KNOLLES

KNOLLES, RICHARD, the author of a famous History of the Turks, was born in Northamptonshire about the middle of the sixteenth century; he studied at Oxford, and became master of the free school of Sandwich in Kent, where he died in 1610. He was the author of a Latin-Greek Hebrew Grammar, and of some minor works bearing chiefly on Oriental history. On his General History of the Turks he spent twelve years of his life. On the strength of this book Johnson, in a number of the Rambler, assigned to Knolles the first place among English historians. "His style," says the great critic, "though somewhat obscured by time, and sometimes vitiated by false taste, is pure, nervous, elevated, and clear." The verdict of Johnson is confirmed by Hallam; but a perusal of the work will satisfy most modern readers that these flattering criticisms are completely overcharged. There is a strong smack of ill-natured truth in the remarks of Walpole, who said that, as a history, the work was a tissue of fables, and, as a piece of style, one of the most wearisome books in the world, with weak sentences of a page long. Several continuations of the work have been published, the best being by Paul Ricaut, folio, London, 1680; but as a history it is now entirely superseded.

Spain has been most prolific in orders of chivalry, which have lived for a while, and then made way for others; the principal have been the Lily of Navarre, in the eleventh century; St Saviour in the twelfth century; the Holy Rosary of Toledo, and St George and Alfame in the thirteenth. In the following century were founded the orders of the Dove, the Croce della Scama, and the Scarf. The Lily of Aragon, in the fifteenth century, rivalled the renown of the ancient Oak of Navarre (722); and Spanish gallantry created the orders of St James, Calatrava, and Mercy, for the enrolment of ladies only.

With this list we dismiss the subject of Knights and Knighthood, quoting herewith the lines of Spencer, who, showing what knight should be, by what Sir Calidore was, says,—

"Nor was there knight, nor was there lady found,
In Fairy Court, but him did dear embrace,
For his fair usage and conditions sound,
The which, in all men's liking, gained place;
And, with the greatest, purchased greatest grace,
Which he could wisely use, and well apply,
To please the best, and th' evil to embase;
For he loathed leasing and base flattery,
And lea- ed simple truth and stedfast honesty."