“The Marquis of Bute then kneeling near the Sovereign, and Mr Woods on his knee, presenting to the Queen the riband and jewel of the Order, Her Majesty was graciously pleased to place the same over the noble Marquis’s left shoulder. His Lordship rising, kissed the Sovereign’s hand, and having received the congratulations of the knights brethren, retired.” From that moment John, Marquis of Bute, looked and moved with the aspect and bearing of a man, radiant with new honours. He was a Knight of the Thistle, and the jewel sparkling at his bosom feebly typified the bright, admiring looks of the world—the gaze of mingled love and admiration bent upon him. But on this earth—in this abiding-place of equity—men do not get even thistles for nothing. It may, indeed, happen that desert may pant and moan without honour; but in the court of kings, where justice weighs with nicest balance, honour never with its smiles mocks imbecility, or gilds with outward lustre a concealed rottenness. Honour never gives alms, but awards justice. Mendicancy, though with liveried lackies clustering at its carriage—and there is such pauperism—may whine and pray its hardest, yet move not the inflexible herald. He awards those jewels to virtue, which virtue has sweated, bled for. And it is with this belief, yea, in the very bigotry of the creed, we ask—what has John, Marquis of Bute, fulfilled to earn his thistle? What, the Right Hon. William, Earl of Mansfield? What dragon wrong has either overcome? What giant Untruth stormed in Sophist Castle? What necromantic wickedness baffled and confounded? Yet, these battles have been fought—these triumphs won; oh! who shall doubt them? Be sure of it, ye unbelieving demagogues—scoffing plebians, not for nothing nobility browses upon thistles. We pay all honour to these inventions, these learned devices of the Herald. They doubtless clothe, comfort, and adorn humanity, which, without them, would be cold, naked, shrunk, and squalid. They, moreover, gloriously attest the supremacy of the tame, the civilised man, over the wild animal. The orders of the Herald are _tattoo_ without the pain of puncture. The New Zealander carries his knighthood, lined and starred and flowered, in his visage. The civilised knight hangs it more conveniently on a riband.