18 JULY 1840, Page 11

KNIGHTHOOD: A NEW ORDER.

CLASSIFICATION is necessary in honours RS in every thing else. In most countries there are orders conferred upon civil merit, and orders conferred upon military merit : in ours there ought to be some distinctive name and badge for the order so frequently conferred upon no merit at all. In SIIAKSPERE'S time, knights of this order seem to have been designated " knights dubbed upon carpet consideration, and with unhacked rapier." In the time of GEORGE the Third, we had Hatfield Knights and Peg Nicholson Knights. All of these have been allowed to become obsolete: ought not advantage to be taken of the recent buckling of spurs upon the heels of sundry loyal Mayors, to christen them once fur all ? The name of the culprit, whose crime or supposed crane elicited their harmless seal, suggests a sufficiently cuphonous appellative. We have already Oxford graduates, Oxtbrd sausages, Oxford tracts, and Oxford ale : the last, by a natural. association with a potboy, suggests the title of—Oxroan I:smilers. The ana- logy of contrast " comes to the rescue—to speak in knightly pliFaSe. The great recommendation of all such aspirants is that they have " wherewithal to support their rank." Tier Majesty's " poor Knights of Windsor" will be nicely balanced, as a painter might express himself, by her " rich Knights of Oxford." The invidious have, as usual, been carping at Ministers for the promotions which have suggested our proposal. We really see no good ground. Distinction in any thing has so long been regarded a valid title to knightly honours, that distinction in mediocrity— the honour of being commonplace par exeellenee—may be allowed a claim. And even should this plea he overruled, let it be kept in mind, that at the Accession, and again at the Coronation, Lord Joust put an interdict upon the creation of any knights of this class. If he has yielded now, we can only say of him, as Brass said of other frailties-

" What's done we partly may compute,

But know not what's resisted."

Let us, as bound in charity, suppose ourselves for a moment in Lord JOHN'S situation. Let us suppose ourselves blockaded by the no-denial-taking Mr. . Let us hear him recount his claims : in alia, how since he was made a Mayor and a gentle- man, he has "abandoned sack, purged, and lived cleanly," and with- drawn himselffrom the low company of the Anti-Corn-law League. Let us hear him supplicate " with petitionary vehemence" for a baronetage—if that could not be granted, for simple knighthood ; returning again and again to renew his suit. We put it to the reader's candour, would he not it' thus circumstanced have done just what Lord Joust did—sighed " Any thing for a quiet life," and got the Queen to knight his persecutor? Since the mischief is done, nothing remains but to make the best of the bargain. Usefill, Lord Joux can scarcely hope to make his new batch of knights : let him try to make them ornamental. Give them a badge. The device which naturally suggests itself is zut empty pint-pot, with a motto taken from the pithy speech of the sainted drawer who beguiled the idle hours of the nonage of Harry the Fifth--" Anon, Sir, anon." And now havina-e dressed the ''Oxford Knights," and given them a name, we send them forth, like Adam, from the Paradise of Pimlico for ever—" The world is all before them where to choose,'