advice, and make a short answer. Then all the people began to weep and to make such sorrow, that there was not so hard a heart if they had seen them but that would have had great pity of them; the captain himself wept piteously. At last, the most rich burgess of all the town, called Ewstace of Saint Peters, rose up and said openly, Sirs, great and small, great mischief it should be to suffer to die such people as be in this town, either by famine or otherwise, when there is a mean to save them: I think he or they should have great merit of our Lord God that might keep them from such mischief: as for my part, I have so good trust in our Lord God, that if I die in the quarrel to save the residue, that God would pardon me; wherefore to save them I will be the first to put my life in jeopardy. When he had thus said, every man worshipped him, and divers kneeled down at his feet with sore weeping and sore sighs. Then another honest burgess rose and said, I will keep company with my gossip Ewstace: he was called John Dayre. Then rose up Jaques of Wyssant, who was rich in goods and heritage; he said also, that he would hold company with his two cousins in likewise: so did Peter of Wyssant his brother: and then rose two others; they said they would do the same. Then they went and apparelled themselves as the king desired. Then the captain went with them to the gate: there was great lamentation made of men, women, and children, at their departing. Then the gate was opened, and he issued out with the six burgesses, and closed the gate again, so that they were between the gate and the barriers. Then he said to Sir Walter of Manny, Sir, I deliver here to you, as captain of Calais, by the whole consent of all the people of the town, these six bur

1 This use of the word worship will illustrate its meaning in the Marriage Service.

gesses; and I swear to you truly, that they be and were to-day most honourable, rich, and most notable burgesses of all the town of Calais; wherefore, gentle knight, I require you pray the king to have mercy on them, that they die not. Quoth Sir Walter, I cannot say what the king will do, but I shall do for them the best I can. Then the barriers were opened, the six burgesses went towards the king, and the captain entered again into the town. When Sir Walter presented these burgesses to the king, they kneeled down, and held up their hands and said, Gentle king, behold here we six, who were burgesses of Calais, and great merchants: we have brought to you the keys of the town and of the castle, and we submit ourself clearly into your will and pleasure, to save the residue of the people of Calais who have suffered great pain: Sir, we beseech your grace to have mercy and pity upon us through your high nobless. Then all the earls and barons, and other that were there, wept for pity. The king looked felly on them, for greatly he hated the people of Calais, for the great damage and displeasures they had done him on the sea before. Then he commanded their heads to be stricken off: then every man required the king for mercy, but he would hear no man in that behalf. Then Sir Walter of Manny said, Oh noble king, for God's sake refrain your courage; ye have the name of sovereign nobless, therefore now do not a thing THAT SHOULD BLEMISH YOUR RENOWN, nor to GIVE CAUSE TO SOME TO SPEAK OF YOU VILLAINY; EVERY MAN WILL SAY IT IS A GREAT CRUELTY to put to death such honest persons, who by their own wills put themselves into your grace to save their company. Then the king wryed away from him, and commanded to send for the hangman, and said, they of Calais had caused many of my men to be slain, wherefore these shall be slain in likewise. Then the

queen, being great with child, kneeled down, and sore weeping said, Ah gentle Sir, sith I passed the sea in great peril, I have desired nothing of you; therefore now I humbly require you, in the honour of the Son of the Virgin Mary, and for the love of me, that ye will take mercy of these six burgesses. The king beheld the queen, and stood still in a study a space, and then said, Ah Dame, I would ye had been as now in some other place, ye make such request to me that I cannot deny you; wherefore I give them to you, to do your pleasure with them. Then the queen caused them to be brought into her chamber, and made the halters to be taken from their necks, and caused them to be new clothed, and gave them their dinner at their leisure; and then she gave each of them six nobles, and made them to be brought out of the host in safeguard, and set at their liberty.' 1 I suppose I need hardly observe, that any historical doubts as to this story cannot affect its accuracy as a picture of the spirit and manners of the times.

Take again Chaucer's description of the Knight:

A knight there was, and that a worthy man,
That fro the timé that he first began
To riden out, he loved chivalrie,

Truth and honoúr, freedom and courtesie.
Full worthy was he in his lordes war,
And thereto had he ridden, no man far,

As well in Christendom as in Heathenesse,

And ever honoured for his worthinesse :

Then, after recounting the various proofs of his worth (or

1 Syr John Froissart's Chron ycles.. translated out of Frenche into oure maternall Englysshe tongue, by John Bouchier, knyghte, lorde Berners: at the commaundement of our most hyghe redouted soveraygne lorde kynge Henrye the wiii., &c. The firste volum, chaptre calvi.: reprinted in 1812.

valour) from the time he first began to riden out, Chaucer

proceeds

And though that he was worthy he was wise,

And of his port as meek as is a maid.

He never yet no villainy ne said
In all his life unto no manner wight.

He was a very perfect gentle knight.

And so of the knight's son and squire, we read,

Courteous he was, lowly, and serviceable,

which must refer to his general demeanour-not to his equals but to the company he was with, of whom hardly any can have been of gentle birth.

Neither can I find that Amadis or Palmerin, Launcelot or Tristram, the Red Cross knight or Sir Guyon, Froda or Sir Folko of Mountfauco, never exhibited any of this hatred or contempt for those who were not of gentle blood like themselves, still less that they thought it a part of their knightly character so to do. I am the more desirous to set the age and tales of chivalry in their true light because I think the reverence and love for them to be among the chief means of cultivating that true spirit of a Christian gentleman which it has been my endeavour to show the importance of in reference to marriage. It seems to me that chivalry romances and poems ought to be put into the hands of all boys, before the time has past when they can enjoy such things with an imagination not yet checked by the questionings and calculations of the understanding. Not that this should be substituted for any other part of their education, nor that it should form any large portion of it, but that they should have some admission into those fields, there to browse at their own sweet will.' I hesitate to speak posi

tively of the propriety of putting Morte d'Arthur into the hands of boys, since there is certainly some ground for Roger Ascham's censure of it (quoted by Southey in a note to his edition of this romance) as a book 'in which those be counted the noblest knights that doe kill most men without any quarrel, and commit the fowlest adultries by subtlest shifts,' and in which there is much false morality derived from that' papistry which as a standing poole covered and overflowed all England; though in the particular instances I know of boys reading this book (and I can refer to several), I can confidently say of it what Southey (in the note referred to) says generally— ' notwithstanding the severity, and in some degree the truth of this censure, I believe that books of chivalry instead of increasing the corruption of the age, tended very greatly to raise the standard of morals.' But at least this objection will not apply to the Romances of Amadis of Gaul, and Palmerin of England, as revised by Southey, nor to Spencer's Faerie Queene, nor to the Tales of La Motte Fouqué several of which have been translated into English.1 And while it becomes me to speak still more diffidently respecting girls than boys, I do not hesitate to say of these works of Fouqué that they exhibit alike the feminine and manly ideals of character in entire purity of thought and word, and that the English maiden may there study the virtues and graces of the Christian Knight and the Christian Lady with certain and unqualified profit and delight.

1 The Magic Ring, Undine, Sintram, Aslauga's Knight :—the last is to be found in Vol. I, of the Specimens of German Romance.' Fouqué was a German Baron who died a few years since, having proved himself no less a Christian knight in his life-in peace and in war-than any of those old heroes whose virtues and prowess he delighted to tell of. Burke too was a great lover of chivalry tales.

EX. OFF. H. W. MARTIN, BARTLETTS BUILDINGS, LONDON.