in the Christian world, and then of the superiority to the world and the unbounded love and forbearance which characterise our religion, I am struck with the little progress which Christianity has as yet made." One of the beautiful pictures adorning the dome of a Church in Rome, by that master of art whose immortal colours breathe as with the voice of a Poet, the Divine Raffaelle, represents Mars in the attitude of war, with a drawn sword uplifted and ready to strike, while an unarmed Angel from behind, with gentle but irresistible force, arrests and holds the descending arm. Such is the true image of Christian duty; nor can I readily perceive the difference in principle between those ministers of the Gospel who themselves gird on the sword, as in the olden time, and those others who, unarmed, and in customary suit of solemn black, lend the sanction of their presence to the martial array, or to any form of preparation for war. The drummer, who pleaded that he did not fight, was held more responsible for the battle than the mere soldier; for it was the sound of his drum that inflamed the flagging courage of the troops. 4. From the prejudices engendered by the Church, I pass to the prejudices engendered by the army itself; prejudices having their immediate origin more particularly in military life, but unfortunately diffusing themselves, in widening though less apparent circles, throughout the community. I allude directly to what is called the point of honour-early child of chivalry, the living representative in our day of an age of barbarism. It is difficult to define what is so evanescent, so impalpable, so chimerical, so unreal, and yet which exercises such power over many men, and controls the relations of states. As a little water, which has fallen into the crevice of a rock under the congelation of winter, swells till it burst the thick and stony fibres, so a word, or a slender act, dropping into the heart of man, under the hardening influence of this pernicious sentiment, dilates till it rends in pieces the sacred depository of human affections, while Hate and the demon Strife, no longer restrained, are let loose abroad. The musing Hamlet saw the strange and unnatural power of this sentiment, when his soul pictured to his contemplations— the army of such mass and charge, and when he says, with a point which has given to this sentiment its strongest and most popular expression, -Rightly to be great Is not to stir without great argument; And when is honour at stake? This question opens again the views with which I commenced, and with which I hope to close this discourse. Honour can only be at stake, where justice and happiness are at stake; it can never depend on an egg-shell, or a straw; it can never depend on an impotent word of anger or folly, not even if that word be followed by a blow. In fine, true honour is to be found in the highest moral and intellectual excellence, in the dignity of the human soul, in its nearest approach to those qualities which we reverence as the attributes of God. Our community frowns with indignation upon the profaneness of the duel, which has its rise in this irrational point of honour; but are they aware that they themselves indulge the sentiment on a gigantic scale, when they recognise what is called the honour of the country as a proper ground for war? We have already seen that justice is in no respect promoted by war. Is true honour promoted where justice is not? But the very word honour, as used by the world, does not express any elevated sentiment. How infinitely below the sentiment of duty! It is a word of easy virtue, that has been prostituted to the most opposite characters and transactions. From the field of Pavia, where France suffered one of the greatest reverses in her annals, Francis writes to his mother, "All is lost except honour." At a later day the renowned cook, the grand Vatel, in a paroxysm of grief and mortification at the failure of two dishes expected on the table, exclaimed, "I have lost my honour.' Montesquieu, whose writings are a constellation of * Accablé d'embarras, Vatel est averti Que deux tables en vain réclamaient leur rôti; "Je suis perdu d'honneur, deux rôtis ont manqués ! ” BERCHOUX. This scene is also described, with the accustomed coldness and brilliancy of her fashionable pen, by Madame de Sévigné, (Lettres l. and li., tom. i. pp. 164, D epigrams, places it in direct contrast with virtue. He represents what he calls the prejudice of honour as the animating principle of monarchy, while virtue is that of a republic, saying that in well-governed monarchies almost every body will be a good citizen, but it will be rare to meet with a really good man.* By an instinct that points to the truth, we do not apply this term to the high columnar virtues which sustain and decorate life, to parental affection, to justice, to the attributes of God. We do not speak of an honourable father, an honourable mother, an honourable judge, an honourable angel, an honourable God. In such sacred connections we feel, beyond the force of any argument, the vulgar and debasing character of the sentiment to which it refers. The degrading rule of honour is founded in the supposed necessity of resenting by force, a supposed injury, whether by word or act. But suppose such an injury is received, sullying, as is falsely imagined, the character; is it wiped away by a resort to force, by 168). In the same place she recounts the death of this culinary martyr. Disappointed by the failure of the purveyors to arrive with the turbots for an entertainment in proper season, he withdrew to his chamber, where he placed his sword against the door and stabbed himself to the heart; but it was not until the third blow, after giving himself two not mortal, that he fell dead. "The fish now arrives from all quarters, they seek Vatel to distribute it; they go to his room, they knock, they force open the door; he is found bathed in blood. They hasten to tell the Prince, [the great Condé] who is in despair; the Duke wept; it was on Vatel that his journey from Burgundy hinged. The Prince related what had passed to the King, with marks of the deepest sorrow. It was attributed to the high sense of honour which he had after his own way (on dit que c'étoit à force d'avoir de l'honneur à sa maniére). He was highly commended; his courage was praised and blamed at the same time." The Epistle Dedicatory prefixed to the concluding volume of the Almanac des Gourmands, addressing the shade of Vatel, says; "So noble a death secures you, venerable shade, the most glorious immortality! You have proved that the fanaticism of honour can exist in the kitchen as well as the camp, and that the spit and saucepan have also their Catos and their Deciuses." "Enfin," are the words of a French Vaudeville, "Manette, voila ce que c'etoit que Madame de Sévigné, et Vatel, ce sont les gens la qui ont honoré le siècle de Louis Quatorze."-See London Quarterly Review, vol. 54. p. 122. * Montesquieu, Esprit des Lois, Liv. 3. cap. 5, 6, 7. Don Pedre. Souhaitez-vous quelque chose de moi? Hali. Oui, un conseil sur un fait d'honneur. Je sais qu'en ces matieres il est mal-aise de trouver un cavalier plus consommé que vous. Seigneur, j'ai recu un soufflet. Vous savez ce qu'est un soufflet, lorsqu'il se donne à main ouverte sur le beau milieu de la joue. J'ai ce soufflet fort descending to the brutal level of its author? * "Could I have wiped your blood from my conscience as easily as I can this insult from my face," said a Marshal of France, greater on this occasion than on any field of fame, “I would have laid you dead at my feet." It is Plato, reporting the angelic wisdom of Socrates, who declares in one of those beautiful dialogues, which shine with stellar light across the ages, that it is more shameful to do a wrong than to receive a wrong." And this benign sentiment commends itself, alike to the Christian, who is told to render good for evil, and to the universal heart of man. But who that confesses its truth, can vindicate a resort to force, for the sake of honour? Better far to receive the blow that a false morality has thought degrading, than that it should be revenged by force. Better that a nation should submit to what is wrong, rather than vainly seek to maintain its honour by the great crime of war. It seems that in ancient Athens, as in unchristianized Christian lands, there were sophists, who urged that to suffer was unbecoming a man, and would draw down upon him incalculable evils. The following passage will show the manner in which the moral cowardice of these persons of little faith was rebuked by him, whom the Gods pronounced wisest of men: "These things being so, let us inquire what it is you reproach me with; whether it is well said, or not, that I, forsooth, am not able to assist either myself, or any of my friends or my relations, or to save them from the greatest dangers; but that, like the outlaws, I am at the mercy of any one, who may choose to smite me on the temple— and this was the strong point in your argument—or to take away my property, or to drive me out of the city, or (to take the extreme case) to kill me; now, according to your argument, to be so situated is the most shameful thing of all. But my view is—a view many times expressed already, but there is no objection to its being stated again: my view I say, is, O Callicles, that to be struck unjustly on the temple is not most shameful, nor to have my body mutilated, nor my purse cut; but to strike me and mine unjustly, and to mutilate me and to cut my purse is more shameful sur le cœur; et je suis dans l'incertitude si, pour me venger de l'affront, je dois me battre avec mon homme, ou bien le faire assassiner. Don Pedre. Assassiner c'est le plus sur et le plus court chemin.-Moliere, Le Sicilien, Sc. 13. * This proposition is enforced by Socrates with admirable and unanswerable reasoning and illustration throughout the whole of the Gorgias. and worse; and stealing too, and enslaving, and housebreaking, and in general, doing any wrong whatever to me and mine is more shameful and worse for him who does the wrong, than for me who suffer it. These things, thus established in the former arguments, as I maintain, are secured and bound, even if the expression be somewhat too rustical, with iron and adamantine arguments, and unless you, or some one more vigorous than you, can break them, it is impossible for any one, speaking otherwise than I now speak, to speak well: since, for my part, I always have the same thing to say, that I know not how these things are, but that of all whom I have ever discoursed with as now, not one is able to say otherwise without being ridiculous." Such is the wisdom of Socrates.* 66 But the modern point of honour does not find a place in warlike antiquity. Themistocles at Salamis did not send a cartel to the Spartan commander, when threatened by a blow. Strike, but hear," was the response of that firm nature, which felt that true honour was to be gained only in the performance of duty. It was in the depths of modern barbarism, in the age of chivalry, that this sentiment shot up in the wildest and most exuberant fancies; not a step was taken without reference to it; no act was done which had not some point tending to "the bewitching duel," and every stage in the combat, from the ceremonies of its beginning to its deadly close, were measured by this fantastic law. The Chevalier Bayard, the cynosure of chivalry, the knight without fear and without reproach, in a contest with the Spaniard Don Alonzo de Soto Mayor, by a feint struck him such a blow in the throat, that, despite the gorget, the weapon penetrated four fingers deep. The wounded Spaniard grasped his adversary, and, struggling with him, they both rolled on the ground, when Bayard, drawing his dagger, and thrusting its point in the nostrils of the Spaniard, * Gorgias, cap. Ixiv. It appears that Cicero read the Gorgias diligently at Athens; but his admiration was bestowed chiefly upon its distinguished rhetorical excellence. (De Oratore, i. 11). If his soul had been penetrated by its sublime morality, he could never have written; Fortes igitur et magnanimi sunt habendi, non, qui faciunt, sed qui propulsant injuriam. (De Offic. Lib. i. cap. xix.) This is an instance of the fickle eclectic philosophy of the great Roman, which renders his writings so uncertain a rule of conduct. + Nobody can forget the humorous picture of the progress of a quarrel to a duel, through the seven degrees of Touchstone in As you like it. Act 5, Scene 4. H |