descent from Numa, or, indeed, from Mamercus,
son of Pythagoras ; the Marcii traced their descent
from Anous Martins, the grandson of Numa. Plu
tarch says, that the houses of the Publicolae, the
Messalae, and Valerii, illustrious for the space of
six hundred years, still acknowledged Publicola as
the fountain of their honour. The descendants of
Pinarius, who gave hospitality to Hercules when he
came to the spot which is now Rome, were at Rome
in the time of Diodorus, and regarded as the most
ancient of the noble houses.*
In separating the spirit of chivalry from nobility,
it may appear as if there were left nothing to pro
duce in favour of its origin ; however, in opposition
to the sentence of Cornelius Agrippa, who under
takes to shew, that from the commencement of the
world there never was a nobility which had not a
wicked beginning,^ — an opinion which a French
writer has repeated in our time, dividing all men
into the two classes of the conquerors and the
conquered, — it may be stated with perfect truth.

' Brutus. ^ Tacitus, An. TII, 76. ' Id. IV, 9.
¦* Diodorus, Ub. IV, 21. ' De Vanitate Scientiarum, 114.

GODEFEIDUS. 287
that such an institution is founded in nature and in
the principles- of human society. The French, after
all their efforts to gain equality, succeeded only iu
making families ofthe most ancient and noble blood
surrender their lands to those of the most base
origin; to men of minds mechanical, whose manners
gave witness to the intentions of nature respecting
them. Nobility does not exclusively belong to any
form of government. No people ever shewed more
enthusiasm for noble famiUes than the Genoese re
publicans. Every heir of the names of Doria, Spinola,
Fieschi, or Grimaldi, disposed of a force of opinion
greater than was ever exercised by nobility in any
monarchy. Petrarch, who was so ardent in his
love of republics, is repeatedly urging the motive
of nobility, and reminding those who do not belong
to it that there are other duties required by their
state. When Justinian gave Rome the simple form
of an absolute monarchy, he abolished these dis
tinctions, and made all the people equally citizens
of the empire ; " yet," says Gibbon, " he could not
eradicate the popular reverence which always waits
on the possession of hereditary wealth, or the
memory of famous ancestors." Xenophon re
lates, that when Orontas was led through the
ranks to execution, the soldiers paid him the
usual reverence, although they knew that he was
going to be put to death.^ Nature has taken
more care that conservative sentiments and prin
ciples should exist than that men should be always
able to discourse on their utility. Without doubt
it is for the general interest that social super
fluities are employed in the institutions of aris
tocracy;^ like knighthood, the power of nobUity
was to be the protection of the weak, as might
be inferred from the affection which is sym-
' Anab. 16. ^ Barante, dea Communes et de I'Aristocratie.

288 GODEFEIDUS.
bolically shewn to have been due to it in. that
beautiful passage of romance where the knights of
King Arthur, being about to depart, come out of
the minster to mount their horses, and " ther was
wepynge of the riche and poore; and the kyng
torned aweye, and myght not speke for wepyng," i
Personal qualities may have sometimes dictated the
direction which was given to the general principle,
as when in the year 804 the Poles elected Lasko II
for their king, on account of his having won a foot
race, on the principle of the Ethiopians, who used
to choose the tallest and strongest man to be king;^
but generally, if personal merit were to yield a claim
to such dignity, there would be a wide field open
for the syllogism of self-love; and, as M, de Bonald
says, " when the major of an argument is an error
(such as supposing that the greatest virtueand talents
should govern), and the minor a passion, it is to be
feared that the conclusion will be a crime." In
heroic ages it was certainly believed that virtue was
the source of nobility, and that there is nothing
real in nobility bu-t what is independent of a
monarch's will. "If the offspring of great men,"
says the herald, " vaunt of their Uneage or titular
dignity, and want their virtues, they are but like
base serving-men, who carry on their sleeves the
badge of some noble family, yet are themselves
only ignoble persons." " Things are only preserved
by means of those which produced them. Virtue
produced nobility, therefore it can only be preserved
by virtue." ' Such is the language of all heraldic
writers of eminence. If that birth which no king
could impart was regarded as the highest proof of
nobility, it was from the opinion, that the semblance
of great souls and the character of heroic men might
' Morte d'Arthur, II, 212. ' Herod. Ill, 20.
' La Colombiere, TheS-tre d'Honnenr et de Chevalerie, Traits
de la Noblesse par La Eoque, &o.

GODEFEIDUS. 289
sometimes be conveyed by secret and undiscernible
conveyances, in consequence of that divine favour
which would be extended to generations descended
from a man who was faithful to Heaven ; or from a
beUef in the action of a more general principle,
such as is implied in the lines of Shakspeare —
0 worthiness of nature ! breed of greatness !
Cowards father cowards, and base things sire base.
For that sometimes parents did seem to rerive in
their offspring, not only in countenance and form of
limb, but even in disposition of mind, was an opinion
too firmly established by history and experience to
be shaken by any argument from reason. The
Claudian family flourished at Rome during so long
a period with the same characteristic features of
pride and ferocity; it produced the sad Tiberius,
then the monstrous Caligula, and at length, after
sis hundred years, it became extinct on the death
of Nero.'' ..^Eschylus bursts out in a sublime and
somewhat prophetic strain : " How the destiny of
families directing thefr ways according to justice
always produces good children. But ancient in
solence is wont to generate indeed new insolence,
to the mischief of mortals some time or other,
whenever the appointed time comes."
o'iKti)v ydp tvBvS'iKiav
KuXXiiraig TTorfiog dt'i.
(piXfX Si TtKTtiv 'v^pig
fiiv TraXaid vtd-
Zov<Tav Iv KoKoXg fSporiuv 'iifSpiv,
TOT r) ToB', 'orav rb Kvpiov fioXy.^
As with the ancients, the world has remarked that
in aU ages there have been famUies characterized
by certain noble dispositions : one race wiU_ be
remarkable for valour in arms, like the Orsini;
' Conspect. Med. Theor. Gregor. ' Agam. 739.
Godefridus. ^

290 GODEFEIDUS.
another for excellent and generous men, Uke the
Colonna ; another for men of political wisdom, like
the Soranzi and the Venieri. The practice of de
gradation in the middle ages bears testimony to the
high opinion which was then entertained of the
character of all nobility. To break faith, to neglect
one's post, to be guilty of adultery, or drunken
ness, or of insolent boasting, or of injustice and
cruelty to any poor helpless person, (for these
crimes are distinctly specified by the ancient
statutes,) was to subject one's self to this punishment,
which was equivalent to civU death,* Ste, Palaye
gives in detail the whole ceremony of degradation,
which was well calculated to impress all beholders
-vrith this idea. The same description occurs in
Tiraonte the White, where degradation is inflicted
upon the recreant knight who had renounced Chris
tianity. . When Charles the Bold held his toyson at
Bruges, in the Church of our Lady, the Count of ^
Nevers being accused, and declining to answer in
his defence, his crime being fully proved, at the
moment when the King of Arms ought to have called
him to the offering, his picture was taken down
from its place and trampled upon, and a black
slab, with an inscription stating his crime, was
hung up in its stead.^ Alain Chartier relates that
the Constable Duguesclin resolved to enforce the
ancient discipline of chivalry whenever any noble
man should perform any act of flagrant dishonour.
XX. The passages produced to shew the im
portance which was ascribed to noble birth wUl
have already led us to understand the advantage
which was thought to arise from nobility. "If
there be any good iti nobility," says Boethius, " I
think it is this alone, that a necessity seems to be
' La Colombiere, Theatre d'Honnenr et de Chevalerie, vol. II,
567. Favin, Theatre d'Honnenr, lib. X, p. 1830.
' Georges Chastellain, Chronique, ccxciv.

GODEFEIDUS. 291
imposed on the noble, that they should not degene
rate from the virtue of their ancestors." " Quinc-
tilian says that "there is a twofold view of ancestry
in the praise of a man ; aut enim respondisse nobili-
tati pulchrum erit, aut humilius genus illustrasse
factis." ^ " Prove yourself worthy of your parents,"
was a saying of Periander, one of the seven sages of
Greece.* The reputation of generous labours was as a statue
of honour to the dead ; * but with families as with
men, it was perseverance which kept honour briglit :
¦ To have done, is to hang

Quite out of fashion, like a rusty mail ,
In monumental mockery.
Plato supplies a beautiful passage in which
Socrates speaks of birth : when Critias assures the
philosopher that the young man Charmides, his
cousin, is as remarkable for temperance and all rir
tue as for beauty of person, Socrates replies, "Certes,
it is but right, 0 Charmides, that in these things
you should excel other men ; for I do not think that
any person could shew among all the Athenians two
houses from the union of which it were probable
that there would succeed a more noble and excellent
offspring than those from which you are sprung r
for your paternal house, that of Critias, is celebrated
by Anacreon, and by Solon, and by many other
poets, as having excelled in beauty and virtue and
all happiness ; and .your maternal descent is equally
iUustrious, for than Pyrilampus, your uncle, no one
on the whole continent is said to have had a more
beautiful person and greater renown, and generally,
this whole house is in no manner inferior to the
other. So that being sprung from these, it is pro-
' Lib. Ill, 6. ' Lib. Ill, 7.
» Stobaji Florileg. I. 119. ' Euripid. Hercul. Furens, 355.
U 2

292 GODEFEIDUS.
bable that you would be the first in aU things. And
now, as far as what pertains to the eyes to deter
mine, O dear son of Glaucon, you appear to me to
be no disgrace to your ancestors ; but if in addition
you possess temperance and all the other virtues
which this man ascribes to you, dear Charmides,
your mother bore you in a happy hour,"
Plutarch, defending nobiUty, ranks the objections
which are usually brought against it among the
calumnies of the sophists. He refers to the im
portance ascribed to birth by Homer, who names
almost all his heroes as being the sons of great men.
" How often," continues Plutarch, " is nobility of
birth extolled by Simonides, Pindar, Alcaeus, and
Stesichorus !" Plato says that the nobility of
parents is a great treasure ; Philemon says that it is
the characteristic of such men to offer themselves
as -rictims, which will account for the sentence,
" Rara est in nobilitate senectus." Plutarch adds,
" Think not that I would compare rirtue with bare
nobility ; this would, be the folly of Glaucus, and to
exchange golden for brass armour : I only affirm,
that virtue vrith noble birth is a combination of ex
cellence." Aristotle shews that there are slaves by
nature and nobles by nature, men who would be
slaves though never so exalted, and noble though
reduced by fortune to slavery. And if nobility is
thus esteemed by consent of the human race, why
should we despise it ? And do not trifle like a
sophist, saying that nobility is npt our own, nor in
our power ; that the poverty of Aristides was more
noble than the wealth of Midas ; that Socrates, son
of a statuary, was more noble than Sardanapalus.
This is all very fine declamation ; but after all I wiU
not consent to you that nobility is but a vain name.
The trophies of ancestors may not be at our com
mand, any more than the riches of an ancient race ;
but nevertheless, the remembrance and enjoyment

GODEFEIDUS. 293
of them may be instruments of vyisdom and orna
ments to virtue. What shall I say to the family of
the Stoics ? No wonder if that stoic, Lapithas,
framed of adamant, did not recognize nobility, who,
when his breast was transfixed by a spear, declared
that he hardly felt it. No wonder if the frequenters
of that porch take away nobility from men, who
take away also love, pity, mercy, and the other
affections given by nature ; who deny that they burn
in the midst of flames, or that they are swallowed
up in the water when in the midst of the sea. They
recount the vices of heroes.- But why dwell only
on the wrath of Achilles ? was it worse than that of
Phalaris, or Agathocles, or Dionysius, who were
ignoble? Chrysippus reriles nobility. Oh, that an
Ulysses would rise up to silence the insolence of this
coarse Thersites ! These crimes are not peculiar to
nobility. Has that porch of yours never beheld
adulterers ? Quote not Euripides on your side,
whose maxim was, that the middle rank saved a
state ; ¦ he is also on ours :
li ToXg iv oiK^ ^P'?/"""" XtXeifiiieBa,
ri S' evytvfia Kal Tb ytvvaXov fi'evei.
Philo, an ignoble sophist, says, that it is a difficult
and vague subject to determine who are noble ; but
I oppose to him Posidonius, an admirable philo
sopher, who refutes Tubero. Nobility is not in the
wealth of ancestors. Where then ? The particle tv,
which is at the beginning of the word thyivtia, de
notes something laudable and excellent ; as in the
word tvirpoawTTOv, a handsome face, for beauty is the
perfection of the face ; and so it is prefixed to eyes,
in order to express clear sight. What, then, is the
perfection of a family ? Virtue. Nobility, there
fore, consists in the virtue of a race. But whUe I
' Stobffii Florileg. II.

294 GODEFEIDUS.
-vrish nobUity to retain its rights, I would not have
it imagine that it had a right to trample upon in
ferior orders. Aristobulus relates that certain
Indian dogs were given to Alexander, which could
not be roused to attack wild bulls, but when a Uon •
was produced, they rushed upon him to battle ; in
like manner, if plebeians calumniate nobility, if
sophists bark at it, let them calumniate, let them
bark, it is well to keep silence, and imitate Caesar,
who, when it was told him that some persons reviled
him, replied, " It is enough for me that they cannot
injure me by their deeds. "^
" Omnes boni semper nobilitati favemus," says
Cicero.^ In another place he speaks as foUows :
" I am of opinion, that when the Uves and manners
bf the nobility change, the manners of the state
change also : vicious nobles do not merely conceive
vices, but they pour them into the state ; they are
not only themselves corrupted, but they corrupt and
they injure more by example than by crime."*
Upon this principle Agesilaus punished great men
for the same faults which he overlooked in their
inferiors.* " Splendor vester facit," say§ Cicero,
" ut peccare sine summo reipubUcae detrimento non
possitis." So that the institution of nobility was
made to supply the double motive of sha&e and
praise, to excite men to virtue. These sentiments
were not confined to the philosophers and moralists
of antiquity : they were continually appealed to in
all the ordinary affairs of life. Witness the ad
vantage which Cicero draws from dweUing upon
the family of his client, L. Flaccus, and upon the
fact of his not having degenerated from the glory
and -rirtue of his ancestors. Lentulus, the con
spirator, sealed the treacherous letter which he sent
' Plutarch de Nobilitate. ' Pro Sextio,
' De Legibus, III, 14. * Xenophon, Agesilaus, XI, 6.

GODEFEIDUS. 295
to the AUobroges vrith a seal on which was engraved
the head of his grandfather, a hero remarkable for
a singular love of his country ; and Catiline sent to
Manlius's camp, before he left Rome, that silver
eagle which he used to keep with reverence to his
house, on account of its having belonged to C. Marius
during his expedition against the Cimbri. " How
was it possible," cried Cicero, in alluding to the
former, " that the sight of this venerable image did
not prevent you at the moment when you were about
to make it the instrument of crime?" In his
oration for C, Rabirius Postumus, he declares it to
be a law of nature, " quse in familia aliqua laus forte
floruerit, hanc fere, qui sunt ejusdem stirpis, cupi-
dissime persequantur "; which he illustrates by the
example of his client, who " quamvis patrem suum
nunquam viderat, tamen et natura ipsa duce, quae
plurimum valet, et assiduis domesticorum sermoni-
bus, in paternae vit* similitudinem deductus est."
Of the glory consequent upon his own triumph over
the enemies of his country, he declares that he will
leave, as an ample patrimony, the inheritance to his
son.^ The words of Scipio to his army, " Vos modo,
milites, favete nomini Scipionum,"^ breathe the
same spirit. Livy attributes to it the heroic death
of Hasdrubal ;' and it was to its influence that many
other celebrated exploits of the ancient heroes were
commonly ascribed. Demosthenes, in his speech
against Midias, remarks, that, according to the prac
tice of their ancestors, not even nobility of blood
was admitted as an excuse for insolence, speaking
of it as if it would have outweighed previous personal
merit. The same sentiment dictates the exclama
tion in Terence,
' Epist. CCCLXXII. ' Livy, lib. X, 29.
3 Lib. XXVII, 49.

296 GODEFEIDUS.
- ex illan' familia

Tam illiberale facinus esse ortum ? '
Not even Horace can escape its influence :
Dos est magna parentinm
Virtus, et metnens alterius viri
Certo foedere castitas,
Bt peccare nefas, aut pretium emori.
In that most critical moment when the Athenians
at Syracuse were about to venture their last hopes
upon a naval engagement, Nicias, having concluded
his affecting speech, went through the host, and
called upon each of the trierarchs, as Thucydides
adds, TraTpoBsv ts iTrovojua^wv.^ When Metellus was
known to be the encourager and patron of the in
famous Clodius, Servilius rose up in the senate and
addressed himself to his kinsman Metellus, and,
calling up from the dead all the family of the Metelli,
laid before him the glorious acts of his ancestors,
Metellus could hold out no longer, but with tears in
his eyes gave himself up to Serrilius, and professed
all future services to Cicero. The eloquence of
Demosthenes never rose to a higher strain than
when he asserted the efficacy of this principle, and
traced its operation through the deeds of heroes.
" What inspired the Erechthidae with the resolution
to die for their country, but the remembrance of that
divine founder, Erechtheus, whose name distin
guished them, and whose virtue was their inheri
tance ? What determined the ^gidae to defend
their freedom, but the example of the great Theseus?
What excited the Pandionidae to noble vengeance,
but the remembrance of Procne and Philomela, the
daughters of Pandion ? What fllled the Leontidae
vrith resolution to win glory, but the fame of the
daughters of Leos, who devoted themselves to death
' Adelph. » Lib. VII, 69.

GODEFEIDUS. 297
for their country ? What made the Acamantidae
dare all hazards in defence of their wives and
parents, but the strains of Homer, which comme
morate the embassy of Acamas to Troy for the
deliverance of a woman ? What moved the CEnidae
to labour for the preservation of Greece, but the
remembrance of that common blood which they
derived from (Eneus ? What imparted to the Cecro-
pidse wisdom and power, but the example of that
founder who united the understanding of a man
with the strength of a dragon ? What obliged the
Hippothoontae to win worship, but the glory of their
descent from Hippothoon, the son of Neptune ?
What determined the Aiantidae to prefer death to
infamy, but the example of A^jax, that glorious
ancestor, who refused life when deprived of honour ?
What influenced the Antiochidae, but the memory
of Antiochus, and his descent from Hercules ?
ottv ovv riyfjaavTO rj Zyv d^iwg twv virapxpvTwv rj
Tt^vavai KaXiig." '
It would be injustice to deny that the spirit of
later chivalry was indebted to the influence of this
heroic principle. For one gentleman to say to
another that he was of more noble or more ancient
blood than his, would indeed have been contrary to
the spirit of this chivalry f but Castiglione proves
the fact in favour of illustrious birth, and appeals
to the experience of all nations.* The opinion of
Agamemnon, that his noble dignity imposed upon
him the duty of being the first to endure labours,*
is the general doctrine of the chivalrous romances.
" Sythe that ye be come of kynges and queues,"
says Sir Galahad to Melyas de Lyle, " now loketh
that knyghthood be wel sette in you, for ye oughte

' Or. LX Epitaph.
= Marc de la Beraudiere, le Combat de seni a seul : Paris, 1608.
' The Courtier, book I. * H- X, 88.

298 GODEFEIDUS.
to be a myrrour unto all chyvalry.'" The cry of
the heralds was always, " Souviens toi de qui tu es
fils, et ne forligne pas." St. Augustin speaks of
preserving the paternal ring, as an evidence of the
affectionate reverence with which men should regard
the memory of their fathers.^ " The last thing, my
child," said Otho to his nephew, " that I have to
recommend to you, is, neither entirely to forget, nor
yet to remember too well, that you had an emperor
for your uncle," Again, in our heroic bard.
Is my name Talbot ? and am I your son ?
And shaU I fly ?
The world will say. He is not Talbot's blood
That basely fled when noble Talbot stood,
Cosmo de Medici, conversing with Santi, who
was the reputed son of Bentivoglio, and who was
urged to hasten to Bologna upon the death of that
nobleman, in order to avail himself of his name,
adopted this principle as the ground of his whole
argument. " No one here," he said, " can give you
counsel but yourself. You must act as your own
heart directs. If you are the son of Hercules
Bentivoglio, you will feel yourself drawn on towards
enterprises worthy of your father and of your house;
if you are the son of Angelo Cascese, you will
remain at Florence, devoting your life to your
manufactures." It was this fear of being an injury to the honour
of his house, which oppressed the soul of the noble
Hamlet in his last moments :
O God ! — Horatio, what a wounded name.
Things standing thus unknown, shall live behind me !
If thou didst ever hold me in thy heart.
Absent thee from felicity awhile,
Aud in this harsh w'orld draw thy breath in pain.
To tell my story.

' Morte d'Arthur, II, 218. ' De Civitate Dei, 1, 13.

GODEFEIDUS. 299
It must always be admitted, to the honour of
nobility, that, excepting in rare instances, it has
proved an obstacle in 'the way of estabUshing any
odious system of despotism or anarchy. Without
doubt this praise is rather to be referred to that
spirit of chivalry which its admfrers ascribe to it ;
for it proceeds on the supposition stated by Montes
quieu, that honour, which is a moving principle of
monarchy, can never be that of despotism. Socrates
observed, that tyrants do not desire that love and
friendship and magnanimity should be multiplied.
It is not for their interest that there should be great
souls and firm bonds of friendship. ^ Wicked and
degenerate rulers endeavour to free themselves from
the presence of the old nobility. " Thus Dionysius
used to live in the company of fugitive criminals
and barbarians, and would never regard as his friend
any one who was either worthy of freedom or who
vrished to be free." ^ Caligula even deprived the
old families of their hereditary emblems. He took
the ring from Torquatus, the tuft of hair from
Cincinnatus, and the surname of Great from the
descendants of Pompey,'
On the accession of Louis XI. all the chivafry of
the court of Charles VII. disappeared. In the former
reign, the ancient nobles and men of merit and
honour surrounded the throne, but they gave way
now to the basest minions. The venerable Guil
laume des Ursins lost the place of Chancellor
Breze and Dampmartin were disgraced; and instead
of seeing the galleries of Plessis les Tours filled with
princes of the blood, warriors such as Dunois, Sain-
traUles, and so many other heroes who still lived,
there were only to be seen a vUe barber, Olivier le
Diable, whose insolence equaUed his credit; and

' Plato, Conviv. " Cicero, Tuscul. V.
3 Suetonius in Vit. Calig.

300 GODEFEIDUS.
La Balue, son of a tailor, formerly servant to the
bishop of Angers, whose kindness he had repaid
vrith the basest ingratitude. These were the men
who disposed of all places, engaged their master to
levy an additional tax of three millions, to put him
self as it was termed " hors de page."
Perhaps a strong argument in favour of nobility
may be the result of tracing the leading principles
which generally are employed in raising objections
against it. Bossuet remarked the pleasure which
some men derived from comparing themselves to
brute animals, and said, that when they thus
pleaded against their own nature in behalf of the
brutes, they resembled a man of illustrious birth,
who, from the influence of -rile and ignoble habits,
desired to lose the memory of his dignity, lest he
should be obliged to live in the exercise of the
duties which it imposed ; ^ and it is certain that it
is such men, not others of a lower origin, who are
the natural and proper adversaries of nobility.
While it is true what St. Francis of Sales used
to say, that " noble minds are never amused with
these trifles of rank, and honour, and respect, since
they have much better things to do ; and that it is
the characteristic of base and indolent spirits to be
arrested by them," it is no less certain that the
poor and the chivalry of nature always are inclined
to respect nobility in others ; at least, they are the
last to declaim against it, because they know that
it is not worth even a thought when divested of the
spirit of chivalry; and that where that chivalry
exists, its presence cannot interfere with the attain
ment of any object which can be dear to a noble
heart. On the other hand, demagogue nobles are
the most decided enemies of chivalry, and the most
dangerous enemies of freedom. In free states it is
' De la Connolssance de Dieu.

GODEFEID S. 301
filmost always such men that establish a tyranny.
Men like Clodius, who endeavour to change their
patrician for the plebeian rank, vrill always have
some base object to accompUsh — either the gratifi
cation of ignoble propensities, or the friendship of
profligate men, or the pursuit of revenge and envy
against persons whom they could not otherwise in
jure. Thus Caius Marius used to boast that he
could shew no images of others, or monuments of
the dead: "these things he said," observes Plu
tarch, "not out of mere vanity, or needlessly to
embroil himself with the nobility ; but he saw the
people took pleasure in seeing the Senate insulted,
and that they measured the greatness of a man's
mind by the insolence of his language ; and there
fore, to gratify them, he spared not the greatest
men in the state."
Upon the whole, and to conclude a subject which
certainly in these ages of the world should com
mand but little interest, — for chivalry has other
duties besides contending for titles of nobility, and
what is essential in the institution of nobility will
stand, in spite of all that the masters of this new
science of perfectibility can do to overthrow it, —
there is no doctrine of political science more certain
than that, under all circumstances of government,
the harmony of social life, the cultivation of the
arts, the interests of literature, the happiness of the
people themselves, no doubt the secret end of all
institutions coeval with society, require the preser
vation of degree. "Nothing," says Bacon, "doth
derogate from the dignity of a state more than con
fusion of degree."
Take but degree away, untune that string.
And hark, what discord foUows ! each thing meets
In mere oppugnancy : the bounded waters
Should lift their bosoms higher than the shores.
And make a sop of all this solid globe.

302 GODEFEIDUS.
Strength should be lord of imbecility.
And the rude son should strike his father dead.
Force shonld be right ; or rather right and wrong,
Between whose endless jar justice resides.
Should lose their names, and so should justice too.
Then everything includes itself in power.
Power into will ; will into appetite ;
And appetite, an universal wolf.
So doubly seconded with will and power.
Must make perforce an universal prey.
And, last, eat np himself.'
In the middle ages nobility assumed an essen
tially religious -and somewhat of a symbolic cha
racter, which invested it with an air of venerable
majesty, of which we can now only form an idea
from consulting those heroic and holy annals which
exhibit the lives of saints. According to the har
monious and divine philosophy of the CathoUc
Church, every man had his post and his honour
able employment. The pride of inferiors was
calmed, and the world beheld the burden, as well
as the ornaments, of greatness.
The advice which St. Bernard addressed to the
inferior clergy dwelling in monastic retirement, was
applicable also to the laity in regard to their su
periors. " Brethren," said the saint, " let us rever
ence the bishops, but let us fear their labours ; if
we think upon thefr labours, we shall not be desirous
of their honours, nor shall we be disposed to watch,
but rather to honour them. It would be inhuman to
censure the works of men, of whose burden you do
not feel the weight. He who is occupied in public
affairs may sometimes be discerned acting and
speaking less circumspectly ; but let no man who
remains in security at home venture to condemn
him." Moreover, while the spirit of the inferior
classes of men was thus tempered, princes and
nobles were taught to consider themselves as
' Troilns and Cressida, act J. sc in.

GODEFEIDUS. 303
elevated for the purpose of ministering to the
wants of their inferiors. " The Son of man came
not to be ministered unto, but to minister " ; and
it was an affecting appeal of St. Chrysostom, which
was never lost upon the great in Catholic times,
when he said, "Would it not be shameful that, in
a religion which induces us to recognize Jesus
Christ for our master and our sovereign master,
there should be any men who wish to possess a
tnore absolute empire than he exercised ? " The
great, therefore, might be humble even as the
lowest servant of their hall. For it was not pride
to remain in the station to which men were born,
and in which the proridence of God had placed
them, provided they made use of it in the manner
for which God designed it. Noble rank was in
that event perfectly compatible with preserving the
sentiments of a humble heart, with the knowledge
of one's faults and misery, and with the habitual
conviction, that it was something foreign to men's
selves with which the order of God had invested
them.' In fact, the Church instructed all her
children, that to be proud of birth, or rank, or
fortune, was to be guilty of a mortal sin; and
how far the spirit of nobility conformed to this
principle, it shall be my endeavour to demonstrate,
by facts of history, in the next book.
It is not a valid objection which some have ad
vanced against nobility, considering it as involring
men in the condition of those who seek the praise
and honour of the world. " It is partly right,"
says St. Augustin, "that men should wish to he
praised ; since it is right that they should desfre
truth, which, although it may not be the object of
praise, is yet alone worthy of praise. The good
' Bourdaloue, Serm. snr 1' Ambition ; and Nicole, Essais de
Morale, vol. II.

304 GODEFEIDUS.
Master hath taught us by his Apostle, not to act
well in order that we may be praised by men, haring
thefr praise for our end ; and yet, for the sake of
other men, to seek their praise ; for when good men
are praised, it is not those who are praised, but it is
those who praise that are beneflted ; for to the one
it is sufficient that they are good ; but they who
ought to imitate the good are to be congratulated
whenever good men are praised by them, since in
this manner they prove that they are pleased vrith
goodness : for thus said the Apostle, ' Placete
omnibus per omnia, sicut et ego omnibus per omnia
placeo'; adding the motive, /Non quaerens quod
mihi utile est, sed quod multis, ut salvi fiant.' "^
XXI. " Of government the properties to unfold
would seem in me to affect speech and discourse."
I undertake not to instruct rulers, nor to follow the
adventurous path of Occleve, who wrote Be Regi-
mine Principum, or of Lydgate, who composed the
Governaunce of Princes. Yet nobility has conducted
us to the throne of power, and we cannot retrace
our steps until we have considered the principles of
its foundation, as far as they are connected with the
spirit and institutions of chivalry.
" The governing and being governed," says
Aristotle, " is not merely to be classed with things
unavoidable, but with those also which are beneficial.
Immediately from their birth, some things are set
apart for being governed, and some to have the
power of governing ; and there are many forms of
being governed and of governing ; for in all things
throughout universal nature there are that which
governs and that which is governed ; not merely in
all things that have Ufe, but even in those which
are without life there is a certain ruling power as a
harmony."^ ' S. Augustin. ad Darium Epist. CCXXXI.
= PoUt. Ub. I, c. 2.

GODEFEIDUS. 305
Socrates thus examines Lysis : " ¦¦ Tell me, 0
Lysis, do your father and mother greatly love
you?' ' Yes, that they do, truly,' repUed the youth.
' Therefore they wish you to become as happy as
possible ? ' ' How could it be otherwise ? ' ' Does
a serving-man, who can do nothing that he wishes,
seem to you to be happy ? ' ' No, truly.' ' There
fore, if your father and mother wish you to be
happy, it is clear they must also have such desires
respecting you as will enable you to be happy.'
' Certainly.' ' Do they then suffer you to do what
ever you like, and do they hinder you from nothing ? '
'No, indeed, far otherwise, 0 Socrates, for they
hinder me from many things,' ' What do you say ?
Wishing you to be happy, do they hinder you from
doing what you wish ? Answer me to this : if you
should wish to mount into one of your father's
chariots and take the reins, when he goes to
contend, would he not permit you ? ' ' No, truly,
he would not permit me,' ' How then ? ' ' My
father has a hired servant to be charioteer,' 'What!
do they rather permit a hired servant than you to
do what he pleases with the horses, and, in addition,
do they give him money for his pains ? At least,
I suppose they allow you to take charge of the mule-
chariots and to manage the reins, and to take the
whip and flog them ? ' 'A likely thing, indeed,
that they should allow me to do so ! ' ' What, may
no one whip them ? ' ' Yes, to be sure, the muleteer
may,' ' Is he a servant or a free man ? ' 'A ser
vant.' ' So then they seem to think more of a
servant than of you their son, and they permit hira
to do many things which they will not allow you to
touch, and he may do what he likes, and you cannot
do what you like ; and again answer me to this : do
they allow you to be your own master or not ? '
' Not they, indeed.' ' What, does any one command
you ? ' ' Yes, this pedagogue here.' ' Is he also a
Godefridus. ^

306 GODEFEIDUS.
servant ? ' ' That he is, our own.' ' 0 awful
calamity ! a free man to be ruled by a slave ! But
what does this pedagogue do ? ' 'He takes me to
school.' ' What, are there masters to rule over
you ? ' ' There are, assuredly.' ' So your father
gives you abundance of tyrants. But say,- when
you return home to your mother, does she permit
you to do what you like, that you may be happy ?
to meddle with the wool and the spindle whilst she
is weaving ? • Does she permit you to handle the
comb, the shuttle, or any other of the instruments ?'
Here the lad began to laugh. ' By Jove, 0 Socrates,
she would not only prevent me, but she would beat
me soundly, if I were to lay a finger on them.' '0
Hercules ! have you ever injured your father or
mother ? ' ' Not I, truly.' ' But then, for what
crime or cause do they so horridly hinder you from
being happy and doing what you like ; and why do
they bring you up in such a way, day after day,
that you are always obeying some one, and, in short,
that you can never do what you like ? You are not
master of any thing, 0 Lysis ; you have not power
to do any thing which you desire 1 '" i
This dialogue is intended to expose the absurdity
of the political sophists, who inflame the minds of
men with a vague idea of a state of liberty, for
which they are disqualified by the very constitution
of their nature, insomuch that every attempt to
acquire it is sure to occasion the loss, in some
degree, of the real freedom which is essential to
their happiness. Their ordinances are to maintain
liberty, order, right, and justice, "quee cum magnir
fice primo dici videntur, considerata minus proban-
tur." The sense of each man, and the nature of
things, and truth itself, discovered by experience,
' Plato, Lysis.

GODEFEIDUS. 307
soon cry out from all sides, that they lead to
oppression, discord, error, and injustice.
The form of government may be changed, and
adapted to the various circumstances of time and
'the character of those who are to be governed ; but
the substantial power must always exist somewhere
and be submitted to, whether with choice or from
necessity. " Their chief — for they were obliged to
give themselves one, in spite of their love for liberty,"
says Levesque, speaking of the Teuchins, a band of
ferocious rebels who devastated Auvergne and
Poitou in 1384.1 With such men, as with Gon
zalo, " the latter end of their commonwealth for
gets the beginning." No , sovereignty ; yet each
would be king. Cicero shews, that in Rome the
destruction of the regal power was only the
abolishing a name, while the thing itself remained.^
" Nothing," he says, " belongs tnore essentially to
the condition of nature than rule or empire, without
which neither a house, nor a state, nor a tribe, nor
the human race, can stand, nor the whole nature of
things — nor the world itself, for this has to obey
Grod." Government does not result from the con
sent of those who are to be governed, any more
than a father derives authority from his children,
or a master from his servants, or a teacher from
his scholars. " In every thing," says Plato, " that
which rules is older than that which is ruled;
that which 4eads than that which is led.'^ ^ The
error of the moderns has arisen from their sup
posing that the savage state was the original
condition of men, and that the social or civilised
is the result of compact or experience ; where
as, on the contrary, it is this latter which pre
sents the original condition of the human race, and
what is termed the savage or natural state is
' La France sous les cinq prem. Valois, III, 39.
2 De Legibus, lib. Ill, 7. ^ De Legibus.
X 2

308 GODEFEIDUS,
the result of corruption and accident, which has
destroyed the original and natural order of human
society. When we reflect for a moment upon the multi
tude of discordant elements which, in all society,'
are to be controlled; upon the jarring interests
which are to be made to conspfre; upon the con
course of base, selfish, and furious passions which
are to be guarded against, appeased, and even
chained down, as it were, with links of iron ; upon
the endless foreign enemies which are to be pre
vented from preying upon each internally agitated
state; in short, when we consider the propensities
of those who are to be governed, all of whom, as
Aristotle says, " are inclined to be unjust and to
injure whenever they have the power ; " * it is an
indication of superior penetration of mind to feel
lost in astonishment at the success which attends
such apparently weak and inadequate means, as are
possessed by human governments, to secure the
existence of a state. Montaigne had reason to say,
that " the preservation of states is a thing which
surpasses our understanding," ^ A certain jester
of a king of Spain demanded of him, " If all should
say ' no ' to what your majesty commands, what is
to be done ? " If it had not been for the eternal
provision of nature silently but irresistibly operat
ing, in spite of the sophists and the whole tribe of
politicians, this would have been the answer of the
majority of men to every prescription and form of
government, and mankind would not have long sur
vived the decline of degrees, observances, customs,
and laws, to their confounding contraries. The
Christian philosophy imparts sublime views re
specting the divine provisions to secure the duration
.of society. " What an astonishing example," says
' Ehetor. IL 2 Essais, III, 9,

GODEFEIDUS, 309
Monta,igne, " has the divine wisdom left us, that to
establish the salvation of the human race, and to
conduct this his glorious victory against death and
sin, he should have acted only as if at the mercy of
our political order ; that he should have subjected
his progress and the conduct of so great and salu
tary a matter to the blindness and injustice of our
observations and customs, permitting the innocent
blood of so many of his elect to flow, and enduring
so great a loss of years, in order to ripen this ines
timable fruit." ^
Luis of Granada pursues the same train of
thought : " The love of our own excellence is the
cause of the greatest part of the troubles and dis
sensions in the world; no man being content to
keep in the rear, but all pushing and trying to be
in the van. It is for this reason that the Son of
God coming into the world made such an account
of humility, that it would seem as if he had only
come into the world to impart it. So the Church
on Palm-Sunday chants that God had sent his Son
into the world to clothe himself in our flesh and to
die upon the cross, to give an example of humiUty
to the world; keeping silence as to every thing else,
as if he had only come for that object; for the
whole of his ministry, from his conception to his
death upon the cross, was an example of humility.
He chose for the ignominy of his death the cele
brated city of Jerusalem, and for the glory of his
birth the little village of Bethlehem. Man was
created to serve his Creator; but earth's proud
child, arrogant man, said within himself, ' I do not
wish to serve him.' ' I -vrish, then,' said the ever
lasting King, ' to serve you. Place yourself at table,
I wiU wait on you and will wash your feet.' " ^
" Who was subject ? " asks St. Bernard ; " God.
'. Essais, I, 22. ^ Catechism, part III, c, 10.

310 GODEFEIDUS.
To whom ? To man. He whom the powers of
heaven obey was subject to Mary ; therefore, man,
do thou learn to obey. Earth, learn to be subject,
and thou, dust, be content to submit." " There is
not an offence of consequence committed against
the laws of a good govemment which is not a
grievous sin against ^the laws of God." This is
what Muratori says.^ The predisposition of the
chivalrous spirit to acquiesce in the wisdom of this
obedience, might have been formerly noticed among
the instances which were produced to shew that it
was pecuUarly suited to embrace the Christian
discipline. In fact, there wiU be occasion to ob
serve hereafter, that chivalry and youth preferred
obedience to command, however incredible such a
sentiment may appear to those modern politicians,
who, like drunken sailors, are all quarrelling for the
chief rule, and each contending for the helm ; how
ever extravagant such a position may have seemed
to the inventors of the most approved of the modern
systems of education, who thought, no doubt, that
they were conferring a great- benefit upon youth, by
inventing a process which would give command and
authority to children : — monstrous, one might per
haps say unholy, contrivance of reason ! to reverse
the plan of Nature, and to subvert her gracious
scheme of beneficence and order !
In the meantime I assert that it is no novel or
extravagant position to hold, that the post of
obedience among the crowd may be the choice of
generous and heroic men. Plato says, that if there
were a state composed solely of virtuous men, it
would be as much an object of contention among
them not to be invested vrith command^ as it is now
who should be able to obtain it.^ He adds, that the
wishing to be a lord or ruler, when there is no
' On Public Happiness. ^ De Eepub. I.

GODEFEIDUS. 311
necessity for our taking command, should be re
garded as an infamy. Sophocles and Euripides
both speak of the desire of rule as indicating a
want of wisdom or virtue ; ^ though Euripides was
famous for the iniquitous saying, that if justice were
ever to be violated, it should be for the sake of
Feigning.^ When the doctrine of the materialists,
which reduces morality to self-interest, has been
introduced into a country, its first effect is to dis
turb public order, and to divide subjects, by exciting
a boundless desire of rule. Every one wishes to en
gross the command; no one will obey. Power is
fought for with rage, and the distracted state would
fall a victim to factions, if the minds of men had
not become ripe, through degradation, for enduring
every thing, insomuch that they precipitate them
selves towards despotism, for it is in anarchy that
the principles of slavery are prepared. Such is the
double effect arising when manners are corrupted
with impiety. The pride of men is so greatly irri
tated, that the gentlest government becomes odious
to them ; and yet so completely have they forgotten
the noble sentiment of their own dignity, that
nothing seems intolerable to them, nothing dis
gusts or astonishes them in the most ferocious
tyranny. The great French writer, whose words
I repeat, seems to contemplate a state of society
Uke that which the wise Athenian, in Plato, traced
to the influence of popular leaders, who taught the
people to conceive themselves qualified to judge
every thing. This liberty graduaUy led them to
greater excesses. At first they declared that they
would no longer be slaves to magistrates. Then
they would not be slaves to their fathers and mothers
and elders ; and, lastly, they scorned to submit to
the laws; and, having proceeded so far, they no
' (Edip. Tyran. 586. Hippolytus, 1013. ' PhoenisssB.

312 GODEFEIDUS.
longer cared for oaths, or for pledged faith, or for
the gods, and so they displayed and imitated rfjv
Xtyonivr\v TraXaidv TiTaviKrjv ^vaiv.^
Hippodamus, the, Pythagorean, in his treatise
upon government, supposes the eril to proceed in
an inverse order to this, as he teaches the necessity
of guarding against the sophists ; " for it is not a
common injury," he observes, " but the greatest of
all calamities which the discourses of the sophists
produce in men-'s minds, when they dare to move
any thing contrary to the common notions of the
gods and of human affairs, irapd rag KOtvdg ivvoiag,
either denying that there is a God, or affirming
that he does not regard men ; for such paradoxes
give rise to madness and injustice." ^
It is to these common notions^ these universal
sacred traditions, opposed to the private specula
tions of reasoners in every age, that the wise
ancients had recourse for the foundation of aU
principles relative to human society, as well as to
the great truths of religion ; as when Cicero says,
" I tell you that I have learned better things con
cerning the worship of the immortal gods, from the
pontifical law and from the customs of our ances
tors, from those jugs which Numa has left us, and
to which Laelius alludes in that golden little speech,
than from all the reasoning of the stoics," '
I shall have occasion to retum to this subject,
when defending the philosophy of the middle ages
(for, in opposition to M, Cousin, I must persist in
beliering that they possessed a philosophy), and it
will then be my endeavour to shew a most important
truth — that, even nnder the light of the Christian
revelation, the human mind has not been able to
prove that the importance of individual reason can

Plato, Leges, III, « Stobaei Florileg. II, 127.
' De Natur^ Deorum, Ub. Ill, 17.

GODEFEIDUS. 313
be extended beyond the limits ascribed to it by Plato
and Cicero; the latter of whom, not content with
this preference of Numa's jugs, proceeded to say,
that the quick movement of thought, the sagacity
and penetration, which we call reason, is accom
panied with such eril, when it is exercised in a spirit
of independence, that it seems as if it would have
been better for the human race to have been
altogether deprived of it :^ in which judgment the
history of philosophy, from the beginning down to
these days, would oblige us all to acquiesce, if it
were not for the ignorance and ingratitude of many,
who are not aware that, before Christianity, men
were indebted for whatever degree of trutU they
possessed to tradition and the universal reason, and
who have become insensible to the benefits which
have been conferred upon them by the religion of
Jesus Christ.
With respect to the form of government, it is
obrious that chivalry will accommodate itself to
times and to places, so as to admit whatever system
may have been established ; for we may conclude —
though in opposition to many moderns, who affirm
that the whole is before the part, society before the
man — what Plato held, that government had nothing
fo do with causing the virtue of great men ; " for
there are always," he said, " some few divine minds
among the many, growing up not more numerously
in well-governed states than in those which are ill
governed."^ However, in some respects, it does
appear as if chivalry had a connection with monarchy.
The reverence with which the Homeric heroes speak
of the persons of kings,^ and the preference which
they profess for the government of one king, to
whom Jove should give the sceptre of justice,* may
' De Natura Deorum, lib. Ill, 27. ' De Legibus, XII.
3 Od. XVI, -100. ' II. II, 204.

314 GODEFEIDUS.
be cited in evidence, as far as regards the sentiments
of early times. Hesiod, Plato, Aristotle, and Apol-
lonius, are for a monarchy, as being the form of
government taught by nature, obedience to which
is the most ancient law ;i in which opinion, the early
fathers of the Church, St. Cyprian, St. Jerome, and
others, seem to have coincided.
" The first society," says Cicero, "is in marriage,
the second in children, then in a whole family, which
is the beginning, and, as it were, the seminary of a
state. Then follow other conjunctions ; and as one
house cannot contain them all, they are induced to
found others, as it were colonies ; then follow other
marriages and affinities, qu^ propagatio et sqboles
origo est rerum publicarum."^ Aristotle; says, in
like manner, that a father ruling over his sons is a
monarchy,^ According to the sentiments of the
Homeric chivalry, old age conferred a kind of kingly
power. Agamemnon reminds Achilles, that, setting
aside his own rank, he is more kingly than he, from
being his elder,* And that this principle was fully
admitted in our own heroic age, appears evident
from the constant language which prevailed. Thus,
in L'Arhre des Batailles it is said that the son is to
assist his father as "son seigneur naturel," It is
a remarkable sentence of Pausanias, that the earliest
governments of the Greeks, as of all other people,
were monarchical ; ^ and certainly the Greek poets
seem to have conceived a noble idea of aking.^ In
Pindar we can observe not only a deep aversion for
that predominance of the democratic principle which
gave cause in his time to so many violent commo
tions throughout Greece, and in the end to con
sequences yet more destructive ; but also his evident
partiality for the regal form of government, and that
' Stobseus, Ub. XVIII, 191. ' De OflSciis, Ub. I, 17.
s Ethic, lib. VIII, 10. ¦• II. IX, 160.
' Lib. IX, 1. « Sophocles, CEdipus Tyranuus, 93, 444.

GODEFEIDUS. 315
influence of the nobility, which remained always so
powerful among the Doric states. That a king could
not separate his own interest from that of his people,
was the opinion ascribed by Xenophon to Chrysan-
tas;^ and the words with which Darius concluded
his speech in favour of monarchy, as related by
Herodotus, form a remarkable eridence of an ancient
conriction. " For to comprehend all things in a
few words, whence was it that we acquired freedom,
and from whose hand ? Was it frora the people, or
from an oligarchy, or from a monarch ? I am of
opinion that we became free through the govern
ment of one man."^ Frederick Schlegel has ob
served, that "monarchy and aristocracy do not appear
among any other people of antiquity in a light at
once so mild and so iUustrious as in the empire of
Persia ; a government which, in whatever way its
power might be abused by particular princes, was,
on the whole, founded on the basis of elevation of
sentiment and purity of manners." ^ Indeed, it
must be confessed that the republican form of
government, though noble and dignified, was so far
contrary to the mind of chivalry, inasmuch as it
was of itself inimical in the highest degree to the
influence and importance of women, and to the
peaceful enjoyment of private life : for its evident
tendency was to fill the whole heart and soul of men
with matters of public moment, -vrith just or false
views of patriotism, and, above all, to engross the
whole attention of each individual with the peculiar
political tenets or prejudices of the sect or party to
which he belonged. Whatever opinion may be
entertained as to the general tendency of a republican
government, its effects upon individuals can never
be particularly favourable to the growth or preser-
' CyropEedia, VIII, 1. ' Herod, lib. Ill, 82.
3 Hist, of Lit. I, 40.

316 GODEFEIDUS.
vation of those elevated and generous sentiments
which constitute chivalry : for as Plutarch, speaking
of Cicero, justly says, "The passion for celebrity
(which is so much strengthened and extended imder
that system) has great power to efface the impres
sions of philosophy, and to infuse the passions of
the vulgar into the minds of public men, who
necessarily have a connexion- and commerce with
the multitude; unless they take care, while they
engage in affairs, to attend to the business only,
without imbibing the passions that are the common
consequence of engaging in that business." The
hand of little employment hath the daintier sense.
What a contrast to the mind of chivalry is presented,
not only in the conduct, but even in the orations of
most public men ! How can this be accounted for ?
The Roman philosopher supplies the best answer,
in alluding to the vanity of Demosthenes. " Apud
alios loqui videlicet didicerat, non multum ipse
secum.'" As for the democratic doctrines, they are
utterly opposed to all the principles of the ancient
as well as of the Christian chivafry. " I pardon the
people," says Xenophon, " for preferring a demo
cracy ; but whoever, not being of the people, vrishes
to live under a democracy, is prepared to act unjustly,
and knows that a wicked man can more easily escape
detection under such a government than under any
other. '"^ In no state are the best men favourable
to democratic rule, but always the worst are its
advocates; for " like favours like." ' The opinions
of Socrates and those of the greater part of his
scholars were openly inimical to democracy. Xeno
phon and Plato praise, almost with the zeal of poU
tical partisans, the constitution of every state in
whose institutions the aristocratical principle was

' Cicero, Tusc. Qu. lib. V, 36. ' De Eep. Athen. c. 2.
» Id. 3.

GODEFEIDUS. 317
predominant. Always in alliance -vrith these senti
ments was a disinclination to teach men that all
persons should feel themselves engaged to a political
life. Aristotle mentions one who would not suffer
his son to take part in public affairs, saying, "If
you speak justly, men will hate you ; if unjustly,
the gods."^ The great sages of old, from Thales
the Milesian down to Anaxagoras, men like Pittacus
and Bias, as Socrates remarked to Hippias, kept
aloof from public affairs ; and though, in our heroic
ages, there is evidence from the ancient chronicles
to know, as M. de Barante observes, that public
opinion and the general wish of subjects, exercised
an immense power ;^ it is also certain that men's
thoughts and conversation were but little occupied
-vrith politics, that "sad refuge of restless minds,
averse from business and from study." ^ A contrary
disposition and mode of life, while it would have
been incompatible with that leisure which the ancient
philosophers supposed necessary to the attainment,*
and which we may still regard as required for the
preservation, of truth, would probably have added
but very little either to the rirtue or to the happiness
of their country; for, in truth, the prosperity of
states depends more upon the hearts than upon the
reason of subjects, however ardent they may be in
the invention of schemes to promote it. Berkeley,
who may probably be regarded as an authority not
altogether beneath the attention of "a thinking
people," says on one occasion, " I question whether
every one can frame a notion of the public good,
much less judge of the raeans to promote it." What
would become of society if it were depending for
security upon the wisdom even of those heads which
have been trained to take care of its interests, and

Ehetor II, 23. = Hist, des Dues de Bourgogne, pref.
3 Landor. ¦• Max. Tyr. XXII, 3.

318 GODEFEIDUS.
invested with power to execute their wishes, or upon
the efforts of those hostile ranks who are to keep
up a perpetual combat in the bosom of the state, in
order, as they suppose, to preserve it from corrup
tion ? Prometheus could steal fire and the common
arts of life from Vulcan and Minerva ; but the poli
tical wisdom was beyond his grasp, for that was with
Jupiter, and Prometheus had not courage to mount
into his citadel to secure it for men.^ The moderns,
indeed, do not feel the necessity of mounting so
high ; but there is no proof as yet that it can be
obtained more easily by blustering and violence than
by stealth. However, notwithstanding the doubts of
Berkeley, in Catholic times there was one consistent
idea very prevalent concerning the nature of the
public good, and an art of government to promote
that object, which was very simple. To understand
this, we must observe, that our ancestors concluded,
with St. Augustine, that a state cannot be happy
upon any other ground than that upon which the
happiness of a man depends, since a state is nothing
but a concourse of men.^ It was known that the
very heathens would condemn the idea that a state
could be profiigate and prosperous, since, as St.
Augustine says of Scipio, " neque enim censebat ille
felicem esse rempublicam stantibus moenibus, ruen-
tibus moribus.''-'' And Aristotle expressly shews,
that what constitutes the happiness of a man con
stitutes also that of a state,* Maximus of Tyre applies
the principle, and says, alluding to the history of
Greece, " What a train of evils followed evil ! But
if those who were at any time injured had known,
that to those who injured them the greatest possible
evil that could happen was their own injustice, far
greater than war or the demolition of walls, and the

Plato, Protngoras, ° De Civitate Dei, lib. I, 15.
Ib. I, 33. ¦> Polit. Ub. VU, 2. Ethic. N. Ub. I, 2.

GODEFEIDUS. 319
laying waste of lands, and the overthrow of govern
ment, Greece would not have suffered such calami
ties," "The Athenians besiege Potidaea, 0 Spar
tan, suffer this; they will soon repent : do not imitate
the evil; be not a partaker of their crimes,"^ "I
hesitate not to affirm, that the crime of him who
retaliates is greater than that of the power who
first injures."^
When Zaleucus of Locria, the disciple of Pytha
goras, was ordained legislator, and commissioned to
frame new laws for his country, he began first, says
Diodorus, with the heavenly gods ; for he affirmed,
that the belief in the gods was to be the foundation
of all laws; and the first thing to- be secured was
the worship of the gods, as the authors of all good
to men f without which, Cicero was of opinion there
could be no faith, or justice, or society, amongst
men.* Isocrates, in his admirable oratiomrEpt siprivr^g,
maintained that peace, moderation, content, justice,
and virtue, constituted the happiness of a state ; and
he affirmed that it was oven more important to states
'than to individuals to avoid crime and to pursue
virtue; "for a man," he said, "might elude punish
ment by a speedy death, but states being imraortal,
must inevitably receive, sooner or later, the recom
pense of their injustice from men and from the
gods." According to these principles the public good was
at once known, when the object was determined
for which all wise men should pray. What, then,
did they pray for ? As the philosopher remarked :
" Socrates prayed constantly, Pythagoras prayed,
and Plato prayed; but for what did they pray?
For money, or that they might have power to rule
the Athenians ? Far otherwise ; but they prayed

' XVIII, 7. ' Id. 8.
' Diodorus, lib. XII, 20. ' De Natnra Deorum, hb. I, 2.

320 GODEFEIDUS.
for what they received; rirtue of soul and peace of life,
and an innocent existence, and a death full of hope :
admirable gifts, which descend from the gods.'"
Ta Bs KaXd Kal rd SiKaia, Trspi div v TroXiTiKrj aKonstrai,
says Aristotle.^ The moderns will smile to hear that
the greatest of the ancient writers on poUtics held
honour and justice to be the objects of poUtical
science ; but in the middle ages this position would
not have been ridiculed. In Catholic times men
believed that the spirit of Christianity ought to be
the spirit of government ; that the defepce of virtue
and holiness ought to be its object, and that the law
of God ought to be its rule. " If we wish to con
sider the end of all civil government," says Barto
lommeo Arnigio,^ " which is no other than to live
well according to the divine pleasure, afin de
s'acheminer a Dieu, there is no surer rule, or more
certain way, than the religion of Jesus Christ."
Frederick Schlegel observes that Machiavelli was
the first who introduced into modem and Christian
Europe the fashion of reasoning and deciding on
politics exactly as if Christianity had had no
existence, or rather as if there had. been no such
thing as a Deity, or moral justice in the world.
Before his day, the common faith of Christianity
had formed a bond of connexion, and been con
sidered as the fundamental principle of aU govern
ment among the nations of Europe, and the people
of Christendom regarded themselves as forming, in
some sort, one family. The common opinion among
mankind was, that as men themselves ought to serve
their God, so it was their duty also to love and obey
the princes appointed by heaven to rule over them ;
and that in this sense the right of kings was divine.
All the doctrines of legislation and government stUl

' Max. Tyr. XI, 8. ' Ethic. Kicom. I, 3.
' Les VeiUes, p. 240.

GODEFEIDUS. - 321
reposed upon the invisible foundation of the Church ;
so that in countries where this had been overthrown,
it was natural and unavoidable that a new and
different plan of govemment should be professed.
Lord Bacon says that in all wise human government
they that sit at the helm do more happily bring their
purposes about, and insinuate more easily into the
minds of the people by pretext and oblique courses,
than by dfrect methods ; so that all sceptres and
maces of authority ought in very deed to be crooked
in the upper end. ^
The Catholic principle of government had nothing
to do with this crooked policy, of which the world
has had subsequently such long ' experience. We
are indebted to the modern philosophy for those able
statesmen, politicians, men that would circumvent
God. When the overthrow of religious unity had
destroyed the bond of the elder political union, Hugo
Grotius gave to self- destroying Europe an universal
and composing law for all her nations ; but, as
Friedrich Schlegel ju.stly says, the former "was an
irremediable loss," The position of the Abbe de la
Mennais must be admitted, that " the school of
doubt has produced nothing but cold dissertations,
without life, on all the great objects of meditation.
It is only in the school of Catholicism that we find
a system of political science capable of inspiring
eloquence. The reason is, that here morality is
the whole of policy ; here Providence is the great
governor of the revolutions of men, God is the
foundation of society, religion the bond ; laws have
authority, duties their sanction; men learn the
reason of obedience, and the rule of freedom,"
"The Christian principle of government permits,
in the first place, that all historical grounds should
be ascertained, as also the imperfection in its law;
1 On the Wisdom of the Ancients,
Godefridus. • ^

322 GODEFEIDUS,
and therein it is essentially opposed to the revolu
tionary struggle, which always begins with ignorance
of historic grounds and historic axioms, and which
in its inmost ways is at all times anti-historic.
Besides this, there always is in every Christian sys
tem of rule a formal and acknowledged principle of
justice ; and, moreover, the Christian philosophy,
and the views of human life which proceed from it,
are much more favourable to true freedom, in the
highest sense of the word, when we understand the
spiritual, intellectual, and inward freedom which
must always precede that which is the outward and
civil, if this last is to be productive ; according to
the sentence, ' He only is free whom the Son makes
free;' to comprehend which, it must be observed
that the Son makes no man free, other-vrise than as
he was himself free, namely, by obedience, and by
making the full offering of himself, in obedience to
his Father."!
The great philosophers and thinkers of antiquity
endeavoured to provide against the democratic spfrit,
of which they had beheld such fearful examples, by
means of an aristocratical power ; for the principles
of a monarchy, according to the system of the mid
dle ages, were then unknown, since these took their
origin in the grounds of the Christian religion.^ Of
such a monarchy, the early state of every kingdom
in Europe will furnish an example ; but I have
assumed the illustrious name of Godfrey, as in a
manner symbolical of that most Christian govern
ment, with which the chivalry of the middle ages
was so closely connected. It was with this view
that Godfrey was brought forward last in the ma
jestic procession of perfect or ideal chivalry. The
fiuthor of the knightly book, entitled Les Neuf Preux,

Schlegel, Philosophie des Lebens, 403-4.
Philosophie des Lebens, 410.

GODEFEIDUS. 323
commences his life of Godfrey, the last hero of this
noble fellowship, with expressing the delight with
which he hailed such a conclusion of his labours.
When "the pilgrim," he says, "who, during a
long space of time, has wandered on his way,
hoping to reach the spot where his affections con
duct him, through forests, and mountains, and
deserts, in which he must suffer many toils and
hardships, receives the news of his being now at
length within a day's journey of the end where he
is to obtain his palm, he feels such joy that he de
rives new strength, and forgets all his past sorrow ;
in like manner, after having with great diligence
surveyed the lives of the eight princes preceding,
and being now to record the prowess and valiance
of the preux Godefroy de BouiUon, what joy does
not my heart feel to perfect such a work in cele
brating him ! " ! To some minds there is something
beyond expression venerable and sublime in the
riew of that Christian kingdom of Jerusalem, whose
assizes and good usages formed the earliest state-
law of the middle ages. If we set aside the question
relative to the merits of its first establishment, there
is no moment of history more cheering to the lover
of humanity, and more admirable to the imagination
of a Christian, than that which beheld the exalta
tion of a throne upon the simple foundation of love
and justice, to be the protection of the innocent, the
guardian of sanctity, and the symbol of that eternal
kingdom which awaited, in a future Ufe, the citizens
of the heavenly Jerusalem. It is for rich music's
tongue to unfold such views of human govemment.
Who could refrain from tears of joy and veneration
when he beheld the affecting solemnities with which
the Church consecrated Godfrey, that humble dis-
riple of Jesus Christ, who refused to wear the
¦ Ed. Paris, 1507.
Y 2

324 GODEFEIDUS.
emblem of royalty ; addressing him in the words of
the established form, " Take this wand as the em
blem of your sacred power, in order that you may
be able to strengthen the weak, sustain those who
are in danger of falling, correct the vicious, and
direct the good in the ways of salvation. Take the
sceptre as the rule of divine equity which governs
the good, and punishes the wicked ; let it teach you
to love justice, and to detest iniquity .''^ Who more
worthy of such a charge than Godfrey, who was
"moult preudhomme et sage et moult aymant Dieu
et gens d'esglise " ? In surpassing state he walked
the last of all the nine, who bore the noblest palms,
majestic in aspect, yet courteous, and bearing a
crown of thorns in memory of his Saviour.^ " He
was more capable of receiring the royal honour than
any of the others," says an ancient chronicle, " for
his private servants could find no fault in him, ex
cepting that he used to remain too long in the
church after mass, and that he used to study too
much the holy gospels, and the lives of saints, and
of the ancient fathers ; which blame, those who were
to elect him, regarded as a proof of his -rirtue." '
What breast would not have felt that holy rapture
experienced by the Crusaders when they heard the
first bells toll over the holy city ? a sound which
had never before been imagined in Jerusalem,* and
which, like the music of angels in the sky, an
nounced to men the blessed tidings of forgiveness
and peace.
The Christian kings of Christian states were to
feel no interest separate from that of their faithful
subjects. Witness the last commands of Godfrey of
' Dueange, voo. Baculus regius.
' Les jNeuf Preux : Paris, 1507.
' Les Faitz et Gestes dn preux Godefroy de Boi.illon et de ses
chevalfreux Freres, f. 96.
* Albert. Aq. VI, 40, quoted by Wilken, II, 4.

GODEFEIDUS. 325
BouUlon on his deathbed, who, regarding more the
peace of Jerusalem than the splendour of his own
race, charged the Patriarch not to elect him a suc
cessor from the Lotharingian family.^ Again, " Do
not elect for the new master of the order my brother
Ulrich, the intrepid daring warrior, the valiant hero ;
for I fear lest his wild warlike ardour should involve
the order in irreparable injury." These were the last
noble words of the grand master Konrad von Jung-
ingen on his death-bed, in the castle of Marienburg.^
The last words of King Charles V. of France, ad
dressed to the crown on his death-bed, as related
by Froissart ; the motto of Rudolph of Hapsburg,
" Melius bene imperare quam regnum ampliare " ;
the letters from King Dom Joam of Portugal and
of the Infante Dom Luis to Dom Joam de Castro,
their viceroy of India, — convey a sublime view of
the principles which Ue at the foundation of a
Christian government, acting upon the profound
sense of the vanity of false ambition,, and the re
solution to seek first and above all things the
glory of God, and the conversion of the world to
truth and holiness.^ They certainly go far to justify
the high opinion which was entertained of the sur
passing excellence of kingly government, when
conducted upon the principles of the Christian
religion.* It remains to speak of the chivalrous principle
which induced temporal rulers to come forward in
assisting and protecting the spiritual power. This
was the simple and natural consequence of these
rulers having embraced the Christian religion, A
heathen philosopher, indeed, chose to banish from
1 Wilken, Geschichte der Kreuzziige, II, 69.
•¦ Voight, Geschichte Marienburgs, p. 246.
= The Life of Dom Joam de Castro, by Jacmto Freire de
Ann yfl n fl
< ^neas Sylvius de Ortu et Authoritat. Imp.

326 GODEFEIDUS.
his republic on earth the very men with whom he
hoped to live and converse for ever in heaven ; for ,
he can conceive no higher consolation to cheer the
last moments of his life than the prospect of his
consorting with Orpheus, Museeus, Homer, and
Hesiod,! — men whom he had formerly excepted
from having any share in the benefits of his legal
order ; but such inconsistency could never have been
expected from a Christian who had to govern a Chris
tian state. How could a Christian emperor have
rejected the prayer of St, Boniface, when this holy
missionary implored the assistance of the ci-ril power
to co-operate with his endeavour to convert the
Germans ? for he said, " without the patronage of
the prince of the Franks I can neither rule the
people, nor defend the priests or deacons, the monks
or holy virgins ; nor shall I be able, without their
commands, to prohibit in Germany the rites of the
pagans and the sacrileges of their idols," How could
a duke of Savoy and a king of France, being
Catholic Christians, refuse to grant the prayer of St.
Francis de Sales to prevent the religious innovators
of the country of Chablais and Gex from plundering
and massacring the Catholics ? The duty even of
self-defence may have sometimes justified the inter
ference of the civil power, England, France, the
Low Countries, Germany, Switzerland, Sweden, and
Poland, became the mournful stages whereupon
bloody tragedies were acted; or rather, as an old
writer says, " the very shambles wherein were
slaughtered many thousand Christians, under pre
tence of introducing the new religion." " It seems
that Germany even swims in blood," cries Luther ;
" but my Christ liveth and reigneth, and I wiU live
and reign." ^ They violently and illegally deposed
their kings, came into the field against them in huge
' Plato, Apolog. 2 Loo. Com. Class. IV, c. 30, fol. "55.

GODEFEIDUS. 327
armies, and took possession of their cities and
territories. Hear how the great St. Augustin writes
respecting men who condemned Christian rulers for
defending the Catholics from the schismatics and
heretics of that age : " As for what they say, that
the Apostles did not seek assistance from the kings
of the earth, they do not consider how different
were the circumstances of those times. What em
peror then believed in Christ ? Who would have made
laws to serve them against impiety, when the pro
phecy was still fulfilling — ' Quare fremuerunt gentes?
Adstiterunt reges terrae et principes convenerunt in
unum adversus Dominum et adversus Christum ejus:'
as yet what was added in the same Psalm had not
begun to apply — ' Et nunc reges intelligite, erudi-
mini qui judicatis terram. Servite Domino in timore,
et exsultate ei cum tremore.' In what manner could
kings serve the Lord with fear unless they prohibited
those things which are contrary to the commands of
the Lord with religious severity ? There was one
mode of serving him proper for a man, and another
for a king ; as a man, one served him by living
faithfully ; but as a king, one served him by pre
scribing laws to promote justice and to correct evil.
It was thus that Ezechias served, destroying the
groves and temples of the idols ; thus did Josias ;
thus did the king of the Ninevites, ordaining that
the whole city should endeavour to appease God ;
'thus did Darius; thus did Nebuchodonosor, pro
hibiting all blasphemy; thus it was that kings
served the Lord in their character of kings when
they did those things to serve him which they
could not have done if they had not been kings. In
the time of the Apostles, when the former prophecy
was fulfilling, it was not possible that impieties
should be prohibited by law ; but when the hour
came in which this also was to be fulfilled, 'Et
adorabunt eum omnes reges terrae, omnes gentes

328 GODEFEIDUS.
servient UU,' who, with a sound mind, could say to
kings, ' Do not trouble yourself whether the Church
of your Lord be guarded or attacked in your king
dom ; it is no affair of yours, whether in your king
dom any one chooses to be religious or to commit
sacrilege, to lead a chaste or an immoral life ? ' But
why should adulteries be punished by laws, and sa
crileges permitted ? or because some things are to be
corrected with mildness, are they, therefore, to be
altogether neglected ? It is better that men should
be led by doctrine to worship God, than by the fear
of punishment ; who doubts that ? but because the
former is better than the latter, this is not to be
altogether neglected ; for we find continually, by
experience, that it is for the advantage of many
that they should be sometimes induced by fear ; for
though those men are better whom love guides,
nevertheless there are many whom fear preserves
from destruction. Before the promulgation of these
laws in Africa, it seemed to some of the brethren,
among whom I was one, that although the fury of
the Donatists raged so terribly, yet it was not to be
asked of rulers that heresy should be suppressed by
compelling those who supported it to return to the
Church, but only that their extravagant violence
should be restrained, so that they might not dare
to oppress those who held Catholic truth, while ho
one should be obliged to embrace it, lest we should
gain false and dissembling Catholics. But the
horrible violence of these men in massacring a
bishop of the Catholic Church prevented the em
peror from attending to our petition ; so that these
laws were ordained, which inflicted not ca.pital pun
ishment, which would have been contrary to Chris
tian mildness, but pecuniary fines upon those who
persisted in such cruel heresies. Nor can we wonder
that this barbarous murder of the bishop should have
induced a Christian emperor to make such laws; even

GODEFEIDUS, 329
the Apostle Paul did not hesitate to implore the as
sistance of the Roman laws, proclaiming himself to
be a Roman citizen, and entitled to the protection
of Cffisar ; which sufficiently shews what Christian
emperors ought to do when they should find the
Church oppressed by adversaries." i In the time
of St, Augustine, and even in that of .St, Justin and
Athenagoras, the promotion of all religions, however
that policy might sound as announcing liberty to all
and maintaining the right of all, meant precisely, as
in the latter ages, the liberty and the right of all to
persecute the Catholic Church ; which it was natural
Christian rulers should be unwilling to concede.
Bossuet, in his Sermon on the Unity of the "Church,
points out the mutual assistance afforded by the
Church and the State to each other, both conspiring
to establish the order of God ; though perhaps it is
too true, as the Abbe de la Mennais says, " that the
Church has no reason to be very anxious for secur
ing this close alliance. The more she is separated
from all that passes with time, the more she acquires
internal -rigour. It is the consequence of human
passions that sovereigns should always be inclined
to emancipate themselves from her influence. No
advantages which the state can offer will ever com
pensate for the dangers of the war which she must
eternally maintain to preserve her independence ;
she has always more to fear than to hope from
princes. Her true force is the confidence of the
weak, whom she protects in maintaining the law of
justice ; their love constitutes her power," With
respect to the occasional colUsion of the spiritual and
temporal powers, the main point lay in the spirit
and dispositions which were then evinced; for
according to the reasonable view which was to be
taken of both the one and the other of these
' S. Augustinus de Correotione Donatistarum, lib. ad Bonifa-
cium,'Ep. CLXXXV.

330 GODEFEIDUS.
powers, both had the highest sanction, a divine
foundation and a holy character, each in its place
and sphere. The mistake of those who were sincere
in their hostility to the power of the Holy See con
sisted, like perhaps all the other delusions of men,
rather in the false and extravagant application of
truth than in the falsehood of the principles which
they kept foremost ; for every beam of truth is so
ethereal and heavenly that it can only be enjoyed
when men are humble enough to follow it at a
distance, and as it were -vrith eyes but half directed
towards it, and to wait for its appearance as if it
were a star which only shines at intervals through
the mist of night. It disappears totally and is lost
to those who attempt to measure it with the naked
eye, so as to ascertain its dimensions by means of
their unassisted vision; nay, the sight itself is
darkened when they are so rash and inquisitive as
to persist in looking straight at it. If we should
desire an example of the opposition which the
spiritual power might make to the temporal in
personal cases, we shall find one in the history of
the pati'on saint of the kingdom of Bohemia, which,
as Friedrich Schlegel remarks, "furnishes a simple
and beautiful instance of a noble and unexception
able opposition against the injustice of the temporal
power in the person of the prince ; only through
such an opposition as this did Christianity in early
times take its wonderful commencement, and increase
in security and extent until it became at length the
religion of the whole civilized world." ^ Yet assured
ly the faithful were not to suppose that, to obey the
order of God, it was necessary to abandon all means
of defence and security against injustice ; in all ages,
there have been, no doubt, men who would have
recommended to the spiritual power a course of
' Philosophie des Lebens.

GODEFEIDUS, 331
servility and absolute acquiescence in whatever
measures might be proposed by civil rulers ; men
who would always have one text, "non habemus
regem nisi Caesarem ; " who would have restrained
the power of the Church to abstractions which they
would call the spiritual power, requiring, as Rubi
chon says, " that an ecclesiastic should have a soul
without a body, because they, being gross material
ists, had a body without a soul." ' Their cry under
a Henry II would be, that men ought to obey the
king rather than the vocation of God ; and under a
Philippele Bel they would require innocent men to be
judged guilty, and suppressed per viam expedientiae,^
or, as was then declared, per provisionis potius quam
condemnationis -riam ; under a constitutional king
they would procure an ordinance proclaiming, that
in order to assist reUgion, bishops and priests should
not be permitted to teach, though commanded to
teach by Jesus Christ, It is the peculiar character
istic of despotism to require that the spiritual and
temporal power should be united in one hand, in
one centre-point and chief. Whenever the empire
in the middle ages ceased to remain true to its
simple Christian origin, the iron character of the
Ghibellines and the peculiarly mild party of the great
GweUs appeared in opposition to each other.
In a political point of view, this question has
been decided of late by learned men, even on the
side of the moderns, very differently from the man
ner in which it was distorted by the famous Robert
son. Of this, the history and apology of Pope
Gregory the Vllth, by John Voigt, a Lutheran
professor, is a remarkable instance.^ Even with
respect to the influence of principles upon works of
' De I'Action dn Clerge, p. 208.
2 Baluz. Vitae P. P. Av. I, 590.
» Hildebrand als Papst Gregorius der Siebente nnd sein
Zeitalter : Weimar, 1815.

332 GODEFEIDUS.
genius and poetry, the side which men choose in
determining this question has been shewn to be no
matter of indifference. Friedrich Schlegel justly
objects to Dante's perpetual Ghibellinism, though
his family had always distinguished itself on the
opposite side. The Ghibelline party aimed at no
thing but the establishment of merely worldly
dominion. It is a race of men always existing,
whose deeds are not within the leaf of pity wri-t;
men who expect the whole salvation of mankind
from dominion, founded entirely upon worldly prin
ciples, and who wish to deny altogether the power
of that unseen influence, which is, however, sure to
make its existence known whenever there is occa
sion for its exercise. Men of this description are
characterised by the docility and submissiveness
with which they render themselves up as weak
masses, ready to assume any shape which it may
please that despotism to impress, whose dignity is
increased in their eyes by every new instance of its
oppressiveness. Such were many of the supporters
of the Gallican doctrines in France, under Louis
XIV, Christ established the strict obligation of paying
to Cffisar what belongs to Caesar ; yet soon after, he
was charged with disloyalty, as if he forbade tribute
to be paid to Caesar, So also, the Catholic Church,
which, by Clement XIV, addressed all the Catholic
bishops of the world as follows, — " Be careful that
those whose instruction in the law of the Gospel is
committed to your charge be made sensible, from
their very infancy, of the sacred obligation of loyalty
to their kings, of respect to their authority, and of
submission to their laws, not only for wrath, but
for conscience-sake,"- — is calumniated by men of
these principles, and charged with disloyalty to
Caesar. Yet even the heathens would not have con
founded things so essentially distinct as the obe-

G Q D E F E I D U S. 333
dience which is due to the civil, and that which men
owe to the spiritual power. The Pythagoreans,
who required men to shew such reverence to their
parents, enforced the duty of disobeying them if
they required any thing manifestly against heaven.
" Your father," they said, " forbids you to apply to
philosophy ; but the common father of all men and
gods, Jove, calls upon you and excites you to apply
to it."-* Cicero says, that " it is most absurd to
suppose that all things are just which are found in
the laws and institutions of a state. If all the
Athenians should take pleasure in having tyrannical
laws, ought we on that account to suppose that such
laws are just ? There is no such power," he con
tinues, "in the sentence and command of fools,
that by their vote the nature of things can be re
versed. The law did not begin when flrst written,
but when it flrst had existence, that is, when the
divine mind flrst had existence," ^
It was in accordance with these eternal truths,
and with the revealed principles of Christian free
dom, that the Church prescribed a rule of govern
ment to princes and to subjects. " Obey the king,
but in the sense of the Apostle," said one of the
hoUest popes that Providence ever raised up to
conduct the Church of Christ; "be subject to his
virtues, not to his vices ; be subject propter Deum,
et non contra Deum."
With respect to the interposition which the popes
were occasionally required to exercise during the
middle ages, however injurious some persons may
suppose instances of collision between the two
powers to have been to the interests of the Church,
there can be no doubt as to its having been instru
mental, in those ages, to the happiness and peace of
Europe. Being sensible that, under Christian rulers,
> Stobffii Florileg. Ill, 122. = De Legibus, lib. 1, 15; II, 4.

334 GODEFEIDUS.
and according to the laws of Christian states, the
duty of civil allegiance and submission had limits,
men thought it right to be guided by their chief
pastor, and to him they ascribed the office of deter
mining the point, beyond which the extravagance
of tyranny would render resistance lawful. Such
a power could no longer be exercised vrith benefit,
when the religious unity was dissolved by the pro
gress of the new opinions. Mankind, therefore,
have had recourse to other expedients. Princes
make war upon each other at their pleasure, and
subjects rebel as their passions dictate; and more
princes were dispossessed of the whole or a large
part of their dominions by the assumed liberty of the
people, and by the insurrections of their subjects,
within' the first fifty years after the new mode was
proclaimed, than the popes had been called upon to
depose during the preceding 1500 years of their
supremacy. In general it may be remarked, that whatever was
peculiarly mild and favourable to the poor in the
governments of Europe, was more or less to be
ascribed to the influence of the Church. Wherever
it had the sovereign dominion, the people enjoyed a
degree of exemption from burdens, which seemed
to the philosophers of the last century as injurious
to their habits of industry,-'- and even evinced a vir
tue which was elsewhere less observable.^ Even
writers the most unconnected with spiritual influence
are willing to acknowledge the success -vrith which
the clergy exerted their power in the cause of
society. Gibbon says that the French monarchy
was created by the bishops of France ; and Guizot
is struck with the political wisdom which guided
the clergy of Spain in the council of Toledo, as

' Swinburne's Travels from Bayonne to Marseilles, II, 439.
' Gorres, Eom wie es in Wahrheit ist.

GODEFEIDUS. 335
evinced in the laws of the Visigoths, which were,
he says, eridently framed not by barbarians, but by
the clergy, whom he terms " the phUosophers of the
day.' ^ Unlike their contemporary legislators, they
determined that aU men, barbarians and Romans,
freedmen and lends, were of equal value; and in
stead of compurgatory oaths and judiciary combats,
ordained the proof by witnesses and regular exami-
nation.i With respect to the influence of the ancient
governments upon letters and philosophy, " the
principle that the Reformation was productive of
liberty of thought is one," says Friedrich Schlegel,
"that can scarcely be defended now. The near
and immediate effect of the Reformation upon
philosophy and freedom of thinking was one of con
straint. The idea of such liberality as that which
prevailed in Italy and Germany under the Medici,
Leo X, and Maximilian, was a thing entirely un
known among zealous Protestants of the sixteenth
and of the first part of the seventeenth century."^
The ablest political writers of France and Germany
seem to ascribe a much greater degree of real free
dom to the majority of subjects under the temporal
governments of the middle ages, than many persons
will believe that they enjoyed; although, perhaps,
in times when a general and consistent spirit of
religion governed all degrees of the nations of
Europe, there was, strictly speaking, no theory of
administration answering to the heathen models, of
civdl power ; a consideration which should be urged
in defence of old historians like Gregory of Tours,
when they are conderaned by such later writers as
Fleury. Niebuhr, in a work referred to by one of
his learned translators, has pointed out the great
error of the moderns on this point : '_' We look,"
he says, " on the constitutions of the middle ages as
1 Cours Hist. le9on III, 26. = Hist, of Lit. II, 62.

336 GODEFEIDUS.
despotical, because there was no visible representa
tive body emanating from the nation, while we hear
of not a few acts of -riolence. Yet every corpora
tion, as well as every individual, had the manage
ment of all their own affairs, without any interference
from the prince; and the laws were transmitted
from age to age as an inviolable inheritance. On
the other hand, we look for freedom from an assembly
that is to be elected in this way or in that way, and
feel no concern at seeing, that with every step taken
by legislation, some nook or other, in which the
power of free agency had still been left us, is sub
jected to the control of a body of salaried placemen."
In the middle ages, the iron hand of the civil power
was not felt, as it has been lately in aU the nations
of the north, in restraining men from availing them
selves of those great resources to promote piety and
wisdom which were furnished by the Catholic
Church. The cruelty of the modern governments
of Europe, in not allowing men openly to profess
obedience to the counsels which our Lord has left
us in his Gospel; thefr extreme jealousy in legislat
ing even against the holy habits, consecrated by
religion, and associated with every idea of goodness
and self-devotion, of faith and of sublime sanctity, —
as if reaUy they were afraid that a man, upon leav
ing his house, should ever meet with persons whose
clothing would tell him that they had renounced the
world, and that their Uves were consecrated to God,
that their only business was to instruct the poor, to
tend the sick, and to console the dying ; their
oppressive interference in obstructing the private
spiritual enjoyments of men, and even the general
happiness of subjects, — at one time preventing the
Church from acquiring property for the benefit of
the poor, at another annulling legacies made in its
favour; with barbarous violence suppressing the
religious orders, and even contiscating all the goods

GODEFEIDUS. 337
of the clergy, in order to please Jews, fanatics, and
selfish calculators, who despise the people while
they pretend to be their friends ; with ignorant and
insane cunning contriving means to undermine the
power of that clergy who alone are the enlightened
and steady advocates of the interests of the poor, —
men to whom these very governments owe every
truth, every good, every thing beautiful and sublime
that they possess, and to the paralysing of whose
efforts every want and difficulty which distress them
ought to be ascribed ;' persevering in the develop
ment of an infernal project to injure and destroy
the one holy Catholic and Apostolic Church, taking
coimsel together, by day and by night, against the
Lord and against his Christ, — was in those ages
absolutely unknown. Such a tyranny, however it
might pretend to spare and even favour the material
interests of a people, which opposed the spiritual
happiness of mankind, could not have been imagined
in a religious age, when men were influenced by
views of another world; that rage for legislation,
the characteristic of later times, is a disease from
which the ancient governments of Christendom were
in a great measure free. Since the year 1789, the
philosophers have given to France eight constitu
tions, about seven thousand legislators, and thirty
thousand laws, dictated more or less by the spirit
of destruction, injustice, spoliation, impiety, pro
scription, inconsistency, and barbarism. This
multiplication of laws and of legislators must be
ascribed whoUy to the increase of light and march
of knowledge; for before the sublime age of the
Reformation, whi.ch first produced this desire of
perfectibility, the world could only boast of having
possessed about fifteen legislators. In the dark
ages, our Christian governments seem to have acted
' Eubichon, de I'Action du Clerge, p. 290.
Oodefridus. Z

338 GODEFEIDUS.
upon the principle extolled by Dion Cassius, where
he says, " Custom is like a king, law is like a
tyrant." The Abbe de la Mennais observed, that so far
was the Church from favouring arbitrary power,
one of the rules of the Roman Index is especially
directed against such books "as tend to favour
political tyranny, and what are falsely called reasons
of state, militating against the evangelical and
Christian law." " Rulers should reflect upon the
equality of all human conditions," says Pope Gregory
the Great. " Our ancient fathers," he continues,
" were not kings of men, but the guardians of flocks;
and when God desired Noah and his sons to fill the
earth, he added, ' And let the fear of you be upon
all the beasts of the earth ;' and, according to this
command, the fear of man is not to be extended
upon men. It is against nature to wish to be an
object of fear to an equal, yet rulers must be feared ;
but this necessity must not fill them with pride,
for they are to seek not their own glory, but the
justice of their subjects." ^ These were the prin
ciples of government which were held by the holy •
ministers of the Catholic Church. Sophists, poets,
generals, and Gallican doctors, might idolise the will
of an earthly sovereign in the courts of Versailles ;
but Fenelon was obliged to conceal, in banishment
and obscurity, his patriotism and his virtue. It '
must be remembered, besides, that the Christian
monarchies of Europe were united with many insti
tutions, which denoted the freedom of the elements
out of which they had been originally composed.
Such were the Diets of the kingdopis of Germany and
Italy, the Parliaments of England, the Cortes of Spain,
the Champ de Mars (Marzfeld) of the old Pranks ;
all of which were rendered illustrious by the spirit of
' De Cura Pastorali, II, 6.

GODEFEIDUS. 339
the eminent and heroic men who occasionally ap
peared in them. At the same time, the most ardent
admirers of these assembUes will be obUged to con
fess, that they have had their dark periods of his
tory, during which it would be in vain to look to
them for any real services to the cause of freedom,
justice, or humanity, any counsels or any deeds
but such, to use a Thucydidean phrase, olov ox^og
(piXii iroitlv.^
One of the greatest tyrants that ever disgraced a
nation was the parliament of Paris during many
periods. There was the leagued parliament, the
rebel parliament, the parliament falsifying public
acts, dispensing with vows, and banishing the
Jesuits (those illustrious men, symbolical, in the
persecution they endure, of all wisdom and' goodness
1 and sanctity,) for not perjuring themselves, defying
them- to answer for themselves, and not allowing
them to answer. Somewhat of this charge may be
advanced also against other assemblies, of which we
need not speak, "ne aperiamus mysteria." It is
enough to repeat the words of Cicero, " that nothing
is more uncertain than the commons, nihil obscurius
voluntate hominum, nihil f allacius ratione tota comi-
tiorum ." ^ When those great institutions of ancient
Europe were established, it is certain that legislators
might have reckoned upon the influence of resources,
the loss of which might totally alter the moral
situation of men with regard to each other and to
society. Without doubt, the secret of legislation is
to maintain the public happiness, by preserving to
each class, to each order, and to each individual, its
rights, privileges, and due influence ; for a state in
which the laws are not equal to all, but only favour
a part of the people, should not, as Plato observes,
be called a state, but a faction.' But whether to
• Lib. IV, 0. 28. ' Pro L. Murena, ' Leges, IV.
Z 2

340 GODEFEIDUS,
promote these great ends, uniformly and constantly,
the ancient elements be not quite as essential as the
form of the power which moulded them, is a ques
tion which, perhaps, had better be referred to the
judgment of future ages. In the meanwhile, the
chivalry of nature, as distinguished from the titled
nobility of states, may perhaps be convinced that,
foUo-vring the example of its great guide, the holy
Church, the time is come for it to leave political
society to itself, which seems to reject all principles
of generosity and honour and justice, and all dirine
influence ; that its duty even is to take no part in
the war of those who combat, the one for despotism,
the other for anarchy.
Without presuming to undervalue the resources
of modern -vrisdom, it may be allowable to affirm
that, if a Socrates were to arise in these days, and
to be a Christian, seeing that the whole foundation
of social order, the whole theory of political science,
all ideas of the origin, rule, and object of govern
ment, had been changed since the flrst establishment
of Christian states, he would propose many ques
tions, and require many short and precise answers,
before he would admit that men, who hold the
original principles, could consistently continue to
advise or direct those rulers, who were sure to reject
them ; though, as a Christian, he would have been
the last to deny that the duty of obeying them,
" ubi Deo contraria non praecipit homo," remains the
same as in the flrst age of Christianity. Where
rash or ignorant practitioners are administering
palliatives that are more dangerous to the life than
the disease of the patient, a wise physician will
not remain, if he be convinced that his counsels are
not to prevail.
In conclusion of the whole subject, relative to the
^connexion of chivalry with government, it will be
.sufficient to remember that no form is absolutely

GODEFEIDUS. 341
incompatible with the existence of that Spirit, ex
cepting despotism or anarchy. Under every other
system, whatever may become of rulers and of their
ministers, there is no time so miserable but a man
may be true ; butwhen a military or legal despotism,
that still more extreme evil,^ being the state which
results from the democratic doctrines, is once suf
fered to prevail, the spirit of chivalry must then
withdraw from all view of the world ; for otherwise,
were it to form a close alliance with what would
infallibly act as poison to its purity, as a weight and
obstacle to its independence, its warmest friends
would soon be obliged to confess that indeed its age
was then passed, and that nothing reraained but
"to throw over it the sanctity of death,"*
XXII. This must suffice for a prologue ; andlhope
that nothing of importance has been omitted or left
obscure. We have taken a general view of chivalry,
as far as relates to its essential spirit in every age,
and to the philosophy which must always belong to
it. We have seen that certain leading principles,
at variance with many positions which are now
, maintained by men who profess to teach wisdom,
are insfeparable fr'om that philosophy, although,
perhaps, the ardent admirers of chivalry will dis
dain such a mode of representing it; and will
demand, in the words of Cicero, " Quid opus est in
hoc philosophari, cum rem non magnopere philoso-
phia egere videamus ? " ' The limits might, perhaps,
bave been still further extended, and the abstract
theory of the whole more fuUy developed; but of
this enough. Perhaps we have aUowed the learning
of degree, or the science of nobility, to occupy
afready too much of our attention; for these subjects
are of the lowest interest among all those which are
' Aristot. Polit. lib. V, 0. 8. ' Guesses at Truth.
3 Tuscul. QuEOst. lib. I.

342 GODEFEIDUS.
connected vrith chivalry : it is only through a feeling
of respect for the virtue of past ages, that one may
condescend to approach them ; like very light vrine,
which, when mixed with water, is good for nothing,
so, as Cicero says of soraething similar, " ista magis
gustata quam potata delectant."
In the succeeding books we shall be occupied
upon the detail of chivalry, as beheld in operation,
upon the sublime principles vrith which it has be
come connected, and upon the raanners to which it
has given rise ; she-vring in general how far the an
ticipations delivered in the first book were answered
in the heroic age of our history.
The advantage of impressing the mind with an
admiration for the high scenes which will be illus
trated in the following books, must be acknowledged
by every man who thinks, with a great English
philosopher, that "whatever withdraws us from the
power of our senses, — whatever makes the past, the
distant, or the future, predominate over the present
— advances us in. the scale of rational beings."
There are, indeed, matter-of-fact persons, who will
call in question the motives, and deny the reality of
the virtues which we shall ascribe to the' ancient
chivalry of Europe. These belong to a class of men
which is always numerous :
Auff^jjXot ydp t' e'ljxiv ini \Bovl ipijX* dvBpioiruiv.^
There are men who have no sense of any beauty,
who are not delighted by the lofty summits of trees,
but by their roots and fibres ; but the unhappy in
fluence of the system which was established on the
abolition of the ancient faith, has multipUed them
beyond measure. " This is all fine coin," they say
to us, " it is a pity that it will not pass in the world ;
this is all admirable, but how can it be true ? " One
' Horn. Od. VII, 307.

GODEFEIDUS. 343
of the great and deadly evils consequent upon the
modern philosophy is, the prevalence of such induc
tions ; it has effaced the beautiful images of virtue,
which had such power to ennoble the imagination
and to - soothe and correct the heart ; which could
yield refreshment to the world-wearied flesh of age,
and give wings to youth, enabling it to escape to
the ocean of perfect beauty, and taste by anticipa
tion some degree of the happiness which reigns in
the elysium of God ; poor shadows of that blissful
region, they were fledged and strengthened to fly
hence, and rest upon its never-withering banks of
flowers, where they were no raore with mortal acci
dents opprest. In a religious point of view, it has
too often deprived the moderns of one of the great
modes employed by divine Providence in leading
men to truth, which is by granting them the benefit
of good example; for upon many of them the ex
ample of the saints and Christian heroes is wholly
lost; it is an offence, a scandal, or a mystery to them.
Wherever the modern poets of England allude, like
Thomson, Goldsmith, and Cowper, to the state and
manners of Catholic countries, they betray a degree
of ignorance or of malevolence, which calls for as
tonishment, or rather for pity ; and if this infection
can thus prevail over the poetic mind, what may
not be expected from the gloomy discourses of un-
travelled pedants ? It is no wonder that they sup
pose faithful Christians to be actuated by quite
different motives from those which belong to
Catholics; nay, by motives which are far more
ignoble than those inculcated by Aristotle and
Plato, and other heathen philosophers, " Nihil
enim olet ex Academia, nihil ex Lyceo, nihil ne e
puerilibus quidem disciplinis ! " They teach that a
wicked man seeks his own advantage in the present
world, and that a saint has regard to his own interest
hereafter ; so that both have the same end in view.

344 GODEFEIDUS.
as far as loving only theraselves. They have lost
the power of appreciating the graces and disposi
tions of the spiritual life, which are as strange and
incredible araong them as they were among the
Romans in the days of Pliny and Tacitus. They
cannot distinguish the fervour of Catholic piety,
to which they owe all the magnificent monuments
that adorn their country, from the extravagance
of their own unhappy fanatics, which is never so
well satisfied as when it is engaged in destroying
thera ; and they produce their deliberate views of
both, to proclaim the danger of one and the same
enthusiasm.^ Regularity and attention to the least
duties indicate weakness of character and supersti
tion ; uncompromising fideUty to the Church of Jesus
Christ is a proof of bigotry and intolerance, or per
haps, as with the first Christians, of being afflicted
with a hatred of the human race; to love retirement,
and to avoid the endless assemblies of the luxurious
world, is to be misanthropical and morbid ; to lead
a simple life, according to the early hours and natu
ral diseipline which belong to incorrupt tiraes, is to
be eccentric and fond of singularity ; to be unmoved
at injuries is to want proper feeling, or else it is only
a mode of concealing a deep and bad sentiment
against others ; humility is an artifice of pride and
self-love ; the choice of a penitential spirit in the
circumstances of life is supposed to proceed from
being mean-spirited and timid ; to be temperate and
abstemious is to be sordid and avaricious ; to be
bountiful in alms is the policy of a religion which
could not stand without such contrivance; to be
active in benefiting the poor is to be artful and
ambitious, seeking only how to rise the higher ; to
love Christians of every country is to want patriot-
' The learned bishop's treatise, entitled " The Enthusiasm of
Methodists and Papists compared," must be read with peculiar
interest in the Ubrary of York Cathedral.

GODEFEIDUS. 345
ism, or else it is a disgusting affectation ; to dislike
debate and contention is to be conscious of being in
the wrong and to fear detection ; to prepare for
death like a Catholic Christian, according to the
solemn injunctions of the Church, is to forget the
first maxim of a rational religion — "live well, and
die as you can ; let not the thoughts of death taint
all the bewitching pleasures of life," It is not
strange that the virtues of the old heroic character
should be denied, when it is with such dispositions
men regard the lives of the saints and of those who
endeavour to follow them. It is true, holy men may
rejoice in being thus concealed and deUvered from
the world's praise; but in a lower point of view it
may be allowable to suggest, that if this misbeUef
and distrust are to be the consequence of our ac
quaintance with letters, it had been better for
ourselves and better for society, as far as we can
influence it, if we had remained in what the world
is pleased to caU ignorance. With such persons I
have no desire to dispute :
 from snch a contest

Cowardice pursues and valour flies.
Were it possible to fancy for a moment that their
criticisra was founded upon justice, their influence
and application would not the less indicate a no
small degree of wrong-headedness and folly. Let it
be ideal ; it is more satisfying to the heart than
your delusive reaUties : I -wUl continue to watch its
congenial course,  et inanem prosequar umbram.

If any one should object to the matter of the
foUowing books, that it cannot in every particular
instance be shewn to be true, I would refer him to
the advice of St. Augustin, when he speaks of a
pagan who would not become a Christian because

346 GODEFEIDUS.
he could detect imperfections in those who professed
religion. " When exhorted to believe, he says, 'Do
you desire me to be like this man or that ?' and he
names this or that person, and sometimes he speaks
the truth ; but when it cannot be the truth, what
great trouble is there in calumny?" "Sed tu,"
adds St. Augustin, " noU deficere ; quod iUe quaerit,
tu esto. Esto bonus Christianus, ut convincas ca-
lumniosum Paganum,"^ And, moreover, have I not
even the grave historian's principle to justify a belief
in what may be questioned ? " Let us have faith in
fine actions," says M, de la Cretelle, " and let us
reserve doubt and incredulity for bad." Why should
we heed their ungenerous insinuation, that all virtue
is but delusion ; that heroes were in fact cowards,
and saints no wiser or more virtuous than the vulgar
class of mankind; that the worthies of old were
only successful deceivers ; that " the salt of the
earth " was but hypocrisy ? For wisdom and good
ness to the vile seem vile ; but what Christian, what
gentleman, will deign to deny such base positions,
when the reply is prorided even by a heathen — " it
is better to be deceived than to distrust"? " Satius
est decipi quam diffidere." Where was the poet's
confidence when exposed to the persecution of a
tyrant ? It was in the power which was left him of
enjoying such images :
Caesar in hoc potuit juris habere nihil.
Where did the sweet bard of gentle deeds find re
freshment and strength ? It was in the fairy land
of his imagination. Here too the man of virtue and
religion may find a place for his weary soul. To
these pages, rich with the record of honour and of
grandeur, proudly adorned with the images of the
saintly and the great, he may retire from the infec-
' Serm. XV, § 6.

GODEFEIDUS. 347
tion of a base multitude, and feast in the company
of kings; and here too I, like him of old, who
sang, ¦ nigh ravisht with rare thought's delight,

My tedious travel do forget thereby,
And when I 'gin to feel decay of might.
It strength to me suppUes, and cheers my dulled spright.
How beautifully is the same expressed in the lan
guage of minstrelsy !
Ambition's dream I've seen depart.
Have rued of penury the smart.
Have felt of grief the venom'd dart,
When hope was flown ;
Yet rests one solace to my heart —
My harp alone.
True, it raay be impossible to produce one ex
ample of absolute perfection ; but where is the
absurdity of viewing the collective graces of re
proachless chivalry ? Are not even the infinite
treasures of holiness dispensed but in part to separ
ate mortals ? In St, Boniface, for example, was it
not the spirit of St, Peter which converted the
Germans ; in St. Anschar, the Apostle of the North,
did it not seera more the inextinguishable love of
St. John which imparted the principle of life to
men ? And are the heroic virtues of chivalry to be
reproved as incredible because they were not vouch
safed to any one individual in undivided fulness ? or
is it not allowable to form a conception of that
fulness, and to hold forth the form of its purity and
of its grandeur ?
When Cicero eraployed his eloquence in repre
senting the qualities of a perfect orator, he did not
merely describe the sweetness of Isocrates, the
subtilty of Lysias, the sharpness of Hyperides, the
sound of ^schines, the force of Demosthenes, but he
united these qualities in imagination, and exhibited

348 GODEFEIDUS,
that faultless pattern of all oratorical excellence
which was to be the admiration and the guide of
future orators. What law forbids our imitating
this example when we treat of chivalry ? Although
these books will want that spirit through which the
same things appear greater when they are acted
than when they 'are only described in writing, yet
perhaps the general impression resulting from them
collectively will be such as corresponds to no one
man who ever lived : for we do not seek who merits
such undivided praise, but to behold that chivalry
than which nothing can be more pure and lofty and
honourable, which may have been never fully pos
sessed by one person, but only imparted in various
degrees to many ; for there is nothing in any kind
so beautiful but that the iraage from which it is
expressed as it were from a certain mouth is still
more beautiful ; which can be perceived neither by
the eyes, nor by the ears, nor by any of the senses,
but can be apprehended only by reflection in the
mind. "We can conceive," says Cicero,^ "some
thing stUl more beautiful than the statue of Phidias,
although we behold nothing in any kind more
beautiful. The artist, when he formed it, did not
conteraplate any one figure of whom he drew the
resemblance, but there was in his mind a form of
beauty which animated his genius and directed his
hand." In like manner it is in the mind that we
must seek for that form of perfect chivalry to which
whatever is subjected to the sense must be referred.
Let us, therefore, investigate, if we can, that which
Froissart and Tasso never saw, or which, perhaps,
no one altogether ever possessed ; which, if we shall
not be able to iraitate and express, it will be in our
power at least to describe according to the reproach
less excellence of its nature. We hold him, there-
' Orator, 5.

GODEFEIDUS. 349
fore, whom we seek, but in the mind ; for if I should
seize him with my hand, there is no adventurous
quest which should separate him from me. The
flower of chivalry is found which Froissart never
beheld. Who is this, then ? you wUl ask. It is he
who has the piety of Tancred, the purity of Perceval,
the courtesy of Gawain, the valour of Orlandus, the
honour of Bayard, the humility of Godfrey. You
will say, perhaps, that there never was a man who
united every grace. Perhaps never ; for we in
vestigate what we desire, not what we behold ; and
we return, therefore, to that Platonic form of per
fection which we can at least conceive, if we are not
able to behold it : for we do not search for a knight,
nor for any thing mortal and frail, but for that
chivalry itself whence every knight must derive
whatever degree of chivalry he may possess. And
there is no praise of which, in these examples that
follow, there vrill not be found, if not the fulness,
at least the desire and the adumbration : we do not
attain to it, but still we shall behold it ; we do not
speak of raen, but of things ; and so far are we from
being satisfled with what we express, that not even
the presence of Tancred would content us, since we
desire something immense, inflnite, and eternal.
Let not men, therefore, conderan us when we
behold -vrith an enthusiastic rapture the scenes and
objects which are symbolical of what so justly merits
the highest praise ; and, above aU things, let them
not take the trouble to point out the extravagance
of the outward mould, or the weakness of the
scaffolding : we are not concerned with stone walls,
or with the mere bones and ashes of the dead; with
the intrinsic value of the oak, whose boughs are
mossed with age, and high top bald with dry
antiquity. What we contemplate is faultless and
vivifying and fruitful, Cicero has feelingly de
scribed the pleasure with which we visit the places

350 GODEFEIDUS.
which were once consecrated by the presence of
great men, or rendered eminent by the fable of
heroic times. The ancients could never visit too
often the illustrious Rhodes, or Mitylene, or Ephesus,
the walls of Corinth commanding two seas, or
Thebes renowned as the seat of Bacchus, or Delphi
as that of Apollo, or Thessalian Tempe. But why
must we join the thoughtless crowd of wanderers
who flock to classic land, possessed with what Cicero
terms " tam insolens domesticarum rerum fasti-
diura," ^ when we can behold in England, France,
Spain, Germany, and Italy, the towers of our gene
rous and heroic ancestors ? With what delight
should we view those majestic remains of the last
heroic world ! Time would fail me to describe
Arques and Falaise; the castle of Hauteville, near
Coutances in Normandy, the seat of the illustrious
.Tancred ; that of Rohan and Clisson, on the beau
tiful banks of the Loire ; the dark fearful waUs of
Lusignan, near Poitiers ; Coucy, in Picardy ; the
tower of the Constable at Vannes, in which Clisson
was treacherously imprisoned by Montfort ; the
castle of Josselin, with the chamber in which Clisson
would have slain his own daughter for advising him
to murder the children of his eneray Montfort ; the
proud tower of Montlhery ; ^ or the castle of Gozon,
in Languedoc, in which the stone was preserved that
Dieudonne de Gozon, grand master of the order of
St. John of Jerusalem, found in the skull of the
dragon which he slew at the foot of St. Stephen's
Mount.' Can an Englishman be unmoved at Creci,
when he beholds the tower of Edward, on the hill
' De Finibus, I, 4.
^ Of which Louis le Gros said on his death-bed to his son,
" Garde bien ce chateau ; il m'a fait blanchir les cheveux avant
le temps."
' Monumens dea Grands Maitres de I'Ordre de St. Jean de
Jerusalem, par M. le Vicomte de Villeneuve Bargemont I, 144.

GODEFEIDUS, 351
three leagues north of AbbeviUe, from which Edward
III surveyed the army, and suspended the great
standard of England on that memorable day ? Can
a poet find no interest in Roussillon, where he may
view the castie of Rossello, in which GuUlaume de
Cabestaing served as a page, being the first stage
in his melancholy fate ? Can an historian traverse
Languedoc, and not love to wander among the ruins
of those old castles whose subterraneous passages
of vast length are said to have been constructed by
Hunald of Aquitaine during his wars with Charle
magne ? Can a hero forget that in Dauphine may
be seen the Vallee Chevalereuse, so called from the
number of its noble towers, and the fame of its
ancient pomps and tournaments ? '^ Can a Christian
traverse Spain, and not dissolve in tears when shewn
at Mora, between Badajos and Cadiz, the aged
ruins of some castle which, in days of yore, afforded
shelter from the fury of the Moors ? Will he not
penetrate through the mountains of Biscay to visit
the castle of Loyola, in order to behold the chamber
in which St. Ignatius was born, where, like the
Duke of Gandia, he may fall on his knees to kiss
the floor and render thanks to God for having given
to the world such a ¦ champion of truth ? Are the
vestiges of the Persian invaders of Greece more
associated with images of heroic chivalry in defence
of ancestral tombs and domestic hearths than the
palace of the Alhambra at Grenada, once the
favourite residence of the Moorish kings of Spain ?
Who can describe the wonderful architecture of its
curious gates and oriental halls, its courts of the
Uons emblazoned with the symbols of Mahometan
superstition, and stiU exhibiting the mottos of those
.misbelieving kings; its gardens and fountains and
baths, raising the idea rather of some enchanted
' Ohorier, Hist. G^n^rale du Dauphine, VIII, 240.

352 GODEFEIDUS.
paradise or fafry land, or some submarine grotto of
the Nereides, than any earthly habitation of men ?
Well may Granada be the theme of heroic poets.
" Cadiz has its palms, and Murcia its groves of
orange; Jaen its gothic palace, and Agreda its
convent built by St. Edmond " ; Llers has its em
battled crown, and Cordova its stupendous mosque;
Valencia has its belfreys of three hundred churches,
and Pampeluna its girdle of towers; but Granada
has the Alhambra.^ Do the raonuraents of the
Grand Masters of the order of St, John of Jerusalem
impart no increase of interest to Malta ? And does
the tower of St. Nicholas confer no additional glory
upon Rhodes ? Nay, within the bounds of our own
island, what numberless remains present themselves
on all sides, abounding in romantic and heroic inte
rest to' fire the chosen genius ! Witness Winchester
and Windsor, Camelot^ and Caeiileon,^ Bamborough
and Berwick, the Castle OrgiUous and the Joyeuse
Garde of romance, to the former of which Sir
Lancelot's body was borne, though sorae say that
it was to Alnwick. The castle of Lack en appears
old enough to have seen the Argonauts, if we are
to credit Orpheus that they sailed by these shores
of lerne. On the northern coast of CornwaU the
walls of Tintagel Castle on its rocky peninsula may
still be seen, though the land of Lyonnois or Leon
noys, the birth-place of Tristan, is now forty fathoms
under water ; this castle of tin had six stories, and
the lady to whom it belonged was an enchantress,*
Are not even many of our sweet meadows and our
never-failing brooks immortalised by the muse of
history ? What beauty in the terraced height, the
ancestral grove of heroes dear to fame, the softly
swelling hills, the ivy-mantled tower washed by the
' Victor Hugo, les Orientales. ' In Somersetshire.
^ In Monmouthshire. ' Perceforest, 1.

GODEFEIDUS. 353
silver stream, the hoary cloister, and the level lawn !
Ah, what sorrow glooms that parting day which
calls us from our native walks ! or from the place
where our gravest hours were passed with gentie
comrades, only feeUng a restraint which was to
sweeten liberty !
Dear lovely bowers of innocence and ease,
Seats of our youth, when every sport could please !
To distant climates chivalry may sometimes point
the way, and every high scene of the majestic world
may be dear to fancy ; pride too may love to collect
the evening groups to tell of all that has been felt
and seen : - dXX' dvayKaitag exf-

'jTuTpiSog ipdv li-rravTog' og S' dXXtjjg Xtyet,
Xoyoicji xaipti, rbv Si vovv tKtXtj' txei.
It is not merely right, and a duty, it is of necessity;
his tongue may recount the wonders and the beauties
of a foreign land, but, oh ! his heart is there. But
others too have their native hills, and their me
morials of ancestral chivalry, to which, wherever
they roam, their fancy fondly turns. Perhaps it
is the Germans above all who have reason to be
proud of the monuments of our heroic age. Who
can behold the stupendous arches and the vast dome
ofthe Danzigers, or the gigantic tower which con
tains the immense hall of Marienburg, the castle
and chief capital of the Teutonic knights, or the
majestic ruins of Eilau, which once employed 20,000
men in building, -without a feeling of reverence for
those past ages which could produce such works ?
StiU some fragments are to be seen at Ingelheim,
the favourite castle of that mighty emperor whose
dominion extended from Palermo to the Baltic, and
from the Ebro to Raab. Here stood that palace with
its hundred gates, and hundred marble columns,
Godefridus. 2 A

354 GODEFEIDUS.
which had been brought from Ravenna, whose walls
glittered with gold and jewels, and resounded with
the clang of arms and the song of the minstrel.^
Nor is it with less interest that the Germans may
visit Germersheim, where the glorious Rudolph of
Hapsburg ended his days in peace and happiness
with his beloved wife, the beautiful Agnes of Bur
gundy, or the castle of Wartburg, frora which St.
Elizabeth walked down to Eisenach, where she took
refuge in the church of the friars. The Pfalzgrafen-
stein, on the rocky island in the Rhine, is still a
monuraent to remind the powerful and great, that
there is something more powerful in the world than
their greatness and policy ; for it was here that
the Pfalzgraf Conrad of Suabia resolved to bestow
the beautiful Agnes upon some relative of the
Emperor Henry VI, that the inheritance of the
palatinate might enter into the imperial house ;
but Henry of Bruns-vrick, vrith no other recom
mendation but a noble person and an heroic spirit,
being favoured by her mother, was enabled to
disappoint this scheme of ambition, and became
the husband of Agnes, and lord of this castle. Who
has not felt his spirits warmed with a wild romantic
glow, when, passing between the embattled towers
which crest the beautiful winding banks of this
majestic river, he has listened to each venturous
tale of "the brothers," the knights of Sternfels and
Liebenstein, Counts John of Spanheimand Werner
of Greiffenklau; of Hans Bromser of Riidesheim,
who, after thrice breaking his vow, and being
delivered by di-rine mercy, founded the church of
Nothgottes, whose chains are still to be seen at
Riidesheim ; and of Gilgen von Lorch, who, on his
premature return frorn the crusade, so fatally de
livered his wife from the robber's castle, and whose
' Vogt, Eheinische Geschichte, I, 114.

GODEFEIDUS. 355
saddle is stUl to be seen at Lorch ? Who can do
justice in report to the beautiful embattled heights
of Johannisberg, with the ruins of the majestic
Ehrenfels ; to the deep pool and gloomy towers of
Bingen, with all their historic and romantic charms ;
to the grey ruins of Schonberg, with its legend of
the seven virgins ; to the solemn Lurlei, stiU en
dued with something of unearthly sound ? What
silent poetry is found in the terraced heights of
the knightly Rheinfels, memorable for the misfor
tunes of Count PhiUp ; in the ruins of Thurnberg,
the work and grave of the mighty Kunos ; in the
ancestral towers of the Katzenellenbogen ; in the
very aspect of Coblentz, fronted by the noble Bhren-
breitstein ! What heroic iraages are recalled upon
beholding Reichenberg, marvellous for oriental
pomp, and still resounding with the glories of the
crusade, and the deeds of surpassing chivalry which
were achieved by its illustrious founders ! Is there
not an air of heroic grandeur, a high romantic in
terest, associated vrith the towers of Nassau, which
gave title to the old house of Luxemburg ; with Rein-
hartsbrunn, where you see the grave of Ludwig IV
and his spouse Juta ; vrith Solms, the seat of another
historical race ; with the knightly Stolzenfels ; with
the beautiful plain of Maifeld, renowned for its
ancient assemblies of the free German people ; with
Kunoberg, under St. Gear, the castle of the heroic
Kuno; with Irenberg, where that beauty lay, the
cynosure of neighbouring eyes, for whom so raany
noble knights, Diether von Staffel, Johann von
Heinesbach, Hauptmann von Limburg, and a
hundred others, would have died ; with those seven
hUls, each crowned with its castle, whose name
recalled an image of chivalry ; with that stately
fortress of Hammerstein, above- Andernach, vvhose
origin no history records, though some traditions
ascribe it to Charles Martel, to the lofty. Grimberg,
2 A 2

356 GODEFEIDUS.
near Treves ; with the stupendous Stackelberg ;
with the fearful Rothenberg of the Odenwald ? Do
we wish to recall only the romantic history of an
illustrious line ? What scene more favourable than
under the walls of Hundsburg near Lowenstein, the
cradle of that ancient family, von Hund, of whose
origin there is so interesting a report ? Are we for
visiting one of those convertites like Duke Frederick,
who forsakes his pompous court for the cloistered
shade — frora whora, as Shakspeare says, " there is
so much matter to be heard and learned " — ^behold
the castle of Argentine in the Lyonnais, which had
been changed by its lord into a convent ; visit the
castle of Gandia, where a grandee of Spain main
tained his iraraense household in the order and
sanctity of a bishop's palace, so that it was the
admiration of all Spain ;^ or view the ruins of
Chantilly, where the great Conde ended his days
in retirement and the practice of penitence, re
sembling that of a cloister. But where could we
find a castle or palace of the middle ages which
would not recall the memory of some saint, or at
least one of those convertites ? Do we desire a
tale of maternal affection, and a monuraent of ancient
faith ? Let us repair to Bischoffzell, on the river
Thur ; for here formerly lived a noble vridow with
two sons. It happened once that these two young
men went across the river, on a hunting party, and
during their absence the waters ofthe river suddenly
rose in a manner not unusual in that country. On
returning, the daring youths, being resolved to
proceed home, dashed into the stream, hoping to
stem its violence, but both were swept away and
drowned. The sorrowful widow caused this bridge
to be erected over the spot, and ordained that
every one who passed over it should say a pater-
' Vie de St, Fran9ois de Borgia, tom. I, p. 138.

GODEFEIDUS. 357
noster for the repose of the souls of her children.'
Or would we invite black- winged dreams, and give,
as it were, our hand to those once writ in dark
misfortune's book ? It is not in romance alone
that we meet with the "castle pluere," the weeping
castle, and with the chUd of sorrowful birth. Sir
Tristan, They may be often found in real scenes,
with power to soften all eyes but those of flinty
men, who never weep but through lust and laughter;
here are scenes to beguile us of our tears, as they
speak of some distressful stroke that youth has
suffered. Witness the dark vaults of Diirrenstein
and Chillon, of Pontefract and Fotheringay, of
Berkeley and Conway. Here is Donauwerth, where
the black seal sent to Count Henry involved the
innocent Maria in calamity, which pursued her to
death ; and Daoulas, fatal to the Viscount de Faou.
Here is Chateau- G^illard on the Seine (which cost
the king of France more time, troops, and money
to subdue, than the whole province of Normandy),
where Marguerite, queen of Navarre, was strangled,
and where Blanche of Burgundy languished in long
captivity. Here is the imperial surarait of Hohen-
staufen, recalling the fate of that illustrious faraily
which rose to a splendour above that of all earthly
princes, only to sink down suddenly, and vanish in
the blackest night. But even independent of all
such associations, what varied beauty in these
monuments of our heroic ages, of which, alas ! we
may say in the words of Lucan, aUuding to Troy,
"etiam periere ruinae." How solemn are those
dark towers, "bosom'd high in tufted trees," which
rise above the plains of England 1 those embattled
masses which crown the hills of the giants on the
borders of Bohemia ! No wonder that many of
these castles, cresting high peaks of rock, should
' Die Sohweiz in ihren Eitterburgen und Bergschlossern, 102.

358 GODEFEIDUS,
have seemed like the work of enchantment, when
beheld at the rising of the sun, with their long
exterior galleries glittering with the armour of those
who kept watch, so that the whole seemed as if
lighted up with living flames ! — or entered on a
night, at midnight, when there were found posterns
open towards the sea, and without any keeping,
while the moon shone clear ! AU these are scenes
which abound with beauty, and every kind of in
terest, for those who hold that we too have our
heroic history, and images of ancestral fame. We
need not pass the ocean for the graves of illustrious
dead, and the torabs of heroes :
tvBa piv .Mag KtXrai dprfiog, tvBa S' 'AxiXXtvg,
ei)Ba Si ^drpoKXog.^
Under our knightly ruins the husbandman will
discover the rust- eaten weapons, and the empty
helmets :
Grandiaque effossis mirabitur ossa sepulcris.
And here, as well as when beholding the ruins of
^gina and of Megara, of the Piraeus and of Corinth,
the philosopher reflects upon the transitory nature
of all human greatness :
Eeliquias veterumque -videt monumenta virorum.
How affecting are the words of Sir Thomas Malory,
when, in the conclusion of his history, he leads his
reader to behold, as it were, the tombs of the great
personages with whose lives and glory he has made
him so familiarly acquainted ! " 0 ye myghty and
pompous lordes, shynynge in the glory transytory of
thys unstable lyf, as in reignynge over realraes grete
and rayghte countreyes, fortyfyed wyth stronge

' Od. Ill, 109.

GODEFEIDUS. 359
castels and toures, edified with many a ryche cyte !
Ye also ye fyers and myghty chyvalers, soo val-
yaunte in aventurous dedes of armes, behold,
behold, see how thys myghty conquerour Kyng
Arthur, whom in his humayne lyf all the worlde
doubted, ye also this noble Quene Guenever, that
somtyme sate in her chare adourned wyth golde,
perles, and precyous stones, now lye ful lowe in
obscure fosse or pytte, covered wyth cloddes of erth
and claye. Behold also thys myghty champyon
Launcelot, pyerless of knyghthode, see now how he
lyeth grovelynge on the colde moulde, now beynge
soo feble and faynt that somtyme was so terrible :
how and in what manere oughte ye to be so desyrous
of the mondayn honour so daungerous." But there
are other feelings excited by these scenes. What
Englishman -vrill turn aside from that castle where
once a British monarch was a prisoner ; and what
lover of chivalry can ascend that tower, or pace
that smaU chamber, which once confined the lion-
hearted Richard, -vrithout enthusiasm and awe ? It
was a lovely evening in August when I beheld the
delicious -riew which is obtained -from the heights
above the castle. The sun was setting over the
Danube, which rolled in many a channel between
gloomy forests, which were tinged with a hue of
the richest ptirple. The pencil of Claude could not
have done justice to the landscape :
It was a scene, at least to me,
A fate allows but seldom here ;
One of those rare and brilliant hours.
Which, like the aloe's lingering flowers.
May blossom to the eye of man
But once in all his weary span !
It would seem as if the people of that heroic land
had retained a pecuUar love for whatever was sym
boUcal of chivalry. Visitors of all ranks are in the
habit of frequenting the romantic spot which I have

360 GODEFEIDUS.
been describing. Some spend a night in the prison.
The Prince Lichtenstein is very attentive to the pre
servation of the ancient castles which are in his
possession. The castle of Chivalry, in the gardens
of Laxenburg, is a proof of the taste which dis
tinguishes the present emperor. In this edifice,
which he caused to be erected upon an island in a
lake, after the model of a castle in the middle ages,
there is collected and admirably disposed a vast
variety of valuable antiquities, which have been
removed frora different castles of the erapire;
raemorials which perhaps would otherwise have
perished if not thus collected. The castle is ap
proached by a raovable bridge; passing under a
portcullis, and through the court of offices, you
arrive at the inner gate. The apartments are small,
disposed and furnished in the ancient style. The
ceilings and wainscot, the doors and -vrindow-f rames
are, in raany instances, five hundred years old.
The treasures of the chapel belonged to Rudolph
of Hapsburg. In one apartment various pieces of
his furniture are deposited : there are nuraerous
paintings of coronations and tournaraents. In the
arraory are several figures of knights and ladies in
steel arraour. In order that fearful contrasts raay
serve as a foil, a charaber of justice is represented,
disposed for the interrogation of prisoners, whose
bodies are drawn up by a cord from the dungeon
beneath, so that their head appears through a round
aperture in the table, around which the examiners
are seated. A narrow winding flight of steps leads
the visitor to the dungeon, where he beholds the
figure of a knight templar in chains. The prisoner
lifts up his hands as you enter, and his chains clash
as they resume their forraer position. Years may
pass away, but the raeraory of the writer can never
lose the feeling of that hour, when, upon arriving at
the lake which surrounds the castle of Sigismunds-

GODEFEIDUS. 361
burg (it is situated between Nassereit and Ler-
moos, in the Tyrol), he swara across to the island,
and mounted the castie-waU. It was a tranquil
hour : the moon shone bright, and not a sound met
the ear but the ripple of the gentle wave receding
frora his stroke. The lake must be of prodigious
depth, for the mountains rise abruptly from every
side. At first one might have supposed that this
was the very isle of the bottomless lake which be
longed to the giant Almadrago, the grandfather of
Drarauziando, of whom we read so much in the
Palmerin of England. The similarity of situation
was most striking. Certainly it did seem a fathom
less pool; and if conversant with the Muse of
northern waters, fancy might well conceive it to be
the abode of the water-sprite, and hear his cry, — a
fearful note to one who was about to plunge into it,
though ever so young and daring.
 Juvat 6 meminisse beati

Temporis !
Yes ! to remember the adventures of an innocent
and happy time, yet of a tirae v/hich should never
be spoken of as past for those who cherish chivalry,
since there is no difference between the young in
years and the young in character ; ^ for though the
arms which once slew the Nemaean lion may become
sinewless, though the fleshly frame may wither and
dissolve, the soul, which gave movement and beauty
and joy, is insensible to change ; she still raay spread
her gladsome wings, and mount sublime above the
grisly band which ministers to death. The poor
infirm wandering minstrel was able to proclaim this
truth : And said I that my limbs were old.
And said I that my blood was cold

' Aristot. Ethic. Nioom, lib. I, c. 3.

362 GODEFEIDUS.
And that my kindly fire was fled,
And my poor wither'd heart was dead —
and that I might not sing of chivalry ! How could
I prove so foul, so false a recreant to the dearest
therae ? How could I hear that very name pro
nounced, and not wake my heart to notes of fire !
Yes, the orb of purest light, which visits to rejoice
the human soul, for him repairs the golden flood,
and warms hira with redoubled ray. Perhaps during
a short interval it may have been obscured by dark
some vapours, but for him it has not been quenched ;
for when hope, the child of unimpaired remem
brance, resumes its reign, reviving those scenes and
adventures of youth, — the hasty ride over the dusty
plain, Eheu, quantus equis, quantus adest viris
Sudor !
or the sterner course, when night comes on, and the
bleak storm begins to ruffle, where for many miles
about there is scarce a bush ; when castles topple
on their warders' heads, and the winds do fight
against the churches ; when, at length, disniounting
at the abbey-gate, he is adraitted within the sound
ing cloister, now only seen at intervals by sheets of
fire, fearful with the bursts of horrid thunder and
with the groans of roaring eleraents ; when he be
holds the tranquil countenance of the holy monk
who so gently thanks the stranger ; — then the return
to the raftered hall, to the cheerful hearth, to the
friends whose remembrance sweetened danger, and
whose presence made every " dear scene of enchant
raent raore dear," to that beloved paternal raansion
where every charaber brings back to his mind's eye
the revered forms of father and of raother, the fond
traits of fraternal friendship and of a sister's love, —
dear familiar roof, of which he can truly say, in the

GODEFEIDUS. 363
words of Penelope, speaking of the house of Ulysses,
which she is about to leave,
TOV TTOTt fiffiviiaeaBai otofiai, tvTrtp bvt'iptp. '
Oh, then he still lives in the sweet land of poetry,
iu the grand days of knighthood ; the little world
of his soul, unmoved by the progress and decline of
all around it, is again in its heroic age ; nature,
manners, even language, are all restored to the
freshness and majesty of a primal state ; the ear is
no longer wounded by the ignoble sounds from all
sides of policy and interest, of profit and advantage ;
but now discourse is like rich music's voice ; it is
of honour, goodness, self-devotion, dignity, friend
ship — " thoughts that breathe, and words that
burn": The heart, now pregnant with celestial fire.
Wakes into ecstacy the Uving lyre.
The dark melancholy phantoms which are generated
in the stagnant veins of a decrepit state are passed
away, and already forgotten. Now is again "the
breezy call of incense-breathing morn." The portals
of temples are unbarred ; the earth is again walked
by heroes : no more substitution of laws for virtue,
of expediency for honour ; no raore tributes to the
monster of false civilisation ; no more offerings of
plain and holy innocence to wicked shame ; no more
crimes defended as necessities of position ; no more
apostasies under the name of concessions ; no more
fear of a Procrustes and of his cursed ded, since
Theseus is again alive to deliver raen frora his
tyranny : the age of indifference is gone ! the age
of sophistry, of selfishness, of melancholy, of sus
picion, of despair. In the joy of so great a deliver
ance, he forgets that he perhaps had once yielded
to its influence ; that he too had been without energy
and without peace; that he too had been bound

364 GODEFEIDUS.
down and measured upon the frame of men's opinion;
that his confidence had given place to suspicion;
that his heart had been divided ; that he had grown
attached to the prison of his soul, to the very
maladies and sharae of a world-worn nature. Dis
solved in the harmony ofc eternal youth, time has no
warning voice for him, age no power. How can he
grow old who lives separated frora all that is des
tined to decay and perish, who unceasingly beholds
the same bright altars and angelic forras which
proclaira his own eternity ? How can he think of
change and death, surrounded by -risions of em
pyrean day ? How can he remeraber what belongs
to age, who already consorts with never-fading
crowns ? For him all things are immortal ; and
therefore, like Crassus, he cannot suppose that he
himself is old ; he may repeat in a higher sense the
very words of the Roman, " me senem esse sum
obUtus."

riNis.

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