Well, after this exordium, to come to our moral estimate, a thing, bythe-bye, on which we particularly pride ourselves, as we usually hit the golden mean between the "budge doctor of the stoic fur," and the porcus de grege Epicuri. What shall our moral estimate of the tournament be? and with whose dictum shall we most coincide? Luckily the question is already decided for us by a book even now on our table; it is Chateaubriand's Genie du Christianism. In this noble author, by far the finest of the ancien regime, we find the sanctity of divine truth combined with the richness of human sentiment and sympathies. Let us explain his ideas on this subject, for they are worth the listening to.

The advocate of the French royalists argues thus in the book to which we refer, which has been translated under the title of the "Beauties of Christianity." The spirit of Christianity (says he) is itself the noblest spirit which can possibly influence an aristocracy. In proportion as the true spirit of Christianity prevails, it necessarily produces that aristocracy or best estate of mind, that finished piety, virtue, and patriotism, without which a nobleman is but a moral antithesis and a contradiction in terms. Christianity, therefore, argues Chateaubriand, being the complement of all divine and human virtues, is the true Ehrenbreitstein or broadstone of honour, with which the noble becomes nobler, and without which he is but a living lie. The road to the temple of Honour, among the Romans, was through the porch of Virtue. But now, as a quaint antiquarian observes, "by the preposterous innovation and change of things, that nobility, which was proper only to the good, gave place; and that nobility, which is alike common to the good and evil, stept to the helm. Yea, even the word nobilis, or noble itself, which some will have to have been so called, as who should say noscibilis, or remarkable, or for some virtue notable, began to be indifferently taken into both parts, good and bad, as nobile scortum, a noble harlot, nobile scelus, a noble villain."

Therefore, says Chateaubriand, let the aristocrat of modern times, who would be truly aristocratical, strive to excel in Christian graces, perfections so lofty and so rare, requiring such divine solicitude and unflinching discipline that no vulgar nature can conceive or compass them. Let such a nobleman who would aspire to aristocratical distinction, above his peers, take the shortest and discreetest road to it, by cultivating the spirit of Christianity. Let him personally evince that the divine is indissolubly connected with the honourable; that they must stand or fall together. The very mottoes of our aristocracy, if well read and considered, might serve to teach them this magnificent lesson. But why do we enlarge on a thought which has been so often more eloquently elaborated; a thought which has already produced Erasmus's "Christian Knight," and Sir Richard Steele's "Christian Hero."

Thus Chateaubriand advises noblemen, who would be really such, to aim at that spirit of Christianity which is the most sublime and beautiful of all moral conceptions. He recommends them to achieve those sacred and imperishable honours which lend aristocracy, aye, royalty, to the eternal soul, which are beyond the accident of time and place, and throw the mere formalities of rank into obscure insignificance He would have them learn something of that nobleness, which the apostle describes as so rare and so arduous. Whatever things are admirable,

and glorious, and renowned, if there be any virtue, if there be any praise let them think of these. The most aristocratical thing in the universe, as our old friend, Coleridge, was wont to remark, is that intense devotion to Deity, and that heroic philanthropy towards man, which would at once give the peer, who had the moral courage to exert them, the supremacy of character "which is conferred by no changes of the government, and which cannot be taken away by any ministry."

Chateaubriand, therefore, argues for this spirit of christianity, which would make our nobility so vast a blessing, and teach them to spend and be spent, not for the fantastic trumperies and buffooneries of fashion, but for the solid improvement of their fellow-countrymen in piety, virtue, industry, and frugality, (that last best estate of a peaceful, loving, and prosperous population, for desiring which Göethe has rescued the soul of Faust from the gripe of the devil). Chateaubriand has not however said a word against the spirit of science, nor dropped a syllable against the sentiment of chivalry which we are now discussing. On the contrary, he shows that the spirit of christianity is no proud limitary cherub, but ample, and expansive, and multitudinous as the beams of heaven's sunshine; christianity is that system of divine truth, longeval as eternity and boundless as space. In its holy and all embracing elements it includes all things sublime and beautiful, both in nature and art. There is nothing contractive or repulsive about it; but it perfectly blends and amalgamates itself with every thing that is lovely and of good report. God has not given us the spirit of fear, but of power, love, and a sound mind. We delight to add to our faith, knowledge, and to knowledge, virtue. We delight to add to our religion all that is true in esoteric and exoteric learning, and all that is gallant and elegant in the record of romance and poetry.

How then does Chateaubriand estimate the true spirit of chivalry? He estimates it most highly. He conceives that next to the sense of religion in our consciences, stands the sense of honour, of which chivalry is a synonyme. He conceives that the resurrection of this spirit of chivalry in the middle ages was altogether providential; that it was a glorious stimulus to the best developement of society during those preg. nant centuries; and a capital defence against the imposture of hierarchies, who with their damnable sophistry, bigotry, and inquisition, threatened the best liberties of our race.

Respecting the true and pure spirit of chivalry, we agree with Chateaubriand; and with Dr. Johnson would we lament the degree in which that spirit has evaporated. Dr. Johnson being asked what had become of the spirit of chivalry, said, "it had gone into the city to make a fortune." Burke bewailed the same misfortune in the most eloqueut passage of modern literature. "The age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, calculators, and economists has succeeded; and the glory of Europe is extinguished for ever. Never, never more shall we behold that generous loyalty to rank and sex; that proud submission; that dignified obedience; that subordination of the heart which kept alive even in servitude itself the spirit of an exalted freedom. The unbought grace of life, the cheap defence of nations, the nurse of manly sentiment and heroic enterprise is gone! It is gone; that sensibility of principle, that chastity of honour which felt a stain like a wound, which

inspired courage while it mitigated ferocity, which ennobled whatever it touched, and under which, vice itself lost half its evil by losing all its grossness."

Yet inclined as we are to indulge in commendations of the spirit of chivalry, we cannot venture quite so far in panegyric of the recent tournament as some of our contemporaries. That excellent little publication, the Mirror, has shown laudable zeal in the cause, and gives us an engraving of the whole ceremonial of the lists, though not exactly as large as life and twice as natural. The Morning Herald has, likewise, been astonishingly eulogistic on the occasion, and has fairly outshone itself in the style sentimental. As we heartily relish the good old English gentlemanly spirit of this Journal, and its consistent adherence to the main interests of religion, philanthropy, and patriotism, we shall take the liberty of quoting some brilliant lines from its columns.

"The attempt (says the Herald) to revive at the present day the chivalrous pastime of the tournament,' has been derided by the cold 'philosophy' of a money getting, utilitarian age. Yet, let us ask, Are the mass of the people happier because the age of chivalry has past,' and, in what was once merry England,' the sordid, heartless, sensual doctrines of utilitarianism have triumphed over sentiment, and nearly extinguished the fine impulses and generous instincts of man's nature?

"Chivalry, divorced from the feudal system, of which it was the graceful accompaniment and softening influence, may be thought to be altogether out of place and out of season. What is there in our advanced state of civilisation, it may be asked, which can make it desirable to reintroduce its forms and usages-the inventions of ages comparatively illiterate? We answer that, though the feudal system has vanished, the spirit that tempered its despotism-that mitigated its ferocity-that, in an age of comparative darkness, restrained the arm of savage violence and led power captive in the silken chains of woman's finest influence, may not be without an object to operate upon, and a field for the exercise of its noblest powers.

"If the feudal power was fierce and rude and lawless, until chivalry came to subdue its passions beneath the yoke of an artificial refinement, is not the utilitarian age grovelling, mean, and sordid, and does it not require some counteracting influence-some elevating and inspiring sentiment, to redeem its character from the debasing bondage of that material 'philosophy' under which the manly virtues, and all those generous energies that exalt and adorn humanity, are fast perishing from the soil of England, where they once flourished in such vigorous luxuriance?

"Is not such a condition of society tending rapidly to realise the melancholy prediction of the poet Goldsmith, who, with the prophetic eye of genius, foresaw the national degeneracy which the utilitarian system, then only beginning to develop itself, would eventually produce :— "Till time may come, when stript of all her charms,

The land of scholars and the nurse of arms,

Where noble stems transmit the patriot flame,
Where kings have toil'd, and poets wrote, for fame,

One sink of level avarice shall lie,

And scholars, soldiers, kings, unhonoured die."'

"To those who have no directing power but selfishness, it costs no struggle of intellect to get rid of the generous attachment, or prejudice,

or whatever it is, to one's country. Their cosmopolitism is but the absence of manly sympathy-but the negation of heart; just as latitudinarianisma in religion is not a triumph of charity, but a result of cold indifference. "How can such persons understand the feeling of the bard, when, in the fervour of a patriot's enthusiasm, he exclaims,—

"O, Caledonia! stern and wild!

Meet nurse for a poetic child;

Land of brown heath and shaggy wood,
Land of the mountain and the flood--
Land of my sires-what mortal hand
Shall e'er untie the filial band

That binds me to thy rugged strand "'

“Had that bard himself, the learned, graceful, and impassioned POET OF CHIVALRY, lived to see the tournament revived on the soil of his beloved Caledonia, how would he have welcomed, with the fascinating strains of his magnificent genius, the revival of the chivalrous splendours of the olden time.' Then, perhaps, another canto would have been added to the Lay of the Last Minstrel.' Even in the feebleness of old age such an event would

"Have lighted up his faded eye

With all a poet's ecstasy."

"To view the tournament' merely in the light of a manly exercise and pastime, is it not one which deserves the encouragement of those who are admirers of recreations which strengthen, instead of enervating, the human frame, and teach the noble combination of hardihood of spirit and gentleness of character? What can be more masculine, adroit, and graceful, than the action and riding of a well-accomplished knight in the enterprise and evolutions of the tournament? As an exhibition of mere animal dexterity and prowess, it is a most interesting spectacle, but when there is added to all that, the indispensable accompaniment of the presiding charm of beauty, and the virtuous influence of woman, all civilised men must admit that the interest of the spectacle is greatly enhanced. What athletic pastime is worthier our approbation?

"Whereby they roughen to the sense, and all
The winning softness of the sex is lost."'

"Is it steeple and hurdle chases, those brutal and barbarous pastimes of mercenary and unmitigated cruelty in which that generous animal, the horse, is inhumanly sacrificed to the cupidity of betting speculators? Scarcely do we ever hear of one of those cruel and senseless exhibitions in which one or more horses have not their backs or necks broken, and not unfrequently, the inhuman riders. This is a pastime, if anything so savage can be called so, which deteriorates both horse and man, and surely if the revival of the exercises-the manly and graceful exercises— of the tournament, were to put it out of fashion among the young aristocracy of the country, who are followed in this vice by a crowd of vulgar imitators, it would confer a great benefit on society, or, at least, abate a most disgraceful nuisance.

To pass-to wheel-the croupe to gain,
Mid high curvet, that not in vain

The sword-sway might descend amain
On foeman's casque below."

"All this is exercise which serves to develope all the strength and all the activity of the human frame. It was the recollection of the personal prowess of the steel-clad knights of old, which caused the great Lord Chatham to make a somewhat disparaging comparison between 'the silken barons of the present day, and the iron barons of antiquity.'

"Lord Eglinton has had the laudable ambition of endeavouring to remove that reproach from the young aristocracy of the present day. How different is the recreation which he, by a most bountiful expenditure of wealth, has endeavoured to make fashionable, from that which destroys the health and ruins the morals of its votaries at the gambling table.

"There the success of him upon whom Fortune smiles is not followed by the anguish, destitution, and despair of the vanquished. There no sordid passions take possession of the heart, and burden human nature until it puts on the malignity of the demon. There the ancient patrimony of the infatuated devotee of this miserable vice is not flung away on the cast of a die or the turn of a spotted card. How many noble castles, beauteous parks and woods, and lawns, have been passed in this way, as if by the wand of the enchanter, from the silly inheritor to some practised sharper, which in the age of chivalry' had displayed, as Lord Eglinton's domains have lately done, the noble array of that panoplied knighthood which was the cheap defence of nations,' and all the circumstances of a splendid hospitality.

"The scene of the tournament was graced by the fairest women of Scotland, and among them was the noble mother of the chivalrous host. It is not one of the least recommendations of such a scene that it cannot be considered complete without the presiding attractions of the fair sex. And, surely, in all times and countries there has been no such incentive to deeds of high emprise and honourable estimation as the virtuous influence of woman.

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"If the age of chivalry' expired with a maiden reign,' the revival of one of its most manly and beautiful spectacles has been attempted, and we hope with success, in another maiden reign.'

"Here we leave the tournament and its hospitalities, hoping that the golden sun which withheld its beams on the late occasion, may shine auspiciously on it at a future day."

All this is very eloquent and ingenious pleading for the revival of the spirit of chivalry. But though we rather agree with those who would plead for the spirit of chivalry as a moral power, we conceive that this essential romance should not be too closely associated with the old cut and dried formalities of the middle ages, but be diffused, in more generous emanations, through the body of society. In this way we think the spirit of chivalry, properly so called, may be made highly servicable. It may extend to ennoble and purify our modes of thought, sentiment, and manners. It may extend to the education of the youth of the nation, in the mode which Milton has so splendidly delineated in his prose essays De Institutione Juvenum. It may extend so to polish 4 T

N. S.-VOL. II.