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nity, yet cautiously abstains from provocation-a politeness founded upon good feeling, and distinguished from the superstition of ceremony, by a graceful insinuation, not an ostentatious display of acts of kindness, and which, founded on a permanent principle of action, extends to all possible relations and circumstances of life. These qualities together compose the character of a real gentleman. High education, and introduction into society, will embellish the tints, but can add nothing to the outlines of the picture. The

rank of gentleman is an order of moral knighthood, into which peasants may enter, from which princes may be rightfully excluded. It is the free-masonry of honour, and establishes a brotherhood of feeling amongst its members, however separated by diversities of birth, rank, station, or fortune. When accompanied by a deep, humble, rational, sense of religion, the individual so privileged and endowed on earth becomes a denizen of the skies.

We come now to the last branch of our subject, viz. the consideration of the unfounded pretensions to gentility. We have seen that no accidental circumstances can authorize such claims; yet, upon this and other foundations equally slender, the hopes of these aspirants are built. The first pretender to gentility, whom we shall notice, is the retired, luxurious, but vulgar-minded citizen, who, having no genuine taste except for accumulating property, plumes himself upon his carriage, his horses, table, and grounds; originally a grub, he can never emerge from a crysallis state. The second claimant is the whiskered, essenced, tight-laced, small-talking, sentimental, dancing fop, who mistakes his proper station of a lady-bird for that of a gentleman. Then follows a member of the Fancy, stimulating his fellow-creatures to a ferocious and mercenary competition of courage and strength, and importing the dialect and the manners of the pugilistic ring into the saloons

of the great, and the boudoirs of the fair. Another unsuccessful competitor is the aristocratic coachman, whose ancestors were foremost in the race of glory, but who limits his ambition to a rivalry with peasants in a mean art. We must not here omit the spiritual Nimrod of a southern division of the island, who fully and closely shcars his flock-carries on a brisk campaign against pheasants, hares, partridges, foxes, &c.— inebriates with the squire-browbeats and screws the curate-remembers that he has tithes to receive, but forgets that he has sacred duties to perform: nor can we pass over the holy, simpering dandy, whose time, attention, and few disposable faculties, are devoted exclusively to the ladies, "but never mentions hell to ears polite." We must also glance at the scholastic pedant, who, rude in manner, arrogant in disposition, dogmatic in assertion, and uncharitable in sentiment, creates a prejudice in undiscerning minds against learning itself: he is an irritable pimple on the body of literature. Lastly, what shall we say of the gay and fashionable mere men of the world, who have acquired, almost in despite of Nature, the elegant ease and polished courtesy of high life, enchanting the circles wherein they move, and in which they shine, but who, when the vizor is thrown aside, and they resume their predominant characters in the bosom of their families, are unkind husbands, stern fathers, severe masters, tyrannical landlords, and unprincipled debtors.

The influence of women, in forming the characters, and fashioning the manners of men in a civilized state, is universally admitted; would they therefore reserve their distinguishing smiles for real gentlemen, a new spirit would be enkindled amongst us, a partial reformation might be wrought in the present generation, and in the next, the exotic plant of true gentility, nurtured in a hardy and vigorous soil, would become a tree whose top would reach to heaven.

A LAMENT FOR THE BALLADERS.

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I have often, Mr Editor, been led to make many gloomy reflections on observing the lamentable pass to which the degenerate children of an ancient and highly honourable family—I mean your poor, leathern-lung'd BALLAD-SINGERShave at length arrived; for it was not so of old; and the farther back we trace them, they rise higher and higher, till we reach, as it were, the fountain-head, in the troubled waters of the middle ages. We shall cast a "long and lingering look behind" at the vanishing vestiges of " cient minstrelsie," which, in this country, received its death-blow during the reign of James II., when it had seemingly been considered such a nuisance as to require an Act of Parliament for its suppression. We accordingly find the following harsh sentence, consonant only with the severity of the times," Item, it is statute and ordanit, for the away putting of sornaris, ouerlyaris, &c. that all officiaris als weil within the Burgh as without, tak ane inquisitioun at ilk court that thay hald, and see gif thair be ony, that makes tham fulis, and ar bardis, or others siclyke rinnaris about. And gif ony sic be fundin, that they be put in the Kingis waird, or in his irinis for thair trespassis, als lang as thay haue ony gudis of thair awin to leif vpone. And fra thay haue not to leif upon, that thair eiris he nalit to the trone, or till ane uther tre, and thair eiris cuttit of, and banist the cuntrie. And gif thairefter thay be fundin agane, that thay be HANGIT!!"

One of the last flittering shadows of this race is to be seen in Laneham's singular "Letter, wherein part of the entertainment unto the Queens Maiesty, at Killingwoorth Castl, Warwicksheer, in this soomerz progress 1575, iz signified." This Letter is referred to in the valuable Essay prefixed to Percy's Reliques, which brings together nearly all that can be said on the interesting subject of the "Ancient Minstrell," who, on this occasion, was represented, as

Laneham tells us, by 66 a parson very meet for the purpose, of a XLV years old, apparelled partly as he woold himself: hiz cap of his hed seemly roounded tonster wyze; fayr kemb, that with a spoonge deintly dipt in a littl capon's greez was finely smoothed, too make it shine like a mallard's wing. Hiz beard smugly shaven; and yet hiz shyrt after the nu trink, with ruffs fayr starched, sleeked, and glistering like a payr of nu shooz, marshalled in good order, with a setting stick and strout that every ruffe stood up like a wafer;" and so he goes on to describe his apparel most minutely. "Out of his bozome was drawn foorth a lappet of his napkin, edged with blu lace marked with a truloove, a hart, and a D. for Damian-a payr of pumps on hiz feet, with a cross cut at the toze, not nu indeede, yet cleanly blakt with soot, and shining az a shoing horn-" a pewter chain (for silver) hanging round his waist, attached to which were the arms of his employer blazoned. And "after three lowlie cooarsiez, cleared his vois with a hem and a reach, and spat oout withal; wiped hiz lips with the hollo of his hand, for fyling hiz napkin, temperd a string or too with hiz wreast, and after a little warbling on his harp for a prelude, came foorth with a sollemn song, warraunted for story out of King Arthurz Acts, the 1st booke, and 26 chapter."

These Minstrels sang the chivalric deeds of the chieftains to whom they were retainers, partook of the same board, and without them no feast or "fast" was reckoned complete: ascending a step higher, we find them holding the sacred character of the Bards or Bardes, who, in the middle ages, stood in the complicated character of historians and musicians. They were called "Bardes," Holingshed observes, from Bardus, Fifth King of the Celts, who was

66

an excellent poet, and no less endued with a singular skill in the practice and speculation of musicke,

of which too many suppose him to be the very author;" but at this early period, they only chanted the mysteries of the Druidical religion, and they descended, in honest Ralph's opinion, when "they became to be minstrels at feasts, droonken meetings, and abbominable sacrifices of the idols: where they sang most comonlie no divinitie, as before, but the puissant acts of valiant princes and fabulous narrations of the adulteries of the gods."

We are told that the ROMANS could not swallow these same Bardes, and therefore they applied the word Bardus to fools and knaves. Not so with us; they were cherished and protected, in times of peace, as chroniclers of past ages,-before battle, as rousing to emulation the vassals of their lord,-after the struggle, they soothed the grief of survivors, and immortalized the heroes who had fallen in the fight. The wellknown incident, as related by Hume and other historians, of Alfred entering the camp of the Danes in the year 878, habited as a minstrel, shows clearly how sacred that character was held.

Tracing them still farther, we find the Bardes spreading, under various names, nearly all over Europe, so widely did the branches of this degenerate plant at one time extend. In the Troubadours of Provence, who were the fathers of French, Italian, and Spanish minstrelsy, we find them, and princes ranked in their number. Among the Danes, and other Northern nations, we recognise them in the venerated character of Skalds: : so called from skall, sonus, or, as Watcher derives it, from gala, canere, carmen canere, and by others translated "polishers of language."

But not to grope in the darkness of the middle ages, let us come nearer home, and see what influence they had in polishing our own warlike race. Under the chivalric reign of the fierce Richard, they were in great repute. In Favine's Theatre of Honour, we find an account of the exploit by Blondel de Nesle, a "Minstrell," in extricating the Cœur de Lion from his captivity; which, if we forget not, has been touched with his magic pen by the "Author of

VOL. XV.

Waverley," in his Romance of Ivanhoe: it proceeds by recounting how he had been so long without the sight of his lord, that his "life seemed wearisome to him, and he became confounded and melancholy," till, after many perils by sea, and perils by land, he came by chance to the castle where he was confined,sung part of a song which the king had composed in the Provençal language,-and stopping short in the midst of it, the king took it up and concluded. Blondel returning to England, collected his barons, and had him released about 1190; which altogether makes a most romantic story, well worthy of the times when that "flower of chivalric rang."

In the beginning of the 16th century, they had so far fallen as to excite the indignation of the Sweet Swan of Avon," who exclaims,

"I had rather be a kitten, and cry, Mew, Than one of these same metre ballad

mongers:

I had rather hear a brazen canstick turn'd, Or a dry wheel grate on an axle-tree." And, as before recounted, King James gave the death-blow to the race of minstrels, who, phoenix-like, seem to have given birth to a puny race of ballad-singers, who have been gradually giving up the ghost ever since. But not a few, even in our times, must remember to have heard ballads of an historical class, such as "the Battle of Otterbourne"-the soul-enlivening "Chevy Chace❞— the border legend of "Edom or Adam o' Gordon," with perhaps the ancient "Adam Bell, Clym o' the Cleugh, and William o' Cloudeslie." To go no farther back, however, than the last peace, we sometimes had the melancholy pleasure of seeing some brave, and mayhap shipwrecked tar, who, having fought with gallant Jarvis," was turned adrift, minus an arm or a leg, to sing of "battles and of men," looking like a rock amid a crowd of inquiring grandmothers, and ever and anon squirting his "bacco," with infinite nonchalance, to the great danger of the lieges and the said grandmothers,-even in the midst of the most boisterous passages in the "Bay of Biscay-O," which, till lately, was reckoned the mare

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mortuum of terribly stormy places. Even since then, how are the mighty fallen! It is, now-a-days, neither "baked, nor boiled, nor stewed, nor roasted," but liker the yowl of a three-days-starved cat than any thing

else. And they are a copper-nosed, can-coloured generation, only giving employment to authors as jaundicedeyed as themselves, and printers whose characters are as black as their own devils. NIGEL.

CLASSICAL REVERIES.
No. VII.

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Upon this passage M. Dacier observes, "Ce passage est un peu difficile, parce qu'il semble, d'abord qu' Horace dit le contraire de ce qu'il veut dire." Bentley makes the following annotation upon the concluding word "linquis." Quippe si Fortuna linquit domos afflictas, unaque comitatur Spes et Fides; tum profecto omnes omnino diffugiunt, tam fidi amici, quam infideles ; quo nihil absurdius ;"-and hence he substitutes "vertis;" but this seems inconsistent with the notion of "Comes," which is applied to Fides as following Fortune in her travel. Dr Hunter, with his wonted acuteness and accuracy, observes, "Poeta sibi finxisse videtur generalem fortunæ notionem, tanquam ancipitis deæ, quæ quemque comitatur, interdum læto vultu, et splendida veste, interdum vultu, ac veste mutatis." And, in fact, any observations which I have to add upon this passage are only in elucidation of the Doctor's statement, and are derived principally from a consideration of the scope and tendency of the whole ode.

The Poet begins by addressing the goddess Fortune, as represented in the temple, and worshipped by the inhabitants of Antium, and he at

once, by a general statement, recog-
nises her double capacity.
"Præsens vel imo tollere de gradu
Mortale corpus, vel superbos
Vertere funeribus triumphos!"
Having made this general averment
respecting the character and attri-
butes of the goddess, whom he ad-
dresses, he proceeds, in the precise
order of his own annunciation, to
exemplify, by an induction of parti-
culars, the proposition which he had
stated. He had said, "Præsens imo
tollere de gradu," and, in consonance
with this view, the case of the "pau-
per colonus" is adduced:

"Te pauper ambit sollicita prece
Ruris colonus; te dominam æquoris, &c.

which last circumstance is very ju-
dicially selected, as Antium was a
maritime state.

Having thus adduced two instances in which the Præsens, or bona Fortuna ambitur, is courted, as raising "ab imo gradu," whether of worldly circumstances or of danger, the Poet next proceeds to reverse the picture, and to represent Fortune as an object of fear, by those, quos vertat, as it were, "funeribus, i. e. by the "Dacus asper," the "profugi Scythæ," the "urbes, gentesque et Latium ferox," the " matres regum barbarorum" and the "purpurei Tyranni ;" and the grounds of their dread are added, "injurioso ne pede proruas stantem columnam, neu populus, &c."

Still preserving the double aspect of Fortune before him, the Poet proceeds to shew the grounds of the "ambitio," or courting, on the one hand, and of the "metus," or aversion, on the other; and this he does by adhering, in all probability, to such representations of the goddess

and of her suite as were familiar to his countrymen. He has been view ing Fortune, in the verse immediately preceding, as adverse, and an object of dread, and he still continues, without break or interruption, the same view.

"Te semper anteit sæva necessitas : Clavos trabales et cuneos," &c. and then, with the view of contrasting this painting of the presence, as he had formerly contrasted the character of the goddess, he adds, "Te Spes, et albo rara Fdes colit, Velata panno; nec comitem abnegat, Utcunque mutata potentes, Veste domos inimica linquis.

"Thee, Hope, and Faith, rarely to be found clothed in white, attend,-nor does Faith refuse to accompany thee, even when you change your character and your dress, and desert the houses of the great;" i. e. these are those who will faithfully accompany the great and the fortunate, even when all this is reversed, and they are, by "inimica Fortuna," driven into exile, &c. Those who have hence the good fortune to have such friends are fortunate indeed, and therefore the whole statement is a favourable one. How unlike this averment is to what follows,-to the description of those whom no 66 rara fides" actuates, but who change with the changing circumstances!

< At vulgus infidum, et meretrix retro
Perjura cedit; diffugiunt, cadis
Cum fæce siccatis, amici
Ferre jugum pariter dolosi."

This last verse is, in fact, the best commentary upon the former, as the "Amici ferre jugum pariter dolosi" contrast so directly and precisely with the "Nec comitem abnegat, utcunque mutata potentes veste domos ini mica linquis." The one set of comites, or amici, are willing, and the other unwilling, "ferre jugum pariter," in adversity. It would probably remove all impression of obscurity from the above passage, if, instead of the abstract term Fides, the words "fidiles amici," which are, in fact, in as far as this passage is concerned, an equivalent to Fides, were substituted. "Faithful friends are found, not only in good, but in bad fortune. Fortune, in the general sense,

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In the first book of the history of Tacitus, and at the seventy - first chapter, there is the following passage: "Celsus constanter servatæ erga Galliam fidei crimen confessus, exemplum ultro imputavit. Nec Otho quasi ignosceret, sed ne hostis metum reconciliationis adhiberet, statim inter amicos habuit et mox bello inter duces delegit, &c." The circuinstances under which the above statement is made are these: Otho had contrived to have the Emperor Galba murdered by the soldiery, and had thus assumed the reins of empire. Marius Celsus, consul elect, had proved true to the last to the murdered Galba, and was therefore obnoxious to the soldiery. "Marium Celsum, (we are told,) consulem designatum, et Galbæ usque in extremas res amicum fidumque; ad supplicium expostulabant, industria ejus, innocentiæque quasi malis artibus infensi." Hereupon Otho," simulatione ire," but with the view of saving Celsus' life, "vinciri jussum, et majores panas daturum affirmans, præsenti exitio subtraxit.' context, we find this same Marius Celsus " per speciem vinculorum sævitiæ militum subtractum, dered to be brought into the capital and into the presence of Otho; and here Tacitus adds his own opinion upon the motives of Othe, “Clementiæ titulus, a viro claro et partibus inviso, petebatur;" next follow the words which have already been quoted as involving some difficulty and obscurity. "Celsus constanter servatæ erga Galbam fidei crimen confessus, exemplum ultra imputavit.

In the

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Celsus, as might naturally be expected from his character, persisting with firmness in confessing his crime, if crime it must be deemed, of standing by Galba to the last, not only justified the particular act on special grounds; but of his own accord, and without being driven by necessity to go so far, he openly and avowedly proposed his case as a precedent, as

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an example" to others, exemplum a se datum, ultro et animo voluntario, imputavit; i. e. putavit esse in alios, et præcipue in Othonem ipsum, cui porteaquam fideliter adhaesit."

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