that such an institution is founded in nature and in the principles of human society. The French, after all their efforts to gain equality, succeeded only in making families of the most ancient and noble blood surrender their lands to those of the most base origin; to men of minds mechanical, whose manners gave witness to the intentions of nature respecting them. Nobility does not exclusively belong to any form of government. No people ever shewed more enthusiasm for noble families than the Genoese republicans. Every heir of the names of Doria, Spinola, Fieschi, or Grimaldi, disposed of a force of opinion greater than was ever exercised by nobility in any monarchy. Petrarch, who was so ardent in his love of republics, is repeatedly urging the motive of nobility, and reminding those who do not belong to it that there are other duties required by their state. When Justinian gave Rome the simple form of an absolute monarchy, he abolished these distinctions, and made all the people equally citizens of the empire; "yet," says Gibbon, "he could not eradicate the popular reverence which always waits on the possession of hereditary wealth, or the memory of famous ancestors.' Xenophon relates, that when Orontas was led through the ranks to execution, the soldiers paid him the usual reverence, although they knew that he was going to be put to death. Nature has taken more care that conservative sentiments and principles should exist than that men should be always able to discourse on their utility. Without doubt it is for the general interest that social superfluities are employed in the institutions of aristocracy; like knighthood, the power of nobility was to be the protection of the weak, as might be inferred from the affection which is sym 2 وو Anab. I, 6. 2 Barante, des Communes et de l'Aristocratie. says, bolically shewn to have been due to it in that beautiful passage of romance where the knights of King Arthur, being about to depart, come out of the minster to mount their horses, and "ther was wepynge of the riche and poore; and the kyng torned aweye, and myght not speke for wepyng. Personal qualities may have sometimes dictated the direction which was given to the general principle, as when in the year 804 the Poles elected Lasko II for their king, on account of his having won a footrace, on the principle of the Ethiopians, who used to choose the tallest and strongest man to be king;2 but generally, if personal merit were to yield a claim to such dignity, there would be a wide field open for the syllogism of self-love; and, as M. de Bonald "when the major of an argument is an error (such as supposing that the greatest virtue and talents should govern), and the minor a passion, it is to be feared that the conclusion will be a crime." In heroic ages it was certainly believed that virtue was the source of nobility, and that there is nothing real in nobility but what is independent of a monarch's will. "If the offspring of great men," says the herald, "vaunt of their lineage or titular dignity, and want their virtues, they are but like base serving-men, who carry on their sleeves the badge of some noble family, yet are themselves only ignoble persons." "Things are only preserved by means of those which produced them. Virtue produced nobility, therefore it can only be preserved by virtue." Such is the language of all heraldic writers of eminence. If that birth which no king could impart was regarded as the highest proof of nobility, it was from the opinion, that the semblance of great souls and the character of heroic men might 2 Herod. III, 20. 1 Morte d'Arthur, II, 212. La Colombiere, Théâtre d'Honneur et de Chevalerie, Traité de la Noblesse par La Roque, &c. sometimes be conveyed by secret and undiscernible conveyances, in consequence of that divine favour which would be extended to generations descended from a man who was faithful to Heaven; or from a belief in the action of a more general principle, such as is implied in the lines of Shakspeare O worthiness of nature! breed of greatness! For that sometimes parents did seem to revive in their offspring, not only in countenance and form of limb, but even in disposition of mind, was an opinion too firmly established by history and experience to be shaken by any argument from reason. The Claudian family flourished at Rome during so long a period with the same characteristic features of pride and ferocity; it produced the sad Tiberius, then the monstrous Caligula, and at length, after six hundred years, it became extinct on the death of Nero. Eschylus bursts out in a sublime and somewhat prophetic strain: "How the destiny of families directing their ways according to justice always produces good children. But ancient insolence is wont to generate indeed new insolence, to the mischief of mortals some time or other, whenever the appointed time comes." οἴκων γὰρ εὐθυδίκων ζουσαν ἐν κακοῖς βροτῶν ὕβριν, As with the ancients, the world has remarked that in all ages there have been families characterized by certain noble dispositions: one race will be remarkable for valour in arms, like the Orsini ; 2 Agam. 739. 1 Conspect. Med. Theor. Gregor. Godefridus. U another for excellent and generous men, like the Colonna; another for men of political wisdom, like the Soranzi and the Venieri. The practice of degradation in the middle ages bears testimony to the high opinion which was then entertained of the character of all nobility. To break faith, to neglect one's post, to be guilty of adultery, or drunkenness, or of insolent boasting, or of injustice and cruelty to any poor helpless person, (for these crimes are distinctly specified by the ancient statutes,) was to subject one's self to this punishment, which was equivalent to civil death. Ste. Palaye gives in detail the whole ceremony of degradation, which was well calculated to impress all beholders Iwith this idea. The same description occurs in Tirante the White, where degradation is inflicted upon the recreant knight who had renounced Christianity. When Charles the Bold held his toyson at Bruges, in the Church of our Lady, the Count of Nevers being accused, and declining to answer in his defence, his crime being fully proved, at the moment when the King of Arms ought to have called him to the offering, his picture was taken down from its place and trampled upon, and a black slab, with an inscription stating his crime, was hung up in its stead. Alain Chartier relates that the Constable Duguesclin resolved to enforce the ancient discipline of chivalry whenever any nobleman should perform any act of flagrant dishonour. XX. The passages produced to shew the importance which was ascribed to noble birth will have already led us to understand the advantage which was thought to arise from nobility. "If there be any good in nobility," says Boethius, "I think it is this alone, that a necessity seems to be 'La Colombiere, Théâtre d'Honneur et de Chevalerie, vol. II, 567. Favin, Théâtre d'Honneur, lib. X, p. 1830. imposed on the noble, that they should not degenerate from the virtue of their ancestors." 1 Quinctilian says that "there is a twofold view of ancestry in the praise of a man ; aut enim respondisse nobilitati pulchrum erit, aut humilius genus illustrasse factis."2 "Prove yourself worthy of your parents," was a saying of Periander, one of the seven sages of Greece.3 The reputation of generous labours was as a statue of honour to the dead; but with families as with men, it was perseverance which kept honour bright: To have done, is to hang Quite out of fashion, like a rusty mail Plato supplies a beautiful passage in which Socrates speaks of birth: when Critias assures the philosopher that the young man Charmides, his cousin, is as remarkable for temperance and all virtue as for beauty of person, Socrates replies, "Certes, it is but right, O Charmides, that in these things you should excel other men; for I do not think that any person could shew among all the Athenians two houses from the union of which it were probable that there would succeed a more noble and excellent offspring than those from which you are sprung: for your paternal house, that of Critias, is celebrated by Anacreon, and by Solon, and by many other poets, as having excelled in beauty and virtue and all happiness; and your maternal descent is equally illustrious, for than Pyrilampus, your uncle, no one on the whole continent is said to have had a more beautiful person and greater renown, and generally, this whole house is in no manner inferior to the other. So that being sprung from these, it is pro 2 Lib. III, 7. Euripid. Hercul. Furens, 355. |