that of conferring knighthood on another. When cited to appear before a court of justice, a knight was treated with peculiar regard; if he obtained a favourable sentence, he was entitled to double costs from his adversaries, and for the same reason, when condemned, he also paid a double tine. Upon the same principle, we read that at the siege of Dun-la-Roy in 1411, knights had to carry eight fascines, while squires carried only four.

As knights had been originally the heads and distributors of justice, so they retained for a long time the privilege of fill ing some of the higher offices in the magistracy. They sat in the council of the king, and were likewise employed in negociations and embassies, together with an equal number of ecclesiastics. By degrees, however, and with a view to check their power, a third order was instituted for the professors of law and of letters, which innovation sorely wounded the pride of the old military knights, who, despising the lawyers and the learned, absented themselves altogether from the parliaments and courts of justice, and thas left the field of legislation and administration open to the plebeians, or tiers état. This was a fatal blow to the feudal power and served to accelerate its fall.

But as it happens in general that great political changes are the result of many causes, so we find that the decay of chi valry was brought about gradually and through various symptoms. The ruinous wars of the Crusades, which impoverished the nobles, the expensive pageants of the tournaments, which, though interdicted by the church, became more and more frequent, the numerous creation of knights who had not been previously trained up by a preparatory discipline, but were mere lawless adventurers, their broils among themselves, their insubordination towards the crown now become more jealous of its power, their oppression on the commons, all these tended to degrade knighthood. During the disturbed reign of Charles IV., knights took an active part in the various factions that desolated the kingdom. Charles VII., by instituting the gendar merie, a permanent and regularly em bodied and well-disciplined militia, gave another blow to chivalry. The young nobility, attracted by novelty and by the prospect of promotion, enrolled themselves readily in the new corps. By degrees, the custom of creating knights on the field of battle fell into disuse. Francis I. was one of the last that underwent this cere mony at the battle of Marignano. Tournaments were also discontinued after that fatal one in which Henry II. received his death blow. The increasing employment

and the improved tactics of the infantry, which has always been the popular arm, diminished the importance of a cavalry of knights, who had constituted formerly the only effective force of the state. And latterly, the introduction of fire arms, which changed the whole method of warfare, put combatants on a footing of equality, and rendered armour, and spears, and shields, useless incumbrances, gave the finishing blow to the institution of chi valry, at least as a feudal order, the forms and the nante still remaining as an ho nourable distinction bestowed by sove reigns on persons of distinguished merit or exalted rank.

The abuses and excesses by which old chivalry was disgraced in the persons of many of its adepts, have been recorded by the chronicles and historians of the middle ages. When we read of a Count of Mont morency plundering the abbey of Saint Denis, of other knighted barons turning highwaymen and stopping travellers when we peruse the details of the horrors committed by De Montfort and his ac complices against the unfortunate Albi genses, we know not what to think of their loyalty and piety. With regard to their gallantry, we shall presently see, in speaking of the courts of love, that it was often neither purer nor more honourable.

Those, however, who associate invariably the ideas of chivalry with that of effe minate gallantry, mistake the chivalry of one epoch and country for the whole history of the order. Chivalry, like all other widely diffused institutions, was modified in its character by that of the people who adopted it; in Spain it was religious, honourable, and stern; in northern France, gallant, romantic, but turbulent; in Provence, amorous, lady-serving, and dissotute.

We have mentioned the courts of love. These singular tribunals, a branch of the institution of chivalry, originated in Provence and Languedoc. They consisted of an indefinite number of married ladies, presided by a princess, or wife of a sovereign baron. The Countess of Champagne assembled one of sixty ladies. Nostradamns mentions ten ladies as sitting in the court of Signa in Provence, twelve in that of Romanin, fourteen in Avignon. Knights also sometimes sat in them. Queen Eleanor, consort of Louis VII., and afterwards of Henry II. of England, held a Court of Love. Her daughter Mary, wife of Henry Count of Champagne, presided likewise over several Courts of Love, as well as Sybilla of Anjou, Countess of Flanders, also in the twelfth century, and Ermengarde, Viscountess of Narbonne.

The Troubadours had invented, among

other species of compositions, one which they called Tenson, probably from the Latin contentio, which was a sort of dialogue in verse between two poets, who questioned each other on some refined points of love's casuistry; such as: "one lover is jealous and feels alarmed at a straw, another is so confident of his mistress's faith, that he does not perceive even just motives of suspicion; it is asked, which of the two feels most love? &c." The answers were equally ingenious, and the debate was often referred to the courts of love for a final decision. These decisions were registered and formed a sort of statute book of the " gay science." These tensons were also called joula d'amour, and the decisions Lous urrets d'amours.

But others and less hypothetical matters were also brought before the courts of love for final judgment. Lovers complaining of the infidelity of their mistresses, ladies complaining of their lovers' neglect, or wishing to have an authorization to free themselves from their chains, these appealed often in person to the courts of love with as much earnestness and gravity as an injured husband would sue before our courts for a separation or divorce. The court, it appears, summoned the accused, who submitted to its authority, although it was supported only by opinion. One knight brought a charge of venality against a lady for having accepted costly presents from him without making him any returns in kindness. Queen Eleanor's decision was that, a lady ought either not to accept presents, or make a due return for them. The influence of Provençal manners on chivalry is remarkable in as much as instead of combats and other romantic feats, disputes of jealousy and rivalry between knights were often quietly submitted to the decision of a female tribunal.

The morality, if we may use such a misnomer, of the Courts of Love, was a code of licentiousness and adultery, mixed with an affected display of refined sentimentality. It strictly corresponds with the practice of cicisbeism, which has so long prevailed in the South of Europe, only still less veiled than in its modern times. The unblushing effrontery with which ladies expressed their sentiments on the subject is astonishing, even to us who have witnessed the familiarity of the cavalieri serventi and cortejos of the two southern peninsulas. A few extracts from the questions brought before the Courts of Love, and of the judgments passed thereon, will bear us out fully in our expression of unqualified reprobation of the whole system.

A question was laid before the Countess

of Champagne, whether love can exist between husband and wife? The Coun tess, after prefacing that she and her other ladies were always ready to give advice to those who might otherwise err in the articles of love, decided that “there can be no love in the state of matrimony, because, unlike free lovers, who act from their own will and favour, married people are bound to accede to their mutual wishes, and dený one another. There can be no jealousy between them, and, according to rules, without jealousy there can be no love; ergo, &c." And this precious decision from a lady of the highest rank, herself married, is dated A. D. 1164 Kalend. Maii.

A young lady, after being in love with a knight, has married another; is she obliged to keep away her first lover, and refuse her favour to him? The answer of Ermengarde, Viscountess of Narbonne, is, that the marriage bond does not exclude by right the former attachment, unless the lady declare that she meant to abjure love for ever.

Again a knight fell in love with a lady already engaged to another; she however promised him, that if she ever ceased to love his rival, she should take him into favour. After a short time the lady married her first lover. The knight now required the fulfilment of her promise the lady refused, saying, that although married, she still loved her husband. This was referred as a knotty point to Queen Eleanor, who replied thus: "We do not presume to contradict the sentence of the Countess of Champagne, who has solemnly pronounced that there can be no true love in wedlock. We therefore are of opinion that the lady in question should grant her love to the wooing knight."

We shall give no more of this wretched jurisprudence, observing only that it bears throughout the stamp of female mind; and we are far from saying this invidiously, for we are persuaded that such was the general corruption of the time, that had the judgments been left to men, they would have been still more gross and immoral. Besides, we are of opinion that men give the tone to the females of a country, and that where the latter are corrupt it is originally the fault of the former. Indeed we find that it was disreputable for a lady to have a great baron for her lover, as the upper classes of nobles were considered too debauched and too careless of their own and their mistresses' reputations to deserve the affections of a female. But we allude to certain provisos devised not unskilfully in favour of the sex: for instance, we find that a knight who had contrived to keep in favour with two ladies

unknown to each other, is sentenced by the Countess of Flanders to be deprived of both, and inadmissible to the love of any other woman, ou account of his selfish

Hess.

It might be urged, however, by some simple-minded persons, that all this meant platonic love, a sort of spiritual affection, for such indeed was the jargon of the Troubadours; and we have heard this alleged also in favour of the cicisbeism of the South. The answer is short: that it might be so in some instances is very possible; but then the parties were virtuous in spite of those connexions and of the danger they incurred through them. That this was far from being generally the case, however, we have abundant testimony in the records of the Troubadours themselves.

"William of St. Didier a rich and valiant knight, and an accomplished Troubadour, attached himself to the Marquise Polignac, a beautiful woman, in whose praise he wrote several ballads, addressed to her under a feigned name. The marquis was a bon-homme, fond of music, and who often sang the ballads of St. Didier. The marchioness, to satisfy some scruples, wanted the consent of her own consort before she granted favour to St. Didier. The latter then composed a ballad, in which he introduces a husband granting to his wife a similar permission. At the same time St. Didier told his good friend the marquis, that this was a strata. gein which he employed in order to obtain the favours of a lady. Polignac laughed heartily at the scheme, learned the song by heart, repeated it to his wife, and told the latter that the lady for whom the ballad was made ought to refuse nothing to the Troubadour. The marquise followed his advice to the letter. But this is not all. In order to screen his intimacy, St. Didier affected to have another mistress; and he dissembled so well that the marquise became jealous, and determined to take revenge accordingly, after the manner then prevailing. In her intimacy with St. Didier she had em ployed a confidant, a handsome young inan, and she now fixed her eyes on him. A pilgrimage was arranged, another con. venient fashion of those times. The marquise set off, accompanied by her new lover, and followed by damsels and knights. They stopped at the castle of St. Didier, who was absent; but his servants received the lady and her suite with all due honours. A splendid banquet was spread, after which, the apartments being prepared for the night, the lady took her young favourite to St. Didier's

bed-room, where they retired together. This occurrence was reported about, and soon reached the ears of St. Didier, who, after the first moments of anger, consoleď himself by choosing another mistress. As for the husband, he was either deaf as well as blind, or did not believe or did not care, as no further mention is made of him."

What can we think of the manners and the state of society in a country, when such scenes as this were rehearsed openly, in presence of knights and damsels, in the house of a nobleman, with the connivance of his servants? And this is not a solitary tale of which we might donbt the veracity; it is only one of a thousand.

There was a code of love, by which the decisions of the courts were chiefly guided. A fabulous legend was related of its being found by a knight of King Arthur's court, suspended by a gold chain from a tree. This code contained thirty-one articles; we shall quote some in the Latin of Maistre André: Causa conjugii ab amore non excusatio recta-Qui non celat, amare non potest-Nemo duplici potest amore ligari-Non est sapidum quod amans ab invito sumit amante-Biennalis viduitas pro amante defuncto superstiti præscribitur amanti Amor nihil potest amori denegare-Amans coamantis solatiis satiari non potest-Verus amans alterius nisi suæ coamantis ex affectu non cupit amplexus-Masculus non solet nist in plena pubertate amare Novus amor veterem compellit abire-Unam fæminam nihil prohibet a duobus amari, et a duabus mulieribus unum.' After this we suppose we need not attach much credit to the assertions of Maistre André and other Troubadours, that their love was not sensual, that "those who sought sensual gratification ought to keep away from courts of love, that honour alone was to be sought in love," and other well-sounding sentences. In all times meu have en deavoured to deceive themselves as well as others on these subjects.

Discretion, however, was strongly inculcated to the favoured lover, and one of the articles of the code of love says,

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amor raro consuevit durare vulgatus.' Violence was also reprobated. In short, things had been contrived so as to constitute an easy system of refined profligacy. And many of these Troubadours went over to Palestine, singing pious themes and erotic lays on the same harp.

PARTED TWINS.

BROTHER! thou art come from the land of the blest,

Thou art come from the place of thy spirit's rest!
Thou art come, thou art come, dear brother for me;
Oh give me thy wings, and I too shall be free!"

"I have wandered, indeed, an angel-guest,
To earth-from the land of the spirit's rest;
I am come, dear brother, but not for thee,
For thine still is the chain of mortality."

"How radiant thy hair, with its golden häe !
How bright beanis thine eye of Heaven's own blue!
And it looks as if never a tear-drop laid
Upon the soft fringe of its silken shade."

"Brother! I have been beyond that bright sky,
Where no tear is shed-where is heard no sigh;
Know-hese belong to the mortal coil—
To earth and her children of case and toil."

"AN infinite deal of nothing" would be the most applicable quotation to Mr. Boaden's volumes,† which are a complete specimen of the art of book-making. The actual "Life of Mrs. Jordan" occupies less than a sixth of his large volumes. The "original private correspondence" does not exceed some ten or a dozen letters/; and the "numerous anecdotes of her con temporaries," which fill up the remainder, are picked out of the numerous publica tions of theatrical sayings and doings, with which various reminiscents have of late years inundated the public. Mr. Boaden has furnished no private anecdotes of Mrs. Jordan, no account of her off the stage; and it was from the peculiarity of her private life, that the present interest in her chiefly arises. From this "thing of shreds and patches," with a catching title, we shall proceed to extract the pith and marrow of the revelations concerning the ostensible subject of the book, contained in these letters, and what Mr. Boaden calls authentic statement.

Mrs. Jordan was born near Waterford,

+ The Life of Mrs. Jordan; including Original Private Correspondence, and Numerous Anecdotes of her Contemporaries. By James Boaden, Esq. 2 vols. London, 1830. Buil.

about the year 1762. Her mother, önë of three sisters of a Welsh family, named Phillips, embraced the stage as a profes sion. She married a Mr. Bland; but the union, of which Dorothy, or Dora, was the issue, was dissolved by his friends, on the groutid of niinority: Mrs. Jordan's first stage-name was Francis. She was pretty, well-educated, and "acquired, almost domestically," a very correct diction in her native language; and the power of composing agreeably in prose or verse; with little premeditation. Her first appearance was in Dublin, as Phoebe, in "As You Like It;" Lopez, in the “Duenna" the Romp, in the farce so called; and Adelaide, in the Count of Narbonne," followed. She was then sixteen years old. Daly, the Dublin manager, took her to Cork, where she was engaged at twenty shillings a week. She took a benefit, which failed, the expenditure exceeding the receipts. The young "bucks" of Cork insisted on her having a free benefit, by which she cleared 401. On her return to Dublin, her salary was raised to three guineas a week. From Dublin she went to Waterford, where a Lieutenant Doyne fell in love with and offered her his band. Her mother thought, with Keats, that

Love in a hut, with water and a crust,
1s-Love forgive us-cinders, ashes, dust:

and as the young Mars had little besides his pay, the affair was broken off.

In July, 1782, she arrived at Leeds. Tate Wilkinson (manager of the York company) had, in 1758, played Othello to her mother's Desdemona, in Dublin.

"The party was fatigued with the jour ney, and the first glance of the manager sufficed to acquaint him with their indifferent circumstances. The mother had an introduction, whieh, like that of brother soldiers, is always strong-she had served with Mr. Wilkinson in the campaigns of their youth; and it was not unlikely that the young lady inherited some theas trical talent, as the quality of the soil she sprang from. However, he asked her la conically, whether her line was tragedy, comedy, or opera? To which, in one word, she answered, ALL." When telling her story afterwards, she always said, at this point of it- Sir, in my life, I never saw an elderly gentleman morė astonished!"

"At this time she was a girl of nineteen, and had the whole family dependent on her exertions. Wilkinson engaged her. When he besonght her to favour him with the usual taste of her quality'- a pass

sionate speech the languor that sat upon. her frame pronounced her just then to be incapable of any assumed passion. She wished to merit an engagement by a fair trial on the boards, and the manager assented to this, the fairest of all propositions. Their considerate friend now or dered a bottle of Madeira to be brought in, and the friendly charin soon revived the spirits of the travellers, who chatted gaily upon the subject of the Irish stage, till at length the manager espied a favourable opportunity of repeating his request for the speech, which was to decide in some degree his opinion of her value; and the interesting woman spoke for him a few lines of Calista, which they settled she was to act on the Thursday following, with Lucy, in the Virgin Unmasked.' The exquisite and plaintive melody of her, voice, the distinctness of her articulation, the truth and nature that looked through her, affected the experienced actor deeply! his internal delight could only be balanced by his hopes; and he poured out his praise and his congratulation in no measured language. As is usual on such occasions, the modest actress replied, that if she could but please her manager, she should be satisfied; and that, should she achieve the public favour, he should ever find her grateful for the aid he had af forded to her necessity. The parties separated with mutual good wishes, and expressions of entire confidence in the result."

She appeared at Leeds, as Calista, and (to the surprise of Wilkinson, who had seen no symptoms of comedy in her), volunteered to sing the Greenwood Laddie" after the play.

"She was heard through the play with the greatest attention and sympathy, and the manager began to tremble at the absurdity, as he reasonably thought it, of Calista arising from the dead, and rushing before an audience in their tears, to sing a ballad in the pastoral style, which nobody called for or cared about. But on she jumped, with her elastic spring, and a smile that nature's own cunping hand had moulded, in a frock and a little mob-cap, and her curls as she wore them all her life; and she sang her ballad so enchantingly as to fascinate her hear ears, and convince the manager that every charm had not been exhausted by past times, nor all of them numbered; for the volunteer unaccompanied ballad of Mrs. Jordan was peculiar to her, and charmed only by her voice and manner. Leeds, though a manufacturing town, and strongly addicted to the interests of trade, was, at the call of the charmer, induced to crowd her benefit,"

It was during this period that she dropped the name of Miss Francis, and assumed that of Mrs. Jordan, by which she afterwards became so celebrated as the Thalia of England. Her" swindling laugh," as it has been happily called, seems to have conquered all hearts; and the charming young actress was besieged by admirers. Mr. (afterwards Sir Richard) Ford was the most fortunate; and for nearly ten years he was the envied possessor of this prodigal gift of nature. In 1785 Mrs. Jordan made her debut in the metropolis.

Up to 1785, her characters were of the tragic cast. But on the 18th of October in that year, the curtain of Drury Lane drew up to the "Country Girl" of Mrs, Jordan, Mrs, Inchbald records of her—

"That she came to town with no report in her favour, to elevate her above a very moderate salary (four pounds), or to attract more than a very moderate house when she appeared. But here moderation stopped. She at once displayed such consummate art, with such bewitching nature-such excellent sense, and such innocent simplicity—that her auditors were boundless in their plaudits, and so warm in her praises, when they left the theatre, that their friends at home would not give credit to the extent of their eulogiums.'

And Mr. Boaden says

She retired that night from the theatre, happy to the extent of her wishes, and satisfied that she would not long be rated on the treasurer's books at four pounds per week."

In a short time she found out that her forte lay in Comedy, although she con stantly performed Tragedy also. She now had a high salary. She continued to win fame and money. Many plays were writ ten for her expressly. The "Spoiled Child" has been attributed to her own pen,

7

In 1791-2, Mr. Ford+ failing to accede to those legal ties which were required from him, she gave herself and all her warm af fections to H. R. H. the Duke of Clarence, With him she enjoyed twenty years of uninterrupted felicity; and was (save in what the law denies to our princes and subjects) a pattern of every conjugal and maternal worth.

Mr. Boaden alludes thus to Mrs. Jor dan's connection with the Duke of Cla rence:-" Mrs. Jordan's attendance at the

+ Of Ford, Mr. Boaden draws a ludicrous pictures "He married a Miss Booth, with whom he got some property. Of all the men whom it has been my chance to know, I never knew a man of whom there is so little to tell as Sir Richard Ford. I asked men of his own standing at the bar, and on the bench, their recollections of Ford. They knew him as I did, personally; but he had impressed their minds as a fly would their hands they had just shaken it, and it was gone."