Order, still retaining the star and badge with which he was invested; and who never has, and probably never will, change it for those now assigned to the "Military Knights Grand Crosses." The sole distinction intended between the badges of the two classes of Grand Crosses was, that those of the Military Knights should have a wreath of laurel round the motto, and be charged with the words "Ich Dien" on theirs; but all the Civil Knights Grand Crosses wear the original ensigns. Since 1815 the only Civil Knights who have been nominated were ambassadors, with the exception of Sir Charles Long, now Lord Farnborough, and Sir Benjamin, now Lord Bloomfield. All the former being thus rewarded for diplomatic, and the two latter, we presume, for civil services. This division of the classes of Grand Crosses merits some attention, for it is the only instance in which civil services have, in this country, been thought worthy of such a distinction. Of the few "Civil Knights Grand Crosses" only two can be considered to have received it for civil services; since the Gazette itself draws a line between those of a " diplomatic" and those of a " civil" nature; but it must not be forgotten that so little was civil merit, by which term we mean every other merit excepting military services, esteemed, on the enlargement of the Order, that no Civil Knights Commanders or Civil Companions were created; though there were the same reasons for rewarding the various degrees of civil services as those of the most important kind, if the Sovereign considered that any other part of his subjects were worthy of being thus honoured, besides his naval and military officers. It is not probable that there would have been any Civil Grand Crosses, but that men were then living who had been honoured with the Order, though they had never heard a gun fired. The original knights, excepting those now styled "military" ones, have thus become, as it were, excrescences of the Order; they are, it is true, allowed to wear its badges, with some difference from those of the other class, but they are called by a title at once novel and contradictory.

We shall now consider the Knights Commanders of the Order. As the regulations concerning this class are stated in the Gazette, they are unobjectionable: their rank and precedence are precisely defined; their numbers are pointed out; the persons who shall be eligible to receive it are clearly defined; and their privileges and ensigns, as well as the peculiar distinctions to which they shall be entitled, are described in the most unambiguous terms. It therefore seems incredible that an inconsistency could have been committed with respect to this class; yet within twelve months a regulation was adopted which not only violated these ordinances, but was at variance with the spirit of the institution of this and every similar Order in Europe, namely, that Knights of the same rank in the Order should

not be allowed to wear the same ensigns! Soon after the Order was enlarged, it was determined that no Knight Commander under the rank of a Major General or Rear Admiral should wear the Star appropriated to that class'. Whatever may be the rank of a man elsewhere, it is the fundamental principle of every order of chivalry, that the members of the respective degrees of the Order are, with respect to it, equals, fellows, companions, brothers, all entitled to the same privileges and the same distinctions, and wearing every mark of that equality. Yet of the Order of the Bath, the members of the second class are regulated in their precedence and their badges of the Order, by their rank in the naval or military service, and altering it, like their uniform, upon promotion in that service. Truly, indeed, is the Order called a " Military Order;" but it ought not to be termed an Order of Knighthood, since it is regulated by all the rules of the former, and by none of the latter; by the discipline of the parade or the quarter-deck, and not by the pure and honourable principles of chivalry. That " the age of chivalry" is gone, we were long since told; but we fancied that the spirit, if not the substance, survived in our Orders of the Garter and of the Bath. As, however, the one exhibits so glaring an anomaly, we may live to see it determined, that all the insignia of the Garter shall not be worn by all the Knights, but that their respective ranks in the peerage shall be marked by them: for example, that Earls shall wear the Garter, but neither the Collar nor the Star; that Marquesses shall wear the Garter and the Star, and not the Collar; and that no nobleman under the rank of a Duke shall be permitted to wear all the ensigns!

If it was not deemed desirable that so many Stars should be worn by the members of the Order of the Bath, another class ought to have been instituted, instead of a new class being in effect created out of an old one, the members of which have been "shorn of" those "beams," which, upon their nomination

We are not aware of the manner in which this alteration was notified, but it was probably effected in this way: Although the 14th article in the Gazette of the 2nd of January stated, that the Knights Commanders should wear their ensigns "on their being duly invested with the same," the Gazette of the 18th of April, 1815, contained a "Memorandum," announcing that it was the pleasure of the Prince Regent, that such Knights Commanders "as shall not have undergone the due ceremonial of investiture, shall wear the appropriate riband and badge only; and shall not wear the star of the second class until they shall have been so invested." If the star was not given to a particular class of them at the ceremony, of course they could not wear it; and if it was then intended to be withheld from all the Knights Commanders under the rank of a general officer or admiral, it in effect superseded the necessity of any of the others being invested at all, since the "Memorandum" authorized them to wear all the insignia to which they were by the new regulation to be entitled. Another happy example of the con sistency manifested throughout,

into the Order, they were expressly told should belong to

them.

Lamentable as are the discrepancies which we have pointed out, the most extraordinary yet remains to be noticed. The third class of the Order consists not of Knights, but of

Companions," who, although constituent members of an order of knighthood, are not knights. The Genius of Confusion must surely have presided at this invention; for in what part of Europe can a parallel anomaly be found? An Order of military Knighthood, which, from the names and merits of its members is the first in the world, is degraded by having an acknowledged class of the Order a body of " Companions" who are not "Knights." Knights." We are very unwilling to play upon words; but still the obvious meaning of that which is the honourable designation of several hundred persons must not be altogether lost sight of. The third class shall, the Gazette states, be styled " Companions of the said Order;" an expression which must mean, if those who invented it ever troubled themselves to inquire if it meant any thing, Companions of the other Knights. A companion, in its chivalric sense-and in evidence of which we need only refer to the name of the original" Knights Companions"-means an equal, a brother, a confrere. Thus a Companion of Knights must be himself a Knight, for all Knights are equal, though one may be a Commander, and the other a Grand Cross, of the Order; otherwise he is not a fit Companion. Our argument is, that a man to be a member of an order of Knighthood cannot be of less rank than that of a knight, and that an anomaly, as unprecedented as it was absurd, was committed when any other title was given to the members of the third class of the Bath than that of "Knight." The respective degrees would then have been, Knights Grand Crosses, Knights Commanders, and Knights, and which are the grades of almost every other order, consisting of various ranks, throughout the world. To turn to the orders founded by his present Majesty himself-the Guelphic Order, and even the Ionian Order of St. Michael and St. George-we there find not only that the members of the third class of both are properly styled "Knights;" but that, whenever the arms of a Knight of the former are emblazoned at the College of Arms, the open faced helmet, which is the peculiar badge of a Knight Bachelor of England, is placed over them; a distinction denied to the corresponding rank of the first English military order. Surely it was not intended to exalt the Guelphic Order, of which we are far from thinking with disrespect, above that of the Bath, of both of which his Majesty may now, in fact, be considered the founder; but the effect is, that the latter is placed not below

the Guelphic and Ionian Orders merely, but beneath every other order in Europe, since it forms the solitary example, where all the members are not received within the pale of Knighthood. Nor is this the only way in which the Companions of the Bath are degraded. The original statutes of the Order are commanded to remain in force, by which the Esquires of the Grand Crosses are rendered of infinitely greater importance; since they are required to be possessed of qualifications which are not necessary in the Companions: thus the attendants on a Knight, his servants as it were, are more esteemed than the confreres of his master-his Companions. The cause of this inconsistency is easily explained. A perusal of the 13th and 16th articles in the London Gazette is alone necessary to convince every one, that it was intended that the third class of the Order should be conferred, like the Legion of Honour of France, upon every officer who had distinguished himself, without regard to his rank; and the great number of individuals who would thus be eligible rendered it inexpedient that so many persons should bear the title of Knighthood. The intention was admirable, and the objection just; but, in that case, the third class should have been Knights; and there might have been a fourth class, termed "Medallists of the Order of the Bath." By this plan the incongruities would have been avoided; the words of the 16th clause might have been literally fulfilled, by a reward being conferred upon every officer who had signalized himself, whether as an Ensign or as an Admiral or General; and the third class, or Knights, might have been confined to the rank to which the class now called Companions is limited. If it be objected, that the honour of Knighthood would be too common if it were conferred upon so many officers; we answer, that the value of it would, on the contrary, be enhanced, because it would then be borne by those for whom it was specially designed. Such a measure could never derogate from its value; for, in the best days of English chivalry, the number was always very much greater it is not, however, numbers that degrade such an institution, but unworthiness. Knighthood was first brought into disrepute by James the First, and subsequently by the accolade being almost exclusively bestowed on Citizens or Lawyers; but the admission of the officers who have received the anomalous. rank of Companions of the Order of the Bath to the honour would do much to restore it to its pristine purity. It is remarkable, that by the 16th clause, just referred to, the rank and precedence which they would have enjoyed as Knights is expressly given to them, though the title is withheld; for they are " to take place and precedence of all Esquires of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland." This regulation has been attended with an effect little anticipated: it has justly given offence to all the great

landed proprietors in England. Mr. Coke, of Norfolk, for example, is an Esquire, and would naturally feel indignant at being placed below a young officer who bore no higher title than himself; but that precedency which he would unwillingly allow to another Esquire, he would not hesitate for a moment to concede to a Knight, a title which, though unworthy of his acceptance, he might nevertheless deem a fit and appropriate honour for a military officer.

Another inconsistency respecting the Companions has hitherto escaped attention. As we have already stated, the London Gazette of the 16th September, 1815, contained the list of the Companions, dated, nobody knows why, on the 4th of June preceding, and the very same Gazette contained another list, dated on the 22nd of June, of officers appointed Companions "upon the recommendation of the Duke of Wellington, for their services in the battles fought upon the 16th and 18th of June last," in which about thirty officers were included, and whose names were distinguished by an asterisk (*), as those "upon whom the third class of the Bath has been conferred for former services." Now these thirty officers must be doubly Companions, and consequently wear, we presume, two Crosses; for if, on the 4th of June, 1815, Colonel John Smith was made a Companion of the Bath, and he was again nominated a Companion of the Bath on the 22nd, he must surely possess two Companionships, upon the same principle that if a man be a Baron, and he is again created a Baron, he has two Baronies; or if an officer received a medal for one battle, and a second for another, he wears both medals. The cause of this blunder is easily explained. Both lists appeared in the same Gazette, and if it was thought proper to separate those who received the honour for the battles of the 16th and 18th of June from the others,-a silly, and perhaps invidious, distinction, but which arose either from a wish to pay them an especial compliment, or that the first nomination of the Companions should be dated on the 4th of June,-the asterisk ought to have been placed opposite to their names in the first list; they should not have been included in the second; and the note ought, in that case, to have specified that the officers, whose names were so marked would have received the Order for their services on those occasions, if they had not been previously honoured with it. As it stands, however, the Duke of Wellington is made to recommend officers for an honour between the 18th and 22nd of June, which was conferred upon them on the 4th of that month, and the Crown ratifies the absurdity! Whether the desire to date the nominations on the 4th of June, though the announcement did not take place until the 16th of September, was worth the confusion which it has caused, we leave it to others to determine. When speaking of the Knights