Part 1
WIT AND WISDOM
OF THE
REV. SYDNEY SMITH:
BEING
SELECTIONS FROM HIS WRITINGS,
AND PASSAGES OF HIS
LETTERS AND TABLE TALK.
With Notes, and a Biographical Memoir,
BY EVERT A. DUYCKINCK.
A Portrait, after G. Stewart Newton, AND AN AUTOGRAPH LETTER.
_In One Volume, 12mo, Cloth_, PRICE $1.25.
Advertisement.
The chief writings of the Rev. SYDNEY SMITH are included in the original English editions in eight octavo volumes. These are his “Two Volumes of Sermons,” 1809; the Collection of his “Works,” (embracing articles from the Edinburgh Review, the Plymley Letters, and other Papers) 4 vols., 1839-40; a posthumous volume, “Sermons preached at St. Paul’s,” &c., 1846; “Elementary Sketches of Moral Philosophy, delivered at the Royal Institution,” published in 1850. To these are to be added, “Letters on American Debts,” 1843; “A Fragment on the Irish Roman Catholic Church,” 1845; Letters on Railway Management and other topics to the Morning Chronicle; Articles in the Edinburgh Review not collected in his “Works”; numerous Sketches and Essays printed in the “Memoirs,” by his daughter, Lady Holland; and the extensive series of “Letters,” edited by Mrs. Austin. These have mainly furnished the material of the present volume. In the preparation of the Table Talk, Memoir, and Notes, many collateral sources have been drawn upon.
The most important of Sydney Smith’s Writings will here be found given entire; while the selection generally presents the most characteristic passages of his “Wit and Wisdom” from the whole. Numerous Miscellanies, of much interest, are included which are not to be met with in any previous collection of the author’s works.
Contents.
BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR, by the Editor.
ARTICLES FROM THE EDINBURGH REVIEW, (including the Papers on Female Education, Professional Education, Notices of America, &c., &c.)
SKETCHES OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY, (including the Essays on the Conduct of the Understanding; on Wit and Humor, &c., &c.)
THE PETER PLYMLEY LETTERS.
PASSAGES FROM SERMONS.
SPEECHES ON THE REFORM-BILL. THE BALLOT.
LETTERS ON AMERICAN DEBTS.
PASSAGES FROM LETTERS ON THE ECCLESIASTICAL COMMISSION.
A FRAGMENT ON THE IRISH ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH.
LETTERS ON RAILWAY MANAGEMENT.
CHARACTER OF SIR JAMES MACKINTOSH AND OF FRANCIS HORNER.
PRACTICAL ESSAYS, &c.
PASSAGES FROM LETTERS.
TABLE TALK. PERSONAL, &c., &c.
DR. DORAN’S WORKS.
Table Traits, with Something on them. By DR. DORAN, Author of “Habits and Men,” &c., &c. 12mo., cloth. Price $1 25. Half calf, or mor. ex., $2 25.
BILL OF FARE.
The Legend of Amphitryon--A Prologue. Diet and Digestion.--Water--Breakfast, Corn, Bread, &c.--Tea--Coffee--Chocolate. The Old Coffee House.--The French Cafés. The Ancient Cook and his Art. The Modern Cook and his Science. Pen and Ink Sketches of Careme. Dinner Traits.--The Materials for Dining. A Light Dinner for Two.--Sauces. The Parasite. Table Traits of Utopia and the Golden Age. Table Traits of England in the Early Times. Table Traits of the Last Century. Wine and Water. The Birth of the Vine, and what has come of it. The Making and Marring of Wine. Imperial Drinkers, and Incidents in Germany.--An Incident of Travel. A few odd Glasses of Wine. [Egyptian] The Tables of the Ancient and Modern The Diet of the Saints of Old. The Bridal and Banquet of Ferques. The Support of Modern Saints. The Cæsars at Table. Their Majesties at Meat. English Kings at their Tables. Strange Banquets--The Castellan Von Coucy. Authors and their Dietetics. The Liquor-loving Laureates. Supper.
Nearly every page contains something amusing, and you may shut the book in the middle, and open it again after a twelvemonth’s interval, without at all compromising its power of affording enjoyment.--_The London Times._
Habits and Men, with Remnants of Record touching the Makers of both. By DR. DORAN, author of “Table Traits,” &c., &c. 12mo., cloth, $1. Half calf, or mor. extra, $2 00.
CONTENTS.
Between You and Me. Man Manners, and a Story with a Moral to it. Adonis at Home and Abroad--Pt. I.--Pt. II. Remnants of Stage Dresses. Three Acts and an Epilogue. The Tiring-Bowers of Queens “La Mode in her Birth-place.” Hats, Wigs and their Wearers. Beards and their Bearers.--Swords. Gloves, B--s, and Buttons.--Stockings. “Masks and Faces.” Puppets for Grown Gentlemen. Touching Tailors. The Tailors Measured by the Poets. Sir John Hawkwood, the Heroic Tailor. Why did the Tailors choose St. William for their Patron? George Dörfling, the Martial Tailor. Admiral Hobson, the Naval Tailor. John Stow, the Antiquarian Tailor. John Speed, the Antiquarian Tailor. Samuel Pepys, the Official Tailor. Richard Ryan, the Theatrical Tailor. Paul Whitehead, the Poet Tailor. Mems. of “Merchant Tailors.” Chapters on Beaux. The Beaux of the Olden Time. Beau Fielding--Beau Nash. The Prince de Ligne--Beau Brummel. Doctors Ready Dressed--Odd Fashions.
This is one of the most amusing and erudite books of the day, abounding in anecdote and queer stories of the dress of different ages, of kings and queens, poets, statesmen, tailors, &c. The sketches of the “tiring-bowers” of queens, of Paul Whitehead, the poet tailor; of Beau Nash, and Beau Fielding, are rich in lore, and are produced in sparkling style.--_Boston Courier._
The Lives of the Queens of England of the House of Hanover. By DR. DORAN. 2 vols., 12mo., cloth, $2. Half calf, or mor. extra, $4 00.
CONTENTS.
Sophia Dorothea, Wife of George I. Caroline Wilhelmina Dorothea, Wife of George II. Charlotte, Wife of George III. Caroline of Brunswick, Wife of George IV.
Dr. Doran has availed himself of the ample material scattered through personal memoirs, pamphlets, periodicals, and other fugitive literature of the time, with the thoroughness, quick eye for humor, and appreciation of the picturesque, which characterize his other amusing works.
KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS.
KNIGHTS
AND THEIR DAYS
BY DR. DORAN
AUTHOR OF “LIVES OF THE QUEENS OF ENGLAND OF THE HOUSE OF HANOVER,” “TABLE TRAITS,” “HABITS AND MEN,” ETC.
“Oh, ’tis a brave profession, and rewards All loss we meet, with double weight of glory.” SHIRLEY (_The Gentleman of Venice._)
REDFIELD
34 BEEKMAN STREET, NEW YORK
1856
TO
PHILIPPE WATIER, ESQ.
IN MEMORY OF MERRY NIGHTS AND DAYS NEAR METZ AND THE MOSELLE,
THIS LITTLE VOLUME
Is inscribed
BY HIS VERY SINCERE FRIEND,
THE AUTHOR.
CONTENTS.
A FRAGMENTARY PROLOGUE PAGE 9
THE TRAINING OF PAGES 30
KNIGHTS AT HOME 36
LOVE IN CHEVALIERS, AND CHEVALIERS IN LOVE 51
DUELLING, DEATH, AND BURIAL 65
THE KNIGHTS WHO “GREW TIRED OF IT” 78
FEMALE KNIGHTS AND JEANNE DARC 104
THE CHAMPIONS OF CHRISTENDOM 113
SIR GUY OF WARWICK, AND WHAT BEFELL HIM 133
GARTERIANA 148
FOREIGN KNIGHTS OF THE GARTER 170
THE POOR KNIGHTS OF WINDSOR, AND THEIR DOINGS 184
THE KNIGHTS OF THE SAINTE AMPOULE 194
THE ORDER OF THE HOLY GHOST 200
JACQUES DE LELAING 208
THE FORTUNES OF A KNIGHTLY FAMILY 228
THE RECORD OF RAMBOUILLET 263
SIR JOHN FALSTAFF 276
STAGE KNIGHTS 295
STAGE LADIES, AND THE ROMANCE OF HISTORY 312
THE KINGS OF ENGLAND AS KNIGHTS; FROM THE NORMANS TO THE STUARTS 329
“THE INSTITUTION OF A GENTLEMAN” 351
THE KINGS OF ENGLAND AS KNIGHTS; THE STUARTS 358
THE SPANISH MATCH 364
THE KINGS OF ENGLAND AS KNIGHTS; FROM STUART TO BRUNSWICK 375
RECIPIENTS OF KNIGHTHOOD 388
RICHARD CARR, PAGE, AND GUY FAUX, ESQUIRE 410
ULRICH VON HUTTEN 420
SHAM KNIGHTS 439
PIECES OF ARMOR 455
THE
KNIGHTS AND THEIR DAYS.
A FRAGMENTARY PROLOGUE.
“La bravoure est une qualité innée, on ne se la donne pas.” NAPOLEON I.
Dr. Lingard, when adverting to the sons of Henry II., and their knightly practices, remarks that although chivalry was considered the school of honor and probity, there was not overmuch of those or of any other virtues to be found among the members of the chivalrous orders. He names the vices that were more common, as he thinks, and probably with some justice. Hallam, on the other hand, looks on the institution of chivalry as the best school of moral discipline in the Middle Ages: and as the great and influential source of human improvement. “It preserved,” he says, “an exquisite sense of honor, which in its results worked as great effects as either of the powerful spirits of liberty and religion, which have given a predominant impulse to the moral sentiments and energies of mankind.”
The custom of receiving arms at the age of manhood is supposed, by the same author, to have been established among the nations that overthrew the Roman Empire; and he cites the familiar passage from Tacitus, descriptive of this custom among the Germans. At first, little but bodily strength seems to have been required on the part of the candidate. The qualifications and the forms of investiture changed or improved with the times.
In a general sense, chivalry, according to Hallam, may be referred to the age of Charlemagne, when the Caballarii, or horsemen, became the distinctive appellation of those feudal tenants and allodial proprietors who were bound to serve on horseback. When these were equipped and formally appointed to their martial duties, they were, in point of fact, knights, with so far more incentives to distinction than modern soldiers, that each man depended on himself, and not on the general body. Except in certain cases, the individual has now but few chances of distinction; and knighthood, in its solitary aspect, may be said to have been blown up by gunpowder.
As examples of the true knightly spirit in ancient times, Mr. Hallam cites Achilles, who had a supreme indifference for the question of what side he fought upon, had a strong affection for a friend, and looked at death calmly. I think Mr. Hallam over-rates the bully Greek considerably. His instance of the Cid Ruy Diaz, as a perfect specimen of what the modern knight ought to have been, is less to be gainsaid.
In old times, as in later days, there were knights who acquired the appellation by favor rather than service; or by a compelled rather than a voluntary service. The old landholders, the Caballarii, or Milites, as they came to be called, were landholders who followed their lord to the field, by feudal obligation: paying their rent, or part of it, by such service. The voluntary knights were those “younger brothers,” perhaps, who sought to amend their indifferent fortunes by joining the banner of some lord. These were not legally knights, but they might win the honor by their prowess; and thus in arms, dress, and title, the younger brother became the equal of the wealthy landholders. He became even their superior, in one sense, for as Mr. Hallam adds:--“The territorial knights became by degrees ashamed of assuming a title which the others had won by merit, till they themselves could challenge it by real desert.”
The connection of knighthood with feudal tenure was much loosened, if it did not altogether disappear, by the Crusades. There the knights were chiefly volunteers who served for pay: all feudal service there was out of the question. Its connection with religion was, on the other hand, much increased, particularly among the Norman knights who had not hitherto, like the Anglo-Saxons, looked upon chivalric investiture as necessarily a religious ceremony. The crusaders made religious professors, at least, of all knights, and never was one of these present at the reading of the gospel, without holding the point of his sword toward the book, in testimony of his desire to uphold what it taught by force of arms. From this time the passage into knighthood was a solemn ceremony; the candidate was belted, white-robed, and absolved after due confession, when his sword was blessed, and Heaven was supposed to be its director. With the love of God was combined love for the ladies. What was implied was that the knight should display courtesy, gallantry, and readiness to defend, wherever those services were required by defenceless women. Where such was bounden duty--but many knights did not so understand it--there was an increase of refinement in society; and probably there is nothing overcharged in the old ballad which tells us of a feast at Perceforest, where eight hundred knights sat at a feast, each of them with a lady at his side, eating off the same plate; the then fashionable sign of a refined friendship, mingled with a spirit of gallantry. That the husbands occasionally looked with uneasiness upon this arrangement, is illustrated in the unreasonably jealous husband in the romance of “Lancelot du Lac;” but, as the lady tells him, he had little right to cavil at all, for it was an age since any knight had eaten with her off the same plate.
Among the Romans the word _virtue_ implied both virtue and valor--as if bravery in a man were the same thing as virtue in a woman. It certainly did not signify among Roman knights that a brave man was necessarily virtuous. In more recent times the word gallantry has been made also to take a double meaning, implying not only courage in man, but his courtesy toward woman. Both in ancient and modern times, however, the words, or their meanings, have been much abused. At a more recent period, perhaps, gallantry was never better illustrated than when in an encounter by hostile squadrons near Cherbourg, the adverse factions stood still, on a knight, wearing the colors of his mistress, advancing from the ranks of one party, and challenging to single combat the cavalier in the opposite ranks who was the most deeply in love with his mistress. There was no lack of adversaries, and the amorous knights fell on one another with a fury little akin to love.
A knight thus slain for his love was duly honored by his lady and contemporaries. Thus we read in the history of Gyron le Courtois, that the chivalric king so named, with his royal cousin Melyadus, a knight, by way of equerry, and a maiden, went together in search of the body of a chevalier who had fallen _pour les beaux yeux_ of that very lady. They found the body picturesquely disposed in a pool of blood, the unconscious hand still grasping the hilt of the sword that had been drawn in honor of the maiden. “Ah, beauteous friend!” exclaims the lady, “how dearly hast thou paid for my love! The good and the joy we have shared have only brought thee death. Beauteous friend, courteous and wise, valiant, heroic, good knight in every guise, since thou has lost thy youth for me in this manner, in this strait, and in this agony, as it clearly appears, what else remains for me to suffer for thy sake, unless that I should keep you company? Friend, friend, thy beauty has departed for the love of me, thy flesh lies here bloody. Friend, friend, we were both nourished together. I knew not what love was when I gave my heart to love thee,” &c., &c., &c. “Young friend,” continues the lady, “thou wert my joy and my consolation: for to see thee and to speak to thee alone were sufficient to inspire joy, &c., &c., &c. Friend, what I behold slays me, I feel that death is within my heart.” The lady then took up the bloody sword, and requested Melyadus to look after the honorable interment of the knight on that spot, and that he would see her own body deposited by her “friend’s” side, in the same grave. Melyadus expressed great astonishment at the latter part of the request, but as the lady insisted that her hour was at hand, he promised to fulfil all her wishes. Meanwhile the maiden knelt by the side of the dead knight, held his sword to her lips, and gently died upon his breast. Gyron said it was the wofullest sight that eye had ever beheld; but all courteous as Gyron was, and he was so to such a remarkable degree that he derived a surname from his courtesy, I say that in spite of his sympathy and gallantry, he appears to have had a quick eye toward making such profit as authors could make in those days, from ready writing upon subjects of interest. Before another word was said touching the interment of the two lovers, Gyron intimated that he would write a ballad upon them that should have a universal circulation, and be sung in all lands where there were gentle hearts and sweet voices. Gyron performed what he promised, and the ballad of “Absdlon and Cesala,” serves to show what very rough rhymes the courteous poet could employ to illustrate a romantic incident. Let it be added that, however the knights may sometimes have failed in their truth, this was very rarely the case with the ladies. When Jordano Bruno was received in his exile by Sir Philip Sidney, he requited the hospitality by dedicating a poem to the latter. In this dedication, he says: “With one solitary exception, all misfortunes that flesh is heir to have been visited on me. I have tasted every kind of calamity but one, that of finding false a woman’s love.”
It was not every knight that could make such an exception. Certainly not that pearl of knights, King Arthur himself. What a wife had that knight in the person of Guinever? Nay, he is said to have had three wives of that name, and that all of them were as faithless as ladies well _could_ be. Some assert that the described deeds of these three are in fact but the evil-doings of one. However this may be, I may observe summarily here what I have said in reference to Guinever in another place. With regard to this triple-lady, the very small virtue of one third of the whole will not salubriously leaven the entire lump. If romance be true, and there is more about the history of Guinever than any other lady--she was a delicious, audacious, winning, seductive, irresistible, and heartless hussy; and a shameless! and a barefaced! Only read “Sir Lancelot du Lac!” Yes, it can not be doubted but that in the voluminous romances of the old day, there was a sprinkling of historical facts. Now, if a thousandth part of what is recorded of this heart-bewitching Guinever be true, she must have been such a lady as we can not now conceive of. True daughter of her mother Venus, when a son of Mars was not at hand, she could stoop to Mulciber. If the king was not at home, she could listen to a knight. If both were away, esquire or page might speak boldly without fear of being unheeded; and if all were absent, in the chase, or at the fray, there was always a good-looking groom in the saddle-room with whom Guinever could converse, without holding that so to do was anything derogatory. I know no more merry reading than that same ton-weight of romance which goes by the name of “Sir Lancelot du Lac.” But it is not of that sort which Mrs. Chapone would recommend to young ladies, or that Dr. Cumming would read aloud in the Duke of Argyll’s drawing-room. It is a book, however, which a grave man a little tired of his gravity, may look into between serious studies and solemn pursuits--a book for a lone winter evening by a library-fire, with wine and walnuts at hand; or for an old-fashioned summer’s evening, in a bower through whose foliage the sun pours his _adieu_, as gorgeously red as the Burgundy in your flask. Of a truth, a man must be “in a concatenation accordingly,” ere he may venture to address himself to the chronicle which tells of the “bamboches,” “fredaines,” and “bombances,” of Guinever the Frail, and of Lancelot du Lac.
We confess to having more regard for Arthur than for his triple-wife Guinever. As I have had occasion to say in other pages, “I do not like to give up Arthur!” I love the name, the hero, and his romantic deeds. I deem lightly of his light o’love bearing. Think of his provocation both ways! Whatever the privilege of chivalry may have been, it was the practice of too many knights to be faithless. They vowed fidelity, but they were a promise-breaking, word-despising crew. On this point I am more inclined to agree with Dr. Lingard than with Mr. Hallam. Honor was ever on their lips, but not always in their hearts, and it was little respected by them, when found in the possession of their neighbor’s wives. How does Scott consider them in this respect, when in describing a triad of knights, he says,
“There were two who loved their neighbor’s wives, And one who loved his own.”
Yet how is it that knights are so invariably mentioned with long-winded laudation by Romish writers--always excepting Lingard--when they desire to illustrate the devoted spirit of olden times? Is it that the knights were truthful, devout, chaste, God-fearing? not a jot! Is it because the cavaliers cared but for one thing, in the sense of having fear but for one thing, and _that_ the devil? To escape from being finally triumphed over by the Father of Evil, they paid largely, reverenced outwardly, confessed unreservedly, and were absolved plenarily. That is the reason why chivalry was patted on the back by Rome. At the same time we must not condemn a system, the principles of which were calculated to work such extensive ameliorations in society as chivalry. Christianity itself might be condemned were we to judge of it by the shortcomings of its followers.