The Reverend Doctor Opimian being called on to contribute his share to these diversions of rainy afternoons, said--
'The sort of prose lecture which I am accustomed to deliver would not be exactly appropriate to the present time and place. I will therefore recite to you some verses, which I made some time since, on what appeared to me a striking specimen of absurdity on the part of the advisers of royalty here--the bestowing the honours of knighthood, which is a purely Christian institution, on Jews and Paynim; very worthy persons in themselves, and entitled to any mark of respect befitting their class, but not to one strictly and exclusively Christian; money-lenders, too, of all callings the most anti-pathetic to that of a true knight. The contrast impressed itself on me as I was reading a poem of the twelfth century, by Hues de Tabaret--_L'Ordène de Chevalerie_--and I endeavoured to express the contrast in the manner and form following:--
Sir Moses, Sir Aaron, Sir Jamramajee, Two stock-jobbing Jews, and a shroffing Parsee, Have girt on the armour of old Chivalrie, And, instead of the Red Cross, have hoisted Balls Three.
Now fancy our Sovereign, so gracious and bland, With the sword of Saint George in her royal right hand, Instructing this trio of marvellous Knights In the mystical meanings of Chivalry's rites.
'You have come from the bath, all in milk-white array, To show you have washed worldly feelings away, And, pure as your vestments from secular stain, Renounce sordid passions and seekings for gain.
'This scarf of deep red o'er your vestments I throw, In token, that down them your life-blood shall flow, Ere Chivalry's honour, or Christendom's faith, Shall meet, through your failure, or peril or scaith.
'These slippers of silk, of the colour of earth, Are in sign of remembrance of whence you had birth; That from earth you have sprung, and to earth you return, But stand for the faith, life immortal to earn.
'This blow of the sword on your shoulder-blades true Is the mandate of homage, where homage is due, And the sign that your swords from the scabbard shall fly When "St George and the Right" is the rallying cry.
'This belt of white silk, which no speck has defaced, Is the sign of a bosom with purity graced, And binds you to prove, whatsoever betides, Of damsels distressed the friends, champions, and guides.