our fancy paints the time and mode of bestowing it; and we follow it through all the subsequent career of the knight as his silent monitor to courage and loyalty. [Sidenote: The broad lines of the subject.] It is curious also to mark the perpetual efforts of defensive armour to meet the improvements in the art of destruction. Chain-mail was found an inadequate protection; plates of steel were added, and still this mixed harness did not render the body invulnerable. The covering of steel alone at length became complete, and defensive harness reached its perfection. It is utterly impossible for us to state with accuracy the year when plate-armour began to be mixed with chain-mail in any particular country, or to determine what particular part of the body the first plate that was used defended; but the general features of the subject are known well enough to enable us to sketch to our imagination the military costume of some of the most remarkable events in the warfare of the middle ages. In the first crusade, the armour was in the rude state of mail worn on the tunic. There was the emblazoned surcoat, for that part of dress was of very early use; the hood was the common covering of the head, and when the helmet was worn it was of the simplest form, and occasionally had a nasal piece. The crusades began at the close of the eleventh century, and before the end of the thirteenth, not only was the hauberk composed of twisted mail, but mixed armour of plate and mail was common. The English wars in France during the reign of our Edward III. are the next subject to which our chivalric recollections recur. By that time plate had attained a general predominance over chain-mail. Perhaps, at no period of chivalry was armour more beautiful than in those days when France was one vast tilting ground for the culled and choice-drawn cavaliers of the two mighty monarchies of Europe. It was equally removed from the gloomy sternness of chain-mail, and the elaborate foppery of embossed steel: its solid plates satisfied the judicious eye by showing that the great principle of armour was chiefly attended to, and the surcoat and scarf gave the warrior's harness a character of neat and simple elegance. The horses, too, were barded in the most vulnerable parts; the symmetry of the form not being obscured, as it was in after-times by a casing of steel which left only part of the legs free of action. The helmet had its crest and silken ornament; the former being the sign of nobility, the latter of love: and no warriors were so justly entitled to those graceful tokens of ladies' favour, as the warriors of Edward III., for love was the inspiring soul of their chivalry.[117]