Ivanhoe by Walter Scott (world best books to read .TXT) 📖

>popular a theme. There must have been a Norman original of the

Scottish metrical romance of Rauf Colziar, in which Charlemagne

is introduced as the unknown guest of a charcoal-man.*

This very curious poem, long a desideratum in Scottish literature, and given up as irrecoverably lost, was lately brought to light by the researches of Dr Irvine of the Advocates’ Library, and has been reprinted by Mr David Laing, Edinburgh.

It seems to have been the original of other poems of the kind.

In merry England there is no end of popular ballads on this

theme. The poem of John the Reeve, or Steward, mentioned by

Bishop Percy, in the Reliques of English Poetry,* is said to

Vol. ii. p. 167.

have turned on such an incident; and we have besides, the King

and the Tanner of Tamworth, the King and the Miller of Mansfield,

and others on the same topic. But the peculiar tale of this

nature to which the author of Ivanhoe has to acknowledge an

obligation, is more ancient by two centuries than any of these

last mentioned.

It was first communicated to the public in that curious record of

ancient literature, which has been accumulated by the combined

exertions of Sir Egerton Brydges. and Mr Hazlewood, in the

periodical work entitled the British Bibliographer. From thence

it has been transferred by the Reverend Charles Henry Hartsborne,

M.A., editor of a very curious volume, entitled “Ancient Metrical

Tales, printed chiefly from original sources, 1829.” Mr

Hartshorne gives no other authority for the present fragment,

except the article in the Bibliographer, where it is entitled the

Kyng and the Hermite. A short abstract of its contents will show

its similarity to the meeting of King Richard and Friar Tuck.

King Edward (we are not told which among the monarchs of that

name, but, from his temper and habits, we may suppose Edward IV.)

sets forth with his court to a gallant hunting-match in Sherwood

Forest, in which, as is not unusual for princes in romance, he

falls in with a deer of extraordinary size and swiftness, and

pursues it closely, till he has outstripped his whole retinue,

tired out hounds and horse, and finds himself alone under the

gloom of an extensive forest, upon which night is descending.

Under the apprehensions natural to a situation so uncomfortable,

the king recollects that he has heard how poor men, when

apprehensive of a bad nights lodging, pray to Saint Julian, who,

in the Romish calendar, stands Quarter-Master-General to all

forlorn travellers that render him due homage. Edward puts up

his orisons accordingly, and by the guidance, doubtless, of the

good Saint, reaches a small path, conducting him to a chapel in

the forest, having a hermit’s cell in its close vicinity. The

King hears the reverend man, with a companion of his solitude,

telling his beads within, and meekly requests of him quarters

for the night. “I have no accommodation for such a lord as ye

be,” said the Hermit. “I live here in the wilderness upon roots

and rinds, and may not receive into my dwelling even the poorest

wretch that lives, unless it were to save his life.” The King

enquires the way to the next town, and, understanding it is by a

road which he cannot find without difficulty, even if he had

daylight to befriend him, he declares, that with or without the

Hermit’s consent, he is determined to be his guest that night.

He is admitted accordingly, not without a hint from the Recluse,

that were he himself out of his priestly weeds, he would care

little for his threats of using violence, and that he gives way

to him not out of intimidation, but simply to avoid scandal.

The King is admitted into the cell --- two bundles of straw are

shaken down for his accommodation, and he comforts himself that

he is now under shelter, and that

“A night will soon be gone.”

Other wants, however, arise. The guest becomes clamorous for

supper, observing,

“For certainly, as I you say,

I ne had never so sorry a day,

That I ne had a merry night.”

But this indication of his taste for good cheer, joined to the

annunciation of his being a follower of the Court, who had lost

himself at the great hunting-match, cannot induce the niggard

Hermit to produce better fare than bread and cheese, for which

his guest showed little appetite; and “thin drink,” which was

even less acceptable. At length the King presses his host on a

point to which he had more than once alluded, without obtaining a

satisfactory reply:

“Then said the King, ‘by God’s grace,

Thou wert in a merry place,

To shoot should thou here

When the foresters go to rest,

Sometyme thou might have of the best,

All of the wild deer;

I wold hold it for no scathe,

Though thou hadst bow and arrows baith,

Althoff thou best a Frere.’”

The Hermit, in return, expresses his apprehension that his guest

means to drag him into some confession of offence against the

forest laws, which, being betrayed to the King, might cost him

his life. Edward answers by fresh assurances of secrecy, and

again urges on him the necessity of procuring some venison. The

Hermit replies, by once more insisting on the duties incumbent

upon him as a churchman, and continues to affirm himself free

from all such breaches of order:

“Many day I have here been,

And flesh-meat I eat never,

But milk of the kye;

Warm thee well, and go to sleep,

And I will lap thee with my cope,

Softly to lye.”

It would seem that the manuscript is here imperfect, for we do

not find the reasons which finally induce the curtal Friar to

amend the King’s cheer. But acknowledging his guest to be such a

“good fellow” as has seldom graced his board, the holy man at

length produces the best his cell affords. Two candles are

placed on a table, white bread and baked pasties are displayed by

the light, besides choice of venison, both salt and fresh, from

which they select collops. “I might have eaten my bread dry,”

said the King, “had I not pressed thee on the score of archery,

but now have I dined like a prince---if we had but drink enow.”

This too is afforded by the hospitable anchorite, who dispatches

an assistant to fetch a pot of four gallons from a secret corner

near his bed, and the whole three set in to serious drinking.

This amusement is superintended by the Friar, according to the

recurrence of certain fustian words, to be repeated by every

compotator in turn before he drank---a species of High Jinks, as

it were, by which they regulated their potations, as toasts were

given in latter times. The one toper says “fusty bandias”, to

which the other is obliged to reply, “strike pantnere”, and the

Friar passes many jests on the King’s want of memory, who

sometimes forgets the words of action. The night is spent in

this jolly pastime. Before his departure in the morning, the

King invites his reverend host to Court, promises, at least, to

requite his hospitality, and expresses himself much pleased with

his entertainment. The jolly Hermit at length agrees to venture

thither, and to enquire for Jack Fletcher, which is the name

assumed by the King. After the Hermit has shown Edward some

feats of archery, the joyous pair separate. The King rides home,

and rejoins his retinue. As the romance is imperfect, we are not

acquainted how the discovery takes place; but it is probably much

in the same manner as in other narratives turning on the same

subject, where the host, apprehensive of death for having

trespassed on the respect due to his Sovereign, while incognito,

is agreeably surprised by receiving honours and reward.

In Mr Hartshorne’s collection, there is a romance on the same

foundation, called King Edward and the Shepherd,*

Like the Hermit, the Shepherd makes havock amongst the King’s game; but by means of a sling, not of a bow; like the Hermit, too, he has his peculiar phrases of compotation, the sign and countersign being Passelodion and Berafriend. One can scarce conceive what humour our ancestors found in this species of gibberish; but “I warrant it proved an excuse for the glass.”

which, considered as illustrating manners, is still more curious

than the King and the Hermit; but it is foreign to the present

purpose. The reader has here the original legend from which the

incident in the romance is derived; and the identifying the

irregular Eremite with the Friar Tuck of Robin Hood’s story, was

an obvious expedient.

The name of Ivanhoe was suggested by an old rhyme. All novelists

have had occasion at some time or other to wish with Falstaff,

that they knew where a commodity of good names was to be had. On

such an occasion the author chanced to call to memory a rhyme

recording three names of the manors forfeited by the ancestor of

the celebrated Hampden, for striking the Black Prince a blow with

his racket, when they quarrelled at tennis:

“Tring, Wing, and Ivanhoe,

For striking of a blow,

Hampden did forego,

And glad he could escape so.”

The word suited the author’s purpose in two material respects,

---for, first, it had an ancient English sound; and secondly, it

conveyed no indication whatever of the nature of the story. He

presumes to hold this last quality to be of no small importance.

What is called a taking title, serves the direct interest of the

bookseller or publisher, who by this means sometimes sells an

edition while it is yet passing the press. But if the author

permits an over degree of attention to be drawn to his work ere

it has appeared, he places himself in the embarrassing condition

of having excited a degree of expectation which, if he proves

unable to satisfy, is an error fatal to his literary reputation.

Besides, when we meet such a title as the Gunpowder Plot, or any

other connected with general history, each reader, before he has

seen the book, has formed to himself some particular idea of the

sort of manner in which the story is to be conducted, and the

nature of the amusement which he is to derive from it. In this

he is probably disappointed, and in that case may be naturally

disposed to visit upon the author or the work, the unpleasant

feelings thus excited. In such a case the literary adventurer

is censured, not for having missed the mark at which he himself

aimed, but for not having shot off his shaft in a direction he

never thought of.

On the footing of unreserved communication which the Author has

established with the reader, he may here add the trifling

circumstance, that a roll of Norman warriors, occurring in the

Auchinleck Manuscript, gave him the formidable name of

Front-de-Boeuf.

Ivanhoe was highly successful upon its appearance, and may be

said to have procured for its author the freedom of the Rules,

since he has ever since been permitted to exercise his powers of

fictitious composition in England, as well as Scotland.

The character of the fair Jewess found so much favour in the eyes

of some fair readers, that the writer was censured, because, when

arranging the fates of the characters of the drama, he had not

assigned the hand of Wilfred to Rebecca, rather than the less

interesting Rowena. But, not to mention that the prejudices of

the age rendered such an union almost impossible, the author may,

in passing, observe, that he thinks a character of a highly

virtuous and lofty stamp, is degraded rather than exalted by an

attempt to reward virtue with temporal prosperity. Such is not

the recompense which