Garter, (order of the)

.—The ride of modern nation converts even the plaything of an infant into an object of glory and emulation. The English triumphantly boast that their Kings never wore any foreign order, while many foreign Kings and eight Emperors, have been decorated with the Garter. Virtuous exulatation! But the free nations of antiquity were not vain of the vanity of others. The Greek and Roman commonwealths fixed their affections on different objects.

We have in England, right honourable and noble Garters of various colours; but the blue, which, by way of preference, we call the Garter, is reckoned the prettiest; and my Lord will at any time give up the green, or the red, to get at the blue, which makes him the happiest of men, and is considered by this great Nation, as the ultimatum of Greatness: if, therefore, he be not speedily presented with a ribband for his neck, of a coarser grain, we may expect to see our heaven-born Minister invested with the Garter. In either case, he will be exalted.