the "vagrant Childe," (whom, notwithstanding many hints to the contrary, I still maintain to be a fictitious personage,) it has been stated, that, besides the anachronism, he is very unknightly, as the times of the Knights were times of Love, Honour, and so forth. Now, it so happens, that the good old times, when "l'amour du bon vieux tems, l'amour antique," flourished, were the most profligate of all possible centuries. Those who have any doubts on this subject may consult Sainte-Palaye, passim, and more particularly vol. ii. p. 69.* The vows of chivalry were no better kept than any other vows whatsoever; and the songs of the Troubadours were not more decent, and certainly were much less refined, than those of Ovid. The Cours d'amour, parlemens d'amour, ou de courtesie et de gentilesse" had much more of love than of courtesy or gentleness. See Roland on the same subject with Sainte-Palaye. Whatever other objection may be urged to that most unamiable personage Childe Harold, he was so far perfectly knightly in his attributes-" No waiter, but a knight templar." By the by, I fear that Sir Tristrem and *"Qu'on lise dans l'auteur du roman de Gérard de Roussillon, en Provençal, les détails très-circonstanciés dans lesquels il entre sur la réception faite par le Comte Gérard à l'ambassadeur du roi Charles; on y verra des particularités singulières, qui donnent une étrange idée des mœurs et de la politesse de ces siècles aussi corrompus qu'ignorans."- Mémoires sur l'Ancienne Chevalerie, par M. de la Curne de Sainte-Palaye, Paris, 1781. The Rovers, or the Double Arrangement.—This joint production of Canning and Frere appeared in the Anti-jacobin. Sir Lancelot were no better than they should be, although very poetical personages and true knights "sans peur," though not "sans réproche." If the story of the institution. of the "Garter" be not a fable, the knights of that order have for several centuries borne the badge of a Countess of Salisbury, of indifferent memory. So much for chivalry. Burke need not have regretted that its days are over, though Marie-Antoinette was quite as chaste as most of those in whose honours lances were shivered, and knights unhorsed. Before the days of Bayard, and down to those of Sir Joseph Banks (the most chaste and celebrated of ancient and modern times), few exceptions will be found to this statement; and I fear a little investigation will teach us not to regret these monstrous mummeries of the middle ages. I now leave "Childe Harold" to live his day, such as he is; it had been more agreeable, and certainly more easy, to have drawn an amiable character. It had been easy to varnish over his faults, to make him do more and express less, but he never was intended as an example, further than to show, that early perversion of mind and morals leads to satiety of past pleasures and disappointment in new ones, and that even the beauties of nature and the stimulus of travel (except ambition, the most powerful of all excitements) *The compliment to Sir Joseph Banks was sportive irony. The admiration which his person excited in the females of Otaheite, during Cook's First Voyage, was long the subject of raillery both in private and public. are lost on a soul so constituted, or rather misdirected. Had I proceeded with the poem, this character would have deepened as he drew to the close; for the outline which I once meant to fill up for him was, with some exceptions, the sketch of a modern Timon, perhaps a poetical Zeluco. † In one of his early poems-"Childish Recollections"-Lord Byron compares himself to the Athenian misanthrope, many of whose bitter apophthegms are upon record, but who is best known to English readers through the Timon of Shakespeare. It was Dr. Moore's object, in this powerful romance (now unjustly neglected, to trace the effects of a mother's compliance with the humours of an only child. With high advantages of person, birth, fortune, and ability, Zeluco is miserable, in every scene of life, from the self-indulgence pampered in infancy. LONDON, 1813. |
