THE SPIRIT OF CHIVALRY1

In Westminster Hall

[Douglas Jerrold’s Shilling Magazine, August 1845]

‘Of all the Cants that are canted in this canting world,’ wrote Sterne, ‘kind Heaven defend me from the cant of Art!’ We have no intention of tapping our little cask of cant, soured by the thunder of great men’s fame, for the refreshment of our readers: its freest draught would be unreasonably dear at a shilling, when the same small liquor may be had for nothing, at innumerable ready pipes and conduits; and may even be drawn off, sparkling, from the fountain-head, on application to Mr. Eastlake, secretary to the Fine Arts’ Commission, who is obligingly ready to dispense it, ex officio, wholesale or retail, in any quantity.

But it is a main part of the design of this magazine to sympathise with what is truly great and good; to hail the bright nobility of genius, though it shine out through the clouds of Diletanti lords and bargain-driving princes; to scout the miserable discouragements that beset, especially in England, the upward path of men of high desert; and gladly to give honour where it is due, in right of Something achieved, tending to elevate the tastes and thoughts of all who contemplate it, and prove a lasting credit to the country of its birth.

Upon the walls of Westminster Hall, there hangs, at this time, such a Something. A composition of such marvellous beauty, of such infinite variety, of such masterly design, of such vigorous and skilful drawing, of such thought and fancy, of such surprising and delicate accuracy of detail, subserving one grand harmony, and one plain purpose, that it may be questioned whether the Fine Arts in any period of their history, have known a more remarkable performance.

1 [This Article is set from the galley proof in the Dyce and Forster Collection in the Victoria and Albert Museum. In Douglas Jerrold’s Magazine certain portions of it are deleted. — Ed.]

It is the cartoon of Daniel Maclise, ‘executed by order of the Commissioners,’ and called The Spirit of Chivalry. It is so many feet and inches high, by order of the Commissioners; and so many feet and inches broad, by order of the Commissioners. Its proportions are exceedingly difficult of management, by order of the Commissioners; and its subject and title were an order of the Commissioners. It may be left an open question, whether or no this allegorical bespeak on the part of the Commissioners, displays any uncommon felicity of idea. We rather think not; and are free to confess that we should like to have seen the Commissioners’ notion of the Spirit of Chivalry stated by themselves, in the first instance, on a sheet of foolscap, as the ground-plan of a model cartoon. That the treatment of such an abstraction, for the purposes of Art, involves great and peculiar difficulties, no one who considers the subject for a moment can doubt. That nothing is easier to render it absurd and monstrous, is a position as little capable of dispute by anybody who has beheld another cartoon on the same subject in the same Hall, representing a Ghoule in a state of raving madness, dancing on a body in a very high wind, to the great astonishment of Joh