emblazoned gravestone of a knight, to think of this, and not of any less worthy deed, as their last act. ‘The knight’s bones are dust, And his good sword rust: His soul is with the saints, I trust:’— but he has left to us an imperishable and a rich inheritance, won for us by him. To him we owe our MANNERS—all that world of existence implied in the names LADY and GENTLEMAN. Through the Middle Ages it was ‘Our Lady,’ the Virgin mother who embodied and represented to all men and women, from the prince to the peasant, their ideals of womanhood and ladyhood. In modern times St. Paul has been held to be the model of a gentleman; in whose acts and writings are found all the principles, maxims, and spirit of a character entirely chivalrous, in the amplest sense of the term: while one of our old dramatists has ventured, in words of touching tenderness and reverence, to point to a yet higher realisation of that ideal;— ‘The best of men That e’er wore earth about him, was a sufferer, A soft, meek, patient, humble, tranquil spirit; The first true gentleman that ever breathed.’ And it was the transference of these Christian ethics, into the practice of common daily, worldly life, in rude, half-barbarous times, which we owe to the knights and ladies of the Middle Ages; a transference effected slowly, and with much mixture of evil with the good: nor is the work nearly completed yet; but the worth of it can hardly be overrated. This is not indeed all, but there is much truth in the old motto, ‘Manners makyth man.’ Manners, like laws, create a region and atmosphere of virtue within which all good more easily lives and grows, and evil finds it harder to maintain itself. How large a portion of the small, spontaneous kindnesses of hourly life, in which, after all, so much of our happiness consists, are not only unknown, but impossible, where habitual, unaffected politeness is wanting. But manners are good, not only as affording a fairer field for the exercise of the higher virtues, but good in themselves. They are a real part of the beauty and grace of our human life. Courtesy, and self-possession, and deference and respect for others; modesty and gentleness towards all men, and recognition in all of the true gold of humanity, whether it bear the guinea stamp or no; love of truth and honour; and not only readiness, but eagerness to help the weak, and defend their cause against the strong; and all these irradiated and glorified, as often as may be, by that sentiment which ‘——gives to every power a double power, Above their functions and their offices;’— these are the things which make the lady and the gentleman.