subject for ridicule as the fashionable follies of the time, it
occurred to him that the more serious scenes of his narrative might be
relieved by the humour of a cavaliero of the age of Queen Elizabeth.
In every period, the attempt to gain and maintain the highest rank of
society, has depended on the power of assuming and supporting a
certain fashionable kind of affectation, usually connected with some
vivacity of talent and energy of character, but distinguished at the
same time by a transcendent flight, beyond sound reason and common
sense; both faculties too vulgar to be admitted into the estimate of
one who claims to be esteemed "a choice spirit of the age." These, in
their different phases, constitute the gallants of the day, whose
boast it is to drive the whims of fashion to extremity.

On all occasions, the manners of the sovereign, the court, and the
time, must give the tone to the peculiar description of qualities by
which those who would attain the height of fashion must seek to
distinguish themselves. The reign of Elizabeth, being that of a maiden
queen, was distinguished by the decorum of the courtiers, and
especially the affectation of the deepest deference to the sovereign.
After the acknowledgment of the Queen's matchless perfections, the
same devotion was extended to beauty as it existed among the lesser
stars in her court, who sparkled, as it was the mode to say, by her
reflected lustre. It is true, that gallant knights no longer vowed to
Heaven, the peacock, and the ladies, to perform some feat of
extravagant chivalry, in which they endangered the lives of others as
well as their own; but although their chivalrous displays of personal
gallantry seldom went farther in Elizabeth's days than the tilt-yard,
where barricades, called barriers, prevented the shock of the horses,
and limited the display of the cavalier's skill to the comparatively
safe encounter of their lances, the language of the lovers to their