So far we have spoken only of hereditary honours; but our review would be singularly incomplete if it excluded those which are purely personal.  Of these, of course, incomparably the highest is the Order of the Garter, and its most characteristic glory is that, in Lord Melbourne’s phrase, “there is no d——­d nonsense of merit about it.”  The Emperor of Lilliput rewarded his courtiers with three fine silken threads, one of which was blue, one green, and one red.  The Emperor held a stick horizontally, and the candidates crept under it, backwards and forwards, several times.  Whoever showed the most agility in creeping was rewarded with the blue thread.

Let us hope that the methods of chivalry have undergone some modification since the days of Queen Anne, and that the Blue Ribbon of the Garter, which ranks with the Golden Fleece and makes its wearer a comrade of all the crowned heads of Europe, is attained by arts more dignified than those which awoke the picturesque satire of Dean Swift.  But I do not feel sure about it.

Great is the charm of a personal decoration.  Byron wrote: 

    “Ye stars, that are the poetry of heaven.”

“A stupid line,” says Mr. St. Barbe in Endymion; “he should have written, ‘Ye stars, that are the poetry of dress.’” North of the Tweed the green thread of Swift’s imagination—­“the most ancient and most noble Order of the Thistle”—­is scarcely less coveted than the supreme honour of the Garter; but wild horses should not drag from me the name of the Scottish peer of whom his political leader said, “If I gave ——­ the Thistle, he would eat it.”  The Bath tries to make up by the lurid splendour of its ribbon and the brilliancy of its star for its comparatively humble and homely associations.  It is the peculiar prize of Generals and Home Secretaries, and is displayed with manly openness on the bosom of the statesman once characteristically described by Lord Beaconsfield as “Mr. Secretary Cross, whom I can never remember to call Sir Richard.”

But, after all said and done, the institution of knighthood is older than any particular order of knights; and lovers of the old world must observe with regret the discredit into which it has fallen since it became the guerdon of the successful grocer.  When Lord Beaconsfield left office in 1880 he conferred a knighthood—­the first of a long series similarly bestowed—­on an eminent journalist.  The friends of the new knight were inclined to banter him, and proposed his health at a dinner in facetious terms.  Lord Beaconsfield, who was of the company, looked preternaturally grave, and, filling his glass, gazed steadily at the flattered editor and said in his deepest tone:  “Yes, Sir A.B., I drink to your good health, and I congratulate you on having attained a rank which was deemed sufficient honour for Sir Philip Sidney and Sir Walter Raleigh, Sir Isaac Newton and Sir Christopher Wren.”