1831.] Confessions of a Coward. 387 



ceive how any one, not armed with invulnerability, can bring himself to 

 face an enemy. The Latin poet throwing away his shield to make his 

 escape the faster the Athenian orator caught by a bramble in his 

 retreat, and roaring for quarter as lustily as ever he shouted in the 

 tribune these things I can figure to myself; but how either the one or 

 the other was ever induced to take the field at all this is what surpasses 

 my powers of conception. They were not cravens, it is obvious, in the 

 plenitude of that term's acceptation ; matchless as they were in song and 

 eloquence, the true genius of cowardice they wanted. In this, at least, 

 I am immeasurably above them. Had nature cast them in my mould, 

 Philippi and Cheronaea had never seen their backs because they would 

 never have seen their faces. " Parma non bene relictd !" " Non bene !" 

 say you, my bonny bard ? Truly, I take it to have been the best and 

 wisest action of your life ; and, if I must deal plainly with you, the 

 most insane was that which afforded Anthony's grenadiers a chance of 

 spitting your little carcase like a lark upon their pikes or broadswords, 

 But fugitive as you were, I perceive you had a scintilla of heroism in 

 your composition. You were not of my mettle. 



There is a sect of soi-disant philosophers who lament the by-gone days 

 of chivalry, and are ever sighing for tilt-yards and tournaments the 

 good old time (they call it) when every gentleman went armed from heel 

 to point ; and ladies were wooed by the shivering of lances ; and there 

 was no way of proving manhood but by the sword ; and no evidence of 

 birth was admitted, but your gentle blood itself, streaming from the 

 gash of spear or battle-axe. Heaven shield us ! These were fine times, 

 truly ! But pray, Mr. Burke, what should 7 have done in these fine 

 times ? What I should not have done is certain. I should not have 

 complied with their barbarous usages, let the consequences have been what 

 they might ' While there remained a mouse-hole in the land, I should 

 never have been seen in the lists. It is quite enough to have read of 

 such doings. That was an enviable day at Ashby-de-la-Zouche, as 

 described in ' ' Ivanhoe " and critics say it is described to the life. John 

 Dryden, too, is tolerably explicit, in his " Palamon and Arcite," on the 

 subject of a passage of arms : 



" Two troops in fair array one moment shewed- 

 The next, a field with fallen bodies strewed; 

 Not half the number in their seats are found, 

 But men and steeds lie grovelling on the ground. 

 The points of spears are stuck within the shield 

 The steeds, without their riders, scour the field ; 

 The knights, unhorsed, on foot renew the fight 

 The glittering falchions cast a gleaming light ; 

 One rolls along a football to his foes 

 One with a broken truncheon deals his blows." 



" A football to his foes !" Alas for the olden time ! Well-a-day for 

 the days of chivalry ! Golden days ! will ye never return? " A foot- 

 ball to his foes !" 



These Confessions would be imperfect if I omitted the influence 

 which my extraordinary cowardice has produced upon my religion, my 

 politics, my philosophy, and my manners. 



First, as to my religion, I am decidedly a Quaker. I have not, how- 

 ever, openly conformed to that sect, because it has receded lamentably 

 from the primitive purity of its doctrines and practice. Arms are now 



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