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better known, my lineage more pure, Malvoisin, than thine own. I am Wilfrid of Ivanhoe.'-'I will not fight with thee,' said the Templar, in a changed and hollow voice. "Get thy wounds healed, purvey thee a better horse, and it may be I will hold it worth my while to scourge out of thee this boyish spirit of bravade.'- 'Ha! proud Templar,' said Ivanhoe, hast thou forgotten that twice didst thou fall before this lance? Remember the lists at Acre - remember the Passage of Arms at Ashby - remember thy proud vaunt in the halls of Rotherwood, and the gage of your gold chain against my reliquary, that thou wouldst do battle with Wilfrid of Ivanhoe, and recover the honour thou hadst lost! By that reliquary, and the holy relique it contains, I will proclaim thee, Templar, a coward in every court in Europe in every Preceptory of thine Order- unless thou do battle without farther delay.' Bois-Guilbert turned his countenance irresolutely towards Rebecca, and then exclaimed, looking fiercely at Ivanhoe, 'Dog of a Saxon, take thy lance, and prepare for the death thou hast drawn upon thee!'. Does the Grand Master allow me the combat?' said Ivanhoe. -'I may not deny what you have challenged,' said the Grand Master, 'yet I would thou wert in better plight to do battle. An enemy of our Order hast thou ever been, yet would I have thee honourably met with.' 'Thus — thus as I am, and not otherwise,' said Ivanhoe; it is the judgment of God!to his keeping I commend myself."

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We cannot make room for the whole of this catastrophe. The overtired horse of Ivanhoe falls in the shock; but the Templar, though scarcely touched by the lance of his adversary, reels, and falls also; - and when they seek to raise him, is found to be utterly dead! a victim to his own contending passions.

We will give but one scene more- and it is in honour of the Divine Rebecca-for the fate of all the rest may easily be divined. Richard forgives his brother; and Wilfrid weds Rowena.

"It was upon the second morning after this happy bridal, that the Lady Rowena was made acquainted by her handmaid Elgitha, that a damsel desired admission to her presence, and solicited that their parley might be without witness. Rowena wondered, hesitated, became curious, and ended by commanding the damsel to be admitted, and her attendants to withdraw. She entered a noble and commanding figure; the long white veil in which she was shrouded, overshadowing rather than concealing the elegance and majesty of her shape. Her demeanour was that of respect, unmingled by the least shade either of fear, or of a wish to propitiate favour. Rowena was ever ready to acknowledge the claims, and attend to the feelings of others. She arose, and would have conducted the lovely stranger to a seat; but she looked at Elgitha, and again intimated a wish to dis

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IVANHOE-PARTING SCENE OF REBECCA.

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course with the Lady Rowena alone. Elgitha had no sooner retired with unwilling steps, than, to the surprise of the Lady of Ivanhoe, her fair visitant kneeled suddenly on one knee, pressed her hands to her forehead, and, bending her head to the ground, in spite of Rowena's resistance, kissed the embroidered hem of her tunic. 'What means this?' said the surprised bride; or why do you offer to me a deference so unusual?' 'Because to you, Lady of Ivanhoe, said Rebecca, rising up and resuming the usual quiet dignity of her manner, 'I may lawfully, and without rebuke, pay the debt of gratitude which I owe to Wilfrid of Ivanhoe. I am forgive the boldness which has offered to you the homage of my country I am the unhappy Jewess, for whom your husband hazarded his life against such fearful odds in the tilt yard of Templestowe.'- 'Damsel,' said Rowena, Wilfrid of Ivanhoe on that day rendered back but in a slight measure your unceasing charity towards him in his wounds and misfortunes. Speak, is there aught remains in which he and I can serve thee?'- Nothing,' said Rebecca, calmly, unless you will transmit to him my grateful farewell.' — 'You leave England, then,' said Rowena, scarce recovering the surprise of this extraordinary visit. I leave it, lady, ere this moon again changes. My father hath a brother high in favour with Mohammed Boabdil, King of Grenada thither we go, secure of peace and protection, for the payment of such ransom as the Moslem exact from our people.' And are you not then as well protected in England?' said Rowena. 'My husband has favour with the King the King himself is just and generous.'-'Lady,' said Rebecca, 'I doubt it not - but England is no safe abode for the children of my people. Ephraim is an heartless dove — Issachar an over-laboured drudge, which stoops between two burthens. Not in a land of war and blood, surrounded by hostile neighbours, and distracted by internal factions, can Israel hope to rest during her wanderings.'. 'But maiden,' you, said Rowena 'you surely can She have nothing to fear. who nursed the sick-bed of Ivanhoe,' she continued, rising with enthusiasm 'she can have nothing to fear in England, where Saxon and Norman will contend who shall most do her honour.'- 'Thy speech is fair, lady,' said Rebecca, and thy purpose fairer; but it may not be - there is a gulph betwixt us. Our breeding, our faith, alike forbid either to pass over it. Farewell! — yet, ere I go, indulge me one request. The bridal veil hangs over thy face; raise it, and let me see the features of which fame speaks so highly.'- "They are worthy of being looked upon,' said Rowena; but, expecting the same from my visitant, I remove the veil.' She took it off accordingly, and partly from the consciousness of beauty, partly from bashfulness, she blushed so intensely, that cheek, brow, neck, and bosom, were suffused with crimson. Rebecca blushed also, but it was a momentary feeling; and, mastered by higher emotions, past slowly from her features like the crimson cloud, which changes colour when the sun sinks below the horizon.

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"Lady,' she said, 'the countenance you have deigned to show me will long dwell in my remembrance. There reigns in it gentleness

BEAUTIFUL AND TOUCHING DIALOgue.

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and goodness; and if a tinge of the world's pride or vanities may mix with an expression so lovely, how may we chide that which is of earth for bearing some colour of its original? Long, long shall I remember your features, and bless God that I leave my noble deliverer united with 'She stopped short her eyes filled with tears. She hastily wiped them, and answered to the anxious inquiries of Rowena — 'I am well, lady. well. But my heart swells when I think of Torquilstone and the lists of Templestowe! - Farewell! One, the most trifling part of my duty, remains undischarged. Accept this casket — startle not at its contents.' - Rowena opened the small silverchased casket, and perceived a carcanet, or necklace, with ear-jewels, of diamonds, which were visibly of immense value.-'It is impossible,' she said, tendering back the casket. 'I dare not accept a gift of such consequence.' — 'Yet keep it, lady,' returned Rebecca. Let me not think you deem so wretchedly ill of my nation as your commons believe. Think ye that I prize these sparkling fragments of stone above my liberty? or that my father values them in comparison to the honour of his only child? Accept them, lady to me they are valueless. I will never wear jewels more.'- 'You are then unhappy,' said Rowena, struck with the manner in which Rebecca uttered the last words. 'O, remain with us - the counsel of holy men will wean you from your unhappy law, and I will be a sister to you.'-'No, lady,' answered Rebecca, the same calm melancholy reigning in her soft voice and beautiful features- that may not be. I may not change the faith of my fathers, like a garment unsuited to the climate in which I seek to dwell; and unhappy, lady, I will not be. He to whom I dedicate my future life will be my comforter, if I do His will.'-'Have you then convents, to one of which you mean to retire?' asked Rowena. -'No, lady,' said the Jewess; but among our people, since the time of Abraham downward, have been women who have devoted their thoughts to Heaven, and their actions to works of kindness to men, tending the sick, feeding the hungry, and relieving the distressed. Among these will Rebecca be numbered. Say this to thy lord, should he inquire after the fate of her whose life he saved!'-There was an involuntary tremor in Rebecca's voice, and a tenderness of accent, which perhaps betrayed more than she would willingly have expressed. She hastened to bid Rowena adieu. -'Farewell,' she said, may He, who made both Jew and Christian, shower down on you his choicest blessings!'

"She glided from the apartment, leaving Rowena surprised as if a vision had passed before her. The fair Saxon related the singular conference to her husband, on whose mind it made a deep impression. He lived long and happily with Rowena; for they were attached to each other by the bonds of early affection, and they loved each other the more, from recollection of the obstacles which had impeded their union. Yet it would be inquiring too curiously to ask, whether the recollection of Rebecca's beauty and magnanimity did not recur to his mind more frequently than the fair descendant of Alfred might altogether have approved."

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The work before us shows at least as much genius as any of those with which it must now be numbered — and excites, perhaps, at least on the first perusal, as strong an interest: But it does not delight so deeply. and we rather think it will not please so long. Rebecca is almost the only lovely being in the story and she is evidently a creature of the fancy-a mere poetical personification. Next to her- for Isaac is but a milder Shylock, and by no means more natural than his originalthe heartiest interest is excited by the outlaws and their merry chief-because the tone and manners ascribed to them are more akin to those that prevailed among the yeomanry of later days, than those of the Knights, Priors, and Princes, are to any thing with which a more recent age has been acquainted. -Cedric the Saxon, with his thralls, and Bois-Guilbert the Templar with his Moors, are to us but theoretical or mythological persons. We know nothing about them—and never feel assured that we fully comprehend their drift, or enter rightly into their feelings. The same genius which now busies us with their concerns, might have excited an equal interest for the adventures of Oberon and Pigwiggin—or for any imaginary community of Giants, Amazons, or Cynocephali. The interest we do take is in the situations — and the extremes of peril, heroism, and atrocity in which the great latitude of the fiction enables the author to indulge. Even with this advantage, we soon feel, not only that the characters he brings before us are contrary to our experience, but that they are actually impossible. There could in fact have been no such state of society as that of which the story before us professes to give us but samples and ordinary results. In a country beset with such worthies as Front-de-Bœuf, Malvoisin, and the rest, Isaac the Jew could neither have grown rich, nor lived to old age; and no Rebecca could either have acquired her delicacy, or preserved her honour. Neither could a plump Prior Aymer have followed venery in woods swarming with the merry men of Robin Hood.—Rotherwood must have been burned to the ground two or three times in every year-and all

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the knights and thanes of the land been killed off nearly as often. The thing, in short, when calmly considered, cannot be received as a reality; and, after gazing for a while on the splendid pageant which it presents, and admiring the exaggerated beings who counterfeit, in their grand style, the passions and feelings of our poor human nature, we soon find that we must turn again to our Waverleys, and Antiquaries, and Old Mortalities, and become acquainted with our neighbours and ourselves, and our duties, and dangers, and true felicities, in the exquisite pictures which our author there exhibits of the follies we daily witness or display, and of the prejudices, habits, and affections, by which we are still hourly obstructed, governed, or cheered.

We end, therefore, as we began-by preferring the home scenes, and the copies of originals which we know -but admiring, in the highest degree, the fancy and judgment and feeling by which this more distant and ideal prospect is enriched. It is a splendid Poem-and contains matter enough for six good Tragedies. As it is, it will make a glorious melodrame for the end of the season. Perhaps the author does better- for us and for himself-by writing more novels: But we have an earnest wish that he would try his hand in the actual bow of Shakspeare- venture fairly within his enchanted circle- and reassert the Dramatic Sovereignty of England, by putting forth a genuine Tragedy of passion, fancy, and incident. He has all the qualifications to ensure success-except perhaps the art of compression; -for we suspect it would cost him no little effort to confine his story, and the development of his characters, to some fifty or sixty small pages. But the attempt is worth making; and he may be certain that he cannot fail without glory.

We take it for granted, that the charming extracts from "Old Plays," that are occasionally given as mottoes to the chapters of this and some of his other works, are original compositions of the author whose prose they garnish: - and they show that he is not less a master of the most beautiful style of Dramatic versification, than of all the higher and more inward secrets of that forgotten art.