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Crowns are emblems of another class; many of them have possessed a distinctly marked national character, and, even now, each country has a special shape of crown for its sovereign's use. The critics of the question go deeply into the discussion whether Nero was the first Roman monarch to wear a radiated crown, or whether his diadem was of the same shape as that of the Armenian and Syrian kings, who, because they claimed direct descent from Apollo, wore an imitation of the rays of the sun. The modern notion of a crown seems to date from Charlemagne, who took what we now call an imperial closed crown when he was at Rome. There is no sign of this sort of shape on any of the seals anterior to him, but from his time it came generally into The German emperors wore it in the tenth century, and William the Conqueror adopted it as soon as he became king of England. Du Cange says that, in the middle ages, the Western emperors received a triple crown, "silver in Germany, iron in Italy, and gold in sundry places"-the latter phrase meant Rome. The German crown possessed two points, which were surmounted by a diadem, a ball, and a cross of pearls; the cross indicated the guardianship of Christianity, the diadem the empire, and the two points the seigneuries of Denmark and Bohemia. The crown of England has four fleurs-de-lys, representing the old claims on France; and four Maltese crosses, indicative of that amusing appellation, Defender of the Faith. The famous Lombard crown was originally all gold, like most other crowns; but when Agilulph received it in 590, his wife, Theodolinda of Bavaria, put an iron ring inside to make it stronger, and that is why it became known as the iron crown. The legend is that the ring was made of one of the nails of the true cross,

which was given to Theodolinda by Gregory the Great. The crown itself is now preserved at Vienna. In France the closed crown came into fashion more slowly than elsewhere. Some of the authorities pretend that Charles VIII. was the first French king to wear one, and that he adopted it when he took the quality of Emperor of the East in 1495; but this looks doubtful, for there are coins of Louis XII., his immediate successor, on which the crown is open. It is only from Francis I. that the closed crown appears to have been regularly worn. Of all crowns, however, the Papal tiara is that which has the most curious history. The Roman bishops had at first a mitre, like other prelates, and the legend is that they converted it into a regal symbol, because Clovis, after his conversion, sent on to Pope Symmachus a crown which he had himself received from the Emperor Anastasius. This crown, according to this theory, was the first owned at Rome, and was known afterwards at Papal coronations by the name of Regnum Mundi. Cicognera says, however, that Alexander III. was the first Pope to wear a crown, and that he added it to his mitre as a sign of sovereignty. Boniface VIIL, who died in 1303, is supposed to have added a second crown, to indicate the union of the spiritual and temporal power; and Urban V. is said to have put on the third as a symbol of the government of the Holy See over the Church suffering, militant, and triumphant. are, however, other explanations of the meaning of the triple crown; one is, that it represents the Pope as sovereign sacrificer, grand judge, and sole legislator of Christianity; another, that it implies triple royalty -spiritual over souls, temporal over the Roman States, and mixed over all kings; a third, that it indicates the threefold authority of the

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Holy Father as chief of the Church, as Bishop of Rome, and as temporal sovereign. Whatever doubts there may be as to this interpretation, it is at all events quite evident that, as the mitre implies spiritual power, so does the tiara imply material power. When the Pope is going to officiate pontifically, he wears the tiara as he advances to the altar, but there he takes it off and puts on his mitre. The treasury of the Vatican includes seven or eight tiaras, the last of which was given by the Queen of Spain in 1855; its three crowns are all alike; it weighs -only 3 lb., and it cost £12,000. Napoleon had one made for Pius VII. after the Concordat; its three crowns are all different from each other; it weighs 8 lb.; it cost £8800. All these details are quite intelligible; but it is less easy to comprehend why, or how, the Papal crown became possessed of the name Tiara, which was the denomination given by Herodotus to the cap of the King of Persia. There is a total want of harmonious etymology in this origin.

National airs necessarily come last in the catalogue of symbols, because they are so miserably modern. The oldest of them-"God save the Queen"-has not a hundred and fifty years behind it. It was first sung in 1740; and it may be "added that it is now proved to have been composed by Dr Carey, and not by Dr Bull. The various Ranz des Vaches are much more ancient, it is true; but they cannot reasonably be included in the same category of national expressions as the Russian or English hymns. France has never had a national air at all. The "Chant du Depart" and the "Marseillaise" are warlike and Republican, not national. "Partant pour la Syrie" was a baby song, taught principally to parrots. "Vive Henri Quatre" was popular, not official. A nation,

indeed, could scarcely publicly adopt such rhymes as these:

"Vive Henri Quatre !

Vive le roi vaillant !
Qui sait boire et se battre,
Et être vert-galant.'

A French writer says of this once famous quatrain, "Il est une image du caractère Français; il est vif, égrillard, aussi peu solennel que possible, et il rend à merveille la fidélité monarchique de nos pères." This may be; but anyhow, there is nothing national in such words as these. Even in that German land where love of country is so deep, where convictions are so strong, where duties are so resolutely (though so disagreeably) discharged, there is no universally accepted home-made air. There are patriotic chants in any quantity. "Was ist des Deutschen Vaterland," the "Wacht am Rhein," "Hurrah, Germania!" and all the crowd of Volkslieder, are there, to prove the fertility of the Teutonic soul; but these songs are not national in the real symbolic sense. They all are furiously patriotic, which is natural, for nations are supposed to be composed of patriots; but not one of these purely German chants has the official character which alone gives an emblematic value to a song. Furthermore, the one real public hymn of Northern Germany, the "Heil dir im Siegerkranz," is sung to the English music of "God save the Queen ;" and that is why it so strangely happens that, notwithstanding her home enthusiasm, Germany has no truly national air of her own. "Yankee Doodle" and the "Star-spangled Banner" may be rigorously American, but they scarcely convey the notion of a people's prayer; and the other more or less local melodies which bands play, all about the world, on State occasions, are in pretty much the same condition. All this seems to indicate that our last attempt at

creating another symbol, our idea of putting nationality into music, has not been worked out brilliantly thus far. It is a pretty fancy; and when, as in our own case and in that of Russia, it really attains success, it constitutes a heart-inspiring addition to the stock of emblems; but as it may be taken to have failed at least nine times out of ten, it is to be regretted that States do not put up their hymns to public competition, and by that means make a new and healthier selection.

The other emblems which nations use may just as well be left as they now stand; not because they are quite perfect, but because they are, at all events, about good enough for the work they have to do. It would be easy to suggest all sorts of changes in them, but it does not follow that any real improvement would follow from those changes; while, on the other hand, they would have the unsatisfactory effect of modernising ancient customs, and of destroying what is best and truest in our various symbols-their old associations. The wisest plan will be to leave them for the present as they are, excepting always such of them as necessarily fluctuate with fashion. In the present condition of the world, coats of arms and flags and crowns may advantageously remain in the shape they originally assumed; but pigtails, wigs, and stocks would be as out of place in the uniforms of to-day as the horse-pistols of last century in a combat of artillery at 5000 yards. And this last consideration leads us to other thoughts. Judging from past experience, the smart coats which warriors wear, and which are identified in every country with the national idea of force, will go on changing, not only as a mere result of varying taste in dress, but also as a consequence of the development of weapons. The time may come when the token which we now call

"uniform" will disappear altogether; when, after passing through an intermediate stage of cuirassed armies, in which regiments, like ships, will be sheathed in six-inch plates, the battles of the world will be fought, at ranges of several degrees of longitude, by the scientific employment of the forces of nature. If ever this occurs, the soldiers of the future will doubtless be enclosed in laboratory bottles, and be surrounded by opaque vapours; generals will wear diving-dresses, and carry safetylamps into action; while reconnaissances will be made by spectrum analysis. The effects of such a change as this would not be limited to the mere suppression of variegated coats and trousers; they could scarcely fail to simultaneously extend to other details too. Under such conditions of belligerence all actual emblems would lose their value; nations would probably discard them, and adopt, instead, devices more in harmony with the new methods which each of them would then employ in war. France, for instance, might give up the tricolour and adopt "portable democratised earthquakes" as her badge; England might abandon the ugly Union - Jack, and send her troops to fight beneath an oriflamme of "chemistry and dynamics ;" Russia would replace the Byzantine eagle by "explosive ice;" while Italy would put "utilised volcanoes" in the place of the white cross of Savoy. United Germany, on the contrary, would continue to employ the practical but touching motto which she has recently adopted, "Blood and iron" in this respect, as in so many others, she is far away ahead of her contemporaries, and is showing them the way to the mottoes of the future. For the moment this view of coming emblems may seem exaggerated; but science is progressing very fast, and some day,

perhaps, a good deal more than even this may come to pass.

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If so, it is not unlikely that our successors will look back with a sort of envy to what, in their time, will be geologically known as the "flag-period" of the earth's existence. The fossilised relics of the happy generations which went to war with gunpowder will be preserved in the museums of the future side by side with the shreds which may then remain of their standards, their coats of arms, their liveries, their cockades. Fathers will take their children on Sunday afternoons (unless at that period the world employs a chemical substitute for Sunday) to gaze with curious sympathy on the skulls and thigh-bones of the simple races which used breechloaders for weapons and coloured stuffs for emblems. In the then state of destructive inventivity our

epoch will be regarded as a golden age of peace, ignorance, and love, and our ensigns and other symbols will come in for a just proportion of the admiration which our retrospective innocuity will provoke. Professors of archæology will teach their pupils that the Prussian Eagle was an accepted sign of gentleness and maiden diffidence; that the Stars and Stripes stood universally for bashful modesty; and that the British Lion was a type of selfsacrificing unselfishness. We really ought to be very proud to have such a future before us: we do not suspect that it is waiting for us (we know ourselves too well for that); but if really it comes to pass, our shades will look on approvingly, and will murmur to each other, "Posterity is right; we always said our flags were full of noble meaning."

DATES AND DATES.

"Fable has not been a favourite form of composition with modern poets."

-The Athenæum, 14th February 1874.

[OUR readers will owe us a share of their gratitude for having been instrumental in calling forth from Lord Lytton the following able and amusing protest against the strictures in our own pages, as well as those of some of our contemporaries, on his novel and original (if he will permit us to employ such a word) adaptation of the Fabulist's most ancient art. It is worth a critic's while to indulge in objections which call forth such replies. We might, perhaps, were we captious, take exception to some points in the parallel; but as we feel sure, for one thing, that the lapse of time must be long indeed which will make Lord Lytton's dates dry, we accept them from his hands, fresh and dewy, with a pleasure unmixed with any carpings. The baskets of Esop are full; we ask no better than to have other baskets of modern twine, but classic form, heaped high with fragrant fruit-more delicately flavoured, more poetically surrounded, more sweet and melting in the mouth, clusters of pure pleasure, apples of delight-instead of the food-fruit, the daily bread disguised in golden arind and russet husk, which comes to us from the sententious East.]

I.

DATES! how we schoolboys loved them! Dates,

Not such as those Kenealy hates ;

Nor dates of chronologic things,

Laws, battles, and the deaths of kings;

O'er which, alas! with aching brains,
Our masters made us spend such pains!
But those the grocers' shops supply,
Whose golden skins, if somewhat dry,
Have in them hearts still full of honey;
On which we spent our pocket-money.

II.

Not one of all our youthful band
But long'd to see the mystic land,
Of whose enchantments manifold
Our loved Arabian stories told,

Where grew, 'twas said, in sunburnt strength
The golden fruit which here, at length,
The commerce of the East and West

Had, for our special sakes, comprest

In clammy pennyworths of joy.

III.

One, I remember well-a boy
Somewhat the eldest of us all,

Whom we pert youngsters used to call
Cato the Censor (heaven save him!
Jack was the name his parents gave him),
A worthy lad, without a vice,

And conscientiously precise.

'Twas for the Navy, as we knew

When first he join'd our merry crew,
That Jack was destined. That career
Begins in boyhood. One sad year,
With sighs of boyish envy, we
Bid Jack good-bye. He went to sea.
The man-of-war on which he found
His sea-legs was for Egypt bound.
And when the ship's cook went ashore,
Jack, mindful of the joys of yore,
Besought the cook to bring him back
A good supply of dates.

IV.

Poor Jack !

Conceive with what dismay'd surprise,

Fresh dates, as plump as plums he eyes,

When back the ship's cook came with these, Dewy and dripping from the trees.

V.

"What are these things?" in wrath began The shock'd Catonian midshipman.

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