ed itself by Death),--so
works the world-changing and world-despised SCIENCE, the life within
life, for all living,--and to all dead!

CHAPTER VII. THE RENOWNED COMBAT BETWEEN SIR ANTHONY WOODVILLE AND THE
BASTARD OF BURGUNDY.

And now the day came for the memorable joust between the queen's brother
and the Count de la Roche. By a chapter solemnly convoked at St. Paul's,
the preliminaries were settled; upon the very timber used in decking the
lists King Edward expended half the yearly revenue derived from all the
forests of his duchy of York. In the wide space of Smithfield, destined
at a later day to blaze with the fires of intolerant bigotry, crowded
London's holiday population: and yet, though all the form and parade
of chivalry were there; though in the open balconies never presided
a braver king or a comelier queen; though never a more accomplished
chevalier than Sir Anthony Lord of Scales, nor a more redoubted knight
than the brother of Charles the Bold, met lance to lance,--it was
obvious to the elder and more observant spectators, that the true spirit
of the lists was already fast wearing out from the influences of the
age; that the gentleman was succeeding to the knight, that a more silken
and scheming race had become the heirs of the iron men, who, under
Edward III., had realized the fabled Paladins of Charlemagne and Arthur.
But the actors were less changed than the spectators,--the Well-born
than the People. Instead of that hearty sympathy in the contest, that
awful respect for the champions, that eager anxiety for the honour of
the national lance, which, a century or more ago, would have moved the
throng as one breast, the comments of the bystanders evinced rather the
cynicism of ridicule, the feeling that the contest was unreal, and that
chivalry was out of place in the practical temper of the times. On the
great chessboard the pawns were now so marshalled, that the knight's
moves were no longer able to scour the board and hold in check both
castle and king.

"Gramercy," said Master Stokton, who sat in high state as sheriff,
[Fabyan] "this is a sad waste of moneys; and where, after all, is the
glory in two tall fellows, walled a yard thick in armor, poking at each
other with poles of painted wood?"

"Give me a good bull-bait!" said a sturdy butcher, in the crowd below;
"that's more English, I take it, than these fooleries."

Amongst the ring, the bold 'prentices of London, up and away betimes,