That story of the "Betrothed" puts in presence winningly, the threefold elements of English population in that day-the Britons, the Saxons, and the Normans. The Britons are pictured by a scene of revel in the great rambling palace of a Welsh King, where the bard Cadwallon sings, and that other bard, Caradoc both historic characters; and it is upon a legend in the chronicle of the latter, Southey has based his poem of "Madoc." The Normans are represented, in the same romance, by the men-at-arms, or knights of the Castle of La Garde Doloureuse, and the Saxons by the fierce old lady in the religious house of Baldringham, where Eveline the heroine, had such fearful experiences with hobgoblins over night. There may be lapses in the archæology-as where Scott puts a hewn fireplace upon the wall of the dining-room of the Lady Ermengarde antiquarians being pretty well agreed that chimneys of such class were unknown up to the fourteenth century; but still the atmosphere of twelfth-century life in England is better given than in most of our histories.*

*I do not mean to say that Scott's portraitures may be taken as archæologic data, or that one in search of the last

Richard Coeur de Lion.

In the same connection and with same commendation, may be named those other romances, "The Talisman" and "Ivanhoe," both relating to epochs in the life of King Richard I. I suppose that of all English people, who have any figure in their minds of Richard Cœur de Lion, his bearing and character, four-fifths will have derived the larger part of their impressions from these two books of Scott. It is a painting by a friendly hand: Scott loved kings; and he loved the trace of Saxonism that was in Richard's blood; he loved his bravery, as every Englishman always had and should. Is it quite needful that the friendly painter should put in all the bad birth-marks, or the bristling red beard? M. Taine scores him savagely, and would have him a

and minutest truths respecting our Welsh or Saxon progenitors should not go to more recondite sources; meantime you will get very much from the reading of Scott to aid you in forming an image of those times; and, what is better still, you will very likely carry from the Romancer's glowing pages a sharpened appetite for the more careful but duller work of the historians proper.

beast and Thackeray, in his little story of Rebecca and Rowena, uses a good deal of blood in the coloring.

No doubt he was cruel: but those were days of cruelty and of cruel kings. At least he was openly cruel: he carried his big battle-axe in plain sight, and if he met a foe thwacked him on the head with it, and there was an end. But he did not kill men on the sly like his brother King John, nor did he poison men by inches in low dungeons, as did so many of the polite and courteous Louis' of France.

As people say now -in a good Saxon way—you knew where to find him. He was above-board, and showed those traits of boldness and frankness which almost make one forgive his cruelties. He was a rough burr; and I daresay wiped his beard upon the sleeve of his doublet, besides killing a great many people he should not have killed, at Ascalon. At any rate, we shall not set to work here to gainsay or discredit those charming historic pictures of Scott. We shall keep on going to the pleasant tournamentground at Ashby-de-la-Zouche every time the fanfare of those trumpets breaks the silence of a leisure

day; and so will our children; and so, I think, will our children's children. We shall keep on listening to Wamba's jokes, and keep on loving Rebecca, and keep on-not thinking much of the airy Rowena, and keep on throwing our caps in the air whenever the big knight in black armor, who is Richard of England, rides in upon the course - whatever all the Frenchmen in the world may say about him.

This Cœur de Lion appears too in the "Talisman one of Scott's tales of the crusaders: and here we see him set off against other monarchs of Europe; as we find England, also, set off against the other kingdoms. The King came home, you will remember, by the way of Austria, and was caught and caged there many months -for a time none of his people knowing where he was: this is good romance and history too. A tradition, which probably has a little of both, says his prison was discovered by a brother minstrel, who wandered under castlewalls in search of him, and sang staves of old Provençal songs that were favorites of the King's. Finally Richard responded from the depths of his dungeon. Howsoever this be, he was found, ran

somed, and came home-to the great grief of his brother John; all which appears in the story of Ivanhoe, and in the chronicles of the time-based upon the reports of the King's chaplain, Anselm.

Times of King John.

King John—a base fellow every way—has a date made for him by the grant of Magna Charta, A.D. 1215, of which I have already spoken, and of its near coincidence with the writing of the Brut of Layamon. His name and memory also cling to mind in connection with two other events which have their literary associations.

First, this scoundrelly King could only keep power by making away with his little nephew Arthur, and out of this tragedy Shakespeare has woven his play of John-not very much read perhaps, and rarely acted; but in the old, school reader-books of my time there used to be excerpted a passage-a whole scene, in fact-representing the interview between Arthur and his gaoler Hubert, who is to put out the poor boy's eyes. I quote a fragment: