twin-brother "Constable" has enjoyed high military command, and has subsided into a mere peace-officer. "Knight" also has "in its time played many parts." This word seems to have set out in life as a hired servant, or one knit and attached to another.[1] "In all places I shall be, my lady, your daughter's servant and knight in right and wrong."[2] But having enlisted for a soldier, be rose rapidly to great consideration, which he sustained as long as be stuck to the sword. The moment, however, that he treads on a carpet, his character becomes very equivocal, and be is only to be known by the company he keeps. He seldom goes into the city without becoming the butt of ridicule, whether he deserves it or no. Some of his family, called Peg Nicholson's knights, were notoriously ill-spoken of; but the worst of his name are, unquestionably, the knights of the post.
In the present day, a careful observer will discover many words which are in a state of migration, and stand just upon the confines of good and evil, of honour and reproach. Dr. Johnson apologized, and defended himself from the imputation of backbiting, when he called a man, not then present, an "Attorney." Those of the craft prefer hearing themselves styled Solicitors[3]: for what reason I could never discover, unless it be that the word has a more sonorous twang, or because solicitation is a courtly employment, and the high road to places and dignities.
"Methodist," which a few years ago was used as a reproach, has been adopted as an honorific distinction by those to whom it was applied; and the same is the case with "Radical." "Blasphemy" and "Sedition," as some people assert, are undergoing a similar process; insomuch that, to discover a man's meaning in employing such words, we must first know something of his political opinions.—"Saint," on the contrary, is now growing more and more exclusively applicable in a bad sense, and the imputation will be soon absolutely rejected as calumnious. "Laureate," likewise, may be cited as a word that is running down hill as fast as it can go; and I should not be surprised, if we should yet live to hear of a man's nose being pulled, as a "reproof valiant" for this "churlish" imputation. There are more Corinnas in the world than Petrarchs, and more Pyes and Cibbers than Drydens and Wartons; and the license of writing bad verses on an indifferent subject is hard to be resisted. But, whatever may be the cause, ruimus in pejus, and the post of laureate is not, even now-a-days, an euthanasia poetica, but rather a sort of poetical pillory, exposing a man to all sorts of pelters, from Byron to Cobbett. Not but that the present laureate, like Cicero, suffers more for his politics than his poetry; and might have written his O fortunatam natam hexameters, as safely as Pye sang of sonnets and thrushes[4], had he kept clear of Wat Tyler,
- ↑ Horne Tooke.
- ↑ Historie of Prince Arthur.
- ↑ The same Dr. Johnson, on being asked the difference between an attorney and a solicitor, replied, much the same as between a crocodile and an alligator.
- ↑ Pye's first Laureate Ode was said to have run much on singing-birds which produced the following allusive quotation:—
"And when the pie was opened, the birds began to sing,
"And was not that a dainty dish to set before a king?"
