a faint and stale one, that nobody dared to laugh at the timid inuendoes of the unfortunate wag, and a sickly smile was the best applause he could muster. Once, indeed, when Guffo, the goose-boy (a half-witted, poor wretch), laughed outright at a lamentably stale pun which Wamba palmed upon him at supper-time. It was dark, and the torches being brought in, Wamba said, "Guffo, they can't see their way in the argument, and are going to throw a little light upon the subject." The Lady Rowena, being disturbed in a theological controversy with Father Willibald (afterwards canonised as St. Willibald, of Bareacres, hermit and confessor), called out to know what was the cause of the unseemly interruption, and Guffo and Wamba being pointed out as the culprits, ordered them straightway into the court-yard, and three dozen to be administered to each of them.

"I got you out of Front de Bouf's castle," said poor Wamba, piteously, appealing to Sir Wilfrid of Ivanhoe, "and canst thou not save me from the lash ?"

"Where you were locked up with the Jewess in the tower!" said Rowena, haughtily, replying to the timid appeal of her husband; "Gurth, give him four dozen!"

And this was all poor Wamba got by applying for the mediation of his

master.

In fact, Rowena knew her own dignity so well as a princess of the royal blood of England, that Sir Wilfrid of Ivanhoe, her consort, could scarcely call his life his own, and was made, in all things, to feel the inferiority of his station. And which of us is there acquainted with the sex that has not remarked this propensity in lovely woman, and how often the wisest in the council are made to be as fools at her board, and the boldest in the battle-field are craven when facing her distaff?

"Where you were locked up with the Jewess in the tower," is a remark, too, of which Wilfrid keenly felt, and, perhaps, the reader will under

stand, the significancy. When the daughter of Isaac of York brought her diamonds and rubies-the poor, gentle victim!-and, meekly laying them at the feet of the conquering Rowena, departed into foreign lands to tend the sick of her people, and to brood over the bootless passion which consumed her own pure heart, one would have thought that the heart of the royal lady would have melted before such beauty and humility, and that she would have been generous in the moment of her victory.

In fact, she did say, "Come and live with me as a sister," as the last chapter of this history shews; but Rebecca knew in her heart that her ladyship's proposition was what is called bosh (in that noble Eastern language with which Wilfrid, the Crusader, was familiar), or fudge, in plain Saxon, and retired, with a broken, gentle spirit, neither able to bear the sight of her rival's happiness, nor willing to disturb it by the contrast of her own wretchedness. Rowena, like the most high-bred and virtuous of women, never forgave Isaac's daughter her beauty, nor her flirtation with Wilfrid (as the Saxon lady chose to term it), nor, above all, her admirable diamonds and jewels, although Rowena was actually in possession of them.

In a word, she was always flinging Rebecca into Ivanhoe's teeth. There was not a day in his life but that unhappy warrior was made to remember that a Jewish maiden had been in love with him, and that a Christian lady of fashion could never forgive the insult. For instance, if Gurth, the swine-herd, who was now promoted to be a gamekeeper and verderer, brought the account of a famous wild-boar in the wood, and proposed a hunt, Rowena would say, 'Do, Sir Wilfrid, persecute those poor pigs-you know your friends the Jews can't abide them!" Or when, as it oft would happen, our lion-hearted monarch, Richard, in order to get a loan or a benevolence from the Jews, would roast a few of

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the Hebrew capitalists, or extract some of the principal rabbi's teeth, Rowena would exult and say, "Serve them right, the misbelieving wretches! England can never be a happy country until every one of these monsters is exterminated!" Or else, adopting a strain of still more savage sarcasm, would exclaim, "Ivanhoe, my dear, more persecution for the Jews! Hadn't you better interfere, my love? His majesty will do any thing for you; and, you know, the Jews were always such favourites of yours," or words to that effect. But, nevertheless, her ladyship never lost an opportunity of wearing Rebecca's jewels at court, whenever the queen held a drawing-room, or at the York assizes and ball, when she appeared there, not of course that she took any interest in such things, but considered it her duty to attend as one of the chief ladies of the county.

And now Sir Wilfrid of Ivanhoe, having attained the height of his wishes, was, like many a man when he has reached that dangerous elevation, disappointed. Ah, dear friends, it is but too often so in life! Many a garden, seen from a distance, looks fresh and green, which, when beheld closely, is dismal and weedy, the shady walks melancholy and grass grown; the bowers you would fain repose in cushioned with stinging nettles. I have ridden in a caique upon the waters of the Bosphorus, and looked upon the capital of the Soldan of Turkey. As seen from those blue waters, with palace and pinnacle, with gilded dome and towering cypress, it seemeth a very Paradise of Mahomed; but enter the city, and it is but a beggarly laby. rinth of rickety huts and dirty alleys, where the ways are steep and the smells are foul, tenanted by mangy dogs and ragged beggars-a dismal illusion! Life is such, ah, well-a-day! It is only hope which is real, and reality is a bitterness and a lie.

Perhaps a man, with Ivanhoe's high principles, would never bring himself to acknowledge this fact; but others did for him. He grew thin, and pined away as much as if he had been in a fever under the scorching sun of Ascalon. He had no appetite for his meals; he slept ill, though he was yawning all day.

The jangling of the doctors and friars whom Rowena brought together did not in the least enliven him, and he would sometimes give proofs of somnolency during their disputes, greatly to the consternation of his lady. He hunted a good deal, and, I very much fear, as Rowena rightly remarked, that he might have an excuse for being absent from home. He began to like wine, too, who had been as sober as a hermit; and when he came back from Athelstane's (whither he would repair not unfrequently), the unsteadiness of his gait and the unnatural brilliancy of his eye were remarked by his lady, who, you may be sure, was sitting up for him. As for Athelstane, he swore by St. Wullstan that he was glad to have escaped a marriage with such a pattern of propriety; and honest Cedric the Saxon (who had been very speedily driven out of his daughterin-law's castle) vowed by St. Waltheof that his son had bought a dear bargain.

It was while enjoying this dismal, but respectable existence, that news came to England that Wilfrid's royal master and friend was bent upon that expedition against his vassal, the Count of Limoges, which was to end so fatally before the Castle of Chalus. As a loyal subject, Sir Wilfrid hastened, with a small band of followers, to the assistance of his master, taking with him Gurth, his squire, who vowed he would have joined Robin Hood but for that, and Wamba the Jester, who cut a good joke for the first time, as he turned head-over-heels when the Castle of Rowena was once fairly out of sight.

I omit here a chapter about the siege of Chalus, which, it is manifest, can be spun out to any length to which an enterprising publisher would be disposed to go. Single combats, or combats of companies, scaladoes, ambuscadoes, rapid acts of horsemanship, destriers, catapults, mangonels, and other properties of the chivalric drama, are at the use of the commonest writer; and I am sure, my dear sir, you have too good an opinion of me to require that these weapons should be dragged out, piece by piece, from the armory, and that you will take my account for granted.

A chapter about famine in the garrison may be rendered particularly striking. I would suggest as a good contrast a description of tremendous feasting in the camp of Richard, in honour of his queen, Berengaria, with a display of antiquarian cookery (all descriptions of eating are pleasant in works of fiction, and can scarcely be made too savoury or repeated too often); and, in the face of this carousing without the walls, the most dismal hunger raging within. That there must be love-passages between the hostile armies is quite clear. And what do you say to the Marquis of Limoges and his sons casting lots about being eaten?-with a motto from Ugolino and a fine display of filial piety?

The assault may be made very fine, too-the last assault. The old chieftain of Chalus and his sons dropping down, one by one, before the crushing curtal-axe of Richard.

One

"Ha, St. Richard! ha, St. George!" the tremendous voice of the lion-king was heard over the loudest roar of the battle; at every sweep of his blade a severed head flew over the parapet, a spouting trunk tumbled, bleeding, on the flags of the bartizan. The world hath never seen such a warrior as that Lion-hearted Plantagenet, as he raged over the keep, his eyes flashing fire through the bars of his morion, snorting and chafing with the hot lust of battle. by one les enfuns de Chalus fell down before him: there was only one left at last of all the brave race that in the morning had fought round the stout Sir Enguerrand :-only one, and but a boy, a fair-haired boy, a blue-eyed boy! he had been gathering pansies in the fields but yesterday it was but a few years, and he was a baby in his mother's arms! What could his puny sword do against the most redoubted blade in Christendom?--and yet Bohemond faced the great champion of England, and met him foot to foot! Turn away, turn away, fond mother! Enguerrand de Chalus bewail the last of thy race! his blade is crushed into splinters under the axe of the conqueror, and the poor child is beaten to his knee! *

*

"Now, by St. Barbacue of Limoges," said Bertrand de Gourdon,

"the butcher will never strike down yonder lambling! Hold thy hand, Sir King, or, by St. Barbacue

Swift as thought the veteran archer raised his arblast to his shoulder, the whizzing bolt fled from the ringing string, and the next moment crushed quivering into the corslet of Plantagenet.

"T was a luckless shot, Bertrand of Gourdon! Maddened by the pain of the wound, the brute nature of Richard was aroused: his fiendish appetite for blood rose to madness, and grinding his teeth, and with a curse too horrible to mention, the flashing axe of the royal butcher fell down on the blond ringlets of the child, and the children of Chalus were no more!

I just throw this off by way of description, and to shew what might be done. Now ensues a splendid picture of a general massacre of the garrison, who are all murdered to a man, with the exception of Bertrand de Gourdon. Ivanhoe, of course, saves him for the moment; but we all know what his fate was. Bertrand was flayed alive after Richard's death; and as I don't recollect any chapter in any novel where a man's being skinned alive is described, I would suggest this as an excellent subject for a powerful and picturesque pen. Ivanhoe, of course, is stricken down and left for dead in trying to defend honest Bertrand. And now if ever there was a good finale for a volume, it is the death of Richard.

"You must die, my son," said the venerable Walter of Rouen, as Berengaria was carried shrieking from the king's tent. "Repent, Sir King, and separate yourself from your children!"

"It is ill-jesting with a dying man," replied the king. "Children have I none, my good lord bishop, to inherit after me."

"Richard of England," said the archbishop, turning up his fine eyes, "your vices are your children. Ambition is your eldest child, Cruelty is your second child, Luxury is your third child; and you have nourished them from your youth up. Separate yourself from these sinful ones, and prepare your soul, for the hour of departure draweth nigh."