of their own court, family, and coun. try. Hence the fevere laws by which every act of bafeness was subjected to penalties among them: hence the noble duties of fuccouring the oppref. fed, protecting virgin innocence, treating enemies with magnanimity; and the like; the defign of which was to obviate their bursts of violence, to temper the rudeness and barbarity of their manners. Thefe laws of the order were not to be obliterated from the virtuous mind, on which they had been impreffed from the earlieft infancy; fo that the probity and faith almoft mechanically difplayed in word and deed, by every worthy knight, aftonifh us. Pliability of character, facility of placing a queftion in every point of view, and fertility of ideas, were not their failings; hence the language of the middle ages was fo ceremonious, ftiff, and formal, that it feems to move as it were caparifoned in fteel, round two or three thoughts, in all the pomp of knighthood.

Causes, from two extremities of the earth, concurred to give this body of chivalry more life and motion: Spain, France, England, and Italy, but principally France, were the places where it received its chief refinements.

1. The national character and country of the Arabs rendered a kind of knight-errantry, mixed with the tenderness of love, fomewhat like hereditary property to them, from the earliest times. They went in queft of adventures; fought fingle combats; and washed out the ftain of every difgrace, thrown on themfelves, or their tribe, with the blood of their enemy. Accustomed to hard fare and flight clothing, their horfe, their fword, and the honour of their race, were dear to them above all things. And as while roaming with their tents they fought love-adventures, and then breathed out complaints of the absence of the object of their paffion, in their much valued poetical Ed. Mag. Feb. 1800.

language; their fongs very foon fell into the regular train of chaunting their prophet, themselves, the honours of their race, and the praises of their miftrefs, without much attention to the aptnefs of transition. On their expeditions of conqueft the tents of the women were intermingled with theirs: the moft courageous animated them in battle, and in return the spoils of the victory were laid at their feet. And as for the time of Mohammed, the influence of the women in the formation of the Arabian empire had been great, and the orientáls had no enjoyments in a period of peace, except games of paftime, or amufing themfelves among the wo men; the feftivities of chivalry, as throwing the javelin at the ring, and other contefts, within lifts, in the prefence of the ladies, were celebrated with great fplendour and magnificence in Spain, during the government of the Arabs. The fair dames encouraged the champions, and rewarded them with jewels, fcarves, or garments worked with their own hands, for these feftivals were held in honour of them, and the portrait of the conqueror's miftrefs was hung up to view, furrounded by the portraits of the knights he had overcome. The competitors were divided into bands, diftinguished by their colours, devices, and garments; poems were fung in honour of the feaft; and the thanks of love were, the victor's nobleft reward. Thus the more refined cuftoms of chivalry, were evidently brought into Europe by the Arabs: what with the heavy-armed heroes of the north, remained only profeffional manners, or mere fiction, were with thefe, nature, light play, sportive exercife.

Thus the gayer fpirit of chivalry was first introduced among the Chriftians in Spain, where the Arabs and Goths lived together for centuries. Here we not only discover the moft ancient Chriftian orders, established

either

either for the purpose of oppofing the moors, for protecting pilgrims on their journies to Compoftelle, or for pleasure and amufement; but the fpirit of chivalry was fo deeply imprinted in the character of the Spaniards, that even knight-errant, and chevaliers of love, perfectly in the Arabian ftyle, were not with them mere creatures of the imagination. The romaunt, or hiftorical poem, particularly as dedicated to the adventurers of love and chivalry; and probably the romance, as the old Amadis, and others; were the offspring of their language and way of think ing, in which Cervantes found in latter days the materials for that incomparable national romance, Don Quixote de la Mancha.

But their influence was more eminently displayed in the lighter poetry, both here and in Sicily, the two countries of which the Arabs longeft maintained poffeffion. For in the land, extending to the Ebro, which Charlemagne conquered from the Arabs, and peopled with Limofins, or the inhabitants of the fouth of Franee, the first poetry among the vernacular languages of Europe, the provençal or limofin, gradually formed itfelf, on either fide the Pyrenees, in the neighbourhood of the Arabs. Tenzonets, fonnets, idyls, villanefcas, firventes, madrigals, canzonets, and other forms, invented for witty queftions, dialogues, and envelops of amorous fubjects, gave occafion, as every thing in Europe muft affume the court or corporation form, to a fin gular tribunal, the court of love, in which ladies and knights, princes and kings, were concerned as judges and parties. Before it was formed the gaya ciencia, the fcience of the troubadours; firft the purfuit of the higher nobility, but afterward, being confidered after the European mode as an amusement of the court, it fell into the hands of the contadores, truanes, and bufones, the story-tellers,

jefters, and court-buffoons, where it became contemptible.

In its early flourishing days the poetry of the provençals had a foftly, harmonious, pathetic, and engaging ftile, which polished the heart and mind, refined the language and manners, and was the general parent of all modern European poetry. The Limofin language extended itself over Languedoc, Provence, Barcelona, Arragon, Valencia, Murcia, Majorca, and Minorca; in these charming countries, fanned by the fea breeze, love breathed its firft figh, love poured the firft language of delight. The poetry of Spain, France, and Italy, were its daughters: by it Petrarch was tutored, of it he was emolous ; our minnefingers were its remote and harsh echoes, though the fofteft of our language (the German) is unqueftionably theirs. The univerfally diffufed fpirit of chivalry tranfplanted fome of its flowers from France and Italy into Swabia, Auftria, and Thuringia; fome emperors of the Staufifh family, and Hermann, landgrave of Thuringia, delighted in it, with more German princes, whofe names would have funk into oblivion, had they not been tranfmitted to pofterity with some of their fongs. The art, however, fpeedily degenerated, finking into the defpicable trade of vagrant jongleurs in France, and meifterfingers in Germany. In languages fprung like the provençal it. felf from the Latin, and unknown by the name of Romanfh, it could take deeper root: producing far more pleafing fruits as it fpread from Spain through France and Italy to the ifland of Sicily. In Sicily, as in Spain, arose the first Italian poetry on what was once Arabian ground.

2. What the Arabs began from the fouth, the Normans cultivated ftill more ftrenuously from the north, in France, England, and Italy. When their romantic character, their love of adventures, heroic tales, and mar

tial exercifes, and their native respect to the women, united with the refined chivalry of the Arabs, it gained a wider (pread, and deeper root in Europe. The tales called romances, the ground work of which exifted long before the croifades, now came more into vogue for all the German na tions had ever celebrated the praises of their heroes; and these songs and poems had maintained their ground, even amid the darkeft ages, in the courts of the great,nay, in the convents themfelves; and in proportion as genuine hiftory declined, men's minds were the more turned to fpiritual legends, or romantic ftories. Accordingly, from the firft ages of Christianity, we find this exercise of the human imagination more employed than any other, firft after the African greek manner, latterly after the northern European: monks, bifhops, and faints, were not afhamed of it; nay, from their mouths, true hiftory, and the bible itself, spoke the language of romance. Hence arofe the fuit of Belial againft Chrift: hence the allegorical and myftical perfonifi. cation of all the virtues and duties: hence the fpiritual dramatic moralities and interludes.

Such being the general tafte of the times, the offspring of ignorance, fu perftition, and an awakened fancy, tales and fables were the only food of the human mind, and heroic tales were mostly admired by the equeftrian order. In France, the centre of this cultivation, the fubjects moft peculiar to it were naturally chofen, according to the two ftreams that united here. The expedition of Charlemagne against the Saracens, with all the adventures faid to have happened in the Pyrenees, was one of thefe; what already exifted in the country of the Normans, in Britanny, in the ancient ftories of King Arthur, was the other. Into this were introduced, from the more recent French conflitution, the twelve peers, with all the fplendour

of Charles and his knights, and all the favage deeds they had to tell of the Saracen heroes. Ogien, the Dane, Huon of Bordeaux, the children of Arinon, and various ftories of the pilgrims and croifaders, entered likewife into this: but the most interesting perfons and events were always borrowed from the country of the Provençals, Guienne, Languedoc, Provence, and that part of Spain, where the Limofin poetry flourished. The fecond ftream, the tales of Arthur and his court, came over the fea from Cornwall, or rather from an Utopian land, where men indulged in a peculiar fpecies of the wonderful. The mirror of knighthood was brightly polished in these romances; the vices and virtues of this court were clearly exhibited in the various characters of the knights of the round table for which there was ample room in the unbounded domains of the romance of Arthur, and in fuch ancient times.

At length from thefe two branches of romance iffued a third, which excluded no French or Spanish province. Poitou, Champagne, Normandy, the foreft of Ardennes, Flanders, nay, Mentz, Caftile, and Algarva, furnished knights and fcenes to the drama: for the ignorance of the times, and the form in which the hiftories of antiquity then appeared, permitted, or rather urged this jumble of all ages and countries. Troy and Greece, Jerufalem and Trebifond, what was known of old, and what report juft bruited about, united in the garland of chivalry: and above all the claim to a defcent from Trojan blood was a family honour, of which all the nations and empires of Europe, with its greatest knights and potentates, were firmly perfuaded.

With the Normans romance paffed into England and Sicily; each country afforded it new heroes and new materials; but no where did it flourish as in France. From the

coalefcence of various caufes, this tafte formed the way of life, language, poetry, and even religion and morals of men.

Then, if we pass from the regions of fable into the land of hiftory, is there a kingdom in Europe, where chivalry has bloffomed with more elegance than in France? When, after the decline of the Carlovingian race, almost as many courts of little potentates, dukes, counts, or barons, fhone forth in power and splendour, as there were provinces, caftles, and fortreffes; every palace, every knight's feat, was also a school of chivalry and honour. The national vivacity of the people; the contefts they had maintained for centuries against the Arabs and Normans ;, the fame their forefathers had thereby acquired; the flourishing state, to which many families had raised themselves; their intermixture with the Normans them felves; but, especially, that peculiarity in the character of the nation, which difplays itself throughout their whole history from the days of the Gauls; introduced into chivalry that felicity of expreffion, that prompt elafticity, eafy compliance, and fparkling grace, which, in any other nation except the French, is to be found but late, or seldom, if ever. How many French knights may be named, whofe fentiments and actions, in peace and war, throughout the whole hiftory of France, even down to the times of royal defpotism, display fo much valour, noblenefs, and gallantry, that their families will be eternally honoured! When Fame founded the trump of the croifades, the knights of France were the flower of European chivalry: French families wore the

diadem of Jerufalem and Conftantinople; and the laws of the new state were promulgated in French. The language and manners of France feated themselves on the British throne, likewife, with William the Conqueror: and the two nations emulously rivalled each other in the virtues of chivalry, as the plains both of France and Paleftine witneffed, till England relinquished to its neighbour the price of empty fplendour, and chofe the more useful career of civil virtues. France first braved the power of the pope; and indeed in the eafieft way, with a degree of grace: even St Lewis himself was far from a flave of the holy father. England, Germany, and other countries have had more valiant kings than France; but policy first entered France from Italy, and there affumed at least the garb of decorum, however difgraceful her actions. This fpirit imparted itfelf likewife to inftitutions of learning, magifterial diguities, and tribunals of juftice, at firft to their advantage, afterward to their detriment.

No wonder, then, that the French nation is become the vaineft in Europe: almoft from the origin of its monarchy, it has held the lamp to this quarter of the globe, and given it the tone in its molt important revolutions. When all nations flocked together to Palestine, as to a grand caroufal, the German knights were led by their connexion with the French, to lay afide their teutonic turbulence. (furor teutonicus.) The new drefs, likewife, which coats of arms and other marks of diftinction fpread over all Europe in the time of the croifades, was for the most part of French origin.

THE

our dramatic writers in a new form of compofition. These ghofts have, however, come upon us fo very fud denly, that we have not yet had

leifure

Firft, I obferve, with the affiftance of the facetious captain Grofe, that a ghoft is fuppofed to be the spirit of a perfon deceased, who is either commiffioned to return for fome efpecial errand, fuch as the discovery of a murder, to procure reftitution of lands or money, unjustly withheld from an orphan or widow-or, having committed fome injuftice while living, cannot reft till that is redref fed. Sometimes, the occafion of fpirits revifiting this world, is to inform their heir in what fecret place, or private drawer in an old trunk, they had hidden the title-deeds of the eftate; or where, in troublesome times, they buried their money and plate. Some ghofts of murdered perfons, whose bodies have been fecretly buried cannot be at ease till their bones have been taken up, and depofited in confecrated ground, with all the rites of Chriftian burial. Sometimes ghofts appear in confequence of an agreement made, while living, with fome particular friend, that he who firft died fhould appear to the furvivor. Glanvil tells us of the ghost of a perfon, who had lived but a diforderly kind of life, for which it was condemned to wander up and down the earth, in the company of evil fpirits, till the day of judgment.

In most of the relations of ghofts, they are fuppofed to be mere aerial beings, without fubftance, and that they can pass through walls and other folid bodies at pleasure. The ufual time at which gholts make their appearance is midnight, and feldom be. fore it is dark; though fome audacious fpirits have been faid to appear even by day light: but of this there are few inftances, and thofe moftly ghofts who have been laid, perhaps

I cannot learn that ghosts carry tapers in their hands, as they are fometimes depicted, though the room in which they appear if without fire or candle, is frequently faid to be as light as day. Dragging chains is not the fashion of English ghofts; chains and black veftments being chiefly the accoutrements of foreign spectres, seen in arbitrary governments; dead or alive, English fpirits are free.If, during the time of an apparition, there is a lighted candle in the room, it will burn extremely blue; this is fo univerfally acknowledged, that many eminent philofphers have bufied themselves in accounting for it, without once doubting the fact.

The coming of a spirit is announc ed, fome time before its appearance, by a variety of loud and dreadful noifes; fometimes rattling in the old hall like a coach and fix, and rumbling up and down the flaircafe, like a trundling of bowls or canon-balls. At length, the door flies open, and the spectre ftalks flowly up to the bed's foot, and opening the curtains, looks ftedfaftly at the perfon in bed by whom it is feen; a ghost being very rarely vifible to more than one perfon, although there are feveral in company. It is here neceffary to obferve, that it has been univerfally found by experience, as well as atfirmed by divers apparitions themfelves, that a ghoft has not the power to speak till it has been firft fpoken to; fo that, notwithstanding the ur

gency