MODERN CHIVALRY.
Tun modern is to the olden spirit of chivalry what the com- mercial and civic Knights of the day are to the Knights of the Round Table or the Paladins of Charlemagne. Sacrifice is not the virtue of our times, but least of all sacrifice, to "the great passion," or to a glorious love of perilous adventure. A young lady of Hanover fills a post as teacher in the family of the Hospodar of Wallachia ; some domestic squabble arises ; and the young lady's royal master causes her to be whipped. The circumstances do not come out clearly—the young lady may have been impertinent : but two facts are stated explicitly—she was a lady, and she was flogged. Bad enough in the poor Wal- lachians ; but of course the representatives of civilized Europe flew to her rescue ? Not at all : with difficulty a sort of irregular protection was obtained for the girl from the British Consul, and she was at last to be sent away with a trifling money compensa- tion. The story would have made the blood boil in the veins of any man in the olden time ; but that sensation in such affairs is obsolete now.
The chief who has for sixteen years or more, single-handed, withstood the power of France in Africa, has at last yielded to the King's son ; who promised an honourable exile to the hero, un- vanquished by any one man, and exhausted only by the over- whelming power of the great nation, made to bear upon him for years. Is he not received in France with distinction, and some- what as the French King John was by his English conqueror and that conqueror's father; and does not the Monarch hasten to fulfil his son's promise? No: the fallen chief is lodged in a lazaretto ; and as to the promise made by the Royal Prince, the King and his Council—" deliberate " !
It is discovered that the coasts of England are exposed to inroad; that a disgrace unknown for eight centuries—the hos- tile camp of a foreigner near London—is not impossible : of course all England rushes to arms, without a word of grumbling; and Government hurries to satisfy the demand of the people that the country should be prepared? Quite the reverse : the Govern- ment can scarcely be got to move ; shrewd people ask, "How much money will it cost?" and the honour of the country is at last to have a sufficient guard only because it is prc.ved that the want of it might figure ill in the profit and loss account.
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