The Tressure, heraldically, records alliance of that Charlemagne with the Scottish King Achaius, and the vision by the Scottish army of St. Andrew’s cross—and the adoption of the same, with the Thistle and Rue, for their national device; of all which the excellent Scotch clergyman and historian, Robert Henry, giving no particular account, prefers to note, as an example of such miraculous appearances in Scotland, the introduction, by King Kenneth, the son of Alpine, of a shining figure “clothed in the skins of dried fish, which shone in the dark,” to his nobility and councillors, to give them heavenly admonitions “after they had composed themselves to rest.” Of course a Presbyterian divine must have more pleasure in recording a miracle so connected with the existing national interests of the herring and salmon fisheries, than the tradition of St. Andrew’s cross; and that tradition itself is so confused among Rodericks, Alpines, and Ferguses, that the ‘Lady of the Lake’ is about as trustworthy historical reading. But St. Andrew’s Cross and the Thistle—(I don’t know when the Rue, much the more honourable bearing of the two, was dropped)—are there, you see, to this day; and you must learn their story—but I’ve no time to go into that, now.
For England, the tressure really implies, though not in heraldry, more than for Scotland. For the Saxon seven kingdoms had fallen into quite murderous anarchy in Charlemagne’s time, and especially the most religious of them, Northumberland; which then included all the country between the Frith of Forth and the Cheviots commanded by the fortress of Edwin’s Burg, (fortress now always standing in a rampant manner on its hind-legs, as the Modern Athens). But the pious Edwin’s spirit had long left his burg, and the state of the whole district from which the Saxon angels—(non Angli)—had gone forth to win the pity of Rome, was so distracted and hopeless that Charlemagne called them “worse than heathens,” and had like to have set his hand to exterminate them altogether; but the Third Fors ruled it otherwise, for luckily, a West Saxon Prince, Egbert, being driven to Charles’s court, in exile, Charles determined to make a man of him, and trained him to such true knighthood, that, recovering the throne of the West Saxons, the French-bred youth conquered the Heptarchy, and became the first King of “England” (all England);—and the Grandfather of Alfred.
Such belt of lilies did the French chivalry bind us with; the “tressure” of Charlemagne.
Of the fourth shield, bearing the Irish Harp, and the harmonious psalmody of which that instrument is significant, I have no time to speak to-day; nor of the vegetable heraldry between the shields;—but before you lay the florin down I must advise you that the very practical motto or war-cry which it now bears—“one tenth of a pound,” was not anciently the motto round the arms of England, that is to say, of English kings, (for republican England has no shield); but a quite different one—to wit—“Accursed (or evil-spoken of, maledictus, opposed to well-spoken of, or benedictus,) be He who thinks Evil;” and that this motto ought to be written on another Tressure or band than Charlemagne’s, surrounding the entire shield—namely, on a lady’s garter; specifically the garter of the most beautiful and virtuous English lady, Alice of Salisbury, (of whom soon); and that without this tressure and motto, the mere shield of Lions is but a poor defence.
For this is a very great and lordly motto; marking the utmost point and acme of honour, which is not merely in doing no evil, but in thinking none; and teaching that the first—as indeed the last—nobility of Education is in the rule over our Thoughts, on which matter, I must digress for a minute or two.
Among the letters just received by me, as I told you, is one from a working man of considerable experience, which laments that, in his part of the country, “literary institutes are a failure.”
Indeed, your literary institutes must everywhere fail, as long as you think that merely to buy a book, and to know your letters, will enable you to read the book. Not one word of any book is readable by you except so far as your mind is one with its author’s, and not merely his words like your words, but his thoughts like your thoughts.
For instance, the other day, at a bookstall, I bought a shilling Shakespeare. To such degree of wealth, ingenuity, and literary spirit, has the nineteenth century reached, that it has a shilling to spare for its Shakespeare—can produce its Shakespeare in a pocketable shape for that sum—and is ready to invest its earnings in a literature to that extent. Good. You have now your Shakespeare, complete, in your pocket; you will read the greatest of dramatic authors at your leisure, and form your literary taste on that model.
Suppose we read a line or two together then, you and I;—it may be, that I cannot, unless you help me.
“And there, at Venice, gave