oscuntur, et
_caballarii_ omnes ad placitum nostrum veniant bene preparati.
Capitularia, A.D. 807, in Baluze, t. i. p. 460.

[762] We must take for this the more favourable representations of the
Indian nations. A deteriorating intercourse with Europeans, or a race of
European extraction, has tended to efface those virtues which possibly
were rather exaggerated by earlier writers.

[763] Since this passage was written, I have found a parallel drawn by
Mr. Sharon Turner, in his valuable History of England, between Achilles
and Richard Coeur de Lion; the superior justness of which I readily
acknowledge. The real hero does not indeed excite so much interest in me
as the poetical; but the marks of resemblance are very striking, whether
we consider their passions, their talents, their virtues, their vices,
or the waste of their heroism.

The two principal persons in the Iliad, if I may digress into the
observation, appear to me representatives of the heroic character in its
two leading varieties; of the energy which has its sole principle, of
action within itself, and of that which borrows its impulse from
external relations; of the spirit of honour, in short, and of
patriotism. As every sentiment of Achilles is independent and
self-supported, so those of Hector all bear reference to his kindred and
his country. The ardour of the one might have been extinguished for want
of nourishment in Thessaly; but that of the other might, we fancy, have
never been kindled but for the dangers of Troy. Peace could have brought
no delight to the one but from the memory of war; war had no alleviation
to the other but from the images of peace. Compare, for example, the two
speeches, beginning Il. Z. 441, and Il. II. 49; or rather compare the
two characters throughout the Iliad. So wonderfully were those two great
springs of human sympathy, variously interesting according to the
diversity of our tempers, first touched by that ancient patriarch,

a quo, ceu fonte perenni,
Vatum Pieriis ora rigantur aquis.

[764] Ingulfus, in Gale, XV Scriptores, t. i. p. 70. William Rufus,
however, was knighted by Archbishop Lanfranc, which looks as if the
ceremony was not absolutely repugnant to the Norman practice.

[765] Du Cange, v. Miles, and 22nd Dissertation on Joinville, St.
Palaye, Mem. sur la Chevalerie, part ii. A curious original illustration
of this, as well as of other chivalrous principles, will be found in
l'Ordene de Chev