Then did they each declare to the other the deceits of the wicked steward; and the emperor raised up the youth, and acknowledged him before all his people as his very true and good nephew, his heir and successor to the throne; rendering thanks to God who had preserved the uncle from so deadly a sin against his relative, and the nephew from so horrible a death.
“The German poet has been equally successful in his amendments with Parnell,” said Herbert.
“In none more so,” said Thompson, “than in substituting in the place of the unpleasant bodily affection, the more courtly failing of jealousy excited in the mind of the knight by the malice of the huntsman Robert.”
“Was it then from this old book, or from some similar tradition of his own country, that Schiller obtained his incidents?” asked Herbert.
“It is impossible to determine; it is said that Schiller learnt his plot from an Alsatian legend that he heard at Manheim; and yet the similarity of the incident renders it more than probable that the poet was acquainted with this form of the tale. The story as it appears in the monks’ books, and the tradition of Alsatia, most probably started from the same original, which, being immediately written down by the monk, we now have in its original form. The tradition went on from mouth to mouth, and became gradually varied to suit the popular feelings.”
“Your instances of conversion, Lathom,” said Thompson, “remind me of Washington Irving’s vision in the library of the British Museum, when all the old writers leapt down from their shelves and despoiled the moderns of the patchwork garments, made of the shreds of countless writers, and left them plucked of their borrowed plumes.”
“Nay,” replied Lathom, “rather of those few who had borrowed gems from the writers of old, and by new setting and repolishing so improved their original lustre that the former owner was eager to tender his thanks to his modern adapter, who had renewed his long-lost glories.”
“I am afraid your old monks would have had as many to pluck of their borrowed plumes as to compliment on their ingenuity as working jewellers,” said Thompson.
“The process of recovery would be curious in some cases,” said Herbert: “the modern adapter would have to settle with Lydgate or Gower; the old poet would resign his title to the middle-age monk or chronicler; and he perhaps be finally stripped of his gem by some Eastern fabler.”
“Be sure that Shakspeare, Parnell, and Schiller would meet with more thanks than reproaches,” was Lathom’s reply, as he closed his book for that evening.