CHIVALRY IN THE DREGS.
So Jung Bahadoor of Nepaul is a G.C.B. ; a Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath. Mephistopheles can surely be no merely ideal daemon ; for no inspiration but his can have suggested so bitter a mockery of old and sacred things. If the life has gone out of the venerable body of old chivalry, there was no reason why it should be mutilated Sepoy fashion in this unhallowed manner. If the cynical scepticism of the mid-nineteenth century no longer realizes the full grandeur and beauty of the thoughts that underlie old knightly orders, there was no reason why every English soldier and sailor who has been decorated with them should be insulted in so flagrant a fashion. It must not be for- gotten that Jung Bahadoor has committed fifteen murders with his own hand. What is the reason of this decoration ? This Eastern intriguer and assassin saw in the mutiny of the Bengal army an opportunity for advancing his interests by coming to the assistance of the British power. Is it seriously supposed, or in- tended to be suggested, that this assistance was based on so highly heroic and unselfish a motive as to obliterate the past misdeeds of this tigerlike Oriental sensualist, and en- title him to that order which typifies the supreme plait)", dignity, and devotion of the Christian knight ? Sir W. Peel was made a knight companion of this order, as was Sir J. Inglis, for the truly heroic service of which such decoration is the apt reward. Jung Bahadoor of Nepaul is, in the order of'eheva- lier rank, the superior of the Peel whom we have lost, and of the Inglis whom we still have with us. If any man be so consti- tuted as not to feel his cheek burn at the mention of this simple fact, he must be strangely insensible to moral distinctions andlisl tonic dignity. Is the old ritual of Christian knighthood and chivalry remembered by the modern Englishman ? Do people of the present day at all bear in mind what august and elevating ceremonial it was, which we have now replaced by a line or two in a gazette and a little item of the miscellaneous estimates ? It will be well to recall these things, in order that the small minority who still retain some sense of taste and decorum, may lift their voice against this sort of desecration of some of the noblest asso- ciations of history ; in order that we may not appear to the world to deal with these old orders after the fashion of a swine with choice pearl, and so as to move the laughter and the indignation of mankind. In old days, (those old days on whose memories we have just passed this insult, defiling as it were our fathers' graves,) when the neophyte of chivalry was ripe for the dignities and responsi- bilities of knighthoed, care was taken to impress them upon his mind by a well-ordered ceremonial. We will not weary our read- ers by reprinting a chapter of antiquarian lore. The world is too busy for that. It will be enough to say that the insignia of his new state and life were conferred upon him with a ritual of which every part was so arranged as to impress upon his soul, so far as words and prayers could go, that he was devoted to a life of self- sacrificing combat for his earthly and Heavenly masters. But in order especially to impress him with the solemn cares and duties of chivalry, he was bidden to wash from his frame in the bath all the dust and impurities which were regarded as the types of in- ward sin, and to pass the night before his final adoption into knighthood in solitary prayer before the altar. And so after years of watching and training, and amid symbols of an inspiring and elevating character, and under warning and exhortations of the most solemn kind known to the strong fervour of those strong times, a man was invested with that knighthood, which, after all criticism, with all its follies, remains still one of the choicest chap- ters in the history of human aspirations and endeavour.
Nous aeons change tout celu. Well, certainly the twelfth cen- tury must remain the twelfth century, and the nineteenth the nineteenth. Every form of mere revivalism we hold to be about the absurdest way in which human energy can be invested. But we do contend that while the shadows by these venerable sub- stances remain, they deserve to be treated with respect. We do contend that the dignity of the Crown is not consulted when any adventurer who can fight his way by fraud and plunder to power, and has the keenness to understand that his interest lies in taking onr side in a quarrel, receives the same decorations as are con- ferred on the bravest and best of the sons of England. And it is not less the present than the past which is outraged by proceed- ings of this kind. What is the principle of the decoration and the order which have been conferred alike on Colonel Phipps, Sir W. Peel, and Jung Bahadoor : a discreet administrator of palace finance, a crowning specimen of the Christian warrior and gentle- man, and a bloodthirsty Asiatic of the type of Tamerlane, imper- fectly coated with a thin western varnish ? In the case of his Excellency the Maharajah Jung Bahadoor, the claim to admission to an order of chivalry for services rendered to the British Crown, derives a peculiar grace from the fact, generally believed to be true, that the hero has retired to his hills in dudgeon because the Governor-General does not accede to exorbitant demands, which he has preferred for reward. So that the case presents a perfectly ideal combination of bad taste, levity, and inappropriateness. The truth is that the whole subject of reward for service, and promotions to office, requires to be thoroughly dealt with by awakened public sentiment. It is painfully obvious that the dis- tributors of honours and offices are not in the least alive to the vast importance of that duty. No doubt society is in the main to blame. There is a levity or capriciousness about the judgments and approval of the public, which are represented only too faith- fully by the garter of the Sultan and the French Emperor, and the Grand Cross of that saintly and knightly gentleman, Jung Bahadoor. The British public must make up its mind. If it choose, as represented by its administrators, to canonize the Mammon of success definitively, it had better give up much talk, that passes current on platforms, about evangelizing., and being a political pattern to the world. At any rate, we should like to hear the lecture of a Brahmin doctor of Benares expounding that Christianity, which is typified by the cross henceforward to hong on the breast of that fifteen times murderer Jung Bahadoor of Nepaul.
Previous page
