From “Knights and Their Days.”

THERE was a knight who was known by the title of “The White Knight,” whose name was De la Tour Landay, who was a contemporary of Edward the Black Prince, and who is supposed to have fought at Poitiers. He is, however, best known, or at least equally well known, as the author of a work entitled “Le Livre du Chevalier de la Tour Landay.” This book was written, or dictated by him, for the especial benefit of his two daughters, and for the guidance of young ladies generally. It is extremely indelicate in parts, and in such wise gives no very favorable idea of the young ladies who could bear such instruction as is here imparted. The Chevalier performed his authorship after a very free and easy fashion. He engaged four clerical gentlemen, strictly designated as “two priests and two clerks,” whose task it was to procure for him all the necessary illustrative materials, such as anecdotes, apophthegms, and such like. These were collected from all sources, sacred and profane—from the Bible down to any volume, legendary or historical, that would suit his purpose. These he worked mosaically together, adding such wise saws, moral counsel, or sentiment, as he deemed the case most especially required,—with a sprinkling of stories of his own collecting. A critic in the Athenæum, commenting upon this curious volume, says with great truth, that it affords good materials for an examination into the morals and manners of the times. “Nothing,” says the reviewer, “is urged for adoption upon the sensible grounds of right or wrong, or as being in accordance with any admitted moral standard, but because it has been sanctified by long usage, been confirmed by pretended miracle, or been approved by some superstition which outrages common sense.”

  In illustration of these remarks it is shown how the Chevalier recommends a strict observation of the “Meagre Days,” upon the ground that the dissevered head of a soldier was once enabled to call for a priest, confess, and listen to the absolution, because the owner of the head had never transgressed the Wednesday and Friday’s fasts throughout his lifetime. Avoidance of the seven capital sins is enjoyed upon much the same grounds. Gluttony, for instance, is to be avoided, for the good reason that a prattling magpie once betrayed a lady who had eaten a dish of eels, which her lord had intended for some guests whom he wished particularly to honor. Charity is enjoined, not because the practice thereof is placed by the great teacher not merely above Hope, but before Faith, but because a lady who, in spite of priestly warning gave the broken victuals of her household to her dogs rather than to the poor, being on her deathbed was leaped upon by a couple of black dogs, and that these having approached her lips, the latter became as black as coal. The knight the more insists upon the proper exercise of charity, seeing that he has unquestionable authority in support of the truth of the story. That is, he knew a lady that had known the defunct, and who said she had seen the dogs. Implicit obedience of wives to husbands is insisted on, with a forcibly illustrative argument. A burgher’s wife had answered her lord sharply, in place of silently listening to reproof, and meekly obeying his command. The husband, thereupon, dealt his wife a blow with his clenched fist, which smashed her nose and felled her to the ground. “It is reason and right,” says the mailed Mrs. Ellis of his time, “that the husband should have the word of command, and it is an honor to the good wife to hear him, and hold her peace, and leave all high talking to her lord; and so, on the contrary, it is a great shame to hear a woman strive with her husband, whether right or wrong, and especially before other people.” Publius Syrus says that a good wife commands by obeying, but the Chevalier evidently had no idea of illustrating the Latin maxim, or recommending the end which it contemplates. The knight places the husband as absolute lord; and his doing so, in conjunction with the servility which he demands on the part of the wife, reminds me of the saying of Toulotte, which is as true as anything enjoined by the moralizing knight, namely, that L’obéissance aux volontés d’un chef absolu assimile l’homme á la brute. This with a verbal alteration may be applied as expressive of the effect of the knight’s teaching in the matter of feminine obedience. The latter is indeed in consonance with the old heathen ideas. Euripides asserts that the most intolerable wife in the world is a wife who philosophizes, or supports her own opinion. We are astonished to find a Christian knight thus agreed with a heathen poet—particularly as it was in Christian times that the maxim was first published, which says, Ce que femme veut, Dieu le veut!