Volume II Part 8 (1/2)
The remainder of his adventures on the Continent is not worthy of record.
He returned to England; and, in 1616, he was sent to France as the English amba.s.sador. Previously to his setting off, he engaged to fight a duel, though the day fixed for the circ.u.mstance was Sunday; but when he arrived at Paris on a Sat.u.r.day night, he refused to accept an invitation of the Spanish amba.s.sador for an interview the next morning, because Sunday was a day, which, as he alleged, he wholly gave to devotion. The spirit of duelling was far more powerful in his mind than the love of conformity to religious decencies; but it cost him nothing; indeed, it only aggrandised his importance to decline the visit of the Spanish amba.s.sador on a Sunday.
He remained some time in France, maintaining the honour of his country on all occasions; particularly with reference to the mighty question, whether his coachman, or that of the Spanish amba.s.sador, should take precedence.
Sir Edward was instructed by his court to mediate between Louis XIII. and his Protestant subjects; but, instead of conducting the affair with coolness and political sagacity, he quarrelled with Luines, the minister of the French king. Complaints of his conduct were sent to England, and he was recalled. The death of the offended statesman happened soon afterwards, and Herbert was again dispatched to France.
The next remarkable event in his life was the publication of his book ”_De Veritate_,” whose object it was to show the all-sufficiency of natural religion. But he, who denied the necessity of a revelation to the human race, of matters concerning their eternal salvation, fancied that Heaven expressly revealed to him its will that his book should be published. Such are the inconsistencies of infidelity!
”A G.o.dless regent trembling at a star!”
His amusing auto-biography ends with an account of a noise from heaven, when he prayed for a sign of the Divine will, whether or not he should print his book.
Not many other circ.u.mstances of his life are on record. He was raised to the Irish peerage in 1625, and, afterwards, was created an English baron, by the t.i.tle of Lord Herbert of Cherbury, in Shrops.h.i.+re. He published another Latin work, in support of the cause of infidelity, and then gave to the world his History of the Reign of Henry VIII.; a book which has been always characterised, by writers who have never read a line of it, as a master-piece of historic biography; and if gross partiality for his hero, profound ignorance of human nature, imperfect acquaintance with his subject, and a pedantic style, const.i.tute the excellence of memoir-writing, Lord Herbert is an author of the first cla.s.s.
Though he had been raised to the peerage by the Stuarts, yet in the days of Charles I. we find him on the side of the parliament. Montgomery-castle was demolished by the King's troops, and the parliament made him a pecuniary compensation. He removed to London, died in 1648, and was buried in St. Giles's.
[Sidenote: His character.]
[Sidenote: His inferiority to the knights of yore.]
Such was Lord Herbert of Cherbury. His life may be placed in opposition to, rather than in harmony with, the heroes of early chivalric times. He had their courage, it is true, but he had none of their dignity and n.o.bleness, none of their manly grace; and there was a fantastic trifling in his conduct, which their elevated natures would have scorned. He was no Christian knight: the superst.i.tion of the Chandos's and Mannys, gross as it was, is not so offensive to the moral sense as the craft and subtlety of Lord Cherbury's intellect, which refined Christianity into deism. We can admire the heroes of the days of Edward III., placing their swords'
points on the Gospels, and vowing to defend the truth to the utterance; but how absurd was the fanaticism, and contemptible the vanity, of him who expected that Heaven would declare its will that he should deliver to the world the vain chimeras of his imagination!
[Sidenote: Decline of chivalric education.]
The history of English chivalry is now fast drawing to a close. We may mark the state of the system of chivalric education in the castles of the n.o.bility. Every great lord, as his ancestors had been, was still attended by several of the inferior n.o.bility and gentry, and such service was not accounted dishonourable. The boys were, as of old, called pages, though perhaps the age for this t.i.tle somewhat stepped beyond the ancient limit.
But this was not the only change in that cla.s.s of the chivalry of England.
In former days pages had been the attendants of the great in the amus.e.m.e.nts of the chace and the baronial hall; and had sometimes shared, with the squire, the more perilous duties of the battle-plain. In the course of time, as the frame of society became more settled, the arts of peace smoothed the stern fierceness of chivalry, and the page was the honorary servant of the lord or his lady, in the proud ceremonial of n.o.bility, and never mixed in war. He continued to be a person of gentle birth, and his dress was splendid; circ.u.mstances extremely favourable to that singular state of manners which permitted a woman, without any loss of her good name, to follow him she admired in the disguise of a gentle page, and gradually to win his affections by the deep devotion of her love. Poetry may have adorned such instances of pa.s.sion, for the subject is full of interest and pathos; but the poets in the best days of English verse so frequently copied from the world around them, that we cannot but believe they drew also in this instance from nature. This form of manners was romantic; but it certainly was not chivalric: for in pure days of chivalry the knights, and not the damsels, were the wooers.--But every thing was changed or degraded.
The general state of the page in the last days of chivalry may be collected from one of the dramas of Ben Jonson, where Lovel, a complete gentleman, a soldier, and a scholar, is desirous to take as his page the son of Lord Frampul, who was disguised as the host of the Light Heart Inn at Barnet:
”_Lov._ A fine child!
You will not part with him, mine host?
”_Host._ Who told you I would not.
”_Lov._ I but ask you.
”_Host._ And I answer, To whom? for what?
”_Lov._ To me, to be my page.
”_Host._ I know no mischief yet the child hath done, To deserve such a destiny.
”_Lov._ Why?
”_Host._ * * * * * *
Trust me I had rather Take a fair halter, wash my hands, and hang him Myself, make a clean riddance of him, than---- ”_Lov._ What?
”_Host._ Than d.a.m.n him to that desperate course of life.
”_Lov._ Call you that desperate, which by a line Of inst.i.tution, from our ancestors, Hath been derived down to us, and received In a succession, for the n.o.blest way Of breeding up our youth, in letters, arms, Fair mien, discourses, civil exercise, And all the blazon of a gentleman?
Where can he learn to vault, to ride, to fence, To move his body gracefuller, to speak His language purer, or to tune his mind Or manners, more to the harmony of nature, Than in these nurseries of n.o.bility?